Send these to the recycle bin

Send these to the recycle bin

Fri, Jan 08, 2010 The Straits Times

PEOPLE don't eat stale bread, do they? So why is it that consumers are clinging to technology that has long past its sell-by date?

Take the facsimile or fax machine, the first on my 'kill' list.

It has been around for the last two decades or so when it should have disappeared with e-mail becoming the de facto means of sending out documents for at least 10 years now.

Yet every new office that opens today has a PC, an Internet account and a fax machine.

Have you noticed that to fax a document, you have to print it first?

An insurance company needed me to sign a document. I printed the PDF document, signed it and faxed it. Worse, I had to fax twice: the recipient did not receive it the first time as the document was sent to a shared fax machine. It would have been more practical if they had sent me the file as a text document where instead of a signature, I could verify it by filling in personal details.

Then I could save the document as a PDF file and then e-mail it directly to the recipient's inbox.

Still feeling murderous, there are other items on my kill list. The second item to be sent to the technology gallows is the diary.

An 1980s concept - remember the Filofaxes popular then - diaries cling to the paper form. So, they stay deskbound, at home or in the office, making it difficult to check schedules on the go.

I had ditched paper diaries and switched first to a personal digital assistant (PDA) and then the cellphone as soon as these made their debut in the 1990s.

Besides, you don't have to look far to get an e-diary. Many e-mail systems today like Gmail and Lotus Notes have built-in calendaring tools. So ditch paper diaries and save trees.

As for the third item to be killed - dare I say it? - the book.

As an avid reader, I have borrowed hundreds of books from the library as a student and bought many more when I started working.

Though they remain in pristine condition, my books are collecting dust on the shelves. I'm also running out of space to store them.

The practical me likes the portability of e-readers and the easy way to buy digital content over the Web. Besides, online book stores are offering an ever wider selection of titles.

I acknowledge that it will take a while for traditional tomes to disappear since there is a lot of emotion tied to holding hard copy and flipping pages.

But I believe this year will mark the start of the wane of books and the rise of e-books.

Finally, I'd say, the computer mouse has to go.

Much as the rodent has been faithful in getting our cursors to skip here and there on the screen, it has also caused painful repetitive stress injury from its overuse.

Multi-touch technology has arrived to wrest the mouse from our hands.

New sensors that let people control computers and gaming consoles with gestures are starting to surface. So are programs that let people use voice commands to drag and drop files, among other things, with nary a keystroke.

Then again, it would be some time before people get used to these new smarts. And, like a security blanket, I'll wager that it will be a while before mindsets let the mouse go the way of the dinosaur.

This story was first published in The Straits Times Digital Life.

Ten iPhone shortcuts you never knew existed

Ten iPhone shortcuts you never knew existed

Jan 01, 2010
The Straits Times

SLEEK and beautiful, the iPhone is so different from the other smartphones.

You succumbed and bought one. How not to with all the goodies like attractive trade-ins and loads of mobile data bundled with the price plans?

Competition among the three telcos is getting keener in the iPhone market now that StarHub and M1 have broken SingTel's exclusive iPhone tie-up.

Now that this sexy device is in your hand, what can you do with it?

To get you up to speed, Digital Life's three-part iPhone Central series gives insider tricks on how to get the most out of your phone.

This instalment reveals 10 hidden shortcuts that even seasoned iPhone users may not know about.

They are some of the obscure shortcuts that are not stated in the manual. In geek-speak, they are called Easter eggs.

Break your iPhone Easter egg and shock veteran iPhone users with your expertise.

Tip #1 - Screenshots

Yes, you can do screen captures of whatever is on the screen. Press and hold the Sleep button while tapping the Home button. The picture will be added to your camera roll.

I use it to capture the end-of-match table on Eliminate Pro (an iPhone FPS game) when I managed to out-frag high-ranking opponents.

Tip #2 - iPod wake-up magic

Turn on your music the instant you wake the screen.

Press the Home button to wake the screen. Then double-click the Home button to bring up a set of mini-iPod controls.

What music you were last listening to comes up. Click on play to continue with the music.

This shortcut works even if you have already configured the Home button double-click to do something else.

Tip #3 - No video, please

The same iPod trick can be used to listen to just the audio track of a selected video.

I normally use it for video podcasts like Rocketboom. Start by playing the video, then pressing the Home button.

This will turn off the screen and the video. Now press the Home button once, followed by a Home button double-click.

Tip #4 - Ssssshhh

If your iPhone rings at the wrong moment, mute it quickly by either pressing the Home or Volume button.

Tip #5 Precision zooming

I love pinching and unpinching to zoom in and out of pictures. If you just cannot get your thumb and index finger to work together, try holding down your thumb on the screen while swiping your index finger back and forth.

Tip #6 - Steady on there

One thing I hate about the iPhone is the camera and how difficult it is to keep the phone stable while tapping on the shutter button to take a picture. Remedy your shaky trigger finger by pressing and holding down the shutter button before framing the shot. When you are good and ready, let go of the button to shoot.

Tip #7 - Educating the dictionary

To add a new word, just type it when you compose a message and it will be saved.

Tip #8 - Speedy scrolling

Skip the hassle of swiping your way to the top of an application. Some apps like Safari, Messages and Contacts return you to the top of the page when the time display is pressed.

Tip #9 - Hold it there

Surprises are aplenty on the iPhone's keyboard. Press and hold down the '.com' button and you will see options like '.org', '.edu' and even '.co.uk' (I have a complaint for Apple: there is no .sg in the list). This also works on individual letters like 'A' which will display accent options (á, â, ã, å, æ, ä).

Tip #10 - Punctuate faster

The old-fashioned three-step way to punctuate is to press the '@123' key, select a punctuation symbol and press the 'ABC' button to return to the Qwerty keyboard.

Speed it up by holding down the '@123' button and sliding your finger to the required symbol, then releasing it. The Qwerty keyboard will now reappear. That is just a one button press.

By Edvarcl Heng, an iPhone addict who writes to support his ravenous iTunes app store account

This story was first published in The Straits Times Digital Life.

Friday, Nov. 06, 2009

Are You Getting Scammed by Facebook Games?

By Belinda Luscombe

Facebook games — Mafia Wars, FarmVille, Restaurant City — have become surprisingly effective at diverting time wasters among the social-networking crowd. More than 63 million people alone play FarmVille. But now accusations have surfaced that the games can lead some more gullible players, including children, into Internet scams, especially if they have a cell phone.

Here's how it works. You join FarmVille, a game on Facebook in which you can create a virtual farm by growing crops and livestock and tilling the earth. Through your toil, you earn virtual money, but to farm more efficiently or quickly, you can also invest real cash (through PayPal or a credit card) to buy virtual goods, such as seed or a tractor. Should you not have any real cash to spare on things that after all do not actually exist, you can instead accept an offer from one of the advertisers on the game site and get virtual cash in return. (See the top 10 Internet blunders.)

These offers, generally known in the business as lead-gen (lead generators), will give you some seed/tractor money in return for signing up for, say, a subscription to Netflix or a credit card. But less scrupulous advertisers lure players in with an offer to take a bogus survey or IQ test. Once it's completed they require a cell-phone number to send you the results. When you enter your cell number and create a password, you have unwittingly subscribed to a service you never wanted but will be billed for. If you're a kid, the mysterious charge then appears on the phone bill of the parents, who often find that phone companies will not cancel services from a third-party provider — even if the parent cannot find out who that provider is. (See five Facebook no-nos for divorcing couples.)

