How your computer keyboard is FIVE TIMES dirtier than your toilet seat - and could even give you 'qwerty tummy'

Computer keyboards can harbour more harmful bacteria than a lavatory seat, it has been claimed.

Many users are at risk of becoming ill with stomach bugs, according to the consumer group Which?

It warned that 'qwerty tummy', named after the first six letters on a keyboard, could sweep through workplaces after tests on equipment in its own London offices showed alarming results.

One keyboard was so dirty that a microbiologist ordered it to be removed, quarantined and cleaned.

It had 150 times the acceptable limit for bacteria and was five times as filthy as a typical lavatory seat.

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XP SP3 not generally available yet, after all

Microsoft has decided not to release Windows XP Service Pack (SP) 3 to Windows Update and the Microsoft Download Center as planned on April 29. The reason? A last-minute compatibility issue with a Microsoft application — Microsoft Dynamics Retail Management System (RMS).

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The bastards release Vista upon us, but won't give us a service pack because of a glitch? Damn that is some funny shit.

Zealous Autoconfig

From http://xkcd.com

It’s official! Windows XP SP3 goes RTM today

The moment that Windows XP users have been waiting for. Today Windows XP Service Pack 3 (SP3) goes RTM.

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Holographic storage ships next month!

Even since astronaut Dave Bowman disconnected the HAL 9000’s holographic memory in 2001: A Space Odyssey techies have been wondering when we could buy real holographic storage. Now we know: May, 2008.

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Imagine a Place

Researchers uncover black holes across the Internet

Seattle (WA) - The reason why you cannot reach a specific web site at any given time can be very simple. Server and hosting issues, maintenance or the plain fact that a site has been discontinued are the most likely explanations why a site just won’t load. But there is another, more mysterious possibility: Black holes. A team at the University of Washington (UW) has begun mapping scenarios where information packets on the Internet simply disappear.

"There's an assumption that if you have a working Internet connection then you have access to all of the Internet," said Ethan Katz-Bassett, a UW doctoral student in computer science and engineering. "We found that's not the case."

Katz-Bassett has been working on a project called Hubble, a system that apparently is able to track what he refers to as information black holes. These are situations where a path between two computers does exist, but messages - a request to visit a Web site or an outgoing e-mail - get lost along the way. Katz-Bassett has published a Hubble map that enables users to monitor such black holes worldwide or simply type in a network address to check its status.

To determine a network status, Hubble sends test messages “around the world” to look for computers that can be reached from some but not the entire Internet, a situation that is described as “partial reachability”. Katz-Bassett said that short communication blips are ignored. However, if a problem surfaces in two consecutive 15-minute trials, it is listed as a “problem”. The research team found that more than 7% of computers worldwide experienced this type of error at least once during a three-week period in fall of 2007.

"When we started this project, we really didn't expect to find so many problems," said Arvind Krishnamurthy, a UW research assistant professor of computer science and engineering and Katz-Bassett's doctoral adviser. "We were very surprised by the results we got."

The name of the project, by the way, is no accident, as the researcher says it performs a service in an area that often is described as Internet astronomy. Just like the Hubble telescope can observe black holes in space, this software does similar work on the Internet by monitoring infrastructure and network performance.

Hubble is scheduled to being presented next week in San Francisco at the Usenix Symposium on Networked Systems Design and Implementation.

Message to Daniel_K From Creative

Daniel_K:

We are aware that you have been assisting owners of our Creative sound cards for some time now, by providing unofficial driver packages for Vista that deliver more of the original functionality that was found in the equivalent XP packages for those sound cards. In principle we don't have a problem with you helping users in this way, so long as they understand that any driver packages you supply are not supported by Creative. Where we do have a problem is when technology and IP owned by Creative or other companies that Creative has licensed from, are made to run on other products for which they are not intended. We took action to remove your thread because, like you, Creative and its technology partners think it is only fair to be compensated for goods and services. The difference in this case is that we own the rights to the materials that you are distributing. By enabling our technology and IP to run on sound cards for which it was not originally offered or intended, you are in effect, stealing our goods. When you solicit donations for providing packages like this, you are profiting from something that you do not own. If we choose to develop and provide host-based processing features with certain sound cards and not others, that is a business decision that only we have the right to make.

Although you say you have discontinued your practice of distributing unauthorized software packages for Creative sound cards we have seen evidence of them elsewhere along with donation requests from you. We also note in a recent post of yours on these forums, that you appear to be contemplating the release of further packages. To be clear, we are asking you to respect our legal rights in this matter and cease all further unauthorized distribution of our technology and IP. In addition we request that you observe our forum rules and respect our right to enforce those rules. If you are in any doubt as to what we would consider unacceptable then please request clarification through one of our forum moderators before posting.

Phil O'Shaughnessy
VP Corporate Communications
Creative Labs Inc.

Read how everyone responded in the full thread here.

I haven't owned a Creative Sound card in a very very long time. I am so glad after reading this that I don't own one now. I say we need to spread the word about how Creative took a stand against their customers by not letting Daniel distribute a working driver for one of their products. Hell, they should have just did the American thing and bought the rights to it and distributed it themselves. I guess I'll never even look at a Creative product again. You now the ones I mean. Sitting on the reduced price table and collecting dust.

Bye-bye Creative. I think you have just gone way of the Do Do Bird.

Ubuntu 8.04 “Hardy Heron” beta - making life easier for Windows users

Let’s face it, deciding to nuke your existing operating system installation and replace it with a completely different OS isn’t the sort of task that you should approach lightly. One of the barriers to Linux adoption is the fact that many people find the idea of wiping their Windows installation a daunting thing. Sure, the widespread adoption of the Live CD with allows users to boot into a working Linux environment has made taking a Linux distro for a test drive easier, but a Live CD experience falls far short of what you can expect from an installed Linux experience.

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Old phone and Skype hack.

Crazy Old Phone Hack - video powered by Metacafe