It all starts when Springfield Mall gets a new Mapple store, shaped like a giant cube. “It’s so sterile”, is the first thing Lisa excitedly says upon entering. She goes from display to display looking at the MiPods and MiPhones.

Steve Mobs’, the self-proclaimed “insanely great leader”, makes a live announcement from the Mapple headquarters deep below the sea. Some geeky spectators comment, “he’s a genius” and “he’s like a god who knows what we want” before Mobs even says anything.

Mobs’ says he has something that will “completely change the way you look at everything”. Everyone in the audience now has cash in hand waiting to buy whatever it he says.

Of course, Bart sees this as an opportune moment to hook up a microphone and dub over the lisping Mobs’. “You think you’re cool because you buy a $500 phone with a picture of a fruit on it. Well guess what? They cost 8 bucks to make and I pee on every one!” The hilarity doesn’t stop there, as Bart continues, “I have made of fortune off you chumps and I’ve invested it all in Microsoft. Now my boyfriend Bill Gates and I kiss each other on a pile of your money!”

People are offended and outraged, one employee states “Who dares question the boss we fired 10 years ago and the brought back!” Comic Book Guy is so offended he does his best to recreate the classic 1984 Macintosh commercial (you can see it below), by throwing a sledge hammer which breaks the giant screen.

After getting her Mapple bill in the mail, Lisa travels to Mapple headquarters under the sea in a USB thumbdrive (I’m not making this stuff up). She finds the vein Mobs searching his own name, he geekily rejoices the findings. She’s there to discuss setting up a reduced payment plan for her $1,200 MiPod bill. Mobs then fill Lisa in on the true Mapple slogan “I know our posters say Think Differently, but our real slogan is No Refunds”.

I’m not sure if Steve Jobs did something to piss Matt Groening off, but I’ll be the first to admit… it was very funny. If anyone is interested in viewing the full episode you can check out Hulu (US Only) or MegaVideo.

The company says it will provide comprehensive protection from malware including viruses, spyware, rootkits and trojans, and it will be free of charge, and architected for a smaller footprint that will use fewer computing resources, making it ideal for low-bandwidth scenarios or less powerful PCs.

Coinciding with this, Microsoft will stop offering Windows Live OneCare subscriptions on June 30.

“Customers around the world have told us that they need comprehensive, ongoing protection from new and existing threats, and we take that concern seriously,” said Amy Barzdukas, senior director of product management for the Online Services and Windows Division at Microsoft. “This new, no-cost offering will give us the ability to protect an even greater number of consumers, especially in markets where the growth of new PC purchases is outpaced only by the growth of malware.”

Morrow is built on Microsoft’s current malware protection engine, and will contain all of the protection services offered with the company’s enterprise products, but will not include the non-security features they have. Microsoft says that Morrow will provide all of the necessary protection without overusing system resources.

“Because uptake of standard anti-malware is low around the world, particularly in developing nations, the availability of basic protection for anyone who wants it is all the more important,” said Roger Kay, founder and president of Endpoint Technologies Associates. “By offering such basic protection at no charge to the consumer, Microsoft is promoting a safer environment for PCs, service providers and e-commerce itself, since it is through unprotected PCs that the worst threats are introduced to the system as a whole.”

The product will be available for download for XP, Vista, and Windows 7. Meanwhile, OneCare will continue to be sold for XP and Vista up until the date mentioned.

Mail Online has an in-depth look at “Jules,” the human-looking robot head, which can mimic real human facial expressions. And in real time no less.

Mail Online reports:

Jules mimics the expressions by converting the video image into digital commands that make the robot’s servos and motors produce mirrored movements.

And it all happens in real time as the robot can interpret the commands at 25 frames per second.

You can see plenty of images of Jules at that site, but you can also see Jules in action in the video embedded below.

Creepy, exciting stuff. For a look at fictional Terminator news, read my thoughts on the upcoming sequel.

For many, that means its time to start thinking about Christmas trees, and appropriate trimmings. Gizmodo is pointing today to a pretty cool Digital Picture Christmas Ornament, which is only $15.50 at Chinavasion.com.

It’s about time Christmas ornaments got a little more hi-tech.

Features as listed at the site:

- 8 MB Christmas Ball digital picture frame for the holiday. Other memory sizes are also available.

