Something Weird is Going On..

Posted on by NeoSmart Technologies
4

Something is wrong with the world…

Sony becomes an enemy of entertainment fans,
Apple is disappointing its fanboys left and right;
Microsoft is willing to trade $$$ for happiness (not even theirs!!!);
Firefox is cheating on its download counts,
US patent office thinks anti-gravity is real and now,
and we’re left here wondering WTF happened…

OK, i figured it out: trade your iPod for an iRiver, your Firefox for IE7, your iMac for a Dell, your PPC for a Whitebox, and you will have achieved eternal happiness !!!!!!

I’m gonna go patent this now… =P

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If you are wondering… the above is in response to MS trying to implement P2P, and attempting to PAY Apple to be able to stream from an iPod to the XBox 360, Apple’s response is basically ‘shove it,’ and then they talk about releasing an update that stops the iPod from synchronizing with anything. Firefox fakes download counts (well, not actually fakes, but goes to extreme measure sot stretch.. more on that later), and the US Patent Office patents an ‘anti-gravity’ device, breaking their own law that states very clearly ‘to not allow patents that disagree with the laws of physics….’

What the hell is going on????

Office 12 vs. OpenOffice.org

Posted on by NeoSmart Technologies
1

Well, today it became official, the Office12 Beta is about to begin. NeoSmart has just been accepted, and will try his very best to break it… (Let’s hope its a challenge, don’t want a program too easily broken..) Anyway, at NeoSmart we got a sneak preview of Office12 with Pre-Release Build 12.0.3111.1011, and though it is covered by the NDA, I think we’ll be safe giving you a few reasons why OpenOffice.org v2 will not be stealing the show (not this year, sorry).

We have been testing OO.org since its pre-beta stages, downloading the latest builds and CVS when available, and overall, we have been impressed.

  1. Office 12 has a brand new look to it. From the PDC Screenshots (same build we’re running here) you can see all the new-fangled buttons and ribbons and tabs. Its hard to get used to, especially if you are a hard-core Office user, but from what we can gather, its biggest theme seems to be making things available. You highlight some text, and it intelligently realizes the tools that you will need, making it by far the simplest Office-Environment program we have ever seen.
  2. Though the pre-release of Office 12 that we are testing is sluggish, all previous versions of Office have been very spontaneous (on modern hardware, without spyware, etc. obviously) especially when compared to OO.org v1, which was plagued by sick and slow Java code. Though OO.org v2 has done away with most Java, it seems that the code beneath all the spotless glamor is still dirty, it has some of the same tell-tale symptoms that v1 had.
  3. Office 12 is pure power. The new and *completely* redesigned Excel and Access are centered purely around productivity and giving you the tools that you need. Outlook 12 includes a new extra sidebar whose sole purpose is keeping all your information available at once.
  4. Office 12 may cost money, but then again, most businesses aren’t expecting to get their company’s software platform up to scratch free-of-charge. Most expect to have to pay, and in exchange they get the results of years of planning and engineering from one of the biggest R&D around.
  5. Office 12 will most likely forever ship in some limited form or the other with new PCs. 98%+ of all OEM PCs ship with Works + Word. In contrast, almost none ship with OO.org.
  6. OpenOffice.org is made by Sun. Office 12 is made by Microsoft. OpenOffice.org is made largely (though most likely reluctantly) for the Linux crowd. Office 12 is Microsoft for Windows. Microsoft has all the Windows Code at its disposal, and everything can be integrated smoothly and cleanly, without worries.
  7. Office 12 looks cool. You may think it does not matter, but its actually one of the most important marketing ploys known to man. No one will buy software that looks like it was made for Windows 3.1.1, but Office 12 looks modern.

Despite what it looks like, we are quite impartial, and wish OO.org the best. We will continue to test it and submit bugs to Sun in an ongoing effort to improve the quality of software everywhere, just as we will the Office 12 Beta; but in this case, we have a clear winner.

Sony DRM: A WMD in the Wrong Hands

Posted on by NeoSmart Technologies
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It’s only been mere seconds since my last post, but this was too good to give up: A new trojan is out and it takes advantage of Sony’s malicious rootkit to hide its files via the prefix ‘$sys$’.

