Posts Tagged ‘Ugg’

Peuc ‘Sex-positive URL shortener’ Vbly launches_29

Uncategorized | Posted by admin
三 05 2010

While I believe that all sites should create their own short URLs to take control of their own branding,Paul Smith T-Shirts, it’s possible that we’re about to see the creation of more audience- or content-focused URL shorteners. Certainly, if Vbly is used as Blue and Metcalfe wish, it’s quite likely that people will begin to associate Vbly links with adult content and will have certain expectations for those links when they click on them. Users might pause before clicking on a Vbly link at work.

At first glance, this sounds like a joke, doesn’t it? Sex writer Violet Blue has launched a new URL shortening service, Vbly (found at Vb.ly), called “the Internet’s first and only sex-positive URL shortener.”

(Credit:Screenshot by Rafe Needleman/CNET)

As is being done with Trim (found at Tr.im), the Vbly creators wants to open-source the service. “We’d like to make the entire database available for anyone to inspect,” said Metcalfe. “There’s a ton of cool and exciting things developers…can do with this.” The Vbly API is already published and the code will be open source. However, unlike Trim, which creator Eric Woodward wants the community to actually run, Blue and Metcalfe will run the Vbly servers, the same way other open-source projects are commercially hosted.

I suggested to Blue and Metcalfe that the open policy of Vbly would lead to a ton of spam links, a problem that led to the shut-down of URL shorteners like URLtea and Qurl. Metcalfe replied, “One person’s spam might be another person’s genuine interest. And if someone wants to create a Vbly link that points to their ‘buy Viagra’ Web site, that’s fine and up to them. It doesn’t particularly matter if we get a ton of those–it’s not going to adversely affect the site either technically or commercially.”

This means that Vbly has a different policy than other shorteners. Blue, and Vbly creator Ben Metcalfe, encourage the use of this service for creating links to adult sites and other “NSFW” links. They do not run their links through filters, as the market-leading Bitly (found at Bit.ly) does. Although, as Blue says. “I think we’d remove links if we were asked to by a court or if we were made aware of anything involving illegal activity.”



The beginning of branded URL shorteners?

'Sex-positive URL shortener' Vbly launches

Also shortens sex-negative links.

But it’s possible that Vbly will show us that there’s room in the market for focused shorteners. For example, there may actually be a business model for the creation of a family-friendly URL shortener that could guarantee that links are safe for kids.

(Credit:Screenshot by Rafe Needleman/CNET)

How necessary is an unfiltered and open URL shortener? Todd Levy, VP of Product at Bitly, confirms that all links created on that service are run through a “series of blocklists,” including Surbl and a Google list, but he says that “we never actually remove a link and we never prevent a link from being shortened.” Rather, when a user clicks on a link that goes to a site on the blocklist,cheap mbt shoes chapa, he or she will get an interstitial page warning them that the link is on a list,ugs boots, but allowing them to proceed to it if they wish.

Bitly puts roadblocks in front of suspicious links.

Rafe Needleman writes about start-ups, new technologies, and Web 2.0 products, as editor of CNET’s Webware. E-mail Rafe.


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xgbl ‘Very Weak’ Girl Rescued From Ruins of Haiti

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三 05 2010 



'Very Weak' Girl Rescued From Ruins of Haiti School
(Jan. 27) – A 17-year-old girl is the latest unlikely survivor of the catastrophic earthquakes that have ravaged Haiti.

Fifteen days after the initial 7.0 quake leveled much of Port-au-Prince, Darlene Etienne was discovered by a rescue team, pulled from the rubble of the Collège St. Gerard middle school and taken to a French-run field hospital for medical treatment, Sky News reports.


“She just said, ‘Thank you.’ She’s very weak, which suggests that she’s been there for 15 days,” said the rescue team’s commander, Samuel Bernes. “She was in a pocket surrounded by concrete.”

Though it is unclear whether Etienne was trapped in the first earthquake or in subsequent aftershocks, members of her family had feared the worst, Sky News said. The woman’s cousin, Jocelyn A. St. Jules, told reporters,ug boots, “We thought she was dead.”

Besides extreme dehydration, Etienne is said to have a broken leg.

“She couldn’t really talk to us or say how long she’d been there, but I think she’d been there since the earthquake,ugg boots,” French rescuer Claude Fuilla told the Associated Press. “I don’t think she could have survived even a few more hours.”