Will O'Brien, general manager of social and casual games at TrialPay, a company that matches advertisers with potential online clients, told the San Francisco Chronicle that offers to swap personal information for virtual cash are designed to reach the young because they're less likely to have a credit card. But they often have cell phones, usually on their parents' plans. Indeed, while Facebook rules state that users must be at least 13, FarmVille seems to be aimed at a youthful crowd, at least by its marketing pitch: "Howdy Ya'll! Come on down to the Farm today and play with your friends ..."

The issue came to a head on Nov. 1 when the blogger Michael Arrington of Tech Crunch confronted some of the advertising providers at a virtual goods summit with accusations of scammy behavior. He blogged about it and also managed to find a former social-networking ad executive who admitted that the industry knew that not all the ads were on the up-and-up.

Mark Pincus of Zynga, the largest and most profitable of the social-networking game companies, (it created FarmVille, Mafia Wars and Cafe World) was quick to respond. "I agree with [Arrington] and others that some of these offers misrepresent and hurt our industry," he wrote on his blog. "We have worked hard to remove bad offers ... Nevertheless we need to be more aggressive and have revised our service-level agreements." He also took down all offers that involve sending a mobile-phone number. Offerpal, the biggest provider of offer advertising, also apparently responded quickly, replacing CEO Anu Shukla, shortly after a video of her confrontation with Arrington surfaced. Other game developers said the accusations amount to nothing more than the rants of an attention-hungry blogger. (Read what happens to your Facebook profile after you die.)

According to the Better Business Bureau of Greater San Francisco, 222 complaints have been lodged against Zynga in the last 12 months. But most of these have not been about advertising scams, and Zynga has raised its BBB rating to a B+ from an F. Offerpal has a B rating. Industry figures suggest that roughly 90% of social-networking game players neither spend any real money nor click on any ads. And Facebook and MySpace say they monitor all applications closely and have suspended companies that violate its advertising protocols. In the last several days, both companies have revised their guidelines to be more stringent. (See the 10 worst video game movies.)

But clearly there's reason for caution. Other Internet entrepreneurs have piped up about the issue. James Hong, who co-founded Hotornot.com, said that even back in 2005 he'd stopped taking the kind of offers that ask for cell-phone numbers or a subscription. "The offers that monetize the best are the ones that scam/trick users," he wrote on his blog. "Sure we had [legitimate] Netflix ads show up ... but I'm pretty sure most of the money ended up getting our users hooked into auto-recurring SMS subscriptions for horoscopes and stuff."

All in all, might be just as well to earn virtual cash the old-fashioned way: by playing for it.

Don't lose that pair of old shoes

Don't lose that pair of old shoes

Mon, Oct 12, 2009 The Straits Times

By Tan Chong Yaw

My browser setup is like an old pair of shoes. I am so comfortable with it, any small change will upset me.

A month ago, my HP Compaq nc6230 laptop at work was attacked by a virus, which rendered my USB ports unreliable. So I was stuck with a replacement machine that I was unfamiliar with.

Now, my Firefox browser setup is elaborate: it fires up my four home pages, three of which are Gmail, the OneLook dictionary search page and Wikipedia, at the same time.

The fourth page holds iGoogle, which can be customised with news feeds and widgets.

Mine has more than 50 items.

I would have gone bonkers if I had to build my browser up from scratch.

My sanity was preserved because of a U3 USB flash drive from which I could install and launch apps like Firefox. You can buy one for $20.

I had replicated my laptop's browser setup on it months earlier as an exercise.

First, I installed Firefox on the U3 drive (above). Find it in software.u3.com.

Next, I replicated my four homepages using their URLs and saved them on the drive.

As Gmail and iGoogle are Web-based services, they were set up automatically once I signed in. My username and password were saved in U3 Firefox.

You can set up your Gmail and iGoogle accounts at gmail.com and google.com/ig. You need to register just once with an e-mail address for the Google apps.

My hundreds of bookmarks are backed up on the Net using Xmarks - an app for the online synching of bookmarks.

Download it from xmarks.com. Registration with an e-mail address is needed too.

Next, the setup. Once I stuck the U3 drive into the USB port of my temporary PC, a U3 panel popped up. One click on the Firefox icon there and my four homepages appeared. Bliss.

The beauty of this solution is that my setup is synched automatically.

Now that my old machine has come out of intensive care, I have gone back to using the browser on that laptop.

However, I now have another pair of old shoes - the U3 drive. It is like leaving a trusty spare in the boot of the car.

This story was first published in The Straits Times Digital Life.

Deaths, lung damage linked to nanoparticles in China

Deaths, lung damage linked to nanoparticles in China
Aug 20, 2009
AFP

HONG KONG, CHINA - Seven young Chinese women suffered permanent lung damage and two of them died after working for months without proper protection in a paint factory using nanoparticles, Chinese researchers reported on Wednesday.

They said the study is the first to document health effects of nanotechnology in humans, although animal studies in the past have shown nanoparticles could damage the lungs of rats.

"These cases arouse concern that long term exposure to nanoparticles without protective measures may be related to serious damage to human lungs," Yuguo Song from the occupational disease and clinical toxicology department at Chaoyang Hospital in Beijing wrote in the European Respiratory Journal.

But a U.S. government expert said the study was more a demonstration of industrial hazards than any evidence that nanoparticles pose more of a risk than other chemicals.

Nanotechnology is an important industry. One nanometer is one-billionth of a meter (yard) and nanoparticles measure between 1 to 100 nanometers.

It is used in products like sporting goods, tires, electronics, cosmetics and surface coatings and has a projected annual market of around $1 trillion by 2015.

"Their tiny diameter means that they can penetrate the body's natural barriers, particularly through contact with damaged skin or by inhalation or ingestion," Song and colleagues wrote.

They said the seven women had worked for between five to 13 months in a factory spraying paint on polystyrene boards before they developed breathing difficulties and rashes on their faces and arms.

The women breathed in fumes and smoke that contained nanoparticles while working in the factory, Song said.

PARTICLES AND FLUID

According to the paper, doctors found the women had excess fluids in the cavities surrounding their lungs and hearts, conditions that impair breathing and heart function.

Their lung tissues and fluids contained nanoparticles about 30 nanometers in diameter - matching particles that health protection officials later found in materials used in the factory where the women worked.

Two of the women died within two years of working in the factory. The condition of the other five women has not improved even though they are no longer handling such materials.

It is impossible to remove nanoparticles once they penetrate lung cells, wrote Song.

Allen Chan, a chemical pathologist at the Chinese University of Hong Kong not connected to the study, said the findings were significant.

"These findings are important because they provide concrete evidence that these materials are harmful and protection must be given to workers," he said.

But Clayton Teague, who heads the National Nanotechnology Coordination Office at the White House Office of Science and Technology Policy, noted that the women who were sickened on the job were spraying a paste containing nanoparticles in a very small, unventilated room, and wore gauze masks only occasionally.

He said in the United States the National Institute for Occupational Safety and Health has developed extensive safety training for nanotechnology workers and a proactive risk management system to help companies maximize worker safety.

"From what we know, this tragedy could have been avoided by proper industrial hygiene techniques," Teague said.

Beware the MJ virus

Beware the MJ virus

Fri, Jul 03, 2009 my paper

ALABAMA, BIRMINGHAM - The world's obsession with superstar Michael Jackson's sudden death is being exploited by a range of digital crooks who - in at least one instance - are using it to infect computers with a virus that can steal bank-account numbers and passwords.

