Twitter at work with SpreadTweet

Make your Twitter client look like Microsoft Excel

If you work in a big corporate office and you crave Twitter salvation, but it's been banned by the small-minded IT department, then I've got the solution for you. Spreadtweet. It's an interface for Twitter that looks just like Microsoft Excel.

It comes in several flavours - OSX Office, Office 2003 and Office 2007, and it uses Adobe Air for the backend, but it's relatively speedy and fully operational as a Twitter client. The developer admits that it's "probably not" legal, so grab it while you can.

SpreadTweet (via @bryonyb)

Zune phone ad campaign coming?

It appears that Microsoft's getting ready to launch Zune for mobile phones around the same time.

According to AdWeek, Microsoft is currently staging a run-off between three advertising agencies--its longstanding advertising partner, McCann Erickson, Crispin Porter + Bogusky (which is overseeing the Windows brand campaign that's making lots of news), and JWT (which recently took over Microsoft's People Ready campaign)--for a product referred to as "Pink."

The article says only that Pink is a mobile service. But according to ZDNet's Mary Jo Foley and other sources, Pink is a code name for the Zune software and services running on mobile phones.

Microsoft is due to pick an agency for the campaign by the end of May, which could mean we'll start seeing ads for Zune on mobile phones by the middle of the summer.

Via: CNET

NYC cabbies could have cellphone use blocked while driving... but probably not

The Taxi and Limousine Commission of New York City (also known as the TLC) is considering some changes to the way that taxis and their drivers will operate in the future as part of its "Taxicab Passenger Enhancement Program." Among the wild ideas being floated is one that would "block" anyone in the front seat from using a cellphone -- most notably, of course -- the driver. Driving while using a handset is already illegal in New York, but this measure would apparently kill the ability to use a hands-free device as well. The TLC is trying to have an open discussion with New Yorkers on its website about other possible ways to make taxi rides more... enjoyable "in the future." We're betting this one will never happen but hey -- you never know. Our suggestion? Stop acting like we asked you to cart us to the gates of hell when we tell you we need to go to Brooklyn.

Via: WCBS

Twitter Fight! Larry King To Kutcher: CNN Will Bury You

“Do you know how big we are? Do you know what CNN is?!” Them fightin’ words — from longtime CNN host Larry King to Ashton Kutcher. King sent out the YouTube video (below) responding to the challenge Kutcher laid out yesterday to beat CNN to become the first Twitter user with a million followers.

So far, it’s not working all that well for Kutcher. He is gaining followers at a remarkable rate — he now has over 870,000 followers — yesterday he had under 850,000. But CNN is gaining them just as quickly. Yesterday they stood just above 900,000 and now they’re just under 930,000. So Kutcher has stepped up his game slightly, offering Guitar Hero to the person who is his millionth follower. Come on Ashton, you can do better than that.

King, meanwhile, promises to take on any challenge Kutcher throws his way. He notes, “I’ll go on your…Twitter — or whatever it is you do.” But he corrects Kutcher that Ted Turner (the subject of Kutcher’s throw down yesterday) doesn’t actually run CNN anymore. But, he notes that Turner is likely to accept an offer to meet Kutcher face to face on Larry King’s show to discuss the feud.

So what does everyone think — has Twitter officially jumped the shark now? Larry King is offering to devote a show to a fake race to a million followers — a good majority of which are probably spammers or fake accounts — on a service that sends 140 character messages. It’s nice to see all these big time names using the same services we all use, but come on guys, surely there’s some real news going on out there (which I fully expect will be echoed about us in the comments of this post — beat you to it!).

More/Video at: Tech Crunch

Ashton Kutcher Promises To Punk Ted Turner If He Beats CNN To A Million Twitter Followers

Apparently, actor Ashton Kutcher woke up today and realized he has a whole hell of a lot of Twitter followers. How many? Just shy of 850,000 now. Even more impressive to him though is that he’s near the number of Twitter followers that the No. 1 Twitter “user” CNN has (just over 900,000).

So Kutcher is throwing down the gauntlet. In a video released on YouTube today (embedded below), he’s promising to “ding dong ditch” billionaire Ted Tuner (founder of CNN) if he beats CNN to a million Twitter followers. What is a ding dong ditch you may ask? Well, it’s when you go up to a person’s house, ring their doorbell, them run away and watch as they look around to see who’s there. Yes, it’s kind of a wussy version of stuff they used to do on Kutcher’s hit MTV show “Punk’d.”

