Beware Of Types Of Bluetooth Hacks

You may have heard references to one or more of these terms in emails from friends or conversations with the IT pros in your company. Here’s a quick rundown for your reference:

Bluejacking: Also known as Bluetooth spam, anonymous “business cards” sent via Bluetooth to discoverable devices in range.Bluebugging: Allows hackers to access mobile phone commands (AT commands) via Bluetooth, allowing access to SMS (Short Message Service), phonebook, call sending, and eavesdropping. Older, first-generation Bluetooth phones are the most susceptible to this kind of attack.

Bluesnarfing: Allows access to data on a Bluetooth-enabled phone. Data at risk in a Bluesnarf attack includes the calendar, phonebook, and IMEI (International Mobile Equipment Identity). Bluesnarfing affects mostly Nokia and Sony Ericcson phones.

Denial of Service (DoS): Constant requests for response from Bluetooth. It causes excess battery drain and temporary blockage of Bluetooth access by peripherals. There’s no real risk; it’s just extremely annoying.Interception: Use of a specially made Bluetooth device to interrupt paired devices. A device will request repairing while disguised as previously paired device and intercept the PIN entered, allowing access to cell phone or PDA.

Cabir Worm: Self-replicating malicious software that spreads via Bluetooth. The worm only affects Bluetooth-enabled phones using the Symbian Series 60 User Interface Platform. A user must manually accept the worm for infection to take place.

Oregon Scientific Atomic Travel Clock

Being stuck in a hotel room without an alarm clock can be a distressing experience. Although, in theory, the sun’s rise should be as good as any buzzing clock, that system rarely, if ever, works out in practice. A travel alarm clock, if small and compact, can offer the weary traveler some peace of mind if a hotel room comes up short.

Oregon Scientific’s Atomic Travel Clock with Indoor Temperature ($29.95; www2.oregonscientific.com) automatically sets itself to your current time zone and even tells you the indoor temperature. Its patented HiGlo electroluminescence display makes it easy to spot the time if you wake up in the middle of the night, and its small size allows for easy storage in your carry-on or even purse. This feature-rich clock comes equipped with a month and day calendar in three different languages, a United States map display, and a travel case and runs on two AAA batteries.

Types of Rechargeable Batteries

Ni-Cd (nickel-cadmium). Ni-Cds offer a fast charging rate and can achieve good longevity, with more than 1,000 charge/discharge cycles. Ni-Cds can suffer from reduced performance if you recharge them before they have been completely discharged. Some Ni-Cd battery chargers include circuitry to discharge Ni-Cds before charging. Ni-Cds require a break-in period. Many manufacturers recommend up to three charge/discharge cycles before the battery will reach optimum performance.

NiMH (nickel-metal hydride). NiMHs are capable of 30 to 40% higher storage capacity than equivalent Ni-Cds, but they support fewer charge/recharge cycles; 300 to 500 charging cycles is the norm. NiMHs do not require a deep discharge before charging, so you can top off a battery before a planned prolonged use. Continually deep discharging a NiMH can shorten its life, although an occasional full discharge will ensure optimal energy storage. NiMHs take longer to charge than equivalent Ni-Cds and can be damaged by overcharging or by charging when the battery is hot. Smart NiMH battery chargers can prevent overcharging and/or charging when a battery’s internal temperature is high.

Li-Ion (Lithium-Ion). Li-Ion batteries provide the highest energy density available, nearly double the energy available from Ni-Cds. They are also low maintenance. They don’t require a deep discharge, they don’t require a break-in period, and they don’t suffer from battery memory. You can charge a Li-Ion at any time without affecting battery performance, but because Li-Ions generally have a charge/discharge life of 300 to 500 cycles, you can shorten a battery’s life by topping it off too often. Most Li-Ion manufacturers expect battery lifetimes of up to three years, however, some consumers report failures in as few as 18 months. Li-Ion Polymer.

Li-Ion Polymer batteries, sometimes referred to as Li-Polys or LiPos, are essentially the same as Li- Ions. The main difference is that Li-Ion Polymers are much thinner, with cell heights as small as 1mm. Li-Ion Polymers are also very lightweight, and more resistant to overcharging and leaking. They are more expensive to produce than Li-Ions, however, and have a lower energy density. Li-Ion Polymers are most often used in lightweight, high-value electronics, such as cell phones.