According to the University of Alabama at Birmingham (UAB) Spam Data Mine, cybercriminals are embedding the data- stealing virus in an e-mail "that claims to link you to a website that will reveal Michael Jackson's killer".

If you click on the message, you will open a door to malware that will invade your hard drive, dig up key information and even redirect certain Google searches you perform by inserting links to other virus-infected pages in the top positions of search results, warned Mr Gary Warner, UAB's director of research in computer forensics.

In another e-attack, an Internet worm is being transmitted via a mass e-mail claiming to contain secret Jackson songs and photos, computer-security firm Sophos reported yesterday.

If you open the attachment, you risk infection. "Once infected, a computer will automatically spread the worm to other Internet users," Sophos said.

Besides spreading via e-mail, Sophos experts note that the malware is also capable of spreading through an autorun component in USB memory sticks.

Even relatively less virulent e-attacks could land your e-mail address into a spam mailing list that is being compiled for sale.

The first Jackson-related cyber- threat emerged within eight hours of his death.

Sophos has also warned of another e-scam that is not malware, but rather a phoney humanitarian cause seeking money for the "Michael Jackson Organization". - AGENCIES

Saying goodbye to your PC? Do this first

Saying goodbye to your PC? Do this first

Tue, Apr 14, 2009 The Straits Times, Digital Life

Question: I am planning to trade in my computer and am hoping you could advise if there is any foolproof way to clean out the memory so that even computer forensic experts can never retrieve it again. --Deborah Koh

Answer: The computer RAM will not contain any information because it is cleared every time you turn off the computer. However, the hard disk drive is a magnetic storage medium that will retain your information even when it is turned off.

The way to clear the information on the hard drive without damaging it is to format it but as you fear the data being retrieved by forensic experts, you need to use a more secure way of erasure.

You will need to utilise special software to accomplish the task and I have always liked using a utility CD that is full of useful utilities.

It is called Ultimate Boot CD (www.ultimatebootcd.com) and it includes a number of hard disk utilities to help erase the hard drive, one of which is the Active@ Killdisk utility. You can also download that as a standalone program from www.killdisk.com.

Active@ Killdisk will suffice and you can be confident that the information cannot be easily retrieved. It accomplishes this by formatting the hard drive and writing in a single pass using zeros to all addressable areas of the hard drive at the hardware level.

If you really want military strength erasure, you will have to use software that is certified and that usually means writing to the hard drive three times using a combination of zeros, random characters and other forms of writing.

Should you be paranoid about the hard drive data, you can remove the hard drive and have it physically destroyed. You can also look for a company that specialises in data erasure using a hardware device called a Degausser to completely wipe the hard drive clean.

Answer by Chester Chen, a PC enthusiast.

This story was first published in The Straits Times Digital Life.

Tracking devices easily available here

Tracking devices easily available here

Sun, Apr 05, 2009 The Straits Times

FOR as little as $120, anyone can buy a device or software to track and monitor where their child, elderly parent or employee is - for whatever reason.

The easy availability of such gadgets, including here in Singapore, is raising concerns of personal privacy.

In recent months, many new gadgets, software and services that use satellite tracking or cellphone signals to track individuals have been launched worldwide to mass markets.

In Singapore, gadgets can be bought in information technology equipment stores such as those in the Bugis and Bencoolen areas, or from online stores and auction sites. No checks are done online.

Though covert surveillance is illegal here, and sellers often require buyers to declare that they own the phones or vehicles on which they intend to install the devices, checks are perfunctory, and anyone can lie on the declaration form.

The software is easily installed: Often, a single click will do the trick.

Tracking systems traditionally have more utilitarian functions - for example, logistics companies use them to keep tabs on their vehicle fleets - but as devices get smaller and cheaper, anyone with a mind to it can easily turn them to their own purposes.

In Singapore, there has been a 'steady' stream of buyers for software to track a user's location, said one company which did not want to be identified.

Mr Dennis Lee, managing director of private investigator Covert Acquisition, gets a request at least once a week from spouses or businessmen to sweep their vehicles, computers or cellphones for bugs or surveillance software. Very often - he puts it at 20 per cent of the time - he finds they are being tracked. What is more, many of the spouses who approach him to keep watch on straying partners have already tried surveillance software themselves before turning to him.

Singaporeans The Straits Times spoke to are spooked by the fact that they could be tracked without their knowledge.

An executive said she once caught her then boyfriend trying to install a tracking program on her phone. 'He could have just asked me where I went. I don't like being spied on,' said the 28-year-old, who did not want to be named.

Elsewhere, the proliferation of such tracking devices is also drawing boos.

Just this week, The Guardian newspaper reported that the European Union had backed a proposal to put a tracking device in every car in Europe, so vehicles could 'talk' to one another and improve road safety. But this has raised the hackles of privacy campaigners there who say such a system would amount to total surveillance of what happens on Europe's roads.

Lawyer Looi Teck Kheong, a partner at Edmond Pereira and Partners who has published articles on technology and the law, said people here may now be 'desensitised' to the invasion of privacy due to Singapore's global, connected nature.

'Social norms have changed, and people have become more open,' he said, adding that people were putting to-the-minute updates of their locations or activities on social networks anyway.

To use another example, the number of people buying Global Positioning System devices for their cars has jumped, despite the fact that in order for such gadgets to tell a driver when to turn left, the system first needs to know where he is - in other words, he is being tracked.

In Singapore, tracking systems have been installed in taxi fleets to give them real-time road information as well as for assigning cab bookings.

They are also in some delivery truck fleets to track goods, as well as used to trace infectious patients and the people in touch with them in the hospital compound.

---

Some parents find it useful

TRACKING devices have their uses. Design and technology instructor Patrick Gaw, 57, has been using tracking software on cellphones for a few years to locate his son Joseph, 25, who is developmentally impaired.

Mr Gaw bought a set of location software for about $120 from local mapping company Agis. Joseph carries two cellphones - one loaded with the tracking software which is always turned on, and one for making calls.

Before he got the software, Mr Gaw would sometimes drive around Singapore looking for his lost son, who often could not describe where he was. 'Now, at least I can pinpoint within a 200m radius where he is,' the father of two said.

SingTel has also had 'thousands of sign-ups' over the last few months for its Locator service, launched late last year. They are mainly parents of young children, or those keeping track of elderly parents. The telco can find out a phone's location, based on which base station the phone transmits signals to.

Private tutor Jasper Ong, 24, who is guardian to four Myanmar students aged around 14, initially put three of them on the tracking plan to make sure they went to school. Now it acts as a 'safety net' as well, in case they get lost and cannot recognise roads or landmarks.

Agis' chief executive Goh Pong Chai said the firm's software for cellphones to track users' locations is popular among parents as 'a child is a parent's most precious possession'. It is launching a cellphone program this month at US$4.90 (S$7.45), which will trigger off a text message alert if the person being monitored strays from his current defined zone.

This story was first published in The Straits Times.

Beware of the 'Curse of Silence' mobile phone attack

Beware of the 'Curse of Silence' mobile phone attack

Jan 14, 2009
AsiaOne

By Jasmine Osada

If you are using a Nokia phone running the Symbian OS, be careful when you next receive text message from an unknown source.

According to security systems company Fortinet, a new mobile phone attack, known as the "Curse of Silence" or "Curse SMS", was recently discovered and revealed at the 25th Chaos Communication Congress, an annual meeting of the international hacker community.

The attack involves sending a maliciously crafted SMS to potential targets. Upon receipt, the targeted device may no longer be able to receive SMS or MMS messages.