Since Jan. 12, when the first and most powerful jolt toppled buildings across Haiti,ugg shop, more than 100 people have been located and rescued. Health officials say that while human beings can live for weeks without food, going more than three to five days without water often proves fatal.

Mindful of those grim odds, Kevin M. Ross, the president of Lynn University in Boca Raton, Fla., said the university has begun the grieving process for the four Lynn students and two professors still missing in Haiti. In a message posted at the school’s Web site, Ross wrote:

Today begins a new phase in our journey. Today, we begin to grieve as individuals and as an institution. An in doing so, we join the families of our missing students and professors, who continue to grieve at this hour – and who are certainly carrying the heaviest load. We know that even as these wounds open anew, they will also begin to heal. In the days and weeks ahead we will be focused on that healing.

Filed under: Nation, World, Only On AOL News

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2010 AOL Inc. All Rights Reserved.


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gzff Is Craigslist really a mess-_144

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三 05 2010

(Credit:CC Psd/Flickr)

Stripped of the glitter associated with conventional advertising and conventional business, Craigslist looks at you openly and benignly and says: “What annoying little burden can we take away for you,ghd iv stylers, today?”

If Craigslist is such an embarrassing mess, why has no handsome eligible competitor come along and swiped it from the Web, like a nerdy, pimpled boy being removed from the pretty people’s party?

Messy? Moi?

The fact that Craigslist gets more traffic than either eBay or Amazon suggests that the site’s mess is one we humans not only recognize, but even appreciate.

Its utter lack of pretension, its acknowledgment of life as difficult, wayward, and,uggs on sale, yes, messy, somehow serves to help people accept it as the place to go for real, everyday, sometimes very cumbersome needs.

In sum, suggests Gary Wolf in the latest issue of Wired, Craigslist is a mess. A horrible mess. An embarrassing mess. A willful mess in which its principals rake in money while its principles seem to revolve around some weirdly benign view of human goodness.

Chris Matyszczyk is an award-winning creative director who advises major corporations on content creation and marketing. He brings an irreverent, sarcastic, and sometimes ironic voice to the tech world. He is a member of the CNET Blog Network and is not an employee of CNET.


The fact that the site and its way of doing business also happen to rhyme rather well with Newmark’s and Buckmaster’s view of the world might not be cause for criticism, but rather envy.

So Craigslist is surely not alone in cradling its utilitarianism,North Face Coat Sale, while steering clear of glamour.Wolf makes much of Craig Newmark and CEO Jim Buckmaster being slightly odd types who fancy themselves as libertarian, but rather wealthy, Robin Hoods.

And yet there’s Google, whose sense of design might most politely be described as workmanlike. Although I have heard phrases such as “naive” or even “dull.”

It’s commercial psychotherapy of a very different sort than, say, Gucci.com.

How many people are fortunate to live and work without having to compromise their principles, even their very personalities?

Of course, you can see what he means.



At least, that’s what so many of those who manage brands seem to believe.

Is Craigslist really a mess?

It’s ugly. It’s not proactive. It turns a deaf ear, a blind eye, and a snubby nose to investors. And it looks upon advertising as if it were as appropriate as an anchor tattoo on the Pope’s forehead.

Somehow, Google has never really made too much of an effort to sex up the look of its search and it has done really quite well. Microsoft’s Bing sees this as one of Google’s potential weaknesses and has made at least some attempts to look just a little cooler than its monolithic competitor.

We live in the forging, gorging West. We need things to be large and shiny. We need the surface of everything to be attractive, clean and bright, so that the mirage can somehow compensate for a reality that might not be quite so perfect.

Yes, Craigslist is messy, annoying, contrarian, contradictory, arbitrary and just occasionally totally maddening. Somehow, people like that. Could it be because Craigslist is a little like us?

However, shouldn’t we really be thinking about ourselves as the odd types?

Could it be that for all the ugliness, for all the bizarre bazaar-like quality of the site, people feel a certain recognition within its pages? Even a certain trust?

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qvzc ‘Sex-positive URL shortener’ Vbly launches_29

Uncategorized | Posted by admin
三 05 2010

(Credit:Screenshot by Rafe Needleman/CNET)

'Sex-positive URL shortener' Vbly launches

Also shortens sex-negative links.

But it’s possible that Vbly will show us that there’s room in the market for focused shorteners. For example, there may actually be a business model for the creation of a family-friendly URL shortener that could guarantee that links are safe for kids.

