ThreatExpert is an advanced automated threat analysis system designed to analyze and report the behavior of computer viruses, worms, trojans, adware, spyware, and other security-related risks in a fully automated mode.

In only a few minutes ThreatExpert can process a sample and generate a highly detailed threat report with the level of technical detail that matches or exceeds antivirus industry standards such as those normally found in online virus encyclopedias.

ThreatExpert takes a threat file, places it in a self-contained simulated virtual environment, deliberately executes the threat in this environment and then monitors its behavior. A combination of file, Windows Registry and memory snapshots are recorded, in addition to a series of specific ‘hooks’ that intercept communication routes typically exploited by threat infections. These hooks ‘deceive’ the threat into communicating across a simulated network, whereas the threat’s communication actions are actually being recorded in detail by ThreatExpert. Using this invaluable recorded data, a detailed report is generated, consisting of file and Windows Registry changes, memory dump analyses, and other important system activities caused by the threat.

What happened? Very simply, human error. Google flags search results with the message “This site may harm your computer” if the site is known to install malicious software in the background or otherwise surreptitiously. We do this to protect our users against visiting sites that could harm their computers. We work with a non-profit called StopBadware.org to get our list of URLs. StopBadware carefully researches each consumer complaint to decide fairly whether that URL belongs on the list. Since each case needs to be individually researched, this list is maintained by humans, not algorithms.

We periodically receive updates to that list and received one such update to release on the site this morning. Unfortunately (and here’s the human error), the URL of ‘/’ was mistakenly checked in as a value to the file and ‘/’ expands to all URLs. Fortunately, our on-call site reliability team found the problem quickly and reverted the file. Since we push these updates in a staggered and rolling fashion, the errors began appearing between 6:27 a.m. and 6:40 a.m. and began disappearing between 7:10 and 7:25 a.m., so the duration of the problem for any particular user was approximately 40 minutes.

Posted by Marissa Mayer, VP, Search Products & User Experience

1. Browse to C:\Documents and Settings\ u s e r n a m e \Application Data\Macromedia\Flash Player\#SharedObjects\GVP00001
2. Delete all the files and folders in this folder
3. Browse to C:\Documents and Settings\ … \Application Data\Macromedia\Flash Player \ macromedia.com \ support \ flashplayer \ sys
4. Delete all the files and folders in the directory
5. Restart Firefox

Once you have your rough draft laid out in CSS, and you need to start adding style, Rounded Cornr can save you a lot of time. Rounded Cornr quickly and easily creates images and CSS code for different box styles in an easy to use interface. It also offers an option to code it using only one image for all four corners, saving a minimal amount of bandwidth.

WordPress Plugins

* WP-Ban
* WP-DBManager
* WP-DownloadManager
* WP-Email
* WP-PageNavi
* WP-PluginsUsed
* WP-Polls
* WP-PostRatings

WordPress Plugins

* WP-PostViews
* WP-Print
* WP-RelativeDate
* WP-ServerInfo
* WP-Stats
* WP-Sticky
* WP-UserOnline
* WP-Wap

Julius von Bismarck’s ‘Image Fulgurator’ projects stealth images into the photographs of strangers, while keeping those images invisible to human eyes. Depending on whom you ask, it’s either a clever hack or an obnoxious intrusion. Naturally, we had to find out more.

Yesterday, von Bismarck’s device made its premature debut on the internet. Today we met him in his hometown, Berlin, to talk about the device, the thinking behind it and the inevitable deluge of e-mails from viral marketers wanting use it to smash their way further into our brains.

But first, about that name: According to von Bismarck, ‘Image Fulgurator’ comes from the Latin for ‘lightning’ (fulgur) and means ‘Flash Thrower’.

First, let us make clear that von Bismarck has applied for a patent for the Fulgurator. He stressed this point. Of course, anyone with the requisite skills can make one of their own, but Julius wants to keep some degree of control over commercial use.

To see why, consider how it works. The device is a modified camera – in this case, an old manual Minolta SLR. A flashgun fires through the camera in reverse, from the back. The flash picks up the image of a slide inside and projects it out through the lens and onto any surface.

The trick is in the triggering. The Fulgurator lies in wait until an unsuspecting photographer takes a picture using a flash. When the device’s sensor sees this flash, it fires its own unit, throwing up an image which is captured by the hapless photographer’s camera while remaining unseen by the naked eye.

Now, imagine for a moment that an ad agency gets hold of this. You couldn’t take a photograph of a tourist attraction ever again without worrying that some marketing crap would be pushed into your camera. As Julius told me, "I see it as a piece of media art. It could be a dangerous attack on media. [But] if people do shit with it, I feel bad."

This is the reason for the patent, and although he doesn’t have an army of lawyers behind him, Julius seems to be on top of the legal side of things. He’s also moving fast. This Fulgurator is the first prototype, and the most primitive. "It works, but it’s not practical," he says. "In a few years time, huge companies will use it for shit," but by then, Julius will be at the next stage. He already has more working models (which I wasn’t allowed to see) which are refinements of this one.

At its simplest, the Fulgurator is a very easy hack. A hole has been cut in the back of the camera and a piece of clear, roughened acrylic put in its place. A rear tube allows the flashgun to slide in. Everything else remains intact. The slides themselves are just rolls of processed film (the pictures are snapped from Julius’ computer monitor) returned to their canisters and then loaded up as if a normal film. Any image on the reel can be selected by turning the rewind crank. When you hold the Fulgurator up, you can see the subject on the acrylic screen and line it with the image on the slide. You can also focus, to ensure the final projection ends up sharp.

But the magic happens inside the flash sensor on the top. Ordinary slave flashes (which fire whenever they detect another flash going off) aren’t reliable enough, so von Bismarck built his own circuitry. The original was based on the Arduino platform but has evolved into a custom-made circuit. The knobs were for tweaking the settings on the prototype, stuff which is all now taken care of by software.

Julius had ripped the guts out of the box for a newer version, so we couldn’t see it in action, but we know what it does. Modern digicams flash for all kinds of reasons, such as red-eye reduction and focus assistance. What Julius’ circuit does is to ignore all of these false strobes and fire only when the photo itself is taken. This is the secret sauce of the Fulgurator.

Clearly, this is a prankster’s dream. But Julius thinks it has a serious side, too, which is why it looks like a gun. "It’s important that people know it’s not just a funny idea," he told me, "it can also do negative stuff."

It seems that the "negative stuff" consists mainly of pissing people off, like the aforementioned marketing uses. We’re looking forward to seeing what the next gen hardware can do, though. Take a look at this picture:

The message is ‘Fulgurated’ onto a black laptop bag. Turning black to white is powerful stuff, but it’s not just slogans that can be fired. Although Julius frames his nerdery in an artistic context (he’s studying a German Diploma called "Digital Class" at UDK, Berlin’s art school) he clearly has a soft spot for tomfoolery. In the image below, you see an image of a naked body which can be projected onto a clothed person.

The possibilities are endless, but Julius is just getting started. When I suggested that he put his own URL on the images, so victims could later check to see just what had happened to their pictures, he seemed surprised (later I learned that he does plan to include it later, to promote his own work). In fact, the whole thing has happened a little too quickly.