I think this is the ultimate proof that Sony has gone too far. ‘They were trying to protect their interests.’ Sure they were (I’m being sarcastic, in case you couldn’t tell) but there are limits. Various conventions throughout history have outlawed the use of WMDs. Weapons of Mass Destruction. Why? I mean, there has to be a reason that the US doesn’t nuke the terrorists, or vice versa; and there is. SALT I & II resulted in strategic WMD reductions for the US and USSR. Sony’s rootkits are practically in violation of the Geneva Convention as well…

I think the UN should step in… Now Japan has WMDs too.. Interesting.. WMDs make things too easy, drive the casualties too high, and overall are a just one big disaster. It takes little to no effort to achieve widespread chaos and destruction, and there is almost no preventive measure. Well, its official. Sony’s rootkit is a WMD. Since its release, it has been used by BMG-Sony for their shady protection schemes, WoW hackers, rumors abound that CS hackers use it as well, and now Virii and Trojan writers.

It is undetectable by any traditional spyware and Antivirus software, making it near impossible to clear your PC out. Rootkits are like cheats in AOE. They make an epic battle between good and evil all the more bloody and cheap. Spawning Cobras that can wreak havoc on Town Centers in minutes is not fun, its cheap, its evil, and its most certainly below the belt.

Payware…

Posted on by NeoSmart Technologies
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It seems that I may have coined a new word :)!
Payware
I’m surprised its not already mainstream, I mean, come on, it fits the mold. Shareware, Spyware, Freeware, Adware….. I could write a mathematical formula for those names! Anyway, since it makes sense (for those of you who still did not get it: -ware is used to describe any SOFTware, and since for you give $$$ for those, they are hereby called payware.. DUH). It seems to now be quite a popular word! Another NeoSmart touchdown! :)

This is supposed to be a short post, kinda to give you guys a break from the heavier content of the previous posts, but, you know us, we can never be nice ;)
Come back in a couple of hours, we still have (give me a minute to count here…) 7 or 8 controversial topics to discuss here…

Sony & DRM

Posted on by NeoSmart Technologies
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When I first heard about the Sony rootkits, I figured it was a bit of unobtrusive software that people had found just to complain about.
Where I currently reside, there are no Sony CDs, so I had not a chance to test it, and I figured that it would brew over soon, and there would be no need to mention it, especially seeing as bloggers world wide were covering this topic and ripping it from head to toe. But you know me, and you know NeoSmart Technologies: we like the ingenious stuff. The dirt that, without trying, is presented as wrapping paper.

What am I talking about?! Well, I figured that while everyone was discussing how evil Sony’s rootkits were, and how we can use to our benefit, sorry, how it can be used against us in WoW and CS, I’d look at something bigger and more important: what this means for Sony.
No, I am not talking about Lawsuits (though if you are interested, and reside in California or New York you can join the litigation suit!) those are plenty and too obvious. Sony has taken things too far, and in doing so, they have literally buried themselves alive.

Is it just me, or does anyone else seem to recall that Sony makes Playstation??? And that Sony is in a deadly neck-to-neck race with Microsoft and their XBox 360? Don’t worry if you forgot, apparently Sony’s President, and all of his PR staff have forgotten as well. It goes further than this….
Continue reading →

Grub Install Disk

Posted on by NeoSmart Technologies
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If I seem a bit happy today, here is why: two days ago we started and finshed our ‘Repairing the MBR without Formatting’ Whitepaper. Basically it tells you the only way (never before discovered) to repair a FUBAR’d MBR without losing any data.
From there we went on to discovering our next project: a bootable Grub install disk/wizard. It will:

  1. Make fixing the MBR a lot easier (removes all Linux related steps);
  2. Make reinstalling Grub for *nix users a simple thing… No more rescue mode

Currently I’m working on this project with some very kind members from another forum, and the research half of R&D is going very smooth. I am personally very pleased with out progress, and we should have a beta out within a fortnight!

Vista 5231: The All-New Networking Center

Posted on by NeoSmart Technologies
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The all new ‘Network Center’ is more than just a pretty face.

Networking appears to have been rewritten completely from the bottom up in Vista 5231. For those of you piping on about how its ‘just a number’ trust me, its not.

The new Network Center allows you to do somethings that users have demanded for years: for instance, configure multiple connections to automatically switch between themselves when connected to the appropriate network.

For example, at work you connect to one wireless router that does not use DHCP, and at home one that does, while at University you connect to a third that doesn’t. In XP you would have to manually configure 1 of the connections every time. In Vista, you don’t.