This means that Vbly has a different policy than other shorteners. Blue, and Vbly creator Ben Metcalfe, encourage the use of this service for creating links to adult sites and other “NSFW” links. They do not run their links through filters, as the market-leading Bitly (found at Bit.ly) does. Although,ugg shoes, as Blue says. “I think we’d remove links if we were asked to by a court or if we were made aware of anything involving illegal activity.”

Rafe Needleman writes about start-ups, new technologies, and Web 2.0 products, as editor of CNET’s Webware. E-mail Rafe.


While I believe that all sites should create their own short URLs to take control of their own branding, it’s possible that we’re about to see the creation of more audience- or content-focused URL shorteners. Certainly, if Vbly is used as Blue and Metcalfe wish, it’s quite likely that people will begin to associate Vbly links with adult content and will have certain expectations for those links when they click on them. Users might pause before clicking on a Vbly link at work.

At first glance, this sounds like a joke, doesn’t it? Sex writer Violet Blue has launched a new URL shortening service, Vbly (found at Vb.ly), called “the Internet’s first and only sex-positive URL shortener.”

The beginning of branded URL shorteners?

(Credit:Screenshot by Rafe Needleman/CNET)

I suggested to Blue and Metcalfe that the open policy of Vbly would lead to a ton of spam links, a problem that led to the shut-down of URL shorteners like URLtea and Qurl. Metcalfe replied, “One person’s spam might be another person’s genuine interest. And if someone wants to create a Vbly link that points to their ‘buy Viagra’ Web site, that’s fine and up to them. It doesn’t particularly matter if we get a ton of those–it’s not going to adversely affect the site either technically or commercially.”



As is being done with Trim (found at Tr.im), the Vbly creators wants to open-source the service. “We’d like to make the entire database available for anyone to inspect,mens timberland boots,” said Metcalfe. “There’s a ton of cool and exciting things developers…can do with this.” The Vbly API is already published and the code will be open source. However, unlike Trim, which creator Eric Woodward wants the community to actually run, Blue and Metcalfe will run the Vbly servers, the same way other open-source projects are commercially hosted.

Bitly puts roadblocks in front of suspicious links.

How necessary is an unfiltered and open URL shortener? Todd Levy, VP of Product at Bitly, confirms that all links created on that service are run through a “series of blocklists,” including Surbl and a Google list, but he says that “we never actually remove a link and we never prevent a link from being shortened.” Rather, when a user clicks on a link that goes to a site on the blocklist,mbt review, he or she will get an interstitial page warning them that the link is on a list, but allowing them to proceed to it if they wish.

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7xju FCC votes to look at ‘innovation’ in wireless

Uncategorized | Posted by admin
三 03 2010

One possibility is that the FCC could force mobile providers to sell subsidy-free phones,genuine ugg boots, which a Democratic bill introduced last year would have required. Another is ending exclusive deals between carriers and handset makers, which would target deals such as the one Apple made with AT&T.

All five FCC commissioners, including the two Republicans, voted to approve a pair of investigations into the wireless industry. One will look broadly at the state of competition and innovation, and the other, as CNET News reported last week, will evaluate whether truth-in-billing rules ensure subscribers know what they’re paying for on their monthly phone bills.

The FCC has intervened in Google’s so-far unsuccessful attempt to include its Google Voice application in the App Store. Last week, AT&T told the agency that it was not involved in the Google Voice decision; Apple claims a decision is still pending.

Declan McCullagh is a contributor to CNET News and a correspondent for CBSNews.com who has covered the intersection of politics and technology for over a decade. Declan writes a regular feature called Taking Liberties, focused on individual and economic rights; you can bookmark his CBS News Taking Liberties site, or subscribe to the RSS feed. You can e-mail Declan at declan@cbsnews.com. 


FCC votes to look at 'innovation' in wireless industry

The Federal Communications Commission decided unanimously on Thursday to review the state of “innovation” in the wireless industry, a move that could lead to greater regulation of carriers and government intervention in disputes such as one that recently erupted over Google Voice and the Apple App Store.

CNET News has posted a redacted version of Google’s reply to the FCC,mbt shoes reviews, which doesn’t explain why its application has not been approved.

Thursday’s vote represents only a small first step toward more federal rules. While not all formal inquiries result in new regulations, FCC Chairman Julius Genachowski did stress that his agency should be “relentless” in its pursuit of wireless innovation.CTIA,ugg, the organization which represents the big wireless operators in the U.S., has said that the industry is very competitive and innovative.

