Can the iPhone be everything to everyone?

Attention all technology companies: you have three months to get your act together. Start pedaling now because in June Apple may steal your business. Why all tech companies? Because Apple's software development kit (SDK) announcement revealed the real scope of the company's ambition for the iPhone. Not since Dr. Bronner's Magic Soap (it's shampoo! Laundry detergent! Mouthwash! Massage oil! Dishwashing liquid!) has one product tried to be so many things to so many people.

The iPhone threatens to replace the BlackBerry for corporate users, the PSP for portable gaming and entertainment lovers, and the SideKick for tween IM freaks. With its accelerometer-friendly games, it's taking on the Nintendo Wii. With its pill-identification application it's even trying to sneak its way into your doctor's white coat pocket. The new iPhone software flexibility will turn the iPhone from an impressive product to a great one. Click Continue to read more about what the iPhone SDK announcement means for you, whoever you are.

Cracking the CrackBerry

When I learned that Apple was probably going to announce push e-mail today for the iPhone, I was a little worried. Push e-mail is what makes the BlackBerry so popular among businesses: it's the "crack" in CrackBerry. And it doesn't just mean that you'll get e-mail immediately without having to hit "reload." The new software also allows your company to delete all of your e-mail at any time. Sure, it's a useful feature in case of theft, and it probably won't affect non-corporate phone owners. But for those users it's a constant reminder of their creepy corporate overlords. I worried that the iPhone would lose its "cool" and become just another tool for corporate drones — the crystal meth to BlackBerry's "crack" image.

I shouldn't have bothered worrying that the iPhone would become just another BlackBerry or Treo, however. The enterprise aspect of the announcement turned out only to be a small part of Apple's master plan. By the time Jobs and Co. finished talking about Spore, Sega and AIM, the corporate mumbo-jumbo was long forgotten. The announcements were so awesome-looking that it's easy to forget that the phone is already an MP3 and video player and Web browser. Also, it's a phone.

Complaints, Complaints

Of course not everybody's going to be perfectly pleased. Apple will not be allowing users to develop and distribute SIM unlock software, so some users will still be taking their phones off the grid, voiding their warranty and enraging AT&T as they go.

And the iPhone's browser still won't be Flash-friendly, leaving users no way to access awesome websites like this one and, well, this one (at least parts of it).

Some will complain that all these new applications will be available only through the iTunes store. I've criticized Apple many times and am frequently called an Apple hater on this site. Not this time. It makes sense that Apple does business through its store. It's one of the company's safeguards against anyone creating damaging apps, and it's not some unexpected surprise. If iTunes really bothers you, you should have a Windows Mobile-based phone. Nobody was expecting Apple to change its entire business model today just because customers had been unlocking its phone.

Finally, there will be some grumbling that consumers won't actually get to use any of the new software until June. They'll only be grumbling until June.

Winners and Losers

I predict that in June we'll see an amazing array of programming for the iPhone, much of it free. I believe these programs will go a long way towards convincing people not to hack their iPhones. Those hacks will become niche operations run by die-hards whom Apple never had a shot at convincing in the first place.

Is Apple attacking too many markets at once? Besides the doctors, lawyers, gamers, casual gamers, movie watchers, businessmen, and teenagers, the company is going to institute parental controls so that you can give an iPhone to your toddler. Can it be successful in all these areas? Is the company, and by extension the iPhone, spreading itself too thin? I don't see it that way: all of the individual programs look too strong. The iPhone is an expensive product, so I don't expect the change to happen all at once. But slowly, steadily, Apple is going to consume the cellphone and PDA markets, even as it begins to gnaw its way into other areas like the portable-gaming sphere. Other tech companies are going to feel it, unless they come up with some pretty amazing products, stat.

Windows passwords easily bypassed over Firewire

All of the sudden we're starting to see more and more attacks take advantage of what's stored on your computer's RAM -- the latest, from New Zealand's Adam Boileau, allows an attacker to unlock Windows passwords in a just a few seconds using a Linux machine connected over Firewire. Unlike those disk encryption attacks we saw that required a reboot, Boileu's attack works while the target computer is running, tricking Windows into allowing full write access to RAM and then corrupting the password protection code. That's a little scary -- but other researchers say that it's not a traditional vulnerability, since direct memory access is a feature of Firewire. Still, we're sealing up all of our ports with Silly Putty starting today, that ought to stop 'em.

