Savvify

If IMing friends from mobile to mobile is faster and cheaper than sending SMS messages, then IMing photos, videos, and music clips is even better.

Fring announced this week an update to its Symbian 9.1 and Symbian 9.2 offerings (sorry, Windows Mobile) that lets registered members swap files. This is the first I’ve heard of file-sharing from any mobile IM service, though saving the best perks for members is common to others, like EQO, that have far grander ambitions than simple all-in-one chat.

Much like file-sharing from desktop chat apps, fring (it really is lower-case) files ride the Wi-Fi, 3G, GSM, GPRS, or EDGE wave between phones, but for fringsters only. Fring will ferry files over to the computer, too, via an Internet connection and MSN. Fring’s neat, attractive offering clearly shows the direction in which mobile phones are headed–away from syncing, MMS, e-mailing a file to a middleman uploading service, and pushing media to a Web site. Though fring doesn’t yet offer any of those forms of mass socializing, it does share media on an exclusive, individual level that’s a good choice for users who prefer their privacy, and who can also convince their friends to use one more social service.

If that’s not enough fringing for you, fring friends can stalk you through a fringME! widget you embed on a Web site, blog, or profile, which will disclose your whereabouts and give buddies

… Read more

Power Downloader knows one of the most difficult things about studying and writing papers is staying focused. When he received a stressed out e-mail from Kitty Kilobyte recently saying she was trying to write a paper for school, but kept getting distracted, Power knew all too well what she was talking about. Even when Power Downloader needs to get to work, he will sometimes find himself surfing the Web or checking e-mail, so he knows how easy it is to get distracted. Over time, Power is sure Kitty will develop the skills necessary to focus on her work, but for now he decided would try to find her the perfect tool to stay focused.

After some searching at Download.com, Power Downloader came upon a little textpad application called Dark Room. While the program is not particularly strong on features, it does one thing very well: it eliminates distraction. With Dark Room on her computer, Kitty would be able to write her paper without the usual distractions of her computer’s desktop. Dark Room would let Kitty write in full screen with a black background so all the chat notifications, e-mail alerts, and other distractions are conveniently hidden out of view. If she didn’t like the default black background, she could switch the background color, the text color, and the font, all in the Dark Room options. Playing with some … Read more

Read better with Better GReader

Better GReader is a young, but not exactly robust, Firefox extension. However, like its sibling Better Gmail, it has a lot of potential. Designed to improve the look, as well as the functionality, of Google Reader, GReader has four skins and four features to get your RSS going.

… Read more

Get ready for Vista and XP updates

Microsoft has been quietly readying several Service Packs for its operating systems. Windows Vista SP1 has undergone several public release candidates, but CNET Reviews’ Rob Vamosi got his hands on a copy of the real deal, not due out until March. The verdict? You’ll have to click through to find out.

CNET News.com’s Ina Fried got word of private beta testing of Windows XP SP3–that’s right, I said Service Pack 3. Although it’s nearly six months away from being ready, Microsoft promises that SP3 will contain the usual security fixes, but no word on whether it will introduce any major overhauls, like Windows XP SP2 did.

That could indicate Microsoft will not be abandoning its old workhorse anytime soon, or it could also be a last fling to keep Vista-haters happy until Redmond figures out what direction it wants to take its operating systems in, as they bleed market share to Apple’s OS X and various Linux flavors.

Band of Horses: Free MP3 of the Day

With a sound so big and wide-open it could bounce off of mountains, Band of Horses is a noticeable departure and progression from Carissa’s Weird, Ben Bridwell and Matt Brooke’s previous partnership.

Download free MP3 now!