In releasing this to the Internet and tweeting it out, it’s pretty clear that Kutcher wants to be the first Twitter user with a million followers. That should be enough to put him over the top, but he may need a little more help as singer Britney Spears also remains ahead of him (though slightly with just over 870,000 followers).

Via: Tech Crunch

It’s Official: Twitter Is More Popular Than Britney

Not a day goes by without hundreds of mentions of Twitter on blogs and TV (we’re as guilty as anyone), which naturally leads those still puzzled by the service or simply curious to learn more to search for it in Google. Those searches have been growing at a faster rate than even the service itself. In fact, the term “Twitter” seems to be one of the fastest growing search terms of all these days.

How popular is it? More popular than “britney.” Twitter surpassed “Britney” a few months ago, and has even caught up to “Obama” (actually it is slightly ahead right now), according to Google Trends. That is remarkable, given that Britney was one of the most searched for words of all last year. Still, maybe the switch says more about her than about Twitter. (Obama’s popularity as a search term has come down to more reasonable levels after huge spikes last November and during the inauguration).

Via: Tech Crunch

UK Motorists Using Twitter While Driving

­The increasing functionality of mobile phone technology and growing addiction to social networking sites such as Twitter and Facebook are driving motorists to distraction now more than ever before, with motorists openly admitting to breaking the law by 'tweeting' whilst driving.

According to research from UK based car insurance company, esure, nearly one in ten (nine per cent) motorists questioned are using mobile internet services and social networks whilst driving - to tweet, text and update their Facebook profiles.

Analysis of Twitter from esure found that an average of 52 motorists per day are even flaunting their dangerous use of social media behind the wheel with one person even stating, "(I'm) driving with my knees and peeling an orange…Probably not the safest thing to be doing." The use of any mobile internet services and social networks whilst driving can have potentially fatal consequences as drivers are distracted from the road ahead.

A selection of driving 'Tweets' from the past week:

1. Tweet - "Driving with my knees and peeling an orange…Probably not the safest thing to be doing."
2. Tweet - "Driving school bus"
3. Tweet - "Irresponsible twitter driving woo!"
4. Tweet - "Driving up to Newcastle while we Tweet!"
5. Tweet - "Driving home in the rain…almost crashed!"
6. Tweet - "Trying my best to stay awake while driving"
7. Tweet - "Awake, hungover, and driving"
8. Tweet - "Is it wise to use Twitter while driving? Probably not"
9. Tweet - "Intoxicated driving. Let's hope this works out"
10. Tweet - "Twittering and driving…" (too many examples to be sure which was used!)

Whilst the research shows 92 per cent of UK motorists know it is illegal to use their hand-held phone while driving, 45 per cent of motorists openly admit to breaking the law by texting and making calls while driving and, with tens of thousands of mobile phone applications widely available, it seems that motorists are finding it increasingly difficult to resist the urge to reach for their mobile devices whilst driving.

More Here: Cellular News

McAfee blames spam for global warming

If annoying users and wasting their time wasn't bad enough, spam emails are also responsible for clogging our atmosphere with carbon dioxide, a gas that shoulders much of the blame for global warming, according to a report commissioned by antivirus vendor McAfee.

"When you look at it from an individual user perspective you're only talking about 0.3 grams of carbon dioxide per spam message," said Dave Marcus, director of security research and communications at McAfee’s Avert Labs. "When you extrapolate the math out to the larger numbers, it definitely is significant."

The McAfee report, which was written by consulting company ICF International, said the estimated 62 trillion spam emails that get sent each year consume 33 billion kilowatt hours of electricity, enough to power 2.4 million homes. In addition, spam email releases as much carbon dioxide into the atmosphere as 3.1 million cars consuming 2 billion gallons of gasoline.

Spam has long been a target of antivirus vendors but McAfee wanted to reframe discussions of the problem in environmental terms, rather than the annoyance that spam causes users or its links to malware and cybercrime.

"This really gives people a different way of looking at it. Aside from the nuisance factor, it actually has a quantifiable impact on the environment," he said.