Find & Book A Hotel On INTERNET

If you’re looking for the best hotel deal, try Trip Advisor’s (www.tripadvisor.com) Find Hotels search feature. The feature is available on the home page and most destination pages and lets you define a destination, reservation dates, price level, and the number of occupants. Based on your search criteria, Trip Advisor explores its database for matching hotels and returns results in order of user ratings. For specific pricing information about a hotel, click its QuickCheck link and select online travel vendors to compare prices and check room availability. At press time Trip Advisor offered hotel information from Expedia.com, Orbitz, Hotels.com, hotel-specific Web sites, and others sources, depending on your destination. After you select the vendors, click the Go button. TripAdvisor opens a new window that displays the first vendor’s Web site with the pricing information for the hotel and your booking dates. To compare the next vendor, leave this window open and click the Show Next Offer button on the QuickCheck window. TripAdvisor opens another window to display the next vendor’s information. Continue checking vendors and pricing in this manner. To book a room, you work directly with the travel vendor.

TripAdvisor does not handle reservations or related questions. For example, if you find that Expedia.com offers the hotel package you want, book the room through Expedia.com. Because TripAdvisor’s QuickCheck feature displays pricing information directly from the vendor’s Web site, you can usually access the vendor’s online booking capability when you view pricing information with QuickCheck.

VoIP (Voice over Internet Protocol)

Mobile users and telecommuters don’t have to be left out of VoIP (Voice over Internet Protocol) telephony because many VoIP providers now offer a Soft- Phone option for their customers. A VoIP SoftPhone is software that places a full-featured VoIP telephone on your Windows notebook PC Desktop. A SoftPhone can be a handy voice communications option especially, if it’s tied into your employer’s VoIP telephone system. Unlike IM (instant messaging) clients, such as Google Talk and MSN Instant Messenger (which include VoIP), a SoftPhone from a VoIP provider can dial landline telephone numbers just like a regular telephone.

Using a SoftPhone can be a bit of a jump to some people; however, major VoIP providers base their SoftPhone software on a strict telephone analogy. When using a SoftPhone, instead of dialing a physical keypad, you dial a keypad display on your monitor using your mouse or keyboard shortcuts. Actually, the typical SoftPhone interface includes components of a desktop phone and a mobile phone that likely look familiar to you and will help you learn the software. VoIP SoftPhone vs. Your VoIP Phone A VoIP SoftPhone replicates the features of a VoIP telephone on your laptop PC. Most VoIP providers, such as Vonage (www.vonage.com) and Cisco Systems (www.cisco.com), went to extra pains to design their SoftPhones to resemble a normal VoIP telephone. For example when you open a Vonage SoftPhone, it resembles a telephone, only it appears on your Windows XP Desktop.

Commercial VoIP telephone manufacturers such as Cisco carry the analogy even farther by patterning phones that match their desktop models; the Cisco IP Communicator, for instance, closely matches the desktop phone offerings of Cisco’s 7900 phone line. This software approach to a VoIP telephone requires that you use a headset and microphone plugged into your laptop’s earphone and microphone jacks. Even if your laptop has a powerful microphone and speakers, you’ll quickly find that background noise can drown out calls. There are many headset and microphone choices available, from inexpensive $10 headsets to the pricey wireless headsets that cost more than $100. If you fall into the ranks of the road warrior and weight is a consideration, some vendors, such as Plantronics (www.plantronics.com), produce ear buds with an attached microphone; visualize how it would look to attach a microphone to your MP3 player’s ear buds. Other headsets provide Bluetooth capabilities or are USB-compatible. No matter your preferences, you are bound to find a headset/microphone option that fits your budget. Usage. Perhaps the first challenge of using your SoftPhone is recognizing its ringer. After you plug a headphone and microphone into your laptop, all of your laptop’s audio channels through your headphones.

The best advice we can give is to get used to such SoftPhone configuration eccentricities prior to going out on the road with the device for the first time. Another difference you’ll notice between a regular desktop VoIP telephone and SoftPhone is audio tuning. A SoftPhone has an integrated Audio Tuning Wizard. Because a VoIP SoftPhone depends on your laptop’s hardware and OS for audio, you need to tune your computer’s audio periodically to provide optimum audio quality for your SoftPhone. When running a SoftPhone’s Audio Tuning Wizard, you need to configure your headset (speaker) and microphone hardware so they work correctly. Audio tuning is part of the configuration process, and you should access your SoftPhone’s Audio Tuning Wizard whenever you make significant adjustments to your laptop’s audio settings. It is also prudent to run your Audio Tuning Wizard after completing a significant update of your laptop’s OS or audio software to ensure your SoftPhone’s audio settings stay in their prime.

Internet Terms

cookie—Information such as passwords or preferences
that a Web site stores on a visitor’s computer
for retrieval during future visits.

firewall—Hardware, software, or a combination
of the two that monitors and controls the flow of
information between two segments of a network
or between a PC and the Internet.