- Fashionable holiday ornament for Christmas Trees or the desktop.

- Includes and additional clock function

I’ll tell you what I’d really like to see, is an mp3 player ornament or at least an iHome-style one. Wouldn’t it be great to be able to have the beautiful rendition of Jingle Bell Rock as performed by Hall & Oates coming right out of your tree? Or Max Headroom’s Merry Christmas, Santa Claus?

A video version would be even better.

Wait a second. You already knew all of that? No, it’s not exactly breaking news, but the potential for disaster created by all of this is often overlooked. The issue is that bandwidth is not unlimited and all of the above use it up by the boatload. InfoWorld has a fascinating five-page article about this, citing conflicting prophecies from different analysts. Some believe broadband prices will skyrocket or more caps will be implemented.

Some believe bandwidth will become a utility and providers will charge by use like water or electricity, which would presumably cut down on wasting. I can see the RIAA having interest in this, if only for that it would likely reduce illegal downloads by a substantial margin. People would at least be forced to be more selective in what they downloaded, because they would no longer be getting the goods for free.

Sites like Hulu, YouTube, Netflix, etc. would have a huge fork thrown in their spokes if such a thing were to occur. You’d see a sudden drop in the viewing of streaming video, a business that is just starting to get into full swing (YouTube is finally being monetized).

It’s interesting to note that Wall Street might be part of the problem too. Broadband providers want to “open the pipe” as InfoWorld puts it:

But such large investments have been slow in coming, mainly because Wall Street dislikes them. Every dollar on capital improvements reduces carriers’ profits, and investors tend to punish capital investments by reducing carriers’ stock prices, notes the Free Press’s Turner. Because most broadband providers have little or no competition, he says, the Wall Street pressure usually prevails.

“It’s unrealistic to have all entertainment be delivered digitally [over the Internet],” says a Gartner analyst. “You would need fiber to the home [everywhere] to be able to have unlimited capacity.”

Isn’t that what the Matrix is for?

You should really read the InfoWorld article to get the whole picture. There are more sides to this story than I care to get into here. Like I said. It’s a five-pager.

Here’s an in-store tip. Shop around! How often have you heard that before? Seriously. Have in mind what you want, go to some place that they know their stuff, learn more about it, check out their prices, then go to a couple more places. Once you’ve found that same item in another store at a lower price, record it, and if you’d rather not get it at that store, go back to that first one and see if they will lower their price for you. Sometimes they may mark down some of your other items just so you’ll shop there with them. A sale is better than no sale to some places. Not all places will do it, but it’s worth a shot. The worst they can say is “No” after all, and then they lose your business as you walk out the door. Yes, it takes more time than just going to one place to get everything, but believe it or not, some places are less expensive than others! And we’re not just talking about a box of cereal.

Do not forget to shop online–there are some fantastic deals there as well! Some stores may have a good price in the store, but check their website also, because sometimes they have “Online Only” specials on their merchandise. Some internet-based stores are excellent places to go for your holiday shopping needs, like Amazon.com or if you like to take chances, try Craigslist.org or eBay.com.

Hope something in here sparks an interest in your holiday shopping needs. Maybe some of the best deals are happening right now AND during the intense holiday season? I do know one thing: if you get on it now, it’s better than the hassle of the shoppers traffic, and headaches, just to find out they are sold out of something.

The art of hacking in a technological world is generally a negative thing. To hack into something, usually means a breach in security and some form of data altered. However, hacking, and being particularly skilled at it, can pay off – if the skills are used appropriately.

Shane Kelly, age 16, became the world’s youngest person to pass the Certified Ethical Hacker course. Because of his dedication and precision, there are some big people very interested in utilizing his mad skills.

Hacks can be used for good! Programming something to “hack” into a problem you’re encountering, like with say your website development or network. Hacking can be viewed as a positive thing, and quite frankly, the biggest networks and programs are developed by hackers. You have to know how to get into it to be able to prevent access to it, right?

Now, by no means am I saying that it is okay to hack into someone else’s property, or copyrighted works like programs and applications, but hacking should not always be viewed as illegal. Take those skills and go work for someone who can really benefit from them. Internet companies, software companies, police departments. Fight crime! Slip into your bat-suit and get involved in the criminal investigation sector of a police department. After all, they are likely to more fully utilize your hacking super-powers (and you’d get paid for it).