Yesterday’s ‘leak’ onto the internet was intended as a place holder for an entry into Ars Electronica’s Cyber Arts exhibition in September. Instead, it catapulted him into internet fame and he has already received high-priced offers for his work. If he manages to keep on top of things, this little hack could make him some big money.

Youtube has slowly started to create better quality versions of many videos, adding links that say, “Watch this video in higher quality.” See this High Quality example and compare it to Youtube’s Normal Quality.

Comparison of Normal Youtube vs Youtube High Quality

-	Normal Youtube	High Quality Youtube
Screen Res.	320 x 240	480 x 360
Bitrate	≅ 200 kbps	≅ 900 kbps
Audio	22KHz 64 kbps Mono ABR	44.1KHz 96 kbps Mono CBR
Frame Rate	30	30
Video Codec	Flash Sorenson	Flash Sorenson
Audio Codec	Mp3	Mp3

Getting iPod compatible mp4s!

Adding &fmt=6 to the end of any youtube video’s url will give you Youtube’s new high quality setting. Changing the number from 6 to something else yields different formats though it’s not obvious which numbers work. Format 18 generates an mp4 using h264 with AAC stereo, which is compatible with video iPods. This is way better than using a service like vixy.net, which transcodes the crappy quality youtube vid into an mp4. Using fmt=18, you get a video transcoded from the original clip the user uploaded. The bitrate is lower on the mp4 version, but since the resolution is smaller it compensates. The h.264 codec has better looking videos at lower bitrates anyway. We finally see stereo on youtube with the mp4 version! It has a widescreen 16/9 aspect ratio rather than 4/3.

Correction:

Previously I thought the mp4 screen resolution was 480 x 270, but it’s also 480x360. It could be that both formats have the possibility to be 480x270 if their aspect ratio is close to 16/9 width/height. The mp4 version may add an additional small audio gain and a small sharpening effect.

-	fmt 18 / MP4	fmt 6 / HQ FLV
Screen Res.	480 x 360	480 x 360
Bitrate	≅ 512 kbps	≅ 900 kbps
Audio	44.1KHz 128 kbps Stereo	44.1KHz 96 kbps Mono CBR
Frame Rate	24	30
Video Codec	h.264	Flash Sorenson
Audio Codec	AAC	Mp3

Downloading the MP4 and High Quality Videos

Video downloaders like keepvid still work. Enter the url, click download, now grab the link and add &fmt=6 or &fmt=18 (for mp4) to the end. The good people at lifehacker created an easy to use firefox extension that will put a download link under each vid. You can also get the download url if you follow my wireshark tutorial but the process is pretty tedious.

You can do it manually too, but it’s annoying. Go to any video on youtube, right click then click view source. Click ctrl+F, which will open a searchbox and type &t=. Next copy the value after the t= but before any “&” characters. Grab that and the video_id and your set. The vid id is the v=something part of the url. Just copy the variables into the url below.

www.youtube.com/get_video?video_id=&t=&fmt=18

Example
Vid URL: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=pVYp2sgA9M0
Output: right click - save as

You may want to pass it to a download manager like wget. If you load it in the browser it will display a bunch of gibberish while it loads the entire video’s ASCII representation into your browser.

Howto Get Videos to Play HQ by Default

This option has not been implemented on many accounts but the howto is already present in the youtube help pages. You need a youtube account to be able to do this.

1. Go to your Account page.
2. Under “Manage My Videos” click the “HQ Video Playback Setting” link.
3. Select the playback setting that makes sense for you.
4. Click the “Save” button.

Criteria for a Video to Become HQ

The exact settings aren’t know yet for the video to become high quality. We could assume that the exact minimum settings are the same as encoded format listed above, however youtube has changed their “best format to upload high quality” help page to set the video resolution to 640 x 480. Maybe high quality will support different formats and aspect ratios in the future. It’s best to upload as high quality as possible. The new multi video uploader makes it easy on a unreliable connection. Even if your upload times out or you get disconnected it will restart the uploading process exactly where it left off.

Embed High Quality Youtube Clips

Update

This code works fine to embed the mp4 version. The magic query string var is “&ap=%2526fmt%3D18″ specifying format 18. Just replace (VIDEO EMBED URL) with the video ID. Note that there’s a huge disadvantage in that there is no seeking. The fmt=6 embed version is less reliable.

<object width="480″ height="397″><param name="movie” value="(VIDEO EMBED URL)&ap=%2526fmt%3D18″></param><param name="wmode” value="window"></param><embed src="(VIDEO EMBED URL)&ap=%2526fmt%3D18″ type="application/x-shockwave-flash” wmode="window” width="480″ height="397″></embed></object>

Ignore Below

Currently there is no official way to embed the High Quality videos on your website / myspace / blogs. It’s possible, but a big hassle, and it’s impossible to turn off autoplay. Here’s an example you can embed if you want to see it for yourself.

Remove the line breaks for best results

<object width="425″ height="355″><embed autoplay="false” quality="high” src="http://www.youtube.com/player2.swf” flashvars="vq=2
&sourceid=r
&video_id=pVYp2sgA9M0
&l=239
&sk=5E_4xTZlkQqZYuyEXwBRzQU
&fmt_map=18/512000/9/0/115
&t=OEgsToPDskItDX5Cg05utBXEP1wh76mc
&hl=en
&plid=AARIM8FsSohHKlMVAAAAIIAoQAA
&playnext=0″ type="application/x-shockwave-flash” wmode="transparent” width="425″ height="355″></embed></object>

It only works with youtube’s in-site player, player2.swf, rather than the player youtube has for embeds. The problem is youtube’s in-site player does not have a variable to turn autoplay on or off and if you try embedding it to your site flash issues a warning that the script is trying to contact a remote server (youtube.com). Player2.swf seems to have an internal “ap” variable hidden in the actionscript but it seems to just break the vid no matter what options I set. The key flashvar for high quality is “fmt_map=6/0/7/0/0″ and “fmt_map=18/512000/9/0/115″ for mp4s. When enabled, the flv file comes from cache.googlevideo.com/videoplayback?itag=6, without the fmt_map var it comes from cache.googlevideo.com/get_video, with normal quality.

To embed a high quality video you need to go to the video’s page on youtube, view source, and grab the flashvar data. The most important vars are video_id, t, and sk. Just use the above embed code as a template and replace those values. As for the rest: L defines how long the video is in seconds, hl is the home language, plid tries to find any associated playlists, playnext plays the next item on the playlist if there is one.

Making your youtube videos High Quality

Youtube will be automatically creating high quality versions of many videos for those that meet the guidelines. The video quality is bad on youtube, partly because youtube encodes to such a small screen resolution with a low bitrate, but mainly because people post really low quality videos.

The crappy resolution youtube is actually what got it so popular. Google video had originally allowed 640 x 480 with a great bitrate, but they failed miserably to compete against youtube (so they later bought em out). It made online video making / viewing possible even on crappy connections. Take the time to resize your vid and sharpen it a bit before uploading. A little noise reduction and color correction can’t hurt either. Use virtualdub and avisynth. They’re free. Use xvid or x264 and lame acm for the audio. Divx is fine if you can get the pro version. See doom9 for tons of guides on video creation / editing / improvement.