Depending on the operating system version of the targeted mobile phone, the device may require a factory reset to properly function again.

Fortinet has identified the Symbian OS in its list of vulnerable software. The operating system is commonly found on smartphones.

Versions of the Symbian OS vulnerable to the "Curse of Silence" attack include:

• Symbian OS S60 2nd Edition Feature Pack 2
  
• 2nd Edition Feature Pack 3
  
• 3rd Edition
  
• 3rd Edition Feature Pack 1

Several models of Nokia phones, including several phones of the "N" series up to the N95, and the "E" series up to the E90, as well as older models like the 6680, were named as potentially vulnerable devices by Fortinet.

Mobile phone owners however, can take steps to safeguard their devices from such attacks. Fortinet has released a free-of-charge license to its new FortiCleanup tool, which helps users to recover once their mobile phone has been attacked by the "Curse of Silence" or "Curse SMS" attack.

The tool protects devices by automatically scans and removes malicious messages that are preventing the handset from functioning properly. The FortiCleanup tool can be downloaded from Fortinet's website here.

---

Is your handset vulnerable?

Potentially vulnerable handsets, in alphabetical order:

Nokia 3250
Nokia 5500 Sport
Nokia 5700 XpressMusic
Nokia 6110 Navigator
Nokia 6120 Classic
Nokia 6121 Classic
Nokia 6124 Classic
Nokia 6290
Nokia 6630
Nokia 6680
Nokia 6681
Nokia 6682
Nokia E50
Nokia E51
Nokia E60
Nokia E61
Nokia E62
Nokia E63
Nokia E65
Nokia E66
Nokia E70
Nokia E71
Nokia E90 Communicator
Nokia N70
Nokia N71
Nokia N72
Nokia N73
Nokia N75
Nokia N76
Nokia N77
Nokia N80
Nokia N81
Nokia N81 8GB
Nokia N82
Nokia N90
Nokia N91
Nokia N91 8GB
Nokia N92
Nokia N93
Nokia N95
Nokia N95 8GB

*Note that this list is not exhaustive. A more up-to-date list can be found at Fortinet's website here.

The latest in webcams: 3D

The latest in webcams: 3D

Thu, Jan 08, 2009 AFP

LAS VEGAS, US - There are a lot of webcams out there but how many are 3D and look like the character "E.T." from the Steven Spielberg film?

The Minoru 3D Webcam unveiled here on the eve of the opening on Thursday of the annual Consumer Electronics Show (CES) has two cameras spaced about the same distance apart as human eyes.

The British-designed webcam comes with five pairs of special colored glasses to provide the 3D image and a stand that allows it to be perched on a desk or a computer monitor.

The Minoru, which means "reality" in Japanese, can be used with Windows Live Messenger, Skype, AOL instant messenger, OoVoo and other video conferencing systems.

It can take still pictures, record 3D video for YouTube or be used as a normal 2D Webcam.

The Minoru will be available this month and costs US$89.95. --AFP

Don't be the next phone virus victim

Don't be the next phone virus victim

Fri, Apr 03, 2009 AsiaOne

By Jasmine Osada

The next time you receive a message on your mobile phone asking you to download something, make sure the message is from a legitimate contact before pressing the "yes" button.

With more consumers adopting smartphones nowadays, mobile phone viruses are on the rise. Smartphones typically allow users to install applications, and this is where viruses and other malicious software can worm their way into the devices.

In January this year, security systems company Fortinet identified a mobile phone attack known as the "Curse of Silence". The attack involves sending a maliciously crafted SMS message which, upon receipt, cripples the affected device's SMS and MMS sending functions.

The attack was linked to the Symbian OS, an operating system used in a number of Nokia phones. However, the Finnish mobile phone maker said it does not believe the issues represent a significant risk to its devices.

But still, Nokia cautioned its users to be careful when receiving applications and messages from others.

A spokesman with the company said, "We also encourage consumers to help protect their mobile device against harmful applications by being careful about accepting applications sent via Bluetooth or when they open SMS or MMS attachments, as they might include software which could be harmful to your phone or PC."

AsiaOne spoke with Mr. Derek Manky, Cyber Security & Threat Researcher for Fortinet on the nature of mobile phone attacks and how users can prevent them:

What are the common mobile phone viruses/attacks found today?

Most attacks found today are denial of service or defacing, which comes from worms that spread through MMS, MMC memory cards and Bluetooth. These typically drain battery life rapidly, and can cause high usage bills due to outgoing SMS/MMS activity. Commercial spyware applications are available for various platforms that when installed, allow users to remotely view incoming/outgoing messages and calls.

Below are a few recent mobile threats that our FortiGuard Global Security Research Team has been keeping track of:

• CommWarrior is a virus family affecting cell phones operating Symbian OS S60 2nd edition. The virus extracts numbers from the contact list of the infected phone, and sends a MMS carrying an infected installation file. This file usually poses as a recreation (game, ringtones, porn & etc) or utilitarian (antivirus, desktop manager & etc) application. The device will be infected once the target executes the application. Currently, CommWarrior is being reported in over 18 different countries around Asia, Europe and North America.
  
• BeSeLo, a virus affecting cell phones operating Symbian OS S60 2nd edition. Unlike Commwarrior, BeSeLo not only extracts numbers from the contact list of the infected phone, but also generates some by itself. It then sends those numbers an MMS carrying an infected installation file.
  
• Spyphone is a Trojan Horse that conducts various spying operations on the infected device (including monitoring incoming calls), on behalf of the individual who sent it to the victim. It does not have an automated infection routine: an attacker has to actively send it to the selected victim, on the form of an installation file. Upon execution of this file, the victim is prompted with the following message: "Install Sysapp? Yes / No". Selecting "Yes" will lead to the definitive infection.
  
• Finally, a recent SMS/MMS denial of service known as the Curse of Silence/CurseSMS attack, involves sending a maliciously crafted SMS to potential targets, who then are unable to receive SMS/MMS messages.
  

Are these attacks are common in Singapore and the rest of Asia?

Mobile phone attacks are increasingly common, not only in Asia, but around the world as the adoption of mobile devices continues to increase.

As mentioned, most current attacks are destructive by nature. This is the same path that occurred with PC-based malware in the 1990s.

A recent attack has surfaced with SymbOS/Flocker. Aside from sending SMS messages to premium-rate numbers owned by cyber criminals, new variations are targeting Indonesian carriers that allow balance transfers from an infected phone to an account controlled by the malware authors.

Malicious activity on smart mobile devices like smart phones has been low to date, but the anticipated consumer adoption of 3G and the new and business models it enables will open up a huge market for cybercriminal activity.

3G enables network operators to offer a wider range of more advanced mobile services, such as real-time access to high-quality audio/video transmission, and greater network capacity. This increased scope of potential vulnerabilities calls for a focused approach in securing millions of active handheld devices today.

Shared components, new platforms like Google Android (in which we saw a recent vulnerability disclosure), and increasing functionality/complexity of smart devices combined with 3G and the roadmap to 4G bandwidth will be the next biggest threats to mobile security. There will certainly be a lot of movement on this front in 2009 and the coming years: we are already starting to see some in Indonesia / Asia as mentioned.

What would happen to victims of these attacks, and if they can potentially be victims of identity theft, credit card fraud, etc.?

Depending on the type of infections, victims may suffer inconvenience or minor losses.

Mobile attacks can potentially cause serious consequences whereby personal data or confidential information stored in mobile phones could be hacked or retrieved by cyber criminals, leading to the risk of identity theft and credit card fraud. In particular, commercial spyware can place the victim at the risk of identity theft.