Anonymize BitTorrent Transfers with BTGuard

BTGuard is an easy to use proxy service that adds an extra layer of privacy to your BitTorrent transfers. The service is designed for BitTorrent users who don’t want their ISPs or any third party to log or throttle their IPs or traffic.

BTGuard reroutes all your BitTorrent traffic through their servers in Canada. This means that anyone who connects to you via BitTorrent, even the MPAA or RIAA, will see BTGuard’s IP, and not yours.

BTGuard does not have any bandwidth or volume restrictions, and while we briefly tested the service (from Europe), the speeds were almost equal to an unsecured connection. Setting it up is fairly easy, the only thing you need to do is enter the username and password provided by BTGuard, and you’re ready to go. Please note that this is only a proxy service, so the traffic between the user and the server is not encrypted, which means that ISPs can (potentially) still monitor it.

TorrentFreak asked one of the founders of the project why they launched the service, he told us: “More and more, people find their privacy being invaded on the Internet and we find it to be a very disturbing, unethical trend. There are some countries that still actively protect privacy, one of which is Canada.”

The BTGuard team decided to setup in Canada not only for privacy protection, but also its close network proximity to the US. “The US is experiencing a privacy invasion epidemic more so than most. ISPs are issuing disconnection notices with little regard for privacy or the accuracy of those who notified them.”

“Companies like MediaSentry collect IP addresses on P2P protocols like BitTorrent; right holders then send the IPs to your ISP. However, MediaSentry systems and techniques have no governments’ authority and are certified by no one and many institutions have received false claims. Companies like this should not be allowed to go around and make or break your Internet connection. These days, some people’s lives depend on it. This is where BTGuard comes in. The only IP companies such as MediaSentry will see is ours.”

BTGuard works differently then some other similar services like VPNOut or Smarthide. Most notably it does not VPN your entire Internet connection. You simply configure your BitTorrent client to route through their servers, so it will only effect your BitTorrent downloads. BTGuard says it has received reports that it effectively bypasses throttling but at this point they cannot confirm that it works in all cases (please let us know in the comments if it does).

BtGuard offers a free trial, and they welcome people to try it, so you can see if it’s works for you. After the trial it costs 4.75 Euro per month which is cheaper than most other services, and a small price to pay for privacy.

A Facebook Application To Find Blood Donors Fast

About 43,000 pints of blood are donated each day by Canadians and Americans, which help the 4.5 million patients who need that blood transfusions every year. Total donations aren’t adequate to satisfy demand, though, and shortages occur regularly.

When a patient is in need of blood that isn’t available, it becomes a life and death situation. Historically the Red Cross will make efforts to alert the public during a shortage. But there may be a better way - leverage the social networks to get the word out. If shortages of a certain type of blood occur in a certain zip code, having a database of willing donors in that zip code to contact may be the most efficient way to solve the problem quickly.

That’s where Takes All Types (TAT), a non-profit organization, comes in. Users install their just-released Facebook application, tell it their location and blood type, and say how often they are willing to be contacted to donate blood (maximum is every 57 days). If a shortage occurs, they’ll contact you via the methods that you authorize (Facebook, email, text message, etc.)

9 Practical Ways to Enhance your Web Development Using the Firefox Web Developer Extension

Whether you’re a front-end graphics designer or a back-end web programmer, if you’ve worked long enough in the field of creating web-based solutions, you’ve no doubt heard about an extension for the Mozilla Firefox web browser called (simply enough) the Web Developer extension. If you have no clue what I’m talking about, here’s a brief overview from Webs Tips to get you familiarized with this wonderful tool.

This article lists some practical, everyday uses of the Web Developer extension to help improve your web-building methods. I’ve tried to stay away from the more common and basic uses of the Web Developer extension like
troubleshooting layout issues with the

Information > Display Div Order option because I feel these have been discussed quite enough in other places. New users, don’t run away quite yet, I think this guide will help you get a rapid jump start into applying this tool into your daily development routine.

So without further ado, here’s nine highly pragmatic uses of the Web Developer extension for Firefox.

1) Change XHTML on-the-fly without changing your web files.