Youtube High Quality Hack

There is also a hack using total video converter where if you make an flv with certain settings you can upload a video of super high quality and have youtube keep the screen resolution and bitrate.

Youtube High Quality Hack Settings Howto

Select what you want to encode into an flv in total video converter with these settings.

Sample Rate: 44100 Hz
audio bit rate: 320.000 kbit/s
Audio codec: mp3
Custom video bit rate: any
Resolution: any

Cons

It messes up the time on the video. A 30 second video can read as 9 minutes. The way it tells how long the video is seems very random but it constantly says the video is much longer than it really is. Having the resolution or bitrate too high causes it to not stream well and get stuck.

It wasn’t really my intent to go back and revisit all these security post lists. That’s just how it seems to have turned out. That’s OK. Software gets developed and updated. Lists grow. New and better versions get released….

So this time, I’m re-visiting my original anti-rootkit post: Windows Rootkit Detectors

To summarize: “…a rootkit is executable code that attempts to evade detection of running processes, files or system data. There are many ways it can do this, but the end result is that they are very hard to find and can make an infected system look clean and safe even to traditional anti-virus and anti-malware software.” More here: Wikipedia : Rootkit

At the time of my original post, there were just a handful of anti-rootkit tools available to the public. I just offered five.

Now most all major anti-virus/security software vendors have issued anti-rootkit solutions, though some are still in a beta release form.

The Threat

How seriously concerned should the average user be? Well…if you are practicing “safe-surfing” by staying away from “risky” websites, keeping your operating system patched, scanning all files downloaded and sent in email with an up-to-date anti-virus program, you should be mostly ok. I say mostly because it is still possible for a system to become compromised with a rootkit, even if you are playing by the rules.

Certain individuals would like nothing else than to get a home-broadband user’s system infected with a rootkit. Not so much to steal your personal information–though that’s always a potential target–but to install trojan services that would allow them to leverage the system for attacks on other larger systems, spam-mail-bot rental services, or even hosting of their hidden/illegal files on the system. Any of these events could seriously make a home or corporate user’s system a great big pile of steaming cow-dung for the user and those impacted by those services. Bummer!

SANS-ISC recent reported that Europe has been pounded lately by emails which include variants of a virus/trojan loader file: European Storm Video E-Mail. While bad, it doesn’t sound too serious…but!

heiseSecurity in Germany expands the story with more details, much more disconcerting: “Storm worm” sloshes through the internet. What the trojan seems to be doing is download additional files from the internet, and “…according to GDATA, one action it takes is to install the rootkit Win32.agent.dh.” Depending on the anti-virus company, different names may be used.

Over at the Anti Rootkit blog: New Storm-Worm Rootkit creating Botnets Steo does some more research on just how this rootkit does its deed. Interesting.

Rootkit writers aren’t happy about the attention. Just this week, they have worked to get the GMER anti-rootkit mirrors shut down under a massive DDOS attack. As soon as new mirrors for the files went up, they also were attacked. More information: GMER Anti Rootkit & People Power, and Martijnc’s blog post: DDoS attack

The battle for pc security rages on.

The Response

There are a number of ways to look for a rootkit on your system.

The first is to download and run several of these rootkit detection tools on your live system. These rootkit detection tools are specially programmed to check for hidden files and masked running or injected processes. It’s a cat and mouse game, and some tools and methods are more effective than others. Just as hard as the security programmers work to prevent and detect these rootkits, the developers on the other side are working to make them more difficult to be detected.

A second technique is to download and run several of these rootkit detection tools onto a USB drive. Then using a bootable “LiveCD” like BartPE or Linux, run the appropriate rootkit detection tools on the “dead” system’s drive(s). This may be a much more effective approach. Since the infected system isn’t being booted, the drives just contain “static” data files that shouldn’t be executed. They could be, but that’s the point…to not run or launch any files on the potentially compromised system. That way they can be detected and removed while “dormant". Using a Linux “LiveCD” to scan a Windows system disk is even more safe as the likelihood of cross-contamination is almost non-existent.

If a rootkit is found you have two options: 1) Use one of the detection/removal tools to–hopefully!–remove it. Or, 2) recover your critical data files to another drive/media location, then do a full wipe of the infected system, and reinstall it fresh.

Speaking as a half-way competent computer geek, I personally would feel more comfortable going with option two, because otherwise I would always have a shadow of doubt of the system’s integrity. Nor would I have have the patience to pick through a manual removal process if the tools failed to remove it.

Rootkit Detector Tool List

InformationWeek posted an excellent article recently titled Review: Six Rootkit Detectors Protect Your System. I was familiar with some of them, and had come across a few more on my own that didn’t make the author’s cut. But that got me observing the increase in the number to tools now at our disposal. With some more careful searching, I’ve ended up collecting quite a list. Almost all are offered as freeware or trialware.

I have only used a handful of these tools and only keep a few with me on my USB system administrator’s stick. So far, I haven’t found a rootkit on my systems (here or at work) so I can’t speak of their effectiveness in removal. Also, because of the nature of how these tools work and where they look, it is quite possible that removal of a real rootkit or a listed file in error (that wasn’t actually malicious) can cause your Windows system to fail, not boot, or BSOD to the point you will be recovering files off the dead OS drive and then reinstalling your system.

You’ve been warned!.

• F-Secure BlackLight - Restrictive wizard interface, but easy to use for the uninitiated.
• IceSword 1.20 - Developed in China but nicely translated into English. Busy interface but updated often. Has some advanced tools like the ability to “reboot and monitor” during the boot process.
• RKDetector 2.0 - Two tools in one; 1) scans for hidden files on drives, 2) scans for hidden processes and hooks. Takes a bit of work to run the scans, and can’t do a global system scan with both.
• Trend Micro RootkitBuster 1.6 - Runs scans in five system areas and exports a nice log file. You can then opt to remove the detected items.
• RootkitRevealer 1.71 - From the Sysinternal’s team. Easy to use, but does often turn up documented false-positives. Just identifies suspicious processes…you are on your own to delete them with other methods and applications. Better for system checking and monitoring, rather than protection and removal in-of-itself.
• Rootkit Unhooker 3.0A - Russian software team project. Does a self-test to make sure it hasn’t been compromised; that’s a good feature. Provides lots of details and the ability to do focused scans or a global element scan. Also provides multiple methods to address/remove the located processes and files.
• McAfee Rootkit Detective Beta - “McAfee Rootkit Detective Beta is a program designed and developed by McAfee Avert Labs to proactively detect and clean rootkits that are running on the system.” Nice interface.
• Sophos Anti-Rootkit - “Sophos Anti-Rootkit provides an extra layer of detection, by safely and reliably detecting and removing any rootkit that might already have secreted itself onto your system.” Note: Registration required for download from the vendor’s site. The utility itself is free.
• Gmer - The tool that’s got everyone in a fuss! Scans for hidden processes, services, files, registry keys, drivers, and hooks. Also allows some system function monitoring. Highly regarded by the antirootkit professionals. More screenshots (while the site is up).
• Advanced Rootkit Detector for Windows (rkdetector) - This command-line based scanner was one of the very first rootkit detectors I became familiar with. I don’t think it has been updated since it’s original release (back in 2004). The website is in Spanish, but the application worked just fine for me. I can’t say it now can handle the newest rootkit methods of attacks, but just for posterity I’m offering it here.