 

Give your overzealous security software the boot

About five years ago I installed the family version of Symantec’s Norton Internet Security software on one of my PCs, rendering the machine unusable. Not only couldn’t I get any access to the Internet, it was impossible to uninstall the program. I ended up having to reinstall the operating system and all my applications–except Norton Internet Security. At the time I said I would never again install a Symantec security program on any PC, but about a year ago I bought a PC that came with 90 days of Norton 360, and the program won me over. When the free trial period was over I even coughed up $80 for a year’s subscription. Apart from the frequent nags about my need to back up (I prefer to use my own manual backup strategy), I’m happy with the Norton 360.Now the other side of the coin: I’ve used CheckPoint’s ZoneAlarm firewall–both the free and pro versions–for many years, and on many different PCs. The program would occasionally prevent a legitimate program from performing some operation, but on those rare instances I merely shut the firewall down long enough to complete the task, and then turned it back on. No problem.

Until this morning, that is. I spent four hours trying to update a Web site via ftp, only to be told that access to my ISP’s ftp server was denied. I tried using the WS_FTP Pro ftp program, Windows Explorer, Firefox, and even … Read more

A few days ago, two prototypes of Firefox Mobile, the latest bun in Mozilla’s oven, made it onto the Mozilla wiki. Today Firefox Mobile product manager Doug Turner released two more designs.

Turner’s team didn’t scrap the toolbar entirely, but based on user feedback, they did make it much less intrusive. Why look at the buttons when users really want the Web, they reasoned. Letting the toolbars dissolve away when they’re at rest is one method for making the most of the screen. Tapping a translucent icon (shown solid here) could bring the command buttons back.

Related story:
Will Opera perform for free?

Firefox releases another security update

Mozilla has published a new version of Firefox to address lingering security concerns. The most noticeable problem that Version 2.0.0.12 (for Windows and Mac) hopes to fix are program crashes and corruption of stored passwords.

Other remedies include sealing up a variety of security holes, including browser history and navigation stealing, holes related to multiple file inputs, and URL token stealing.

Spyware Horror Story: Duped by remote control

Editor’s note: Last week’s story on spyware as a form of domestic abuse (‘Do you know your hacker?’) generated much response, including very personal stories from women whose lives were at one point dominated by the kind of controlling abuse described last week. Because of the deep personal, as well as technological, impact on these users’ lives, one story is featured here today. Scroll below for the editor’s response or click to jump ahead.

Published by Elissa; Michigan, U.S.

Shortly after a nasty custody battle erupted with my network-hobbyist ex-husband, my once efficiently reliable technological life mysteriously spiraled literally out of my control. Suddenly all tools upon which I had relied, as a 5-year veteran remote-based sales person, ceased normal function. Subtle changes to fonts and settings followed restricted permissions and aggravated my connectivity. Disabled features suddenly enabled themselves and I could not click them back to normal. Calls to tech support offered no solution, especially since “it doesn’t seem to be a problem impacting the PC,” ended the troubleshooting. As the situation worsened, phone calls dropped, voice mails disappeared, and e-mails did not go through. I lost administrator privileges to access certain key words online. Hours spent writing summary reports resulted in blank or lost documents, each mishap sharing only one common variable: relative importance to the custody battle or my personal life.

It was mid-2003, we were all just switching to SIM cards. Antivirus software was for businesses, hackers were corporate threats, “spyware” … Read more

TrueCrypt now available for Mac OS X

Anyone who has shared a computer with a roommate, family member, or co-worker knows it’s pretty hard to keep everything organized. But beyond having separate user accounts or personal folders, some data you have on your hard drive just isn’t meant to be seen by other users. Whether it’s your personal account numbers, journal entries, or other private files, a secure place to store items on your shared computer is necessary for your privacy.

A while ago I found a great Windows app for creating secure volumes called TrueCrypt. This open-source (free) program offers up multiple levels of security and several different types of encryption. It’s so secure that if you forget the password to your encrypted volume, you might as well just trash it. Not even your favorite computer-fixing buddy down the hall in your dorm can crack this code…seriously. Just to give you an idea, TrueCrypt uses encryption algorithms AES-256, Blowfish (448-bit key), CAST5, Serpent, Triple DES, and Twofish, or just about any combination of these methods. Don’t worry, I don’t know what all that means either, but TrueCrypt offers a wizard taking you through a step-by-step process explaining how to create secure volumes, how to select your encryption type, and how to create a secure password.

The big news today is that Truecrypt is now available for Mac OS X. … Read more