Firefox 7 Available now

Feels like I just posted that.  Oh wait,...I did about 2 months ago with Firefox 6.  While I appreciate the continual updating of Firefox, the need to upgrade it so often is too much.  Considering that most of the improvements are "under the hood", Mozilla should just make those updates quietly, like Google Chrome does. The continual updates, check extensions for compatability, etc. is tedious.  On the positive note, one of the fixes is suppose to address the annoying problem of the browser speed slowing to a crawl when multiple windows open.  If this is fixed, I might change my mind entirely over the constant updating.

Now your car is tracking you too...

Apple got into a bit of trouble a couple of months ago when it was revealed (although not really surprising) that the iPhone tracked your whereabouts.  Well, all smartphones do this.  After all, how would your carrier know how to charge you for calls and services you use if they didn't know where you were when you used them?  The rule of thumb is to always expect any connected device to be tracking or keeping some information about you on the device and possibly sending it somewhere, with or without your permission.  The latest example of this is Onstar.  You may be familiar with the commercial, buy a new GM car, get Onstar free for a year.  After the year, you either continue the service by paying a monthly fee or cancel it.  Well, GM recently revealed that when you cancel the service, the service still tracks your movements and reports it back to GM.  Why, well it's a growing trend called "aggregate data".  Companies collect data, any data possible and sell it to interested marketers.  GM claims you can "opt-out" by calling them, however, do you really trust them to stop when they've been doing it without notifiying you for this long?  For more read this ArsTechnica article.

Windows 8 up and running

The installation is complete and I am now running Windows 8 on a Inspiron E1405 laptop.  The first thing you notice is the tiles that occupy the homescreen.  Instead of a desktop, you get a bunch of tiles, similar to icons on your homescreen on your smartphone.  If you click on "Desktop", you get a conventional desktop that is pretty much identical to the Windows 7 desktop.  It's like a marriage between your smartphone and computer.  It's hard to explain, but that is my initial gut reaction.  One confirmed detail that was announced is that Anti-Virus will be built into Windows 8.  No word on what it will be, although it would be a safe bet to assume some form of Microsoft's Security Essentials.  More details as I play around with it some more.

E-mail spoofing, more web annoyances

In the past week or so, friends have contacted me about my yahoo account sending out spam to them.  My first reaction is that this must be a mistake, along with a bit of embarrassment.  However, to my great relief, it appears to be a case of email spoofing and not an outright hack.  There is a difference between a hacked email account and one that is being spoofed.  Quite simply, if it's hacked, somebody is actually logging in and using it to send spam.  They have your password.  Spoofing is when somebody sends out email and shows your email address as the return address instead of using their own.  The result is that any response to that email, including if it was undeliverable, would come to you and could make you think you were the sender when in reality you weren’t. Spoofing is often practiced by spammers as a way of misdirecting anyone trying to find the source of the spam.  A ton of "undeliverable" mail that I did not send hit my inbox one day, letting me know that this was spoofing.  Regardless, if you are ever a victim of either, change your email password and scan your system for malware.  Check out this article for more about the difference.

Call a company, get an actual person on the phone

For years, I recommended a site called www.gethuman.com.  The site lists the most popular (and unpopular) companies, but with a catch.  It told you what numbers to push on your phone to get an actual human being on the phone to talk to.  This service alone shaves about 10 minutes off of any call you make to a company about an issue you may be having.  Well another good site has popped up that does the same, www.nophonetrees.com.

First real look at Windows 8

Microsoft this week released the Developer Preview of Windows 8.  Oh, what does this mean?  Well all the geeks and hardcore Windows users get to have some fun.  We finally get to see a real glimpse of the final product.  I downloaded my copy and took one of the extra computers I have sitting around (to my wife's disappointment) and have started the install.  The good news is that Microsoft says that it will run on anything that can run Vista or Windows 7.  The bad news is that it cannot be uninstalled, meaning, you will need a dedicated computer to run it or run it in a virtual machine.