If AT&T was not involved in the decision, the FCC may not have the legal authority to intervene. As a federal appeals court in Washington made clear in the broadcast flag case, the agency’s authority does not usually extend to computer hardware, at least in cases that Congress has not explicitly authorized.



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qkpv FCC takes a closer look at wireless industry_

Uncategorized | Posted by admin
三 03 2010

“The FCC chairman has suggested that across all industries he wants the agency to make decisions based on analytical data,” he said. “That is good news for us, because based on the facts, we have a good story to tell. And this will help us dispel some of the misinformation that it is out there about the market.”

The FCC asked the companies for more information about why the Google application was rejected from the App Store. The initial comments are due on Friday.

FCC takes a closer look at wireless industry

The Federal Communications Commission plans to look more closely at the wireless industry as it scrutinizes everything from the industry’s billing practices to the state of innovation and competition in the market.



What’s more, the next generation of wireless broadband service is being led by wireless operators in the U.S., who are starting to deploy the world’s first mobile LTE and WiMax networks. He also pointed out that U.S. cell phone subscribers use more 3G data services than any other subscribers throughout the world. And even though Americans may pay more per month for cell phone service, they actually use more voice minutes and services than their counterparts in other countries, which means on a per-minute basis, they actually pay far less than cell phone users in other parts of the world, he said.

Guttman-McCabe said there were several decisions made by the FCC that had no data or information to back it up. One such decision involved a requirement imposed by the FCC that all wireless operators have at least eight hours of battery backup at their cell sites throughout the country.

The commission,uggs boots, headed up by newly appointed chairman Julius Genachowski, on August 27 will open up two “notice of inquiries” to look at some of these issues. The agency announced its plans Thursday when it published the agenda for its August open meeting.

At this point, it’s not clear what the FCC plans to do as a result of its inquiries. But it is clear that this FCC is interested in gathering data to make decisions on policy, something Guttman-McCabe said is a welcome change from the previous FCC under then-Chairman Kevin Martin.

Indeed, five years ago it would be easy to say that the U.S. was much further behind in terms of technology and services than countries in Europe or Asia. But over the past couple of years the market has changed, and the U.S. is actually leading the world in terms of innovation. Guttman-McCabe points to the smartphone phenomenon and advancements in wireless broadband services as examples.

“It’s good for the industry to be discussing these issues,” he said. “But things are evolving so rapidly. The issues that were of concern a few years ago no longer exist today. And as long as the commission is looking at the facts, we think that will benefit the industry and consumers.”

Guttman-McCabe said the CTIA is also looking forward to providing information to the FCC about its “truth in billing” inquiry. He said the CTIA’s biggest concern on this front is the fact that cell phone operators are being asked to be “tax collectors.” He said that there are many charges on cell phone bills that the government has imposed that are essentially a tax. And he said in some instances those fees are not being applied appropriately. For example, he claims that much of the money collected for 911 emergency service is not used by some states to improve or maintain 911 services, but is instead used to fill funding gaps in other parts of the government.

TheiPhone, which many experts believe was a major step forward in terms of design and functionality for a mobile phone,ghd uk, was created in the U.S. It was also offered to wireless subscribers in the U.S. before anywhere else in the world. The same is true of other innovative phones. For example, the first device to use Google’s Android operating system debuted first in the U.S.

Specifically, the first inquiry will look at the state of competition and innovation in the wireless market. And another inquiry will examine the need for revisions to the truth-in-billing rules to ensure subscribers know what they are paying for when they look at their monthly itemized cell phone bills.

Marguerite Reardon has been a CNET News reporter since 2004, covering cell phone services, broadband, citywide Wi-Fi, the Net neutrality debate, as well as the ongoing consolidation of the phone companies. E-mail Maggie.


Guttman-McCabe said the CTIA is not overly concerned with these issues.

Chris Guttman-McCabe, vice president of regulatory affairs forCTIA, the organization which represents the big wireless operators in the U.S., said he welcomes the discussion on these issues. And he said his group is taking the FCC’s inquiries as an opportunity to educate policy makers and the public about advancements in the wireless industry.

“There is a misimpression out there that the U.S. lags behind in wireless,” he said. “And that’s simply not true.”

