http://www.tech-faq.com/blog News and Views from The Tech FAQ Team Sun, 10 May 2009 00:01:32 +0000 http://backend.userland.com/rss092 en Windows Vista was, from an objective standpoint, a major flop. This isn't a new experience for Microsoft.  Windows ME was a terrible disaster which cost Microsoft tens or hundreds of millions of dollars, years of development time, and an incredible amount of public embarrassment.  It was unofficially renamed "Windows Mistake Edition." When ... http://www.tech-faq.com/blog/windows-7-forum.html The Electronic Frontier Foundation (EFF) recently filed an emergency motion with the Newton District Court in Boston on behalf of a Boston College Student who was accused of criminal wrong-doing and had all of his computer and electronic equipment seized. The warrant was issued based upon the "evidence" that the student ... http://www.tech-faq.com/blog/boston-college-ability-to-use-a-command-line-is-a-sign-of-criminal-activity.html I just ran a search on Google, and oh, all the results were “harmful!” For the first time in its recent history, the most popular search engine in the world malfunctioned. In what could be a temporary delight for Microsoft and Yahoo, users Googling for anything were warned about each result, ... http://www.tech-faq.com/blog/google-hacked.html Given the plethora of choices for mobile phones, tech-savvy consumers often love to upgrade to the latest on the market. So what should be done about the old pieces that might uselessly occupy the shelf? Well, recycling your old phone will not only fetch reasonable money, but is an environment ... http://www.tech-faq.com/blog/recycle-your-old-phone-make-some-money-and-save-the-environment-too.html SourceForge and Freshmeat are both great web sites for finding obscure open source software packages. Both are very old and authoritative web sites; Freshmeat was started in March of 1998 and SourceForge came along in August of 1999. SourceForge has a larger database of projects to search, which is a major advantage.  ... http://www.tech-faq.com/blog/sourceforge-vs-freshmeat.html Evil Science has just published Internet Explorer vs Firefox vs Opera vs Chrome vs Safari, which contains the results of an extensive competitive speed test between five popular web browsers. The author is an Opera user who discovered that his favorite browser has slipped to the #2 spot for performance. The author ... http://www.tech-faq.com/blog/fastest-web-browser-google-chrome.html Have you ever been interested in how a web site like The Tech FAQ gets built and promoted? Now you have an opportunity to find out. The creator of The Tech FAQ has recently started a forum for webmasters where he shares the knowledge he gained while building and promoting this ... http://www.tech-faq.com/blog/new-webmaster-forum.html Bootable Linux distributions are quite popular right now. Just by booting from a DVD or other media, they allow you to possess a dedicated security auditing or forensics workstation. Usually though, I don't want to reboot just to use a different set of applications. I want all of my ... http://www.tech-faq.com/blog/ubuntu-security-tools.html The Washington Post printed a story about the Islamist terrorists who recently went on a murder spree in Mumbai India, with an interesting technological twist. The bad guys used technology heavily: They trained using satellite images and video footage of their targets They used GPS navigation equipment on the boat they hijacked to ... http://www.tech-faq.com/blog/terrorists-go-hi-tech.html If you've dropped your cell phone in water, or just gotten it wet, then you'll want to make sure you follow a series of steps to ensure it will continue to operate. Remove the phone from the water source If you are able to quickly remove the phone from the water, then ... http://www.tech-faq.com/blog/how-to-dry-a-cell-phone-thats-come-in-contact-with-water.html