More follow as discovered on Antirootkit.com’s incredible website. They’ve done a bang-up job of finding and detailing all these. Please check out their site for more information as well as some screenshots, reviews and evaluation ratings. These guys (and gals?) are doing great work and deserve full credit for locating these wide selections of tools.

Note: Some products here are beta products and may not be available or will work past a certain date. Others are trialware/crippleware. In these cases I have chosen to still include them so you can keep an eye on possible future development or releases.

• Gromozon, Rustock, Haxdor related removal tools - Specialized and targeted rootkit removal tool list via Antirootkit.com
• Aries Sony Rootkit Remover - Tool to remove the Sony/BMG DRM CD protection software.
• Archon Scanner - More of a process, injection, hooking scanner. But has other specialties as well. - current version was beta and has expired…developer’s promise new one sometime.
• AVG AntiRootkit - Beta product. Doesn’t seem to be offered anywhere but from Antirootkit.com.
• Avira Rootkit Detection - Beta product disabled after 1-4-07. See Antirootkit.com’s page for file.
• DarkSpy - Chinese developed tool. Supports process, kernel mode, file, registry scan (disabled in test version) and hidden port detection. Screenshot via Antirootkit.com.
• Helios - Alpha level program right now. Behavior-based, not signature based detection. Interesting interface and approach. Worth looking at, but remember it is alpha/beta level… Developers offer videos as well of their tool in action.
• HiddenFinder - trialware - Shows hidden processes and drivers on a system and then allows for killing of the desired process.
• HookExplorer - Tiny little application. Displays import address table (IAT) hijacks and “detour style hooks.” Lots of information in the tiny display!
• OS X Rootkit Hunter - Mac OS X 10.4 product. I don’t support Apple systems, but there you are. Screenshot page by developer. (I didn’t think Mac’s got sick like this!)
• chkrootkit - Linux rootkit scanner
• Panda Anti-Rootkit - beta software. Looks at hidden drivers, processes, modules, files, registry items, hooks. Not a lot of user options…scan, clean, and view results.
• Process Master - trialware - API comparison tool.
• RootKit Hook Analyzer - Reports on any system hooks and modules and displays findings.
• Rootkit Hunter - Linux rootkit scanner.
• RootKitShark - trialware - Command-line scanner. Unmasks located files and prevents from boot-execution. Then can be manually removed by user or using other security tools.
• WinShark - trialware - GUI based version that incorporates RootKitShark (above) among other features. Allows process and user monitoring of systems. (Intrusion Detection System). Detection enabled in trial version, but rootkit elimination feature only in the fully-licensed version.
• RootKit Uncover - beta - Appears to be a hidden process and file scanner. See Antirootkit.com’s page for overview. Bitdefender doesn’t have any information on their site for it.
• SEEM - Multi-purpose system reporting tool that has an interesting interface. Includes a rootkit scanner as part of it’s features. Website (translated from French) has quite a bit of good information on rootkits and as they apply to their program. Download page (kinda hard to find in French). Get the English version unless you know French.
• System Virginity Verifier - Tool developed by Joanna Rutkowska to validate system integrity by checking important Windows System components targeted by hidden malware. She also provides links to some related PowerPoint presentations.
• Unhackme - trialware - limited to 10 runs until license purchased and entered - In standard, “Roaming” and “Professional” editions. University of Minnesota’s Safe Computing page documents rootkit removal tutorial with Unhackme.
• Zeppoo - Linux rootkit scanner. Screenshot page. Blog page.

Additional Resources

• Antirootkit.com - Anti Rootkit Software, News, Articles and Forums
• Anti Rootkit Blog - Blog page for Antirootkit.com
• InvisibleThings.org - Website of security guru and brilliant mind Joanna Rutkowska. Presented “Blue Pill” concept. Lots of neat tools and detailed rootkit related information on her website.
• Episode #9 of Security Now - Rootkit discussion between Leo Laporte and Steve Gibson. Good foundational information.
• Behavioral Analysis of Rootkit Malware - Basic article from an ISC-SANS handler (with pictures!).
• Rootkits: Subverting the Windows Kernel (Addison-Wesley Software Security Series) (Paperback) - Amazon.com
• Rootkits, Spyware/Adware, Keyloggers and Backdoors: Detection and Neutralization (Paperback) - Amazon.com
• Rootkits for Dummies (For Dummies (Computer/Tech)) (Paperback) - Amazon.com
• Oddysee Rootkit Test - Very nice, well documented and illustrated post on how a rootkit shows up on various security scanners.

See you in the skies…

Have you ever seen a landscape or cityscape that looked hyper-realistic, or even fantastical – a shot with amazing detail in the shadows, midtones, and highlights all at the same time?

It may have been perfect shooting conditions in the field, with a graduated neutral density filter or some other filter stacking combo, or maybe it was painstakingly crafted in Photoshop with tons of dodging and burning and layer masking.

Or it may have been a High-Dynamic Range Image (HDR), such as the lead image for this story. Often explained as “seeing more like the human eye,” HDR imaging combines several shots of a given scene to overcome the exposure range limitations of traditional single-shot photography – and the final results have much more detail from shadows to highlights, and everywhere in between.

General Purpose Settings - up to 6 minutes

A simple way to ensure that the quality is there is to export to MPEG-4 with:

* H.264 video at 2000Kbits/sec (2Mbits/sec or 250KBytes/sec)
* 320x240 video size (deinterlaced or simply use one field)
* Mono audio with AAC at 64 Kbit/sec (or 128 Kbit/sec for stereo)
* Recommended Sample Rate and
* Best Encoding Quality.
* In the Video Options Main Profile should be checked on and Best Quality (Multi-pass) is advised for best quality.

Vice is a free glossy magazine founded in Montreal, Quebec, Canada and currently based in New York City that covers contemporary independent arts and youth culture. The magazine’s readership comprises young postcollegiate bohemians, often labelled “hipsters.” Known for its controversial content, it often strikes a sardonic and ironic pose on debauchery, sex, drugs, violence, and social issues involving race and economic class.

What is the scene

The SceneThe scene aka the warez scene is the pretty unknown worldwide network where people trade pirated goods, like dvd’s, movies, games, applications etc. Warez refers primarily to copyrighted material traded in violation of its copyright license. It does not refer to commercial for-profit software counterfeiting. First warez is released by releasegroups, groups which are specialized in publishing warez. They copy a dvd or break the security of game, and will make it available for other people, as a so-called release. When these releasegroups finish a release it will be uploaded to sites. These sites are very fast private ftp-servers, and the first stadium in the distribution of a release. Eventually, at the end of the distribution, the releases are available for everyone on p2p-software. About The Scene… nastavak

sIFR is meant to replace short passages of plain browser text with text rendered in your typeface of choice, regardless of whether or not your users have that font installed on their systems. It accomplishes this by using a combination of javascript, CSS, and Flash. Here is the entire process:

1. A normal (X)HTML page is loaded into the browser.
2. A javascript function is run which first checks that Flash is installed and then looks for whatever tags, ids, or classes you designate.
3. If Flash isn’t installed (or obviously if javascript is turned off), the (X)HTML page displays as normal and nothing further occurs. If Flash is installed, javascript traverses through the source of your page measuring each element you’ve designated as something you’d like “sIFRed".
4. Once measured, the script creates Flash movies of the same dimensions and overlays them on top of the original elements, pumping the original browser text in as a Flash variable.
5. Actionscript inside of each Flash file then draws that text in your chosen typeface at a 6 point size and scales it up until it fits snugly inside the Flash movie.