But it may not be all smooth-sailing for the wireless industry as the FCC takes a closer look at some of the industry’s practices. FCC Chairman Genachowski has already said that he plans to look more closely at the exclusive handset arrangements that have long been a common practice in the wireless market. The FCC questions whether exclusive deals, such as the one between AT&T and Apple to offer the iPhone, are actually hurting competition and consumer choice.

The CTIA fought this requirement in court, arguing that it was too expensive and counterproductive when wireless operators were already using mobile generators that could be moved from location to location based on need. The wireless industry won its fight and a federal appeals court granted a stay while it continues to review whether the FCC should have imposed such a rule.

Another issue that is coming to a head right now has to do with network openness. AT&T and Apple have been criticized for rejecting a voice application for the iPhone App Store from Google called Google Voice. This application allows users to choose a phone number that if called will ring on multiple phones. It also offers other services,hair straightners, such as low-cost international calling and free text messaging.

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2ufx FAQ- The ins and outs of DoS attacks_612

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三 03 2010

In addition, companies can ask the ISP to impose bandwidth limits and to block the IP addresses serving up the attack. Some companies offer DoS detection software, and sites can configure their Web server to monitor traffic patterns and automatically ban IP addresses that could be associated with an attack.

Typically, someone who has a bone to pick with a specific Web site will round up some hijacked PCs and use them to try to shut the site down. In this case, whoever was responsible was trying to block access to a specific user’s accounts and not the sites themselves.

The first big DDoS attack, in February 2000 took down some of the Web’s most popular sites for hours, including Yahoo, CNN, eBay, Amazon.com, Buy.com, and E*Trade. The U.S. Federal Bureau of Investigation promptly held a news conference to discuss the disruption to the Internet and eventually tracked down the perpetrator, 15-year-old “Mafiaboy,” after he bragged about it to friends online.

Computer users usually have no idea that their computer has been compromised and botnet operators like it that way so they can keep using the bots indefinitely.Now, criminals who don’t want to bother with do the grunt work necessary to compromise an army of machines can just lease one. A recent study by Finjan found that an underground network was offering to let criminals rent a botnet for as little as 5 cents to 10 cents per bot.

(Credit:Cisco)

How many bots are needed to take down a Web site?

The number depends on how much resources, servers and bandwidth, the target site has. It can take 25,000 to 50,000 bots to cripple a typical site and as few as 10,000 or less for a small Web site, according to Kevin Stevens, a security researcher for SecureWorks’ Counter Threat Unit.

More information on prevention and mitigation can be found on the SANS Web site and on the US-CERT site.

In 2001, the White House was able to thwart a DDoS attack that was programmed into the code of the Code Red virus by moving the site away from the targeted IP address. And in 2005, Microsoft sidestepped a DDoS that was going to be triggered by PCs infected with the Blaster virus by killing the targeted IP address.

Mafiaboy was most likely trying to get attention, like script kiddie hackers do when they deface Web sites. Other attackers have different agendas. For instance, there are politically motivated DDoS attacks, such as those involving Russian and Georgian sites last year. Estonia sites were attacked in 2007. Meanwhile, the origin of recent DDoS attacks targeting U.S. government sites and sites in South Korea remain a mystery.

What’s a denial-of-service attack?

A denial-of-service (DoS) attack is any effort designed to interfere with access to a Web site or Internet service. A common method of attack involves flooding a target server with so many communications requests that legitimate traffic can not get through. This can shut down or slow down the site temporarily.



What can individuals do to prevent their computers from being used in a DDoS attack?

To keep malware off a computer, people should install the latest operating system and application patches, update their antivirus and other security software, consider using auto-updates for browsers and be careful about opening up attachments and visiting Web sites.

What kind of damage can a DoS attack do?

A DoS can make a Web site completely inaccessible to anyone for a period of time, like the most recent attack did with Twitter. Or it can be equivalent to a hiccup, slowing down page loads or affecting only part of the site.

What’s a botnet?

The hijacked PCs that are used in a DDoS attack comprise a botnet. The individual computers are called “bots,” “zombies” or “slaves” and are controlled remotely by the “master” attacker. The attacker relays instructions to the bots via a command-and-control server, typically using IRC (Internet Relay Chat). Botnets are also used to distribute spam. Some newer botnets, like one created by a version of Conficker, relay instructions via peer-to-peer.

In a clear and simple way, this Cisco graphic shows the relationship of the parties in a DDOS attack.

How does an innocent PC become a bot?