Mobile security is at a tipping point with smart portable devices interoperating with networks flanked by the dynamic threatscape. New vulnerabilities and attacks place mobile device users open to attacks in this environment. Phishing, identity theft, credit card fraud and information pilferage have become reality.

While some viruses are driven to cause damage, others such as CommWarrior and BeSeLo (using Bluetooth as an alternative propagation method) cause victims to experience rapid battery power loss. A simple denial service attack with CurseSMS will cause inconvenience to the user as infected mobile phones will require a factory reset.

Frequent, unauthorized outgoing messages can lead to high bills and denial of service attacks can cause financial damages especially to smart devices intended for enterprise or business.

What are the steps we should take in preventing these attacks?

Mobile phone users should be extra cautious when opening attachments from all sources, as even a trusted connection might be infected without knowing it. Be cautious of file extensions as well, as we saw with the BeSeLo worm. If a media file such as a ".mp3" or ".jpg" extension prompts for application installation, a red flag should be raised.

Secondly, play safe. Always put your mobile phone in Bluetooth-disabled mode to prevent infection of a malicious file or virus propagated through Bluetooth. Additionally, mobile phone users are advised not to install unauthorized software in order to lower the chances of virus infection.

For enterprises, enforce policies for mobile devices which are introduced into the network as this bypasses many security mechanisms. Data encryption and gateway protection to protect mobile devices from the bridged threats mentioned earlier is recommended.

Now is the time to prepare before cyber criminals get more involved in this arms race, which is expected to accelerate, given the increasing reports of mobile malware. Cyber criminals have started to invest and establish their foothold in this area.

In the event of a mobile attack, users can recover their mobile phone by employing the new version of the FortiCleanUp tool released by FortiGuard Global Security Research Team. The FortiCleanUp tool automatically scans and removes malicious elements that prevent proper handset function.

Fortinet also offers the FortiClient Mobile Security which is available for Microsoft Windows Mobile and SymbianOS S60 operating systems.

Can attackers retrieve personal information from handsets, like they would a mobile phone, and if so, are services such as mobile banking safe?

Services such as mobile banking should be treated with the same caution as online banking from your desktop.

Phishing sites targeting popular banks can easily draw a mobile user in, for instance, with a URL supplied through an MMS message. Once credentials are entered, the account will be compromised.

A recent vulnerability with Windows Mobile Bluetooth FTP (Obex) allows an attacker to browse all system files, download any files such as personal information management (PIM) data, and upload files to arbitrary paths such as the system startup folder. While it has not yet occurred in the wild, theoretically this could be used to plant a Trojan on the device that would be used for further attacks.

Computer exercise helps stroke victims "see" again

Computer exercise helps stroke victims "see" again
Apr 01, 2009
Reuters

By Maggie Fox, Health and Science Editor

WASHINGTON - Millie Sauer did not even know she had suffered a stroke until she tried to read a book as she recovered from surgery and saw only a gray blur for part of the page.

Hours or even days had passed since the stroke had damaged part of her brain responsible for vision and Sauer, 69, was far past the point for any effective treatment.

"I was told I would have to live with my situation," Sauer, who lives in Sun City West, Arizona, said in a telephone interview.

But an experimental computer-based program has helped Sauer regain some sight and given her hope of further recovery.

"We were very surprised when we saw the results from our first patients," said Krystel Huxlin of the University of Rochester Eye Institute in New York, who tested the system with seven stroke patients.

"This is a type of brain damage that clinicians and scientists have long believed you simply can't recover from. It's devastating, and patients are usually sent home to somehow deal with it the best they can."

Writing in the Journal of Neuroscience, Huxlin and colleagues said their approach used so-called blindsight -- when a person with vision loss senses something they cannot actually see.

"It is interesting that if you forced them to guess ... they can sometimes guess correctly. This is a phenomenon termed blindsight," Huxlin said.

Sauer and some other patients can drive, shop and live near-normal lives. "I think I have been able to live a pretty fulfilling life," Sauer said.

But it took months of staring at a computer screen to do so.

Strokes damage various parts of the brain and when the visual cortex is affected, the basic machinery involved in sight remains intact. The eye is taking in images -- but the brain is incapable of processing them correctly.

"A lot of neurologists and clinical practitioners are not aware that it is possible to regain vision after stroke," Huxlin said.

Patients with partial paralysis after a stroke are sent to physical therapy and can train new areas of the brain to control movement. Huxlin saw no reason why that could not be done with vision.

The exercise consists of focusing the damaged area of vision at a computer screen. A field of dots appears, moving like a school of fish or a flock of birds in one direction. The patient must decide the direction the dots are moving.

To Sauer, the improvement is subtle. To Huxlin, it is surprisingly substantial.

"The patients can't see the dots, but they're aware that there is something happening that they can't quite see. They might say, 'I know that there's something there, but I can't make any sense of it,'" said Huxlin.

Eventually, they learn to make use of this "blindsight" although it has yet to become vision in the way most people think of it.

She said the success rate went from 50 percent at first, which is what might be expected from random guessing, to 80 or 90 percent. For some of the patients, this meant they could resume driving and shopping, Huxlin said.

-Reuters

Vexing computer worm to evolve on April Fool's Day

Vexing computer worm to evolve on April Fool's Day

Sun, Mar 29, 2009 AFP

By Glenn Chapman

SAN FRANCISCO, March 29, 2009 (AFP) - A tenacious computer worm which has wriggled its way onto machines worldwide is set to evolve on April Fool's Day, becoming harder to exterminate but not expected to wreak havoc.

A task force assembled by Microsoft has been working to stamp out the worm, referred to as Conficker or DownAdUP, and the US software colossus has placed a bounty of 250,000 dollars on the heads of those responsible for the threat.

The worm is programmed to modify itself on Wednesday to become harder to stop, according to Trend Micro threat researcher Paul Ferguson, who is part of the Conficker task force.

"There is no evidence of it going into attack mode or dropping any particular payload on April 1st," Ferguson said in an interview.

"What people controlling the botnet are doing is building in survivability because of efforts by the good guys to lessen the harm of this thing."

The worm, a self-replicating program, takes advantage of networks or computers that haven't kept up to date with security patches for Windows RPC Server Service.

It can infect machines from the Internet or by hiding on USB memory sticks carrying data from one computer to another. Once in a computer it digs deep, setting up defenses that make it hard to extract.

Malware could be triggered to steal data or turn control of infected computers over to hackers amassing "zombie" machines into "botnet" armies.

A troubling aspect of Conficker is that it harnesses computing power of a botnet to crack passwords.

Microsoft has modified its free Malicious Software Removal Tool to detect and get rid of Conficker.

"As this threat continues to evolve, Microsoft and other collaborative companies will continue to identify new ways to disrupt the Conficker threat to give customers more time to update their systems," said Christopher Budd, security response communication lead for Microsoft.

Computer users are advised to stay current on anti-virus tools and Windows updates, and to protect computers and files with strong passwords. Conficker is programmed to reach out to 250 websites daily to download commands from its masters.

On Wednesday, the worm will begin connecting with 50,000 websites daily to better hide where orders originate, according to Mikko Hypponen of F-Secure computer security firm.

"They basically upped the ante; trying to make our lives more difficult," Ferguson said. "They realised the good guys were starting to intercept their communications."

The infection rate has slowed from a fierce pace earlier this year, but computers that are not updated with a software patch released by Microsoft remain vulnerable, according to security specialists.