This all happens in a split-second, so all of the checking, replacing, and scaling is not visible to the user. It is not uncommon to notice a very short delay as the Flash loads, but to the user, none of the internals of this process are exposed.

The picture I’m about to paint is of the ideal, I’m not implying that every perl programmer or 15 year kid who plays WoW all day possesses all these qualities.

1. You’re probably very smart.
2. It’s hip to be geek. Everyone is familiar with the stereotype of thick glasses, a pocket protector, an obsession with star trek, and social skills akin to a sack of potatoes. Times have changed: geeks are often fashionable, hip individuals who are very aligned with the trends of their own generation
3. You geek out on more than just your computer. Ever seen the movie collection of a film geek? Ever had an automotive geek work on your car? Ever seen the body of a fitness geek? The tenacity of someone like us, when applied to hobbies outside computers and the like, can yield impressive results.
4. Geek humor is the best humor. This is perhaps a biased opinion, but I’ve never laughed as hard as I have while reading some of the random, funny things that came out of geek culture.
5. You listen to good music. Geeks have access to tools that allow us to hear music that extends well beyond top 40 radio. Want the entire discography of Aphex Twin by tomorrow afternoon? Ask a geek. Not only do they listen to good music, they can find just about anything you’re looking for in a heartbeat.
6. You make good money. If there’s one stereotype about geeks that usually rings true, it’s that they rarely have trouble earning a decent income.
7. You fix stuff. Everyone loves a handyman, especially one that can fix one of the most frustrating devices ever conceived: a personal computer.
8. You’ve got your own stuff going on. You’ll never meet a geek who runs out of things to do, they’ve got lots of hobbies and interests and are more than happy to dive head first into one of those when they’ve got some spare time. In other words: they won’t rely on you to give them a life.
9. You’re very articulate. Compulsively reading a few hundred RSS feeds a day yields a vocabulary that could put most college English majors to shame.
10. You’re passionate. When a geek becomes interested in something, they tend to immerse themselves in it entirely. They’ll strip a new gadget down to nuts and bolts and re-build it with an xhtml compliant grappling gun. This intense passion can extend to many areas of a geek’s life, not just computers and hobbies.

10 Reasons Why “Tech Speak” Is The Best Language To Learn.
By Andrew Gonsalves “Halx” www.tfproject.org

While knowing how to speak Spanish will secure you a customer service job in Los Angeles, knowing how to speak French will make you sound sexier, and knowing how to speak Japanese will make all of your hentai games more interesting, if you know “Tech Speak,” you’re already 10 times more versatile than all those other bilingual show-offs. By Tech Speak, I don’t mean to imply that there is some secret code that you haven’t heard of before, and I certainly am not referring to any glossary of buzzwords that make you look more of a blow hard for reciting them. Tech Speak is simply the language of technology; the understanding of where the world is going and the tidbits of knowledge needed to stay adrift.

Computer programming is a job that’s heavily dependent on temporary knowledge capital. It’s temporary because the powers that be keep changing the languages and tools that programmers need to do their jobs. In nearly all other professions, knowledge capital increases as you grow older because you keep learning more about your field. But in computer programming, the old knowledge becomes completely obsolete and useless. No one cares if you know how to program in COBOL for example. It’s completely useless knowledge.

This project aims to create an archive of user contributed clip art that can be freely used. All graphics submitted to the project should be placed into the Public Domain according to the statement by the Creative Commons.

Just to be clear, IT in this context means being in an IT department, not being in the IT industry.

I’ve spent a combined five years in IT departments of two companies — one a large company another a small company. In each case, the experience lacked job satisfaction and only marginally advanced my career. If you find yourself faced with a job opportunity in an IT department, consider the following to be likely experiences:

You will be frustrated because technology is not the core business. And unfortunately for you, this means that you aren’t likely to be the rockstar of your company. You are an enabler of minimal importance in a cost center.

You will deal with technology that is likely to be obsolete or on the verge of obsolescence. In IT, it is not important to those you serve what the technology is, rather its whether the solution provides the desired value.

You will integrate with old technologies or products that have challenging integration scenarios. As you are the tail on the dog, no one will ask you your opinion for the products that are most likely to integrate well with your technology stack. Rather, you will be brought in after such products have been selected.

You may find that the talent around you is watered down. The trend is to cut costs which inevitably leads to outsourcing. In my experience, outsourcing provides less talented, less instinctive colleagues. These will be your teammates.

You may find that cost cuts means there is little investment in the “factory” that you work in. Hardware and software that could make your life easier are not accessible due to budget challenges. Therefore, the factory eventually resembles an old car plant with declining efficiency.

Your managers may care only about your utilization and your costs. Innovation is secondary to these factors, so you may have trouble championing new ideas.

You may find in bigger companies that consensus-building consumes most of your time. Be ready for double-digit emails per day with people copying you on details that are irrelevant to your job.

You may find that the company has organically grown in layers causing you to fight through multiple layers just to get simple tasks done. As such, simple tasks are hard tasks and hard tasks are impossible. If you think that something as simple as opening a firewall port can’t take weeks, think again.

You may find that since the company has cut costs to the bone that you end up wearing more hats than you feel qualified to wear. You will be best prepared to succeed if you can write your own requirements, write code, write markup, develop your own styles, be your own DBA, be your own system administrator, and do your own testing. You will most likely have to build your own infrastructure enablements because those would be too costly to be purchased for you.

You may never understand the business decisions made by those who ultimately create your projects. You may question whether they know how to scorecard, perform cost-benefit analysis, or whether they even know their business. But in the end, you will have no choice but to work on their projects.

You may find that your natural curiosity for new technologies or business strategies is not appreciated or valued. Old school managers may even make fun of you for having your nose in a book reading about those “new-fangled” technologies. Be prepared to have uninspired leadership.

You may find that your colleagues eventually have become zombies. They show up every day and walk the halls, but they seem to be in an unproductive, unchanging funk. And worse, you may recognize yourself making the same transformation.

Bill Eisenhauer : Why IT Sucks >> nastavak…

On Scott Adams’ Dilbert website, there used to be a section where readers could submit their own stories of workplace foibles. One guy wrote in to talk about how he and four of his buddies managed to take at least one day a week off each. They worked for a big company and it was easy to get lost. Besides, they covered for each other.

If it was your day off, you were the “out guy” and you didn’t have to do anything but enjoy the day. But if not, you had a work to do.

The four guys who were working each had a task. One guy would go by the office of the “out guy” two or three times a day and post a note reading “be back in 15.” Another would fill a coffee cup halfway and leave it steaming on his desk. Someone would change the programs on his computer around. The fourth would shuffle papers and what-not around his desk.