There’s one easy command you can type to get you this info, and more.

Let’s say you have SSH installed and you want to know all about it.  Type:

sudo apt-cache showpkg ssh | less

You should see a whole bunch of info, starting with the version of SSH you’re currently running and ending with dependancies.

Technorati Tags: linux, ubuntu, package info, how to, howto, version, dependencies

Recently I had to help out a friend who, for various reasons had two Outlook Express identities on his XP machine.  He had recently changed the password to his ‘important’ identity and couldn’t for the life of him remember what it was.

No password, no access, no important emails.  That’s when I got called.

A quick search showed tons and tons of applications available for recovering OE Identity passwords - they ranged from $19.95 to $49.95.  I knew there had to be a way to get the email back for him without having to shell out money and guess what?  There is.  I had a bit of a search to find this stuff so I thought I’d write it up and share with the world.

Two notes before we start.  First, click the images to make them bigger and easier to read. Second, yes I know that OE is an older mail client and yes I’m sure there are better mail solutions out there.  However, there are lots of people who still use it so I hope this will come in handy to someone.

Here’s what we’re going to do.  We’re going to determine where OE stores all of the folders, emails and whatnot for each identity.  Then we’re going to create a new identity with the same email account settings as the ‘lost’ identity.  Finally, we’re going to copy all of the important stuff into this new identity.

Go ahead and right click on “My Computer” and choose explore.   In order to find the files we’re looking for, we’re going to have to make a few changes to how XP shows files in explorer. Mainly, we want to display file extensions and be able to see hidden and system files.

So in your Explorer window, choose Tools-> Folder Options.  Then select View.  From there, uncheck Hide file extensions, hide system files and change the option on Hidden files to Show hidden files and folders.

Now, let’s go look and see where OE keeps it’s brains.  In your Explorer window, browse to:

C:\Documents and Settings\USERNAME\Local Settings\Application Data\Identities

USERNAME should be substituted with your actual user name.

You should see something that looks like this:

Those long strings of numbers and letters are your GUIDs for your OE data.  Each Identity has a separate GUID.   There are a couple of ways to determine which GUID belongs to which Identity.

• The first is size - if you’re looking to find the files for an Identity that has much more mail than another one, you’ll be looking for larger files.
• The second is to look for date modified - if you haven’t been able to get into an Identity for the past two days, use that to determine which one is which.
• And lastly - the old fashioned go into OE and look method.  To do this though, you’ll have to have access to one of your Identities.   Open Outlook Express,  go to Tools-> Options.  From there click the Maintenance tab.  Then click the Store Folder button and look for a GUID.  That’s the GUID that belongs to the Identity you’re in.

So, you know where to find Outlook Express’ place to keep its mail - now what do you do?  Let’s minimize Explorer and continue on like so.

First thing we’re going to want to do is create a new Identity in Outlook Express.   Even if you don’t have access to any OE Identities, you can do this by Launching OE and then clicking the Manage Identities button.  From there, create a new Identity.  When OE launches, add all of your email account settings for the inaccessible Identity into this new Identity.  (For instructions on how to set up an OE mail account, hit Google).

Now that you’re in the new account, don’t allow it to check mail.  Just quit out of Outlook Express.

Back into your Explorer window and let’s dig a little deeper and find the files we’re going to copy to our new Identity.

You should be at: C:\Documents and Settings\USERNAME\Local Settings\Application Data\Identities

Now browse deeper - GUID\Microsoft\Outlook Express

So your full path would be

C:\Documents and Settings\USERNAME\Local Settings\Application Data\Identities\GUID\Microsoft\Outlook Express\

Inside the Outlook Express folder you should see a number of .dbx files.  These are your mail files.  Folders.dbx will contain your folders, Inbox.dbx your Inbox, etc.  You’ll want to highlight all of these files and then right click and choose “Copy”.

Now, still in Explorer, back up a bit and go into your new Identities GUID - the easiest way for me to find this is by the date but you can use one of the methods I mentioned above.  Once in the new Identities GUID, browse to \Microsoft\Outlook Express, right click the white space in Explorer and choose “Paste”.  Allow these files to overwrite any existing ones.