Hypponen wrote in a message at F-Secure's website that Conficker is in one to two million computers and that most of those machines are believed to have an early version of the malicious software lacking the April 1 trigger.

Conficker was first detected in November 2008.

Among the ways one can tell if their machine is infected is that the worm will block efforts to connect with websites of security firms such as Trend Micro or Symantec where there are online tools for removing the virus.

"Once a machine is infected, it becomes very hard to clean up," Ferguson said. "There is no indication anywhere of (Conficker) doing anything but just sitting there. We don't know whether another shoe is going to drop, or if there is another shoe at all."

Hackers have taken advantage of Conficker hype by using promises of information or cures to lure Internet users to websites booby trapped with malicious software, according to security specialists.

"It seems that every other day you see some story about the Internet being hobbled together with bubble gum and paper clips," Ferguson said. "Conficker could be the biggest non-story of the year; at least that's what I hope it is."

The Top 50 Websites

The Top 50 Websites

Fri, Mar 27, 2009 The Straits Times,Digital Life

By Sherwin Loh & Tham Yuen-C

HOW do you pick the choicest 50 websites when there are 186.7 million?

Of course, trawling all of cyberspace is impossible and the mediocrity of numerous sites make them unworthy of mention.

In the spirit of toasting the 20th birthday of the World Wide Web, we have made the cuts, nevertheless. Rough cuts they may be, but clear ground rules were applied.

The sites had to cover more than one topic, which excluded specialist spaces like Divx, Google Maps and Skype.

Also, the top-of-mind recalls were ruled out: So out went the likes of Google, Wikipedia, Yahoo and YouTube.

Instead, the final 50 highlight a wide range of subjects covering beauty, entertainment, parenting, travel and health, and offer useful tips and ideas and share information online.

Also, we noted the rise in the number of people using their mobile phones to go online: Internet information provider comScore says that 63.2 million people accessed the Internet on their mobile devices in January this year compared to 36.9 million in January last year.

So, we have included three sites that have been formatted for a mobile device. These are sites with icons and text sitting in just the right positions on small screens.

The sites on the following pages are numbered, but the numerals are for neat visual order and not to signal any order of merit.

---

Parenting

1. Kiasu Parents
www.kiasuparents.com

Raising a child is difficult enough. In Singapore, bringing up children has additional levels of stress. This is where Kiasu Parents comes in.

Aptly named, the site is a portal for local parents to gather and exchange tips and ideas on bringing up baby.

2. Nymbler

www.nymbler.com

For a site dedicated to naming your newborn, Nymbler scores by having a distinct name to call itself. Sure, Baby Name Wizard (www.babynamewizard.com) may be easier to find on search engines, but it loses points on originality

Pets

3. The Daily Puppy

www.dailypuppy.com

Even if you are not an animal lover, there is no denying that dogs are one of the cutest looking creatures on the planet and there is no further proof than The Daily Puppy.

Food

4. Food Network

www.foodnetwork.com

If you cannot get enough of the cooking shows on TV, check out Food Network, where you can watch full episodes of various cooking shows, from Iron Chef: America to 30 Minute Meals, for free. The site is the home of the United States cable TV channel of the same name.

5. Epicurious
www.epicurious.com

Whether you are scrambling for a cake recipe or need to decide on what wine to take to a dinner party, Epicurious will have what you need. The site has been around for years and is a treasure trove of information on food.

6. TasteSpotting
www.tastespotting.com

All you will see on this site are pictures of delicious food.

However, TasteSpotting is not just a collage of food porn to drool over.
The site is a compilation of recipes from the Web and each picture is a link to the website or blog where the recipe resides.

Healthy Living

7. Spark People
www.sparkpeople.com

There are two types of dieters: those who want to be left alone doing their own thing and those who need lots of support and encouragement from others.

Spark People is a weight-loss website for those who need moral support.

The site encourages you to shed kilograms by dieting and exercising. It has many of the standard tools, such as calorie counter and exercise tracker, that weight-loss sites offer.

8. Zen Habits
www.zenhabits.net

Healthy living is not just about exercising and dieting, it is also about being stress free, and Leo Babauta has some ideas on how to do it which he shares on his blog Zen Habits.

9. Fail Blog

www.failblog.org

The success of this site is dependent on the failure of countless of people. Remember shows on television that air home videos of something stupid that took place by accident or a mistake caught on camera?

Fail Blog relies on users putting up occasionally embarrassing, silly or compromising pictures or videos for a good laugh. The end result is a collection of content that shames the subject, but entertains the viewers.

10. F*** My Life
www.fmylife.com

The site name may be a tad explicit, but it sums up the thoughts of visitors who leave postings about how they are experiencing a new low in their lives.

Each paragraph-long post bears a touch of irony, even as some are simply downright funny.

11. Oddee: A Blog On Oddities
www.oddee.com

Robert Ripley of Ripley's Believe It Or Not will feel right at home here.

From the 15 Stupidest Warning Labels, 20 Most Bizarre Mugshots to the World's Most Creative Buildings, Oddee tracks the weirdest, most quirky and some downright puzzling mistakes made by man.

Data managers

12. Evernote
www.evernote.com

Even if you have an elephant's memory, it is near impossible to remember everything.

Evernote aims to do this mammoth task for you.

Think of it as a huge manila envelope in which you can save any kind of information you want, whether it is a recipe you have torn off a magazine, a label off a wine bottle, a business card or a love note scribbled on the back of a napkin.

13. Scanr
www.scanr.com

Phone cameras these days can snap clear pictures of documents you want to keep. However, if you leave them in JPEG format, storage is a problem and they would be unsearchable.

To help, Scanr lets you convert these images into PDF or text files. The online application can convert pictures of written or printed documents ranging from notes, forms, receipts, business cards to even scrawlings on whiteboards. All you have to do is snap a picture of the document and upload it onto the site.

14. Geni
www.geni.com

There is no poking or sheep throwing in this social networking site.

Its aim is to help members build up their family tree.

Unlike a regular social networking site, you can add only members related to you on Geni. When you first sign up, you are asked to add biographical details of your parents, siblings and other relatives.

Inspiration

15. Notcot
www.notcot.org

Tune in to all that is amusing and aesthetically pleasing on the Net at Notcot.

The site is a collection of pictures that are not only pretty to look at, but also link to other sites. These pictures and links are contributed by netizens around the world, but curated by a team of editors who decide what is good enough to go on the site.

If anything, the pretty pictures can, hopefully, spark off some creativity.

16. Lovelines
www.love-lines.com

Take a peek into the hearts of people around the world through Lovelines. The website lets you discover what the rest of the world is feeling through their blogs and Internet postings.

It does this by harvesting people's feelings through analysing thousands of blogs every minute and then picking up lines where there are expressions of love or hate.

The results of this analysis are presented in the form of an interactive page with sliders and charts.

As the site also ties in the feelings with the geographical location of the poster, it can also provide a glimpse into the emotional health of countries.

Entertainment

17. Musicovery

www.musicovery.com

The only time I get to discover new pieces of music is when I'm listening to the radio while driving.

What if you would like to discover songs that are new to you, but might not necessarily be new?

Try Musicovery, an online music service that helps you discover songs.

The cool thing is that you can explore the world of music not just by regular genres like musical style, but also by mood, decade and tempo.

This is a good way to try out obscure bands.

18. The Digital Bits
www.digitalbits.com

Movie fans hankering for the latest DVD releases or Blu-ray releases of blockbusters like The Lord Of The Rings or the Star Wars Trilogy should bookmark this site.