The point was, anyone who came by would just assume they’d missed the “out guy” and check back later. The guy on the website claimed they’d pulled this off for years. These guys understood one important fact: It’s more important to look busy than be busy.

What’s the value of a customer who doesn’t buy anything? If you’re running a hot dog stand, the answer is probably “zero.” But if you’re running a two-sided market - a market, like eBay or Monster.com or AdWords or YouTube or Digg or even Second Life, that needs to attract both buyers and sellers (or content generators and content consumers) - the answer may be “a lot.” EBay, for instance, earns most of its money from its sellers, who pay the company a fee whenever they sell something through the auction site. The buyers don’t have to pay when they make their purchases. But while eBay receives no direct revenue from the buyers, the buyers nevertheless represent a crucial set of customers for the company - without buyers, there’d be no sellers and hence no business.
Nastatvak: Customer value and the network effect

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22 Ways to Reduce Eye Strain at Your Computer
Take the Stress Out of Your Head

Wasted.Do you spend a lot of time in front of the computer?

Ever rub your eyes and want to stop working?

You may be experiencing Computer Vision Syndrome (CVS), the official diagnosis given to a range of symptoms that include:

* burning
* dry and strained eyes
* headache
* neck ache
* blurred vision

CVS, more commonly known as computer eyestrain, is due to over- or misuse of computer monitors, bad lighting and other environmental and ergonomic factors.

Stubborn, persistent, and regular physical discomfort due to one or more of these symptoms cuts your productivity sharply over time.

The National Institute for Occupational Safety and Health (NIOSH) has found that 75% of computer users surveyed “reported occasional aching or burning eyes at work,” while another “39% reported blurred vision.”

Aerogel is a low-density solid-state material derived from gel in which the liquid component of the gel has been replaced with gas. The result is an extremely low density solid with several remarkable properties, most notably its effectiveness as an insulator. It is nicknamed frozen smoke, solid smoke or blue smoke due to its semi-transparent nature and the way light scatters in the material; however, it feels like extruded polystyrene to the touch.

Aerogels are solid substances similar to gels but where the internal liquid is replaced with air. Aerogels rank among the world’s lowest density solids. They are very porous and light, and have remarkably high internal surface area. Their microstructure and physical properties can be manipulated at the nanometer scale by selection of raw material and modification of manufacturing conditions. Aerogel products can be engineered to exhibit desired thermal, acoustic, mechanical and/or chemical properties. Aerogel materials can be produced as monoliths, thin-films, powders, or micro-spheres to respond to given application requirements.

The extremely high electrochemical surface area of ACI’s ENERGel™ carbon aerogel enables very high rates of charge and discharge. Capacitances of more than 104 F/g and energy densities of more than 325 kJ/kg have been demonstrated with carbon aerogels ultracapacitors. Additionally, power densities of up to 20 kW/kg have been achieved. This is orders of magnitude higher than what conventional capacitors offer. ACI believes that its ENERGel™ carbon aerogel is a superior option for applications such as specialized electrodes.

2006 was rich on creative, beautiful and unusual design concepts. We’ve seen a lot of whitespace, many examples of readable and usable text-design, badges, stars, rounded corners, shapes, gradients, mirror and 3D-effects - just name it. Let’s take a close look at some of the most beautiful designs we’ve seen in 2006. Some gorgeous designs are missing? Let us know - comment on this article!

Free Web Page Hosts with No Banner Ads?

Looking for free web site hosting with no annoying pop-ups, pop-unders, buttons, banners, headers or footers? And as well as this, you’d like 99.8 percent up-time, fast servers, access to the cgi-bin for scripts, FP extensions, PHP and MySQL databases and FTP access?

We went out searching for the best “no ads” totally free site hosting space deals around. The results: disappointing, they are very few and far between. Many have come and gone, or as in the case of Bizland, quite suddenly withdrawn their free service and demanded that all their customers begin paying. We took a look at the promotional information for over 300 free web hosting companies, but then also looked at customer reviews. There was usually a major difference in opinions.

There is still a plethora of free web hosts around, but most require that you carry their advertising or offer you a limited time for the free service, usually a year. On the up side of this, many of these companies do supply quality hosting with many services in exchange for having their banners served up on your pages. We did find that many of the non-banner supported free options were hosted on very slow servers. In a number of cases, the server failed to respond at all! continue ->

We’ll be brief: Hemingway once wrote a story in just six words ("For sale: baby shoes, never worn.") and is said to have called it his best work. So we asked sci-fi, fantasy, and horror writers from the realms of books, TV, movies, and games to take a shot themselves.

Dozens of our favorite auteurs put their words to paper, and five master graphic designers took them to the drawing board. Sure, Arthur C. Clarke refused to trim his ("God said, ‘Cancel Program GENESIS.’ The universe ceased to exist."), but the rest are concise masterpieces.

Nauči:

* Svjetlo i rasvjetu: Modifikacija rasvjete - usmjerivači (07.01.2007.)
* Estetiku fotografije: Koliko fotografirati? (07.01.2007.)
* Svjetlo i rasvjetu: Dodaci za podešavanje rasvjete (02.01.2007.)
* Svjetlo i rasvjetu: Vrste umjetne rasvjete (02.01.2007.)
* Digi osnove: Pixel pitch i Fill factor (28.12.2006.)
* Digi osnove: Piksel (27.12.2006.)
* Digi osnove: Slikovno osjetilo (27.12.2006.)
* Digi osnove: Što znači digitalno? (27.12.2006.)
* Digi osnove: Alias (23.12.2006.)
* Digi osnove: Ekvivalentne žarišne duljine (10.12.2006.)
* Optiku: Podjela objektiva (09.12.2006.)
* Optiku: Vidni kut i perspektiva (09.12.2006.)
* Opće osnove: Veličina i žarišna duljina (08.12.2006.)
* Opće osnove: Udaljenost i veličina (07.12.2006.)
* Opće osnove: Formati negativa i papira (06.12.2006.)
* Digitalnu obradu: Korekcija perspektive (04.12.2006.)
* Optiku: Perspektivno izobličenje (03.12.2006.)
* Optiku: Izobličenje širokog kuta (03.12.2006.)
* Opće osnove: Format (03.12.2006.)
* Ispis: Boje i pigmenti (24.11.2006.)
* Ispis: Tintni proces ispisa (20.11.2006.)
* Napredno digitalno: Kvantizacija (16.11.2006.)
* Digi osnove: Povijest digitalne fotografije (06.11.2006.)
* Upravljanje bojom: Promjenom boja pokrenite karijeru (06.11.2006.)
* Napredno digitalno: Tonemapping (03.11.2006.)
* Opće osnove: Anatomija svjetlomjera (26.10.2006.)
* Opće osnove: Svjetlomjer (26.10.2006.)
* Optiku: Razlučivost oka (20.10.2006.)
* Opće osnove: Kako gledamo (20.10.2006.)
* Estetiku fotografije: Kompozicija (19.10.2006.)
* Opće osnove: Oko (16.10.2006.)
* Opće osnove: Kako vidimo (16.10.2006.)
* Opće osnove: Fotografski aparat:osnovna upotreba (02.10.2006.)
* Opće osnove: Načini izoštravanja (02.10.2006.)
* Opće osnove: Tražilo (26.09.2006.)
* Opće osnove: SLR - TLR - TTL (22.09.2006.)
* Opće osnove: Pentaprizma (22.09.2006.)
* Opće osnove: Ekspozicija (18.09.2006.)
* Svjetlo i rasvjetu: Karakteristike svjetla - kontrast (14.09.2006.)
* Estetiku fotografije: Lokalni kontrast (14.09.2006.)
* Opće osnove: Kontrast (14.09.2006.)
* Opće osnove: Makro fotografija (08.09.2006.)
* Svjetlo i rasvjetu: Zakon kosinusa (04.09.2006.)
* Opće osnove: Paralaksa (02.09.2006.)
* Opće osnove: Okidač (30.08.2006.)
* Digi osnove: Podešavanje parametara slike u aparatu (26.08.2006.)
* Svjetlo i rasvjetu: Opadanje intenziteta svjetla (25.08.2006.)
* Optiku: Totalna refleksija (16.08.2006.)
* Opće osnove: Matematika u fotografiji (16.08.2006.)
* Opće osnove: Automatsko izoštravanje (16.08.2006.)
* Svjetlo i rasvjetu: Što je svjetlost? (12.08.2006.)
* Svjetlo i rasvjetu: Sve boje dnevnog svjetla (08.08.2006.)
* Svjetlo i rasvjetu: Dnevno svjetlo (31.07.2006.)
* Optiku: Tehnologija proizvodnje objektiva (28.07.2006.)
* Ispis: Tehnologija ispisa (21.07.2006.)
* Svjetlo i rasvjetu: Prozorsko svjetlo (18.07.2006.)
* Svjetlo i rasvjetu: Kućni studio (15.07.2006.)
* Svjetlo i rasvjetu: Prirodno svjetlo (14.07.2006.)
* Ispis: Crno-bijeli ispis (07.07.2006.)
* Optiku: Bokeh (06.07.2006.)
* Upravljanje bojom: Sinteza boje (01.07.2006.)
* Ispis: Gorko iskustvo (01.07.2006.)
* Ispis: Ispiši me (27.06.2006.)
* Estetiku fotografije: Prostorni okvir (25.06.2006.)
* Estetiku fotografije: Centar slike (24.06.2006.)
* Opće osnove: Sjenilo objektiva (06.06.2006.)
* Opće osnove: Perspektiva (31.05.2006.)
* Ispis: Metamerizam (22.05.2006.)
* Ispis: Stabilnost fotografija (19.05.2006.)
* Estetiku fotografije: Razvoj vizualne svjesnosti. (29.04.2006.)
* Opće osnove: Koja brzina zatvarača? (14.04.2006.)
* Napredno digitalno: Desno eksponiranje (10.04.2006.)
* Optiku: Geometrijska izobličenja objektiva (04.04.2006.)
* Napredno digitalno: Prostorna frekvencija (31.03.2006.)
* Estetiku fotografije: Fotografska prekoncepcija (27.03.2006.)
* Opće osnove: Zatvarač (13.03.2006.)
* Optiku: Čvorne točke i panorama (02.03.2006.)
* Optiku: Izoštravanje slike (02.03.2006.)
* Optiku: Žarišna duljina i backfokus (02.03.2006.)
* Optiku: Sferna aberacija (27.02.2006.)
* Optiku: Kromatska aberacija (27.02.2006.)
* Optiku: Greške leća i objektiva (27.02.2006.)
* Optiku: Jednostavna leća (23.02.2006.)
* Optiku: Formiranje slike (22.02.2006.)
* Optiku: Ogib ili difrakcija (22.02.2006.)
* Optiku: Osnovni zakoni optike (21.02.2006.)
* Optiku: Koliko je optika važna za fotografa? (21.02.2006.)
* Svjetlo i rasvjetu: Tijela i svjetlost (16.02.2006.)
* Svjetlo i rasvjetu: Refleksija (16.02.2006.)
* Upravljanje bojom: Sustavi upravljanja bojom (14.02.2006.)
* Svjetlo i rasvjetu: Temperatura i svjetlo (12.02.2006.)
* Svjetlo i rasvjetu: Točkasti izvor svjetla (09.02.2006.)
* Ispis: Veliki ispis (09.02.2006.)
* Digi osnove: Kompakt ili DSLR (07.02.2006.)
* Upravljanje bojom: Zašto upravljati bojom? (05.02.2006.)
* Digi osnove: Prvi opis digitalca (23.01.2006.)
* Opće osnove: ISO (23.01.2006.)
* Estetiku fotografije: Kontekst (19.01.2006.)
* Estetiku fotografije: Osobni prostor (19.01.2006.)
* Digi osnove: Što je sažimanje (08.01.2006.)
* Upravljanje bojom: Toplina boje (04.01.2006.)
* Upravljanje bojom: Psihološki učinak boje (04.01.2006.)
* Upravljanje bojom: Percepcija boje (04.01.2006.)
* Upravljanje bojom: Kromatska indukcija (04.01.2006.)
* Upravljanje bojom: Metamerizam (04.01.2006.)
* Upravljanje bojom: Gdje se nalazi boja (04.01.2006.)
* Digi osnove: Digitalni i optički zum (04.01.2006.)
* Digi osnove: Koliki raspon zuma (04.01.2006.)
* Opće osnove: Što je zum (04.01.2006.)
* Digi osnove: Memorijske kartice (04.01.2006.)
* Estetiku fotografije: Orijentacija fotografije (03.01.2006.)
* Opće osnove: Klasičan izrez (02.01.2006.)
* Portret: Savjeti za početnike (02.01.2006.)
* Portret: Asimetrija lica (02.01.2006.)
* Estetiku fotografije: Koliko digitalne obrade? (31.12.2005.)
* Opće osnove: Povijest snimanja serija (29.12.2005.)
* Opće osnove: Komponente fotografije (27.12.2005.)
* Digitalnu obradu: Digitalni izrez (22.12.2005.)
* Estetiku fotografije: Okvir (21.12.2005.)
* Estetiku fotografije: Kadar (19.12.2005.)
* Portret: Što je portret (02.12.2005.)
* Svjetlo i rasvjetu: Sinkronizacija bljeskalice (02.12.2005.)
* Opće osnove: EV (02.12.2005.)
* Digi osnove: Treba li nam računalo? (15.11.2005.)

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Many of the developers I know have been programming since they were in junior high. Whether it was building text-based games on an Apple IIe or creating a high school football roster app in Visual Basic, it’s something they did for the challenge, for the love of learning new things and, oh yes, for the ladies. Ladies love a man who can speak BASIC to his Apple.

Code

College graduates face a sad reality when they leave the protective womb of a university and have to get their first real job. Many of my friends found jobs paying around $25k out of school, and were amazed that the starting engineering and computer science salaries were nearly double that. But the majority of the engineers in my class didn’t become engineers for the money; we did it because it touched on a deep inner yearning to tinker and impress their friends. And did I mention the ladies?
Money is a motivating factor for most of us, but assuming comparable pay, what is it that makes some companies attract and retain developers while others churn through them like toilet paper?