There are different ways a criminal can get programs onto computers in order to turn them into bots that they can control. Often, criminals send spam with attachments containing malware or links to Web sites hosting malware. The malware–typically a worm, Trojan horse, or backdoor–is installed on the computer when the attachment is opened or the URL link is clicked. Many computers are compromised by drive-by downloads in which hidden malware on Web sites exploits Web browser vulnerabilities and is downloaded onto the visitors’ computer without their knowledge.

Elinor Mills covers Internet security and privacy. She joined CNET News in 2005 after working as a foreign correspondent for Reuters in Portugal and writing for The Industry Standard, the IDG News Service, and the Associated Press. E-mail Elinor.


Denial-of-service attacks aren’t always straight forward and this one has its own unique twist. Let’s take a look at what happened and why.

Who launches a DoS and why?

Unless someone takes credit, it’s nearly impossible to find out who is responsible for a DoS attack. Often attackers will send traffic through proxies so there is no direct link to the source,ghd iv mini styler, even if investigators can get a hold of a bot used in an attack to dissect the code. Bots also may be located in another country.

Sites that aren’t in the direct line of fire can also be affected. For example, if a company that is attacked is hosting images or content that is fed to other sites, those other sites may have trouble. So many sites feature Twitter updates that it’s likely some of those associated sites were impacted when Twitter was down and the ancillary site’s requests to get updates were ignored.

Web sites aren’t the only things that can be targeted in DoS attacks. Unplugging someone’s computer is a very basic type of DoS attack.

Larry Magid of CBSNews.com has more information for consumers on his Safe and Secure blog.

How can a DDoS be prevented or stopped?

There is no surefire way to prevent a DDoS attack. However, a company can reduce its risk by buying plenty of servers and bandwidth,cheap mbt shoes, and hosting content on backup servers. Companies can also limit the number of connections that the Web server allows at any one time and set the firewall to block certain types of data that are used in DDoS attacks, said SecureWorks’ Stevens.

It’s difficult to know exactly how big any particular botnet is and guesses vary widely. For example, estimates of theConficker botnet ranged from 500,000 PCs to 10 million.

What happened in the DDoS that caused the Twitter outage this week?

While most DoS attacks are designed to take down a specific Web site, Thursday’s DDoS attack targeted someone who has accounts on the different sites–a Georgian blogger, who uses the account name “Cyxymu” and who has accounts on Twitter, Facebook, LiveJournal, and Google’s Blogger and YouTube.The affected companies worked together to investigate the attacks and discovered that Cyxymu was the common thread linking the sites. An investigation is pending into who launched the attack and why.

Once an attack has been launched a company can try to redirect the attack traffic to a null IP address, or a black hole,ugg australia boots, according to Trend Micro’s David Perry.

What’s a distributed-denial-of-service (DDoS) attack?

Because Web sites are built to handle a lot of traffic, it can take millions of simultaneous communications requests to have enough affect on the performance of the server for an attack. In a DDoS attack, tens of thousands or even millions of computers are used to send traffic to the target site all at the same time and repeatedly. As Sophos’ Graham Cluley wrote on his blog: “It’s a bit like 15 fat men trying to get through a revolving door at the same time–nothing can move.” 

FAQ: The ins and outs of DoS attacks

Thursday’s denial-of-service attack that knocked Twitter offline for a few hours and affected Facebook, LiveJournal, and Google Sites and Blogger wasn’t your average attack.

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Dpsl Facebook Must Woo Investors Before Any IPO_65

Uncategorized | Posted by admin
三 03 2010

Another recent step seen as a precursor to an IPO was the announcement in June that Facebook had hired David Ebersman, a 15-year veteran of Genentech (DNA), to be its chief financial officer. Facebook spokesman Larry Yu says the company has no plans to go public.

Facebook’s reliance on advertising for much of its revenue also gives some investors pause. Google relies on Internet advertising for its sales,buy ugg boots, but it uses sophisticated mathematical models to place ads based on products or services that people using Web search may actually be trying to find. Many people don’t typically go to Facebook to shop or research products. &quot,timberland pro boots;People mainly go to social networking sites to network, not to buy," says ING’s Pytosh.


The Profit Question

These days, fund managers are running a slide rule over a new Silicon Valley darling that may be headed for an IPO: Facebook. Some potential shareholders have yet to be convinced Facebook is a stock they want to own. While Facebook tops the social networking heap with 350 million users, it competes in a social media realm notorious for swiftly changing consumer tastes.

