TechVirtuoso

Google now dominates 6.4% of Internet traffic

October 26th, 2010 at 6:15 PM 1 Comment Michael Stanclift

According to Craig Labovitz at security company Arbor Networks, Google’s domination of the network that is the Internet is now averaging at about 6.4% of all traffic. This is up a full 1% since the start of the year.

As Labovitz says:

If Google were an ISP, as of this month it would rank as the second largest carrier on the planet. Only one global tier1 provider still carries more traffic than Google (and this ISP also provides a large portion of Google’s transit).

According to Arbor, Google is actually growing faster than the Internet itself.

LimeWire ordered to shutdown operations

October 26th, 2010 at 5:59 PM 3 Comments Michael Stanclift

Easing the minds of network and content providers around the world, the U.S District Court in New York has issued a order for LimeWire to immediately cease operations, granting a request by the Recording Industry Artists of America (RIAA).

Users of the LimeWire client software will immediately be notified within the client that it will no longer function.

Network administrators everywhere breathed a sigh of relief, but their packet shapers can only relax for about three days, as their less technically savvy users are now trying to figure out how to use BitTorrent.

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Apple posts DOS emulator to App Store, promptly pulls

October 26th, 2010 at 3:53 PM 2 Comments Michael Stanclift

For a brief moment in time today, Apple allowed an app called iDOS through their approval gauntlet and into the walled garden of the iTunes App Store. Problem is, the App Store doesn’t allow emulators. As such it was promptly removed. If you were lucky enough to grab it for just under a buck, you can now use your non-jailbroken iPhone to run DOS.

Why would you want to run a 30 year old text based operating system on your fancy new iPhone/iPad/iPod? Why not?

As it is, there have already been a few tweets across the Internet of people installing Windows inside their DOS box, and playing old school games.

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Jobs ‘raged’ at Ballmer over Y2K Bungie purchase

October 26th, 2010 at 2:31 PM 3 Comments Michael Stanclift

It’s hard to imagine that one of Microsoft’s most successful franchises of the last decade almost became one of Apple’s. Back in 2000, when Bungie was working on development of the first Halo game, it was slated to be a big title on the new Apple platform. It was so big that Apple had the Bungie team demo a beta of the game on their shiny new G3 Macs.

However, Microsoft announced they’d acquired the company a few months later and it took Apple by surprise. It also enraged Apple CEO Steve Jobs. So much so that Jobs called Microsoft CEO Steve Ballmer to give him a piece of his mind.

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Office for Mac 2011 released today

October 26th, 2010 at 1:50 PM No Comments Michael Stanclift

Microsoft today released Office for Mac 2011 to the public. What is being lauded by both critics and Microsoft as the best version of Office for Mac ever, it’s probably the first version of Office for Mac in a long time that is at near feature match with the Windows version, although it doesn’t include all of the features. It also replaces the much hated Entourage email client for the less hated Outlook email client.

You can pickup a copy now from the Microsoft store for $149 for Home and Student, or $279 for Business. The business version is the only package that includes Microsoft Outlook, and includes 1 year of free technical support from Microsoft. The home version only includes Word, PowerPoint and Excel and 90 days of support.

MSDN & Technet users can download either from through their respective product sites and generate up to 5 keys.

Office for Mac 2011 requires at least OS X 10.5.8 Leopard with an Intel processor.

P2P accounts for more than half of ISP upstream traffic

October 26th, 2010 at 11:01 AM No Comments Michael Stanclift

Sandvine has released a report outlining what exactly is using all the bandwidth from major ISPs around the world. If you through services like iTunes were curbing the use of P2P networks for downloading content then you’re sadly mistaken.

Sandvine’s research reveals that on an average day, 53.3% of all upstream traffic can be attributed to P2P applications.