Minimize Explorer, go ahead and start up OE and log in to your new Identity.  You should see all of your emails that were stuck in the inaccessible Identity.  Go ahead and check your mail so that new stuff comes in.  The hard part is over.

Tell  OE that your newly created ID is the one you want to log into by default (if that’s the case) through the Manage Identities tool which you’ll see when you launch OE again.

You should now have access to your previously locked Identity’s email in a new Identity.

Technorati Tags: howto, how to, oe, outlook express, identities, lost password, recover email

For 99% of the people, running a software update or typing the following will fix it:

sudo apt-get update

sudo atp-get dist-upgrade

If you see an rdesktop update downloaded, you’re good to go.

Here are the gory details.

=========================================================== Ubuntu Security Notice USN-646-1 September 18, 2008 rdesktop vulnerabilities CVE-2008-1801, CVE-2008-1802, CVE-2008-1803 =========================================================== A security issue affects the following Ubuntu releases: Ubuntu 6.06 LTS Ubuntu 7.04 Ubuntu 7.10 Ubuntu 8.04 LTS This advisory also applies to the corresponding versions of Kubuntu, Edubuntu, and Xubuntu. The problem can be corrected by upgrading your system to the following package versions: Ubuntu 6.06 LTS: rdesktop 1.4.1-1.1ubuntu0.6.06.1 Ubuntu 7.04: rdesktop 1.5.0-1ubuntu1.1 Ubuntu 7.10: rdesktop 1.5.0-2ubuntu0.1 Ubuntu 8.04 LTS: rdesktop 1.5.0-3+cvs20071006ubuntu0.1 In general, a standard system upgrade is sufficient to effect the necessary changes. Details follow: It was discovered that rdesktop did not properly validate the length of packet headers when processing RDP requests. If a user were tricked into connecting to a malicious server, an attacker could cause a denial of service or possible execute arbitrary code with the privileges of the user. (CVE-2008-1801) Multiple buffer overflows were discovered in rdesktop when processing RDP redirect requests. If a user were tricked into connecting to a malicious server, an attacker could cause a denial of service or possible execute arbitrary code with the privileges of the user. (CVE-2008-1802) It was discovered that rdesktop performed a signed integer comparison when reallocating dynamic buffers which could result in a heap-based overflow. If a user were tricked into connecting to a malicious server, an attacker could cause a denial of service or possible execute arbitrary code with the privileges of the user. (CVE-2008-1802)

Technorati Tags: Ubuntu, rdesktop, linux, vulnerability

Right?

Realistically, they’re just starting the long sequence of starting this massive thing up.  There won’t be any collisions until late October.  I read earlier this morning that one of the major players involved has received death threats related to this . . . which seems to me to be way over the top.

Either way, if there’s something you’ve really wanted to do, now might be the time to attempt it.  Tomorrow we see science taking a huge step forward.  Or we’ll see a quick flash and then. . .Half Life 2 folks.

If you want to watch it live, grab some popcorn and go here to the webcast.

Technorati Tags: lhc, end of the world, not likely, black holes, science, death threats, half life, science

Two of us here at ArsGeek have the game and so far we’re split 50/50 between issues and enjoyment.

I’ve had the game since release and have so far experienced no issues with it. This is the kind of game I enjoy, with a lot for the casual gamer and a lot for the hardcore gamer (space phase).

Cavtroop got the game at the same time, and ran in to the nasty DasmX86Dll.dll issue.  What’s that?  Well it looks like DasmX86Dll.dll is a part of Dasm32 - a debugger/disassembler.  Basically this is a tool used to debug software.  You can get it for free here if you want to check it out.  What happens is, at some point the game crashes to the desktop with an error on that DLL.  Why?  It looks like EA/Maxis was a bit sloppy and left a reference to the debugger in their production code, which should not be in there.  Thus, when the game wants to go into debug mode it crashes to the desktop.

Don’t think that installing Dasm32 will help though, it won’t.  EA and Maxis need to release a patch for this.  Until then, the only real work around seems to be. . . well, the one that we shouldn’t have to use.  Others report that the pirated .exe works fine.  It’s a pretty big problem when the pirated exe works better than the one shipped from EA.  It’s not clear to me if this debug call is a SecuRom call, or one built into Spore itself.  At a guess, it’s a SecuRom thing - once you remove SecuRom from the picture, no crash.