When and if that changes—and analysts speculate a share sale could come as soon as 2010—the profit question will figure prominently for many would-be Facebook investors. In September, the company announced it was cash-flow positive, meaning the cash it generates from advertising and other revenue sources now exceeds the cost of servers and other capital expenditures. That followed a public comment by Facebook board member Marc Andreessen that the company was on track to generate $500 million in revenue in 2009.

The revelations quelled concerns that Facebook lacks a business model. But some fund managers still question the plan for wringing profit in coming years, particularly amid fluctuations in costs for the computers needed to keep the social network running. "We don’t know quite what their profit picture is," says Ryan Jacob, chairman and chief investing officer of Los Angeles-based Jacob Internet Fund, which oversees about $36 million.

Facebook Must Woo Investors Before Any IPO

Google has become one of the most sought-after tech stocks this decade, but it wasn’t always considered a sure bet. In the runup to Google’s (GOOG) 2004 initial share sale, some investors fretted that, at $85, the Web search company was overvalued.

Time was, MySpace was the go-to social network, and before that, it was Friendster. Both have since lost allure. &quot,ugg;There’s no sustainable model that looks great for social networking," says Michael Pytosh, tech analyst for ING Investment Management, which oversees $600 billion.

On Nov. 25, five-year-old Facebook revived speculation it’s on track for an IPO when it said it created a dual-class stock structure. The move grants more voting power to existing shareholders than new ones and it’s a step typically taken by companies planning to sell shares to the public. "The move was without a doubt done in preparation for an IPO," says Paul Bard, a research analyst at Greenwich (Conn.)-based Renaissance Capital, which researches newly public companies.



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ygxf Embedded Android code goes open source_678

Uncategorized | Posted by admin
三 03 2010



Android was unveiled as a smartphone platform by its main sponsor, Google, at the end of 2007. Since then, it has started to take off in the handset market,timberland boot, with several manufacturers releasing phones using the system this year. Work is also under way to release low-cost Android Netbooks later this year, although Google is also planning a separate operating system, Chrome OS,fake ugg, for this market. 

Embedded Android code goes open source

The Android operating system is a step closer to being embedded in consumer electronics, after the company behind the MIPS processor architecture open-sourced the code for its Android port.


David Meyer of ZDNet UK reported from London.

MIPS Technologies released the source code on Monday, two months after it first said it had ported Android to the 32-bit version of the MIPS architecture. This architecture is used in set-top boxes, digital TV sets, home media players, Internet telephony systems and mobile internet devices (MIDs), and is a rival to the ARM technology on which Android already runs.

MIPS Technologies and its partners–including chipmakers, manufacturers and working groups within the Android-focused Open Embedded Software Foundation–have already demonstrated Android running on a home media player and on a digital TV reference design. They plan to demonstrate more applications for the platform over the coming months.

“Android presents a compelling value proposition in bringing Internet connectivity and a broad range of applications to MIPS-based digital home devices,” MIPS Technologies’ vice president of marketing, Art Swift,ugg, said in a statement. “We are working closely with customers and partners to ensure that critical technologies are available for developers to take advantage of Android for consumer electronics.”

The move into embedded systems therefore opens up Android’s third front–after mobile phones and the desktop–against Microsoft’s Windows, the embedded version of which is Windows CE.

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9nmp Evoking the romance of space travel, 1940s st

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三 03 2010

Similarly, there will also be a probe launcher, which will fire off small rockets. Sticking with the narrative, the rockets are intended to travel one-to-two parsecs. Practically, they may fly three or four hundred feet, where they can be picked up by passersby, who, hopefully, will return them to the main rocket ship in exchange for small gifts.

Added Shulman, the idea was to bring out that sense of wonder that perhaps went away a bit when the Cold War kicked in and politicians took the space program into another direction.

And for participants who visit the rocket, Shulman said, the hope is that they will walk away with the feeling that they got to take part in a “real rocket from the 1940s.”

I asked Orlando and Shulman how the idea for the Raygun Gothic Rocket ship began, and Orlando said that, from the beginning, they wanted to work on a retro rocket based on a romantic 1940s aesthetic.

Rather, the Raygun Gothic Rocketship is pure whimsy, mixed, of course, with some serious research into what a rocket of this era and style would be like.

(Credit:Raygun Gothic Rocketship)

OAKLAND, Calif.–Want a trip back to the romanticism and innocence with which space travel was associated in the 1940s? Then get yourself to Burning Man, starting August 31 in Nevada’s Black Rock Desert.