In addition:

The Asia-Pacific region ramps up their Internet usage at 5 a.m. and their median monthly data consumption is close to 12 gigabytes per household compared to 4 gigabytes in North America. In North America the average time a fixed connection is active is 3 hours, whereas in Asia-Pacific it’s closer to 5.5 hours.
In the United States, Netflix represents more than 20 percent of downstream traffic during peak times and is heaviest between 8-10 p.m.
P2P is less dominant on the downstream side. It is currently at 13.2%, following real time entertainment (45.7%) and web browsing (24.3%).

via TorrentFreak

Flaw in iOS allows lock code bypass

October 26th, 2010 at 10:30 AM No Comments Michael Stanclift

If the fact that the iPhone and other iOS devices are jailbroken by basically exploiting security flaws in Apple’s programming wasn’t enough to highlight Apple’s lack of security prowess, a Brazilian iPhone hacker by the name of Salomão Filho has found a new and much simpler flaw. This one is in Phone.app, and it allows anyone to bypass the security lock code on an iPhone to access the phone functions, thus allowing them to make calls and access contact information and voicemail.

And it can be done by just about anyone with thumbs, via Neowin:

To bypass any lock screen simply hit “emergency call”, then enter three pound signs, hit the green call button and immediately press the lock button and you will have bypassed the security feature on the iPhone.

According to Tipb this exploit has already been fixed in iOS 4.2 betas. It’s unknown if Apple will release a pre-4.2 update to correct this issue. For now the only known workaround is not to lose your phone. Good luck!

Thanks to @hasanahmad for the heads up.

Review: Coveroo custom cover service impresses

October 26th, 2010 at 10:00 AM 2 Comments Michael Stanclift

I go back and forth when it comes to phone cases. On one hand, I want to protect my investment from damage but on the other hand, sometimes they break the aesthetics of a device like the iPhone. With my iPhone 3G, over the course of two years it had two different cases that I used, each for about six months. However with the iPhone 4, due to the much advertised death grip, a “bumper” or full third party case seems to be as much a necessity as a fire extinguisher in a Ford Pinto.

Because of this need, there is an endless possibility of options for cases. But one company aims to give you a case that’s a little more personalized. Coveroo.

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Melinda Gates: Only Zune for you!

October 26th, 2010 at 9:44 AM 1 Comment Michael Stanclift

It seems like this was news last year (it was) but in an interview with The New York Times, Melinda Gates confirmed that Apple products are forbidden in the Gates household. Want an iPod? Zune for you. Want an iPhone? How about a shiny HTC 7 Pro instead?

Do you own an iPod, which is made by Apple?
No, I have a Zune.

What if one of your children says, “Mom, I have to have an iPod?”
I have gotten that argument — “You may have a Zune.”

Do you have an iPad?
Of course not.

Is it true that Bill works on an Apple laptop?
False. Nothing crosses the threshold of our doorstep.

Isn’t there room in this world for both Apple and Microsoft?
Microsoft certainly makes products for the Macintosh. Go talk to Bill.

Also, if you were concerned for Bill’s mental health with the news that he’s no longer the richest man in the world (partly because he’s giving most of his fortune away, and partly because Microsoft’s stock has gone south) you have no reason to worry. The only person it really bothers is his daughter.

By the way, I see he fell this year back to No. 2 on the list of the world’s wealthiest people. How did he feel when the Mexican businessman Carlos Slim overtook him?
The only person that teases him about that is our youngest daughter, our 8-year-old. He couldn’t care less.

Surprise: Outlook 2011 renders emails using Webkit

October 25th, 2010 at 11:40 PM 2 Comments Michael Stanclift

Are your feet cold? Mine are, I think it’s because hell just froze over.

9to5Mac has the goods:

A little tidbit from the Microsoft gathering this evening. While demonstrating Outlook for Mac and the HTML rendering engine, Microsoft employees revealed that instead of using the Word HTML rendering that previous versions of Mac Office used (and the PC version as well), Microsoft has moved over to Apple’s Webkit rendering engine to render HTML mails. Outlook 2011 also uses WebKit to create HTML mail.

Coupled with the recent announcement that they were moving Windows Live Spaces to WordPress, I think Microsoft has managed to surprise me twice in one month.

The fact that Microsoft is actually using open source code in products is a great start, one can only hope they’re contributing back.

Microsoft Office 2011 for Mac will be released tomorrow.

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