This week we learned how to tweak the low battery action on a Windows 7 laptop, access an eBook collection anywhere in the world, “extend iPad battery life, batch resize photos, & sync massive music collections”, went on a reign of destruction with Snow Crusher, and had fun decorating our desktops with abstract icon collections.

Photo by pasukaru76.

Random Geek Links

We have included extra news article goodness to help you catch up on any developments that you may have missed during the holiday break this past week.

Note: The three 27C3 articles listed here represent three different presentations at the 27th Chaos Communication Congress hacker conference.

• 4chan victim of DDoS as FBI investigates role in PayPal attack
  Users of 4chan may have gotten a taste of their own medicine after the site was knocked offline by a DDoS attack from an unknown origin early Thursday morning.
• Report: FBI seizes server in probe of WikiLeaks attacks
  The FBI has seized a server in Texas as part of its hunt for the groups behind the pro-WikiLeaks denial-of-service attacks launched in December against PayPal, Visa, MasterCard, and others.
• Mozilla exposes older user-account database
  Mozilla has disabled 44,000 older user accounts for its Firefox add-ons site after a security researcher found part of a database of the account information on a publicly available server.
• Data breach affects 4.9 million Honda customers
  Japanese automaker Honda has put some 2.2 million customers in the United States on a security breach alert after a database containing information on the owners and their cars was hacked.
• Chinese Trojan discovered in Android games
  An Android-based Trojan called “Geinimi” has been discovered in the wild and the Trojan is capable of sending personal information to remote servers and exhibits botnet-like behavior.
• 27C3 presentation claims many mobiles vulnerable to SMS attacks
  According to security experts, an ‘SMS of death’ threatens to disable many current Sony Ericsson, Samsung, Motorola, Micromax and LG mobiles.
• 27C3: GSM cell phones even easier to tap
  Security researchers have demonstrated how open source software on a number of revamped, entry-level cell phones can decrypt and record mobile phone calls in the GSM network.
• 27C3: danger lurks in PDF documents
  Security researcher Julia Wolf has pointed out numerous, previously hardly known, security problems in connection with Adobe’s PDF standard.
• Critical update for WordPress
  A critical update has been made available for WordPress in the form of version 3.0.4. The update fixes a security bug in WordPress’s KSES library.
• McAfee Labs Predicts Geolocation, Mobile Devices and Apple Will Top the List of Targets for Emerging Threats in 2011
  The list comprises 2010’s most buzzed about platforms and services, including Google’s Android, Apple’s iPhone, foursquare, Google TV and the Mac OS X platform, which are all expected to become major targets for cybercriminals. McAfee Labs also predicts that politically motivated attacks will be on the rise.
• Windows Phone 7 piracy materializes with FreeMarketplace
  A proof-of-concept application, FreeMarketplace, that allows any Windows Phone 7 application to be downloaded and installed free of charge has been developed.
• Empty email accounts, and some bad buzz for Hotmail
  In the past few days, a number of Hotmail users have been complaining about a rather disconcerting issue: their Hotmail accounts, some up to 10 years old, appear completely empty.  No emails, no folders, nothing, just what appears to be a new account.
• Reports: Nintendo warns of 3DS risk for kids
  Nintendo has reportedly issued a warning that the 3DS, its eagerly awaited glasses-free 3D portable gaming device, should not be used by children under 6 when the gadget is in 3D-viewing mode.
• Google eyes ‘cloaking’ as next antispam target
  Google plans to take a closer look at the practice of “cloaking,” or presenting one look to a Googlebot crawling one’s site while presenting another look to users.
• Facebook, Twitter stock trading drawing SEC eye?
  The high degree of investor interest in shares of hot Silicon Valley companies that aren’t yet publicly traded–like Facebook, Twitter, LinkedIn, and Zynga–may be leading to scrutiny from the U.S. Securities and Exchange Commission (SEC).

Random TinyHacker Links

Photo by jcraveiro.

• Exciting Software Set for Release in 2011
  A few bloggers from great websites such as How-To Geek, Guiding Tech and 7 Tutorials took the time to sit down and talk about their software wishes for 2011. Take the time to read it and share…
• Wikileaks Infopr0n
  An infographic detailing the quest to plug WikiLeaks.
• The New York Times Guide to Mobile Apps
  A growing collection of all mobile app coverage by the New York Times as well as lists of favorite apps from Times writers.
• 7,000,000,000 (Video)
  A fascinating look at the world’s population via National Geographic Magazine.

Super User Questions

Check out the great answers to these hot questions from Super User.

• How to use a Personal computer as a Linux web server for development purposes?
• How to link processing power of old computers together?
• Free virtualization tool for testing suspicious files?
• Why do some actions not work with Remote Desktop?
• What is the simplest way to send a large batch of pictures to a distant friend or colleague?

How-To Geek Weekly Article Recap

Had a busy week and need to get caught up on your HTG reading? Then sit back and relax while enjoying these hot posts full of how-to roundup goodness.

• The 50 Best How-To Geek Windows Articles of 2010
• The 20 Best How-To Geek Explainer Topics for 2010
• The 20 Best How-To Geek Linux Articles of 2010
• How to Search Just the Site You’re Viewing Using Google Search
• Ask the Readers: Backing Your Files Up – Local Storage versus the Cloud

One Year Ago on How-To Geek

Need more how-to geekiness for your weekend? Then look through this great batch of articles from one year ago that focus on dual-booting and O.S. installation goodness.

• Dual Boot Your Pre-Installed Windows 7 Computer with Vista
• Dual Boot Your Pre-Installed Windows 7 Computer with XP
• How To Setup a USB Flash Drive to Install Windows 7
• Dual Boot Your Pre-Installed Windows 7 Computer with Ubuntu
• Easily Install Ubuntu Linux with Windows Using the Wubi Installer

The Geek Note

We hope that you and your families have had a terrific holiday break as everyone prepares to return to work and school this week. Remember to keep those great tips coming in to us at [email protected]!

Photo by pjbeardsley.

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