IP (Internet Protocol) Address—A set of four
numbers, separated by periods, that identify a PC
on a private network or the Internet.

loopback address—A special IP address designated
for testing use by all computers. Pinging
this address on a PC will confirm that TCP/IP
(Transmission Control Protocol/Internet Protocol)
is installed and the network adapter is functional.

Network adapter—An internal card or piece of
external hardware that gives a PC the capability of
communicating with other devices on a network
(private or the Internet).

PING—An acronym for Packet Internet Groper,
a utility that transmits data packets to a requested
IP address and reports on the response
time and availability. Also a verb that describes
this process.

SSL (Secure Sockets Layer)—A protocol for
encrypting data and sending it securely over
the Internet.

TCP/IP (Transmission Control Protocol/Internet
Protocol)—A standard for transmitting data between
computers via network connections.
TCP/IP settings are the collective group of configurations
that enable a PC to send and receive
using TCP/IP.

TSL (Transport Layer Security)—Another protocol
(actually a tweaked version of SSL [Secure
Sockets Layer]) for encrypting and transmitting
data securely.

URL (Uniform Resource Locator)—The technical
term for a Web address. You can use URLs and IP
addresses interchangeably in Web browsers.

Conditional Formatting In Excel

Conditional formatting allows you to set specific formatting based on the contents of a cell. This formatting will apply as you add data to your spreadsheet. For example, if you are using an Excel spreadsheet to record expenditures, you can have categories of expenses appear in different font colors automatically. Select Conditional Formatting from the Format menu to open the dialog box. To apply conditional formatting, as in the example above, select Cell Value Is in the first dropdown box. Select Equal To from the second field’s drop-down menu and then type an expenditure category in the third box (Groceries, for example). You have now set up a condition such that any cell in which you type the word Groceries will be distinctly formatted. To set the distinct format for each condition, click the Format button in the dialog box. This will open an abbreviated version of the Format Cells dialog box available on the Format menu. In this dialog box, you can select formatting on the Font, Border, and Patterns tabs. When you have made your formatting choices, click OK to apply them to your selected Condition. For our example, go to the Font tab and select the red colored box from the Color drop-down menu. Then click OK. Now, when you type the word Groceries in any cell, it will appear in red when you press ENTER. To add another condition, click the Add button and repeat the process of creating a condition. For example, you could add a condition so that any cell in which you type Insurance will turn blue, or any cell containing Entertainment will turn yellow. You can define up to three conditions. To delete a condition, click the Delete button and Making formatting changes based on the content of a cell is made easy with Conditional Formatting.

Windows CE embedded OS

It’s somewhat difficult to accurately compare OnStar against Windows Automotive because the services are intrinsically quite different. OnStar is a monitored, monthly-fee service where a network of operators (OnStar Advisors) work in tandem with a computer, which is installed inside your vehicle and runs a proprietary OS. OnStar’s pairing of machine and man enables it to provide drivers with navigational assistance (with the aid of GPS [global positioning system]), emergency communications and vehicle tracking services for emergency personnel, handsfree calling, and a variety of other offerings (depending on your service level). For some of these features, you can access them directly from the vehicle. For others, you connect to a communications center and speak with an Advisor. Windows Automotive, on the other hand, is a software platform (based on the Windows CE embedded OS) that device makers use as the foundation for proprietary onboard systems (factory installed and after market). Some companies use a Windows Automotive-based solution in their vehicles and pair it with an OnStar-style operator assistance feature. Other automakers and manufacturers offer very different feature sets. Satoshi Soma, general manager of AVNC Product Development at Alpine Electronics says, “Windows Automotive . . . provides our developers with essential building blocks for creating our in-vehicle technology.” This is an excellent analogy because Windows Automotive is the core technology that transparently runs and interconnects all the various components of the system (in much the same way that Windows CE runs retail transaction devices or medical monitoring equipment). However, the system manufacturer, and not Microsoft, designs the complete package, including but not limited to the security features, navigational structure, and user interface. This difference does not mean Windows Automotive is better or worse than OnStar, it just means the decision-making process may be more complicated. Onboard OnStar No matter which OnStar-equipped model you purchase, you can expect a consistent set of available (although not necessarily included) features. Your vehicle will be equipped with front, rear, and side sensors that detect a crash; a cellular antenna to connect you to the OnStar network; a GPS device for tracking and mapping; a built-in microphone for hands-free communication; and in some GM models, sensors that measure crash severity and perform GM Goodwrench diagnostic checks.