The Digital Bits keeps track of the home-video market, with news and reviews of the latest and upcoming releases from the United States.

19. Kontraband
www.kontraband.com

For family friendly fun, there is YouTube (www.youtube.com), but for everything else, there is Kontraband. As the name suggests, this site hosts clips, jokes, pictures and games that are best viewed when you are alone.

20. Newsarama
www.newsarama.com

To fans of the graphic novel, the movie Watchmen is a work of art. However, for non-fans who cannot quite follow the plot, there is a reason: The comic book was deemed "unfilmable" by the novel's creator, Alan Moore.

Find out more about comics and comics-related tie-ins like movies and video games, where all forms of spandex and capes are acceptable.

This article was first published in The Straits Times Digital Life.

No way to ensure footage will be secure

No way to ensure footage will be secure
Mar 24, 2009
The New Paper

JUST about anybody can be an amateur porn star these days. Never before have video cameras been so readily available, what with the ever-increasing number of camera-equipped handphones on the market these days.

But before you begin filming yourself making out, remember you can be fined or jailed.

Legal consequences aside, there is no way of making sure your footage remains secure.

Misplace a handphone containing homemade porn? Don't be surprised if your videos turn up on an amateur porn site.

And don't rule out the possibility of somebody hacking into your computer and ripping your videos. These days, you don't actually have to upload stuff to the Internet for it to get stolen.

Unfortunately, given how ubiquitous - and easily concealed - cameras are, you could end up an unwitting porn star. The same technologies which have enabled netizens to post their videos on video-sharing sites like YouTube and Google Video have given amateur pornographers a tremendous platform to expose themselves to the world.

Last year, a local woman became an accidental porn star after an ex-boyfriend began charging netizens for access to their sex blog, which she thought was private.

The bottom line: Don't film yourself in the buff if you don't want to be caught with your pants down.

You never know who could be watching.

This article was first published in The New Paper.

Warning: Teen 'sexting' can kill

Warning: Teen 'sexting' can kill

Tue, Mar 24, 2009 The New Paper

DANGEROUS and illegal, "sexting" among teens is becoming a serious problem in the US and Britain.

Sexting refers to teens sending racy pictures of themselves to their friends using handphones. Sadly, they don't realise the consequences can be deadly until it is too late.

Like 18-year-old Jesse Logan who killed herself last year.

She used her handphone to send such pictures of herself to her boyfriend. When they broke up, he forwarded the images to others in her school. Her life became a nightmare.

Jesse, a cheerful girl looking forward to university, began skipping classes, reported MSNBC. She eventually told her mother, Ms Cynthia Logan, about the pictures and that a group of younger girls were harassing her, calling her vicious names, even throwing things at her.

Jesse's friend, Lauren Taylor, told NBC News: "When she would come to school, she would always hear, "Oh, that's the girl who sent the picture. She's just a whore." Ms Logan suggested talking to the parents of the girls who were bullying her, but Jesse told her that would only open her to even more ridicule.

"She said, 'No, I need to do something else. I'm going to go on the (TV) news,' and that's what she did," Ms Logan said. Jesse's purpose was simple: "I just want to make sure no one else will have to go through this again."

The interview was in May 2008. Two months later, Jesse hanged herself in her bedroom.

Dangers

Ms Logan is now taking her story public to warn kids about the dangers of sending sexually charged pictures and messages to boyfriends and girlfriends.

"It's very, very difficult. She was my only child. I'm trying my best to get the message out there," she said.

Last year, The National Campaign to Prevent Teen and Unplanned Pregnancy surveyed teens and young adults about sexting.

The results revealed that 39 per cent of teens are sending or posting sexually suggestive messages, and 48 per cent reported receiving such messages. Internet security expert Parry Aftab, who is also an activist in the battle to protect teens from cyberspace dangers, said that sexting is illegal in the US.

"It depends on the age of the child. If somebody's under the age of 18, it's child pornography, and even the girl that posted the pictures can be charged. They could be registered sex offenders at the end of all of this. "Even at the age of 18, because it was sent to somebody underage, it's disseminating pornography to a minor. There are criminal charges that could be made here."

Over in Britain, there are growing concerns about the problem as well, reported the Daily Mail. Journalist Penny Marshall said she discovered the trend during a BBC Radio 4 investigation into online pornography.

She wrote: "My guide into this disturbing universe was an A-level student. I'd come to talk to her and (her friends)... at their prestigious school about the impact that watching pornography may be having on today's youngsters.

"I certainly was not prepared to hear they were also producing it." She said what she found out is bound to worry parents. One girl told her: "Over the holidays, I went to a party with people from my old school and one of the girls was on her bed with nothing on. She had loads and loads of make-up on, so you could see that she'd thought about it."

"I'm not sure exactly who she sent the photos to, but one of the boys at this school now has it." Several girls told the journalist that they were often pestered to send explicit photos of themselves to boys. "I said no to that," one girl told her. "But I know girls who give in really easily. It's horrifying and illegal."

Mr John Carr of the UK's Children's Charities' Coalition on Internet Safety said: "What some of today's youngsters are doing is, by any civilised, contemporary standards, obscene. It also happens to be illegal. It's a genuinely new problem, which is the result of the emergence of new technology together with an increasing cultural tolerance (in Britain) of pornography."

Illegal

He said that in Britain, publishing any photograph of someone under 18 which is of a sexual nature is illegal. "So children who put pornographic photographs of themselves online or share the material via their mobile phones are, technically, breaking the law," he said.

So far, 90 children in Britain have been cautioned as a result of posting sexual material of themselves or their underage friends online or on their mobile phones.

Mr Geoff Barton, headmaster of King Edward VI School, believes that children are living in a society with far too low a tolerance threshold for pornography.

Children in Britain are being sexualised far too young, he believes. This is contributing to the emergence of their online sexual behaviour."Any school that says it is not an issue for them is putting their heads in the sand," he said.

"Parents are at a loss. We need to rewrite the parenting handbook."

Mr Carr said sexting or posting pictures online can do lasting and irreversible damage to future chances of success.

"Children feel invincible online. They believe the material they are producing is private. But they are wrong on both counts.

"We've had documented accounts of employers, and universities and colleges, trawling the net looking for information about prospective candidates. "This behaviour can have longlasting effects. What goes online stays online - forever."

US SURVEY ON TEENS

39% post sex messages
48% say they get such messages

This article was first published in The New Paper.

Which will give the most bang for your buck?

Which will give the most bang for your buck?

Mar 21, 2009
The Straits Times, Digital Life

by Tan Chong Yaw

Compared to old-technology carbon zinc batteries, alkalines cost about 35 cents more per battery but they pack more power and store longer.

Which will give the most bang for your buck? Alkalines, the new-fangled lithium ones or the stalwart carbon zinc batteries?

DL did a shootout of five types of batteries (See table). These range from amazingly cheap carbon zinc PenesamiG batteries to the Panasonic Evolta - a super alkaline - and Energizer e2 lithium.

In the middle are the ones that line most supermarket shelves - alkalines like the Duracell and Energizer Max.

The batteries were bought from FairPrice supermarkets except the PenesamiGs, which were bought at Sheng Siong Supermarket.

A flashlight and camera were used to test the single-use AA batteries.

The flashlight has one light-emitting diode (LED) bulb and runs on a single AA battery. The time taken from the moment the flashlight was switched on until the light died was recorded.

