Here's a feature I wrote last year for the Computeractive print edition. It covers PC maintenance and tweaking to get an old creaking PC back up to speed.
Thursday, 27 May 2010
Feature: Make your PC last longer
Here's a feature I wrote last year for the Computeractive print edition. It covers PC maintenance and tweaking to get an old creaking PC back up to speed.
Thursday, 20 May 2010
Google Power Meter gets its own website
Google's Power Meter has just been given its own dedicated website. Until now, it has just been available as an iGoogle gadget. The site doesn't offer much new functionality at the moment, apart from letting you easily toggle the usage graph between either kW and approximate cost.
Wednesday, 19 May 2010
MSN Video Player appears in Windows 7 Media Center
Just opened up Windows 7 Media Center today and spotted a new icon in the TV section - MSN Video Player. Clicking this installs the Silverlight-based player (after a Silverlight update), giving you free access to hundreds of free streaming TV shows (haven't counted them all yet, but there are 112 shows in the Sci-Fi section, including 55 Doctor Who episodes). There are five categories: Comedy, Entertainment, Documentary, Dram and Sci-Fi, with predominantly UK content. Each show starts with a 15-second pre-roll advert.
According to this Guardian article from March, MSN has bought around 1,000 hours of programming, but unlike the BBC Iplayer, it doesn't have a catch-up service.
According to this Guardian article from March, MSN has bought around 1,000 hours of programming, but unlike the BBC Iplayer, it doesn't have a catch-up service.
Tuesday, 18 May 2010
Anyfi.net: Wifi roaming with a difference
ZDNet UK has just published my news piece about Anyfi Networks, an interesting new Swedish company that has invented a way of allowing users to use to surf the web using their ISP's broadband network via any public Wifi access point.
Friday, 14 May 2010
Auto hacking: Has your car been pwned?
Car makers love to tell us how much advanced technology is in their latest models.What they're not so keen on is telling anyone how easy it is for the many electronic systems to be hacked. We're used to onbaord diagnostic systems telling us exactly what our car is is doing, but what if it was feeding us duff information?
This newly-published research paper analyses the electronic security of modern cars, and makes for very scary reading. It shows how the researchers quite easily managed to hack a car, allowing them to operate (or disable) the brakes remotely while the car is in motion, fake the speedometer readouts (pic below), and much more - it's almost enough to make you consider going back the automotive dark ages and buying a Moggie 1000.
Update: The Register has covered this story too, but with an update highlighting a reader's comment basically saying that it's a non-story (many of the comments take this view, too). To my mind this misses the main point of the research - which is not just that it's trivial to hack into the control systems. What the researchers found were severely flawed implementations of several basic security safeguards, failsafe mechanisms and standards breaches; according to all the standards, you are not supposed to be able to re-flash the engine's ECU while the car is doing 40mph. And according to standards, signals on the low-speed bus (used for non-critical signalling such as door lights) are not supposed to be used to control components working on the high-speed, yet in the test cars, the third-party telematics systems did exactly that.
(thanks to @mikkohypponen of F-Secure for the tip)
This newly-published research paper analyses the electronic security of modern cars, and makes for very scary reading. It shows how the researchers quite easily managed to hack a car, allowing them to operate (or disable) the brakes remotely while the car is in motion, fake the speedometer readouts (pic below), and much more - it's almost enough to make you consider going back the automotive dark ages and buying a Moggie 1000.
Update: The Register has covered this story too, but with an update highlighting a reader's comment basically saying that it's a non-story (many of the comments take this view, too). To my mind this misses the main point of the research - which is not just that it's trivial to hack into the control systems. What the researchers found were severely flawed implementations of several basic security safeguards, failsafe mechanisms and standards breaches; according to all the standards, you are not supposed to be able to re-flash the engine's ECU while the car is doing 40mph. And according to standards, signals on the low-speed bus (used for non-critical signalling such as door lights) are not supposed to be used to control components working on the high-speed, yet in the test cars, the third-party telematics systems did exactly that.
(thanks to @mikkohypponen of F-Secure for the tip)
Saturday, 8 May 2010
Review: Nero Multimedia Suite 10
My review of the latest version of Nero's venerable disc-burning suite is now available on IT Reviews. It's a decent updgarde, but there is (almost) no support for Blu-ray movie playback.
Review: Windows Server code-name 'Vail'
My review of Microsoft's 'Vail', the beta of the next version of Windows Home Server, has been published on The Inquirer. I also wroter a shorter First Take piece for ZDNet UK.
Sunday, 2 May 2010
AlertMe Energy drops prices
The AlertMe Energy monitoring service has recently dropped the price of both its hardware and the monthly subscription. The meter transmitter and network hub kit now costs £49.99 (it was £69.99) and the monthly subscription fee drops by a quid to £1.99. That's a much more sensible price for this handy piece of kit, which I've been trying out for the last few months (I reviewed it for Computeractive late last year).
The company has also launched a free iPhone Energy Map app, with an online version too, that lets you see how well your borough compares in terms of annual energy consumption to the rest of the country.
I've had no problems so far with the hardware or the reporting, although there have been a couple of automatic firmware upgrades. The Google Power Meter tie-in is still probably the best bit of it - every time I visit iGoogle there's an energy consumption chart staring me in the face. This now has the ability to let you set an energy target (mine is a 10% reduction) and monitors how well you're doing. "Not very well" is the answer in my case...
The company has also launched a free iPhone Energy Map app, with an online version too, that lets you see how well your borough compares in terms of annual energy consumption to the rest of the country.
I've had no problems so far with the hardware or the reporting, although there have been a couple of automatic firmware upgrades. The Google Power Meter tie-in is still probably the best bit of it - every time I visit iGoogle there's an energy consumption chart staring me in the face. This now has the ability to let you set an energy target (mine is a 10% reduction) and monitors how well you're doing. "Not very well" is the answer in my case...
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