Unfortunately for many developers, we don’t all have the luxury of testing servers and sandbox environments. I for one, confess to developing on live websites even during peak web traffic times.

If you’d like to lessen customer support requests due to an inadvertent display:none; property assignment on the log-in box — use the Web Developer extension to effortlessly check your XHTML modifications before you commit them to the server.

Here’s an (extreme) example of how I was able to change a few of reddit’s XHTML markup.

The original front page:

And here’s the modified version:

You can achieve the same results by using the Miscellaneous > Edit HTML Markup option which will open up the Edit HTML tab panel displaying the XHTML of the web page. Unfortunately, the window isn’t color-coded and the Search HTML function doesn’t quite work properly (yet).

As you can see in the above picture, I changed the top three stories (to something else I’d much read about) and modified the background color to pink (I have an odd affection towards hot pink for some reason).

Tip: You can change the position of the Edit HTML panel by clicking on the Position icon (right next to the Edit HTML tab on the above screenshot).

To change the CSS styles of the page, use the CSS > Edit CSS option, which will allow you to edit the styles used on the web page.

2) Measure things quickly with the Ruler Tool.

Raise your hand if you’ve ever print-screen’ed, and then copy-&-paste’d the screenshot onto Photoshop just to determine dimensions of certain page objects (like the width of an image) with the selection tool. *Raises hand in shame*

With the Ruler Tool (enable it via Miscellaneous > Display Ruler Tool), you can speedily size-up objects inside the web browser. It’s a great tool in conjunction with outline options such as Information > Display Div Order option or Information > Display Block Size option, allowing you to detect the amount of padding and margin between elements.

Samsung WriteMaster SH-S223 - The Industry’s Fastest DVD Burner

The global leader in semiconductor, telecommunication, digital media and digital convergence technologies, Samsung has announced its new Super-WriteMaster SH-S223, which the company claims as the industry’s fastest DVD burner, offering a powerful over-speed performance feature enabling users to burn data at high speeds even on low-speed media (22X speeds on 16X media and 12X speeds on 8X media).

In addition, the WriteMaster SH-S223 is able to burn at 22x speed to DVD±R media, 12x to DVD-RAM, 16x to DVD+R dual layer, 12x DVD-R dual layer, 8x DVD+RW and 6x DVD-RW. At those speed, a full 4.7GB DVD±R disc can be burned in approximately 4 minutes and 26 seconds, and takes less than 12 minutes to burn 4.7GB in DVD-RAM format.

Features Of Samsung WriteMaster SH-S223 DVD Burner:

• Speed Adjustment Technology


• Tilt Actuator Compensation


• Double Optimum Power Control



• Magic Speed


• Buffer Under Run Free Technology


• Automatic Ball Balancing System

“Samsung is very proud to be the first company to launch the 22X DVD-W in our region. The new SH-S223 drive has outstanding specs and performance that makes consumers’ digital life much easier,” said Raj Samuel, Sales and Marketing Manager, Storage division, Samsung Gulf Electronics.

NEW SAMSUNGSPINPOINT M6 - WORLD’s FIRST 500GB 2.5-Inch MOBILE HARD DISK

The worldwide leader in digital consumer electronics and information technology, Samsung has announced its new Spinpoint M6, which the company claims as the world’s first 500GB (half-terabyte) 2.5-inch mobile hard drive, consisting of 3 167GB platters that measures only 9.5mm in height.

“Our customers require more and more notebook storage for their data, video and music files”, said Andy Higginbotham, director of hard drive sales and marketing, Samsung Semiconductor. “Our Spinpoint M6 easily fits within notebook PCs with no modification to the notebook PC chassis, giving users more storage power than ever before.”

The Samsung Spinpoint M6 is targeted to meet the growing storage needs of today’s laptop computers as well as slim form factor PCs and high density mobile applications.

According to the company, “The Spinpoint M6 500GB hard drive features a 5400rpm spindle speed, a 8MB cache, and 3.0Gbps SATA interface with a Free-Fall-Sensor available as an optional feature. Perpendicular Magnetic Recording technology enables the 500GB drive to store 160,000 digital images, 125 hours of DVD movies, or 60 hours of high definition video images. The drive also features Samsung’s Flying-on-Demand head technology that improves recording stability over changing temperature ranges.”