More Here: PC World India

Windows XP Support Ends Today

Microsoft will drop Windows XP out of mainstream support today, with the ageing OS moving into extended support as previously announced. Microsoft's mainstream support, which is usually offered for only five years, actually ran for seven-and-a-half years because of Windows Vista's long delay. Two years ago, Microsoft also extended mainstream support for XP Home and XP Media Center until 2009, and the deadline for the follow-up phase, dubbed 'extended support', until 2014, to match the dates that had been set earlier for the business-grade XP Professional. According to Microsoft, the transition from mainstream to extended support for Windows XP means that it will only provide paid support - on a per-incident basis, or through its various pre-paid support programmes - and will only offer non-security hotfixes for a fee, and then only to customers who have purchased the Extended Hotfix Support plan. Microsoft will continue to generate free security updates for Windows XP, and release them via Windows Update, until April 8, 2014. Windows XP's shift into the first phase of support retirement comes at a time when the operating system remains extraordinarily popular, especially among business users. According to a recent survey by Dimensional Research, 97 percent of the more than 1,100 IT professionals surveyed said that their companies and organisations are still running XP. The move out of mainstream and into extended support also comes just days after a leaked Microsoft memorandum spelled out a relaxation of the rules for computer makers that want to continue selling new PCs with the aged OS. OEMs will be allowed to advertise new systems as XP PCs, something that hasn't been allowed since June 2008, and can 'downgrade' a licence for Windows 7 - the operating system that hasn't yet been released - to XP for at least six months after the former's launch. A Microsoft spokeswoman said that support for XP on a new machine is provided by the computer maker, not Microsoft. "Customers who purchased Windows XP pre-installed on their machines will receive support from their Original Equipment Manufacturer (OEM) per the OEM support policy at time of purchase," she said.

Via: PC World India

Conficker's Back and Attacking More PCs

Security researchers say the Conficker worm has been reprogrammed to strengthen its defences while also trying to attack more machines.

Conficker, which takes advantage of a vulnerability in Microsoft's software, has infected at least 3 million PCs and possibly as many as 12 million, making it into a huge botnet and one of the most severe computer security problems in recent years.

Botnets can be used to send spam and attack other websites, but they need to be able to receive new instructions. Conficker can do this two ways: it can either try to visit a website and pick up instructions or it can receive a file over its custom-built encrypted P2P (peer-to-peer) network.

Over the last day or so, researchers with Websense and Trend Micro said some PCs infected with Conficker received a binary file over P2P. Conficker's controllers have been hampered by efforts of the security community to get directions via a website, so they are now using the P2P function, said Rik Ferguson, senior security advisor for the vendor Trend Micro.

The new binary tells Conficker to start scanning for other computers that haven't patched the Microsoft vulnerability, Ferguson said. A previous update turned that capability off, which hinted that Conficker's controllers maybe thought the botnet had grown too large.

But now, "it certainly indicates they [Conficker's authors] are seeking to control more machines", Ferguson said.

The new update also tells Conficker to contact MySpace.com, MSN.com, Ebay.com, CNN.com and AOL.com apparently to confirm that the infected machine is connected to the internet, Ferguson said. It also blocks infected PCs from visiting some websites. Previous Conficker versions wouldn't let people browse to the websites of security companies.

In another twist, the binary appears to be programmed to stop running on May 3, which will shut off the new functions, he said.


More Here: PC World India

Twitter traffic up 700%, boosted by older users

Worldwide visitors to Twitter approached 10 million in February, up a massive 700% compared with a year ago, according to new data.

The research, from comScore, follows a blog post from Reuters reporter Alexei Oreskovic that indicates that it is the 25-54 year old crowd that is actually driving this trend, rather than younger users that are traditionally associated with social media audiences.

The past two months alone have seen worldwide visitors climb more than 5 million visitors, according to comSCore.

US traffic growth has been just as dramatic, with Twitter reaching 4 million visitors in February, up more than 1,000% from a year ago.

More Here: http://netimperative.com/news/2009/april/twitter-traffic-up-700-boosted-by-older-users/view

Apple begins countdown to 1 billion iPhone apps downloaded

The countdown has begun. Apple posted a Web page on Friday counting down (or actually counting up) to the one billion app downloaded milestone on the App Store.

That's a significant goal for a couple of reasons. First, you have to be amazed that people have downloaded one billionapplications for the iPhone and iPod touch. Second, you can win some cool stuff if you download an app between now and the time that Apple reaches the one billion mark.

All you need to do to enter the contest is go to the App Store and download an app. You are automatically entered to win a $10,000 iTunes Gift Card, an iPod touch, a Time Capsule and a MacBook Pro. You can enter up to 25 times per day, according to the contest rules. You can also enter the contest without a download.

In addition to the one billionth app countdown, Apple posted alist of the top 20 paid and free apps of all time on the App Store. The top paid app is Vivendi Games $5.99 Crash Bandicoot Nitro Kart 3D and the top free app is Facebook.

