1UP just reported on the first known trojan targeting the Sony PSP.
Symantec’s Security Response center lists Trojan.PSPBrick as a low threat because PSP users have to deliberately download the trojan for it to do its thing. Nonetheless if they do, PSPBrick deletes system files, rendering the PSP a non-booting hunk-a-gunk (hence the catchy name, get it?).
PSPers beware: Make sure you know the source and full story behind a mod (whether you’re downgrading or upgrading) before you download it. Nuff said.
To the new style blockquotes I’ve been trying out since I upgraded WP:
You haven’t grown on me. I’m switching back. See ya.
PC Magazine and others have picked up Nokia’s “Top photographers spearhead Nokia Nseries See New Competition” press release.
The gist: You can submit up to five cellcam pics that you’ve taken using a megapixel+ camera phone to the contest. Judges include five widely known photographers who will help pick the best snaps of the lot.
Get picked, and you can win a Nokia N90 or other cool handset, time on a photo shoot with one of the pros, and have your pic featured in various media including future Nokia handset wallpaper the world over.
Yes, this is all obviously a blatant marketing maneuver to sell more Nseries phones, but who cares if you win, right? I’m going to enter some photos right now. (I guess there’s another perk from my job change last fall…)
On a recent troll through Google for all things “J2ME Archive”, I came across some blatant thievery of my site.
Why not just link to my “J2ME Archive“, blogger_guy, instead of ripping most of the interesting bits while making sure not to include the copyright statement and other clearly identifying portions of my page? I smell a crook.
I’ve emailed India Times’ blog support group to ask that they remove the copyrighted bits as follows:
To whom it may concern:
I found this page in Google:
http://o3.indiatimes.com/j2meIt clearly copies my copyrighted “J2ME Archive” page: https://billday.com/j2me
No one ask or was given permission to copy my material and post it on your O3 blog site.
Please remove this page immediately and instead link to the original, copyrighted “J2ME Archive” at: https://billday.com/j2me
Thank you,
Bill Day
Founder, Day Web Development
http://billday.com
I don’t believe anyone at India Times overseeing their blogs knew about this infringement, but I do hope to see them rectify the situation immediately. The lesson here is: Cheat, and Google’s gonna find you!
About a year ago I wrote of troubles I’d been having with my site host, NTT Verio.
Unfortunately, the troubles have continued. My site’s been attacked because of holes in their security and been taken down because of NTT Verio making changes without informing me. Worst of all, they haven’t dropped their price any while other, more WordPress-compatible services have gotten cheaper and cheaper while offering more and more bandwidth, disk space, and software features.
It was time to move, so I have. BillDay.com is now proudly brought to you by yours truly with a little help from Dreamhost.
The basic “Crazy Domain Insane!” Dreamhost plan rocks with the following capabilities at signup:
- 4800 MB disk storage (increases 40 MB/week after that)
- 120 GB monthly bandwidth (increases 1 GB/week after that)
- unlimited number of MySQL databases
- secure shell access (ssh/scp/sftp)
- free domain registration and hundreds of email addresses for the life of your account
- easy installs for a bunch of goodies including WordPress, Jabber IM, phpBB, MediaWiki, and more
- $9.95/month ($7.95/month with two year prepayment)
And that’s just their entry level plan.
There may be a little bit of dust here as I settle into the new digs, but once it’s cleared, there are some new features I plan to roll out sometime soon. Watch for more, and if you’re shopping for a new host yourself, give Dreamhost a look to see if they meet your needs as well as they’ve met mine.
I try to get outside for a 2-3 mile walk every day. This gives me a chance to clear my mind, get a little exercise, and enjoy being offline and out in the wilds for a little while.
One of the best things about these walks is getting to watch as the seasons pass from one to the next. Plants sprout, grow, flower, and fade.
Squirrels are born and grow up to put away nuts for winter as the first leaves wither and begin to fall.
Through it all I think about how everything, even storms and misfortune, fits together. It helps me keep ahold of what’s really important versus all of life’s distractions. Get out and soak up Fall to see what I mean.
Everybody’s been blogging about the Palm+Microsoft lovefest so I thought I’d cover two other new devices that might be important and more widely used in the long run.