Wireless modem routers.

Is there a constant queue of people around your PC, waiting to collect email, check eBay or send an Instant Message? We feel your pain, but if there are other PCs around there’s an answer. Simply set up your own network and everyone can automatically share the same broadband connection, resources such as printers, or easily transfer files from one system to another. It doesn’t take much to get started, either. If you’ve got two PCs, for example, buying a couple of wired connectors and the necessary cabling might cost you around £25. A wireless network PC card for your laptop could be another £20 or so, and then to tie them all together you’d need a wireless modem/router. This combines an ADSL modem that plugs into your phone line, usually with four Fast Ethernet ports for connection to wired network adapters, and a wireless access point for everyone else. Sounds expensive, but you’d be surprised: prices start from under £50. Yet isn’t it complicated? Not necessarily. In fact, the typical router installation is fairly straightforward. Once connected to your PC, it assigns you an IP address that you’ll find in the manual. Type that into your browser (192.168.1.1, say) and you’ll see the Setup program that leads you through the installation process. In a few minutes or so you should be online, and that’s when you realise that sharing your Internet connection is only one of the benefits of a good router. Value for money One feature you’ll get with every router in our test is a decent hardware firewall. This can’t be turned off by Trojans or accidentally disabled by some other network user, which means that you’re always protected from external threats. This applies even to wireless hackers. The latest routers and wireless cards employ an encryption scheme called WPA, which ensures that your data is absolutely safe. You might have concerns that are closer to home, of course. For example, what happens now your kids can surf from a PC in their bedroom without you being around? Fortunately, some routers can help there, too, thanks to URL blocking by time of day. This disables Web access for the hours you specify, making it possible to keep some control over their Internet usage. Another increasingly common modem feature is compatibility with ADSL 2/2+. This is the next broadband standard that will offer speeds of up to 24Mbps (depending how it’s implemented). This could become available in some places later this year, probably at a very high price, but at least you’ll be ready if you have with the right modem. You’ll also find that some routers offer wireless speeds well above the 54Mbps 54g standard, but these aren’t necessarily such a good deal. A 108Mbps Super-G produce will only reach that speed with other Super-G cards, for instance, and at close range. Use an ordinary 54g client or move some distance away and you may see little – if any – benefit. Some complicated issues to consider, then, but there’s nothing like a group test for picking out the easiest to use, most powerful router around. So which is it? Turn the page to find out what we discovered.

Could this CPU beat both Intel and AMD?

Earlier this year IBM, Sony and Toshiba announced the Cell chip and, if you believe everything you read, it could be the processor to change everything. It’s got eight cores, with local memory, and managed by a central core based around IBM’s PowerPC CPU. It’s claimed Cell can reach speeds of 4.8GHz, and outperform single-core Intel and AMD processors by a factor of ten. Distributed processing is apparently another benefit. If you have a network of Cell systems, then any busy processors will share their workload around, and so use their resources as efficiently as possible. Which is handy, as the PlayStation 3 will be powered by Cell. However, there are reasons to doubt some of these details. The PlayStation 2 used a Sony and Toshiba CPU – the Emotion Engine – that was supposed to outperform everything else. It never happened. Furthermore, the Cell’s eight cores are simplified vector CPUs, fine for some math tasks, but not for running applications. It may run selected synthetic benchmarks ‘ten times faster than a Pentium’, but real world tests won’t see anything close to that. Factor in distributed processing, cost and power consumption, and the problems begin to look significant.

When you’re used to dealing with desktop PCs and Windows, it’s easy to think that there’s nothing else in the PC world. Yet you’d be wrong. How wrong? Try this. While Intel and AMD are thinking about giving us four-core processors in 2007, proper production in 2008 if we’re lucky, Sun Microsystems have been pressing ahead with their own Niagara CPU. This features eight cores, which can each run up to eight threads simultaneously, providing up to 64 virtual CPUs. Is this overkill? For desktop users, yes, but this is aimed at the server market. It’s expected to be available in early 2006 and gives us some idea of the kind of technology that the rest of us will be using around 2010 (when it just might be affordable by the average consumer). Not everyone is aiming at the high end of the market, though. Earlier this year Fujitsu announced the FR550, which is armed with four 32-bit cores each capable of executing up to eight threads simultaneously. ‘Only’ 32-bit? Yes, but then again, the CPU only consumes a tiny 3W of power. It’s apparently going to appear in ‘high definition TVs and digital entertainment products’, with the first releases expected at the end of 2005. Looks like the future really is multi-core, and it’s arriving sooner than we think.