Apple's counter currently reads 927, 700, 795 apps download and it's moving fast.

Via: Ixplora

Best uncommon uses for iPhone 3G

More Here: Ixplora

Twitter hit by StalkDaily worm

Twitter has been hit by spam attacks before, but not like this. The latest threat to everyone’s favourite microblogging service is StalkDaily. If that word looks familiar to you, chances are it’s already too late. If not, there’s still time to safeguard yourself. Read on for all the warnings, and how to keep yourself safe.
StalkDaily is a website designed to infect computers that visit it. For that reason, we can’t advise strongly enough against Googling it or guessing at the URL. Unfortunately, it’s now turned against Twitter users, with accounts hijacked by the malevolent worm sending masses of tweets to ask followers to visit a link. Yep, you guessed it, that link points directly to the StalkDaily site.
Worse still, the StalkDaily worm appears to be altering the Twitter biographies of infected accounts to insert its own link and, according to some blogs, even visiting the profile page of an infected twitter account could compromise your computer.
Twitter’s own spam account is already warning Twitter users not to link directly to the StalkDaily site.
To stay on the safe side it’s best to avoid any suspicious looking links from pals on your Twitter follow list, even those that have been shortened, and for extra security use a third party Twitter application, rather than visiting profile pages directly. We recommend TweetDeck or Twhirl.

Via: ElectricPig

Bluetooth 3.0 to be Announced This Month

The Bluetooth Special Interest Group is set to announce the Bluetooth 3.0 specification later this month. Bluetooth 3.0 will feature dramatically increased speeds, allowing for the transfer of large video files, music collections and photo libraries wirelessly ‘within seconds’. The spec also includes a new ability called Enhanced Power Control. EPC will reduce the occurrence of disconnects that can be caused by actions such as putting a phone in a pocket, backpack, briefcase or purse. Bluetooth 3.0 uses Generic Alternate MAC/PHY (AMP).

This is what lets Bluetooth profiles operate at Wi-Fi speeds. The 802.11 Protocol Adaption Layer (PAL) will enable the Generic AMP feature to be used with an 802.11 radio. Bluetooth is used to create the pairing between two devices, but the data transfer itself is handed off to Wi-Fi. In order to take advantage of the higher transfer speeds, both devices need Bluetooth and Wi-Fi. If Wi-Fi isn’t present on one of the devices, the spec reverts to Bluetooth for data transfer. More details will be available, including a list of chip makers that are lined up to support the new spec, on April 21.

TVWeb 360 - Free internet Television

TVWeb 360 lets you watch television from around the world for free. The site features over 1000 channels from 45 countries and in 16 languages, all nicely categorised by genre for easy viewing. Hint: the full screen button doesn’t seem to work, try double clicking on the video itself. It looks as though it’s just a front end to other services, but interesting nonetheless. www.tvweb360.com

No use for Indian Broadband users, Broadband here SUCKS!

More Here

Giant DSi created with 51,324 LEGO pieces

Sean Kenney, apparently some sort of LEGO artist was commissioned to construct this massive LEGO Nintendo DSi. The entire beast weighs over 250 lbs and comprised of 51,324 LEGO blocks. To bad the screens aren’t working touchscreens. The Rockefeller Center’s Nintendo World Store in the U.S has it on display through April

Calif woman gets 6 years for fatal texting crash

A woman who crashed into a line of stopped vehicles while text-messaging on her phone has been sentenced to six years in a California prison for killing a woman in one of the vehicles.Deborah Matis-Engle was sentenced Friday by a judge in Redding, Calif.

More Here

If Women were Browsers! (Glad i use FireFox)

World’s first Real 4G demonstration

In Madrid today, Telefónica gave a demonstration of how real services work on a 4th generation mobile network using LTE (long term evolution) technology. This is the first time that an LTE prototype network has been connected to the real network (3G & 2G), an indication that applications could be just around the corner.

This first demo included a VOIP call and a video call using the LTE mini-network installed at the HQ for this purpose by Ericsson, a video conference and data & image download with speeds well over 140Mbps: ten times faster than the current speed offered by the 3G network over HSPA technology.

More here: ixplora

First Post, not techy though!

a warm hello to my blog readers!

well let's get one thing straight, i am not a writer and never want to be one!

i started blogging in Dec 2006, my first blog is/was on Windows Mobile

which is on Windows Mobile, which is pretty much dead now as i don't update it anymore, well not yet though i am a nerd!

started this blog to post the latest tech news!

more to come,

stick on!