Just above the legs will be a main compartment serving as the engine room, armory,timberland womens boots, and life and biosciences lab. Participants will be able to look down through the floor at the rocket’s engine (see video below), which will feature six power cells, each of which will display a high-voltage lighting effect. That effect, courtesy of 12,000 volts of electricity, was crafted in conjunction with a professor from the department of engineering at the University of Canterbury in New Zealand.

The rocket features a telescope that crew members used to peer into space for docking.

“We want it to be disorienting,” Shulman said, “and create doubt: is it real, or is it not.”

In the real world, though, it will be a 40-foot-tall retro masterpiece, complete with 17-foot-tall legs and three main compartments rising another 23 feet in the air. Once installed in the desert, it will be attached to an adjacent 25-foot-tall gantry by a 10-foot bridge. Visitors will be able to climb up through the three compartments and then go down via the gantry.

In reality,paul smith sale, of course, the rocket wasn’t made in the 1940s; It’s being made as we speak in a warehouse in a run-down part of Oakland, just across the bay from San Francisco. But don’t bother telling the more than 60 artists, scientists, engineers, and others who are putting countless hours of their time and energy into creating the rocket ship that their narrative is fiction: they’re having too much fun crafting that narrative as they go to listen to any naysayers.

How the idea began

That’s where the Raygun Gothic Rocketship, a retro rocket “made” in 1944, will be on display for the thousands of participants at the annual countercultural arts festival to play in and around.

(Credit:Raygun Gothic Rocketship)

Asked where it was built, Orlando and Shulman laughed and admitted they needed a little more work on their back story.

The project, which is led by artists Sean Orlando, David Shulman, and Nathaniel Taylor, is one of 25 that received funding from the Burning Man organization. It is almost certainly the only one that will take visitors back in time to a place where space travel wasn’t beset by some of the real-life failures and inefficiencies of NASA and other space agencies, and the disappointments that can come from mixing politics with science.

Daniel Terdiman is a staff writer at CNET News covering games, Net culture, and everything in between. E-mail Daniel.


Making the rocket

Featuring a solid steel frame, the rocket will be skinned entirely in brushed aluminum. And befitting a Burning Man ethos of “do-it-yourself,” every bit of that aluminum is being made in the warehouse in Oakland on a set of what are known as English wheels, contraptions that can shape the metal into pieces with the rounded edges necessary for making a rocket.

Participants will be invited to climb through each of the three compartments and to explore the many displays they’ll come across. The idea is to give visitors a sense of what such a rocket would be like inside. The second compartment will feature crew quarters, navigational and observational tools, and audio and video communications and scientific instruments. All of these things will be available for participants to play with.

There will also be a telescope that participants will be able to look through for “deep scanning” of space. The idea there, said Shulman, is that crew members would need to look out into space to determine approach trajectories for when the rocket docks when it lands.

At the top of the rocket is the cockpit, where a lovely pilot’s chair will be installed. The chair will be made to rotate around, and allow the pilot to engage with the ship’s flight controls. The pilot will have access to communications so that he (or she) can talk to those in the compartments below. For that, the team is utilizing 1930s and 1940s-era hand-cranked telephones.

For the most part, the rocket and many of its components were designed using a CAD program called SolidWorks, Orlando explained when I visited the warehouse Friday.

A big part of that, said Orlando, whose father was a NASA contractor, was building up a sense of the excitement and innocence around space travel that still existed in the 1930s and 1940s, when science fiction was “still very positive and wide-eyed” and people saw nearly unlimited potential for space.

Evoking the romance of space travel, 1940s style

The Raygun Gothic Rocketship is a 1940s-era rococo rocket that Burning Man attendees will have a chance to climb through. They may even get to see it launch.

It will feature 42 aluminum panels, as well as the three legs, and it will all be held together by thousands of rivets. All in all, complete with its rococo shape, the rocket will very much like look like what it’s supposed to be: a spacecraft built 55 years ago that has traveled through time and found its way to 2009.

The plan,mbt usa, Orlando said, is to have a launch event on the evening of Friday, September 4. Prior to the event, a very, very loud siren will be set off to announce to the thousands of Burning Man participants that fueling is about to start, and then those participants will begin to gather outside a 500-foot safety perimeter. Come launch time, be prepared for some special surprises, Orlando suggested.

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