The test camera was Canon's PowerShot SX1 which uses four AA batteries. With the LCD switched on and flash firing for every shot, the number of shots snapped until the camera shut down on its own was noted.

Clearly at the bottom was the PenesamiG - it could not even power up the camera and lasted a paltry three minutes in the flashlight.

In the camera test, the e2 tied with the Max in being cheapest to run on a cost per photo basis. However, the e2 lasts longer than four Max batteries.

The Max and Duracell, both alkalines, tied for being most economical to run in the flashlight test.

Alkalines are best-sellers because they offer a good performance-cost balance. Alkaline batteries make up about 70 per cent of FairPrice's battery sales, said Tng Ah Yiam, its integrated purchasing director.

Photo: ST, Ashleigh Sim

Watt's the difference? WE GIVE the lowdown on three kinds of batteries. Carbon zinc This grandfather of dry cell batteries first appeared on the market in 1887. The battery uses a zinc chloride and ammonium chloride electrolyte with a cathode of manganese dioxide and carbon, and a zinc anode. Great for low-drain devices like clocks, remote controls and radios. Price per battery: 5 to 55 cents Good: Cheapest and lightest at 12-15g Bad: Least powerful; shortest shelf life of three to five years Alkaline Alkaline batteries made their debut in 1959 using an alkaline electrolyte of potassium hydroxide - instead of the acidic one in the carbon zinc battery - upping the battery's power and shelf life. Price per battery: 85 to 95 cents Good: Shelf life of five to seven years; works at temperatures down to minus 18 deg C Bad: Heaviest at 24g Lithium This new kid on the block appeared in 1989. Not to be confused with rechargeable lithium-ion batteries although both use the same metal - lithium. These batteries have a lithium anode, iron disulphide on aluminium foil cathode and a lithium salt electrolyte. Lithium is so flexible, batteries can be built with almost 20 times more active area than alkalines. Lithium batteries have the longest shelf life and juice in powering tech devices like digital cameras. It can be used for any purpose - if you can afford it. Price per battery: $3.80 Good: Most powerful and lightest at 15g; shelf life of 10 to 15 years; operates in very low temperatures - down to minus 40 deg C. Bad: The price by Tan Chong Yaw

Dos and don'ts Abused batteries will leak or explode. Abuse includes: inserting them upside down in the device, peeling off the label - they act as the battery's insulation - and carrying them loose in your pocket where coins and keys may short circuit them. Put one close to extreme heat like a fire and it will explode. Batteries that continue to be drained after they are exhausted will leak. If you will not be using a device for some time, remove the batteries. Even when turned off, poorly designed devices will continue to drain the batteries. Do not mix battery types (use the same type from the same brand) or mix old batteries with new ones. The more powerful batteries may cause the lower capacity ones to fail prematurely, leading to shorter life or leakage. Store batteries in a cool place. An alkaline battery stored at 20 deg C has almost twice the shelf life - more than seven years - than one at 40deg C according to the 2008 edition of the Energizer Alkaline Handbook.

This article was first published in The Straits Times Digital Life.

10 cool things you can do with iLife

10 cool things you can do with iLife

Wed, Mar 18, 2009 AsiaOne

By Jasmine Osada

Apple's latest update to the iLife software suite, iLife '09, includes a number of improvements and new features.

Here's our guide to the 10 coolest things you can do with your music, photos and videos:

1. Sort your photos according to who's in them

With the new Faces feature in iPhoto, users can now teach the software to recognize the faces of individuals in their snapshots. After tagging several photos of the same person, Faces is intelligent enough to get a grasp of what Dad looks like so you don't have to manually sort all of your pictures. We found that iPhoto managed to snag the identities of most friends a d family right - and it even correctly told my first cousin apart from Andy Lau. Too bad for my cousin, whom everyone thinks has some resemblance to the Hong Kong star.

2. Hey, is this Josh, ten years ago?

Do you have old pictures of well, everyone? iPhoto's Faces feature surprised us in being able to identify pictures of people even as they age. We put some college photos of several people into iPhoto and then added pictures of them when they were in secondary school. iPhoto was able to recognize the correct faces for about three quarters of the pictures we had. So next time iPhoto tells you this old picture is actually your classmate Josh from ten years ago, take a closer look.

3. I want to play the guitar, can you teach me, Mac?

Remember the old days when we played educational CD-ROMs to help us with math and spelling? GarageBand's latest feature, Basic Lessons, features a number of kultz-proof, easy to understand videos to get you started on how to play a guitar or a piano. There are nine video lessons for each instrument, so hold back on those music classes first and give GarageBand a try - you might not only save money in the long run, but your 'music instructor' is available anytime of the day and never tires to show you how its done one more time.

4. Well, actually I would prefer Norah Jones teach me instead

Oh, so now we're getting a little picky about teachers aren't we? No matter. After all, who can better teach you how to play a song than the orginal artist who composed or performed it? iLife's GarageBand offers Artist Lessons, featuring big names such as Sting and Norah Jones. Want to play Roxanne the way Sting plays it? Learn from the guy himself.

5. We took this picture right in front of the Eiffel Tower

Face it, when we're on holiday, we take pictures. Lots of them. And the reason why we take pictures is to show that we've been to that place right? Now wouldn't it be nice if you can see all the places you've been to, and all the pictures you've taken there? iPhoto's Places feature can automatically detect location information for pictures taken on GPS-enabled cameras or the iPhone, and geo-tag them (yes, anywhere on Earth, literally). Don't have an iPhone or a GPS-enabled camera? You can geo-tag your images manually as well.

6. Okay, we actually snapped the picture at home

Have a piece of green cloth and a nice photo of the Eiffel Tower? You don't have to spend thousands going to France to find yourself and the Eiffel Tower in one photo or video. Simply record a video of yourself standing in front of the green cloth (or green screen as they call it). Fire up iMovie and fire up the green screen function. The software is smart enough to filter out the green background and superimpose your image onto any one that you choose. You can even superimpose your video onto that of another one, like say the Niagara Falls, to make things more convincing. Now you're travelling the world and making amazing travel videos, and you never even left home.

7. So I'm a movie director wannabe...

Unless you have been working all your life editing videos, chances are that you'll be like the rest of us when it comes to editing movies - we know what we want the video clip to look like, but have no idea how to get about it. iMovie's Precision Editor feature allows you to edit your videos almost any way you want it, without all that funky knowledge of how to use complicated software. We tried dragging and dropping clips, changing the background audio to music and adding in video effects. Easy.

8. My hands are shaky, and I filmed this video...

Unless you're a surgeon, chances are that you'll have shaky hands. And even if you are a surgeon, there's no chance the video camera won't suffer from Shaky Hand Syndrome if you're on a rickety bus. The Video Stabilization feature was surprisingly effective in our tests, and this is a good bet to restore your old video clips you had thought were ruined by shaky hands.

9. Right, so next time we're going where?

Both iPhoto and iMovie now offer a Travel Maps feature, great for those who travel, and take lots of pictures and videos on the go. Showing your travel route might only be for friends to easily understand your video now, but look at your photo book or travel video a few years later and you'll be thankful for Travel Maps. Like, ah, so we did indeed go to Kyoto instead of Kobe.

10. And now to put everything on Facebook!

Remember we were saying everyone takes pictures because they want to show that they've been to a certain place? Pictures alone aren't going to do much good unless you share them, and iPhoto allows you to do just that - on Facebook. The latest iPhoto '09 allows users to upload and share their pictures on the social networking site. If you've got geo-tagged shots, you can integrate them to the photo-sharing website, Flickr too.