Abstract:
The traditional view in economics is that individuals respond to incentives, but absent strong incentives to the contrary selfishness prevails. Moreover, this “greed is good” approach is deemed “rational” behavior. Nevertheless, in daily interactions and in numerous laboratory studies, a high degree of cooperative behavior prevails - even among strangers. A possible explanation for the substantial amount of “irrational” behavior observed in markets (and elsewhere) is that humans are a highly social species and to an extent value what other humans think of them. This behavior can be termed trustworthiness - cooperating when someone places trust in us. I also present the cross-country evidence for environments that produce high or low trust. A number of recent experiments from my lab have demonstrated that the neuroactive hormone oxytocin facilitates trust between strangers, and appears to induce trustworthiness. In rodents, oxytocin has been associated with maternal bonding, pro-social behaviors, and in some species long-term pair bonds, but prior to the work reviewed here, the behavioral effects of oxytocin in humans had not been studied. This chapter discusses the neurobiology of positive social behaviors and how these are facilitated by oxytocin. My experiments show that positive social signals cause oxytocin to be released by the brain, producing an unconscious attachment to a stranger. I also discuss recent research that manipulates oxytocin levels, and functional brain imaging research on trust.

Should you use CSS or (horror of horrors) tables? And what do you do when images are ‘blocked’?

HTML email - you either love it or you hate it. Some love the simplicity of text-only emails, while others praise the flexibility and good looks of HTML. But it doesn’t really matter whether you love it or hate it because sooner or later a client will ask you to design one of those ‘pretty looking email thingies’ for their own customers, and then what do you do?

* Blentwell is an ongoing document of the evolution of blended music.
* A daily link log of all of the hot mixes and beats found online.
* Blentwell’s Links is based on the online linking system Scuttle which in turn is loosely based on the del.icio.us online linking system.

There are two link sections:
1.) Blentwell Links - excellent mix links editorialized by the mysterious Mr. Blentwell.
2.) The People’s Link - get in touch with the mix link zeitgeist through the posting power of the People.

Projax stands for Prototype and Ajax.Projax is a set of Open Source PHP Classes which help you build more interactive Web Application / websites with minimal effort.Projax help you build better applications by providing easy to use API which siplifies tasks involving Ajax , Effects , DOM etc. At its core Projax is a RoR javascript helpers port for PHP. For Ajax and DOM Projax uses Prototype on client side , and for Effects like drag and drop etc it uses Script.aculo.us.

JavaScript Helpers

* button_to_function($name,$function=null)
* link_to_function($name,$function,$html_options=null)
* tag($content)
* escape($javascript)

Prototype Helpers

* evaluate_remote_response()
* form_remote_tag($options)
* link_to_remote($name,$function,$html_options=null)
* observe_field($field_id,$options =null)
* observe_form($form,$options=null)
* periodically_call_remote($options=null)
* remote_function($options)
* submit_to_remote($name,$value,$options=null)
* dump($javascript)
* ID($id,$extend=null)
* alert($message)
* assign($variable,$value)
* …

Script.aculo.us Helpers

* dragable_element($element_id,$options=null)
* drop_receiving_element($element_id,$options=null)
* sortable_element($element_id,$options=null)
* visual_effect($name,$element_id=false,$js_options=null)
* auto_complete_field($field_id,$options=null)
* in_place_editor($field_id,$options=null)

First broadcast television. Then cable television. Now, you can kill your television. Revision3 aims to prove that on-demand, distributed online content is better, faster, more effective, and better targeted to what YOU want to watch.

Tonight, September 26th, Revision3 launches their brand new website with all-new shows, all-new faces, and a few surprises that are sure to turn some heads! And all the familiar Revision3 faces are back with some new episodes, too! You might even find something new from the show that started it all! So raise your drinking glass of malt liquor and share a toast with Revision3 as we push IPTV to the next level.

Godwin’s Law (also Godwin’s Rule of Nazi Analogies) is a mainstay of Internet culture, an adage formulated by Mike Godwin in 1990. It is particularly concerned with logical fallacies such as reductio ad Hitlerum, wherein an idea is unduly dismissed or rejected on ground of it being associated with persons generally considered “evil".

The law states:

Godwin’s Law
As an online discussion grows longer, the probability of a comparison involving Nazis or Hitler approaches one.

Godwin’s Law does not dispute whether, in a particular instance, a reference or comparison to Hitler or the Nazis might be apt. It is precisely because such a reference or comparison may sometimes be appropriate, Godwin argues in his book, Cyber Rights: Defending Free Speech in the Digital Age, that hyperbolic overuse of the Hitler/Nazi comparison should be avoided, as it robs the valid comparisons of their impact.

Aurgasm brings to you an eclectic menagerie of aural pleasures. I scout out music you’ve never heard and deliver only the finest. Expect music curiously different, yet simply enjoyable.

The mission of OneWebDay.org is to create, maintain, advance, and promote a global day to celebrate online life: September 22, 2006

Today is the first ever OneWebDay; “the one day a year when we all – everyone around the physical globe – can celebrate the Web and what it means to us as individuals, organizations, and communities”. OneWebDay was started by Susan Crawford who’s also one of our Board Directors at ICANN and an all round good egg. The idea is to celebrate all the good things about the web, and the Internet more broadly, and do things that either make it better or remind ourselves how great it already is. Fun things, chatty things, useful things, things like teaching people to blog, getting grannies online and building community spaces.

TRYNT began as a single web service, the TRYNT Term Extraction Web Service. The TRYNT Term Extraction Web Service was inspired by the Content Analysis Web Services: Term Extraction from Yahoo. After using the Yahoo web service for a number of months I was curious if I could create a similar animal.

Where there are more then a few web services that attempt to “extract tags” there seemed to be only one offering for contextual term extraction. We consider the TRYNT Term Extraction Web Service the second entry in the contextual term extraction space.

TheSage’s English Dictionary and Thesaurus is a professional software package that integrates a complete dictionary and a multifaceted thesaurus of the English language into a single and powerful language reference system.

TheScribe integrates a WordProcessor and a WordList Manager into a real-time Profiler Engine, providing language educators and researchers with a specialized environment tuned for the careful creation of lexically-sensitive educational and experimental materials.

BVProfiler is a software package intended for language researchers and educators interested in an uncomplicated, fully automatic, text profiler.

At PC World, we spend most of our time talking about products that make your life easier or your work more productive. But it’s the lousy ones that linger in our memory long after their shrinkwrap has shriveled, and that make tech editors cry out, “What have I done to deserve this?”

Still, even the worst products deserve recognition (or deprecation). So as we put together our list of World Class winners for 2006, we decided also to spotlight the 25 worst tech products that have been released since PC World began publishing nearly a quarter-century ago.

02:00 AM Nov. 08, 2005 PT

Last month automaker Toyota announced a recall of 160,000 of its Prius hybrid vehicles following reports of vehicle warning lights illuminating for no reason, and cars’ gasoline engines stalling unexpectedly. But unlike the large-scale auto recalls of years past, the root of the Prius issue wasn’t a hardware problem – it was a programming error in the smart car’s embedded code. The Prius had a software bug.