While I don’t advocate pirating anything, I just don’t have a moral issue with finding a cracked .exe for a game that I’ve already purchased, just to get the game to work.  And not only do you have to do that for the game to work, but your running it at a reduced capacity - no online content for you!

There’s been talk of how hard it is to remove SecuRom in and of itself.  I’ve found official instructions for doing this online at several sources, and I’ll reproduce them here in a cleaned up version so you know what to do.  Obviously this will stop Spore from functioning properly for you.  But if you have had SecuRom infected games installed on your PC and you no longer want to play them, here’s how to remove this software.

To remove all SecuROM related files (except the license data stored beneath the registry keys) please follow the uninstall instructions below.

Before you start the uninstall process, close all programs which are running in the background, especially be sure that no instance of the Windows Explorer is running.

Open the Windows command prompt.
type in the path of the infected executable:

“C:\Program Files\EA GAMES\[Your game] (for example: The Sims 2 Bon Voyage)\TSBin\[Sims 2 .exe file] (for example: Sims2EP6.exe or Sims2SP5.exe)”

And append /uninstall to it.

So for Sims2EP6.exe, you would type C:\Program Files\EA GAMES\Sims 2\TSBin\Sims2EP6.exe /uninstall

A dialog box should then appear to start the SecuRom uninstall process.

The registry keys described above are not removed by the above uninstall process; otherwise, the copy protection function of SecuROM would be completely undermined. The registry keys, which contain license data, remain on your PC and do not affect any of your PC’s functions. This is no different than other commercially available software programs that employ a similar use of registry keys.

Note: These instructions will work only for applications protected with SecuROM version 7.24 or higher (The Sims 2 Bon Voyage uses version 7.33 of SecuROM, so the instructions do apply). If you have an earlier version of SecuROM, please contact support@securom.com for different instructions.

Speaking of SecuRom - I’m not quite sure why software companies continue to insist that DRM of this type (or any type) is worth it.  I wonder how much money EA stuck into this?  The game was available on the torrents before it’s official launch and yet here’s EA and far to many other companies shoveling money down the DRM hole.

And it’s doubly a problem because of their refusal to see this as an issue.  If the game sells well, EA says “See! DRM isn’t that big a deal, people don’t care and we’re still selling games.”  If the game’s sales are hurt by DRM they fall back on “Pirates are killing our bottom line!”  Seriously?  Games will get pirated, sure.  But you’re much more likely to sell copies if they’re not crippled in the first place by software that does nothing to stop the pirates and everything to annoy legitimate users.

Think EA!  How many more games would you sell to people if your Amazon ratings were 4 or 5 stars?  How manyon the fence gamers wondering if they should plonk down $50 of their hard earned money are going to turn away from this?  I like this game, I really do, but I had to give it a 1 star rating on Amazon as well because of the way legit users are treated like criminals and the folks who do steal the game get to play it whenever and wherever they want.

So what to do?  Well obviously you can decide to not spend your money on this game.  Even more important though, rather than pirate it which is still illegal, why not give your money to publishers who refuse to treat their customers as criminals in the first place?  If PC gaming is a dying past time, it’s because of publishers who use DRM.  If someone’s going to save it, it’s the folks below.

My favorite game company of all time, Stardock, has a number of good to great games out there right now, Sins of a Solar Empire being my current favorite video game period.  They make good games, and their currently in the spotlight for refusing to use DRM, a commitement to ship a finished product and their gamers bill of rights. Impulse is also a neat client and is shaping up to be a real Steam competitor.

I’m glad to give them my money for a product that works, is fun and is DRM free.

The folks at Software, Technology and More have also gone through the trouble of compiling a great list of DRM free, indie games.  Their top pick, Mount and Blade is a fantastic game and the rest, though I don’t have much experience with them, I’ll be checking out.

The bottom line - DRM sucks. It punishes the people doing the right thing by paying developers to develop, causing a lot of unecessary headaches among users and basically making us all feel like we’re just renting a game, not purchasing it. I hope that the mob of low ratings on Amazon sends EA and other publishers a message but I’m doubtful they’re even listening.

Technorati Tags: drm, spore, securom, video games, remove drm, ea, maxis, stardock, indie, games, geek, technology, computers