But it goes further than that: Vista automatically queries the SNMP for all local networks. I plugged in my Efficient Networks SpeedStream 5100b DSL modem, and Vista let me know that the address 192.168.0.1 could be used to access the configuration page for the SpeedStream.

The new ‘Network Map’ draws a cloud diagram of your PC and all the networks its connected to. It correctly identified that I was connected to a Wireless Network with my Wi-Fi adapter, and that I was connected to the Internet via my wired LAN connection. It correctly ID’d the routers/modems on both ends, and supplied the network name.

On the Command Line side it has also added the ‘route’ command which can be used by advanced users to dictate how traffic should be routed across the various simultaneously connected networks, and to quickly and easily solve issues that previously required luck and conformity.

Startup2Service on Vista

Posted on by Mahmoud Al-Qudsi
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I just finshed speaking to a MSDN representative, and got a couple of pointers on what programs and features from Vista can be integrated into Startup2Service.

Our latest version (in labs: 0.6.11.0) is 100% compatible with Vista. Besides that we can tell you that it will work on non-English versions of Windows, and that it is 100% working with Microsoft Antispyware (which is the best!). What’s more, it is not only OK with MS Antispy, it is integrated with it!

Yes, it will allow clean programs to be added as services, and the ‘dirty’ ones to be denied!We have a couple more tricks up our sleeve(s), but you’ll have to wait a bit longer. Beta 2 is almost here, and it will be spectacular.

Taking Back the Web

Posted on by NeoSmart Technologies
5

Believe it or not, this post is not about the browser wars. We come very close to discussing them, but that is not the point, there are plenty of other posts and plenty of other times for that. It just hit me though: anyone that has every used Mozilla Foundation’s popular web browser, Firefox, knows that their slogo is “taking back the web.”

No problem, er, but, just wondering here: “Since when did the web ever belong to Firefox or Mozilla anyhow?” A more appropriate catch-phrase would be Hijacking the Web, or Stealing the Web, or Redirecting the Web This Way, or even The Web the Firefox Way. Don’t get me wrong, I like Firefox, but unless by this they mean putting the web in the hands of opensource…. wait, nope, it was never theirs either.

What do you think? Does it do the trick?

Either way, in all reality its MS’ Battle to take back the web. If Firefox wants share. OK by me, just get your terminology straight.

Opera 8.5 in Short

Posted on by Mahmoud Al-Qudsi
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This is a very quick post, I have been out of the country for most of last week. (Cyberterrorist on the loose! :P)

Anyway, with Opera’s new debut in the 100% freeware market, no ads, no catches, its on everyone’s minds. I have said it time and time again, that no matter how good of a browser Opera is, so long as it packages with ads, or sells at a fee, it will never be number one.

1) Their motto: “The Fastest Browser on Earth”
I have to ask: is the browser fast, or does it load pages fast? Either way, they need to recheck their game plan.

a) Most competent browsers are now equally fast (AOL and MSN Explorer not included obviously), since they load pages almost as fast as your PC can receive. Also, with 60+% of America on broadband, a nano-second load-time is as negligible as the weight of an electron in chemistry :).

b) The browser (as a program) is fast, but certain parts of it are murder. I’m talking about the message boxes. Do you want to save this password? or Would you like to subscribe to this web feed? They load fast enough, that’s not the problem. The problem is that it takes 3+ seconds for the box to unfreeze. Whilst its frozen, its useless. Obviously.

2) Its very pretty. Believe it or not, this is the slickest-looking browser on the web. Firefox with themes does not count, I mean, what kind of company cannot make a decent theme for its browser to ship with??? But Opera? Its beautiful. I enjoy looking at it.

3) Very incompatible. Of the three leading browsers (no need to list them, esp. since this bulletin includes Opera as one of the three), Opera fails the Acid test the worst. But forget Acid, no crazy webmaster writes pages like that. If they do, they should be banned from writing pages. Hell, ban them from using a PC! But, Opera is not compatible with any BB-code shortcuts, AT ALL. I’m typing this from Opera 8.5, just to be fair, and I have to manually hit the B button for bold and the i button for italics. No ctrl+b and ctrl+i for me…. Also it has issues displaying many CSS-Positioned tables.

This may not have been as brief as I intended it to be, but it’ll do ;) I hope this clears up what Opera needs to do to get some more ground. Its a nice browser, but not yet ready for the masses I’m afraid.