Both Motorola and Nokia announced 2 megapixel cellcams yesterday. They both support memory cards and various digital audio formats, promising to be good cellpods as well as phones and cameras.
Motorola Razr V3x has fixed a lot of the Razr V3 shortcomings I blogged about previously. No mention of whether V3x will support at least EDGE if not WCDMA, but I’m guessing both since the lower resolution of its two cameras, an inside-the-flip VGA cam, is meant for video conferencing. It supports a 2MPix external camera with LED flash, hopefully of good enough quality so that I can finally check off “quality cellcam” from my must-have list. It doesn’t appear to support WiFi, and I think I’m dreaming if I really hope to see FRS in a handset, but the TransFlash memory slot allows you to expand storage up to 512MB. This should allow for more digital music and photos by far than Papa V3.
Nokia 3250 launches Nokia’s new XpressMusic line of digital audio player oriented cellpods. According to the press release, XpressMusic guarantees a phone will provide:
- Great audio quality
- Dedicated key(s) for fast and easy access to your music collection
- Play, talk, and play – music pauses when a call comes in, resumes when the call has ended
- Use any headphones for listening with standard 3.5mm jack
- Extended battery time (minimum of 10 hours for music)
- Substantial storage capacity for a large number of songs
- Create and edit playlists on the go
- USB 2.0 support for fast and easy transfer of your music
- Wide support of audio formats – including MP3, M4A, WMA, AAC and eAAC+
- Easy access to over-the-air music downloads
Dedicated music keys, use of a standard 3.5mm jack, and USB 2 support are all spot on. I’m not sure I like the rotating bottom which swaps keypad for music controls, but I’m willing to wait til I hold one in my own two hands to pass final judgement. Other 3250 features include Series 60, the previously mentioned 2MPix digicam, stereo FM radio, GPRS and EDGE, the very cool ability to share playlists using SMS or Bluetooth, and support for microSD cards up to 1GB in size. (Note: I believe this makes 3250 the first announced Nokia handset to use microSD instead of RS-MMC.) Details can be had from the Nokia 3250 presentation, 3250 data sheet, and the XpressMusic backgrounder.
It appears that both Nokia and Motorola are finally getting their acts together with higher resolution cellcams and standard, expandable memory. It will be interesting to see if those trends continue across other new as-yet-unannounced handsets from the dualing duo. And if the audio quality of 3250 is as good as promised, Apple+Moto may need to innovate new ROKR’s in double time.
Below are a few more of my photos of Rita that didn’t make it into last night’s post.
Today Rita’s cloud cover has moved east and we have sunny skies here in Oklahoma. People in Texas and Louisiana are assessing the damage and talking about the Texodus and what needs to be done better next time. Further north and east Rita’s squally remnants are dumping rain and causing severe weather as she continues to weaken.
Let’s hope the experts are wrong and Stan‘s not headed our way anytime soon.
Hurricane Rita hurled clouds across much of the central US today as it weakened into a tropical storm, then a depression. Where I was in northeastern Oklahoma (marked on the Google Earth image at right with a pin placemark) the cloud cover provided a spectacular, fiery sunset (see bottom picture). Click on either picture to enlarge or leave comments in my Flickr photostream (subscribe via RSS or Atom).
Additional pictures and video of Rita continued pouring in from around the Web:
- Flickr photos tagged with “hurricanerita”
- Yahoo coverage including Y! editors’ favorite photos from Flickr and a Hurricane Rita slideshow
- Accuweather video reports from the field
- Google News “Hurricane Rita” search
- Wikimedia Commons resources
- Weather.com provides some additional information and video
This has started me thinking about better ways to represent geolocation where a photo is taken or video is recorded both in the metadata of the picture or movie file and also on the Web and in 3D applications such as Google Earth. I’m going to delve into the possibilities of geoblogging future photos via Flickr.
And that reminds me, somebody really needs to start selling a high end consumer camera with integrated GPS so that pictures can be automatically “location stamped” just as they are already date stamped. Another blog entry for another time, I suppose.
Last night as I was writing about “Tracking Rita“, a lot of other people had her on their mind, too.
And they blogged it, pushing the latest update from CNN to the top of the News heap:
My first Topnorati. Snap!
BillDay.com 