September 10th, 2008

Posted by Ed Bott

Update, 12-September, 5:45AM PDT: Apple has issued a revised download for iTunes 8 intended to correct this problem. My analysis is in this follow-up post.

I’m reading lots of complaints about the new iTunes 8 update causing horrific problems on Windows machines, including widespread reports of STOP errors, aka the Blue Screen of Death. My colleague Adrian Kingsley-Hughes has asked readers for reports and Gizmodo has a sketchy post as well. How can this be happening? Assuming that the underlying hardware is working correctly, STOP errors can only be caused by kernel-level drivers or system services. A poorly written program can crash itself but not the entire system. So how can a supposedly simple software update cause a fatal crash?

Maybe because this isn’t a simple software update. Once again, Apple is using its automatic update process to deliver massive amounts of new software to users, including a device driver that has a long and checkered history of causing the Blue Screen Of Death to appear. And it’s delivering this massive payload without even a pretense of proper disclosure and without asking consent from its users.

I was able to reproduce a crash using an iPod and iTunes 8 and fixed it by removing the suspicious driver. I’ve dissected the process and put together a gallery that shows how extensive the infiltration is and where you can find the likely culprit.

To see what software is sneaking along with the upgrade,
see my image gallery: Apple’s sneaky iTunes 8 install

Here’s a blow-by-blow analysis of what happens when you allow Apple Software Update to install iTunes 8:

The first thing you see is a notice from Apple Software Update. It promises an update to iTunes+QuickTime and says nothing about any other software.

Next, you accept a license agreement, which also makes no mention of anything other than iTunes. According to a code at the end of the license agreement, it has not been updated since October 2007.

After you enter your administrator’s credentials in a dialog box, the download and installation proceed automatically. The downloader dialog box notes that the complete install package is nearly 80MB in size, but the size shown in its progress bar changes several times.

Opening the folder where Apple Software Update stores its temporary files reveals what’s really going on. The download consists of five installer packages and a master setup program. In addition to iTunes and QuickTime, the package includes the Bonjour service (which has been a part of iTunes for a long time), plus Apple Mobile Device Support and MobileMe. The latter two packages appeared for the first time, according to Ars Technica and other sources, in the July update to iTunes. And a look inside Control Panel shows that this time around, Apple is giving Windows users an opportunity to uninstall MobileMe, which they didn’t do in the previous update.

When I used an antispyware tool (Sunbelt Software’s VIPRE), it detected that a new Apple program was loading at startup. Although it went by the prosaic name AppleSyncNotifier, its icon reveals that it’s actually MobileMe.

But in addition to all that software, Apple is also sneaking a couple of driver updates onto the system. One is a USB controller update, which is apparently used when connecting an iPod or iPhone to the system. On my system, this driver file was copied to the system but was not installed until I connected an iPod Mini via a USB port. Most of the trouble reports on the Apple forum indicate that this driver is identifying itself in the text that appears on the STOP error page. The only clue that this driver is being installed is in the System Restore dialog box.

In addition to this driver, the system also updates the GEARAspiWDM.sys driver (in Windows\System32\Drivers). I had to dig deep to discover this change, which is not documented anywhere. This driver is typically used with third-party programs that write to CD and DVD drives. The old iTunes versions of this driver is dated January 29, 2008. The new one is from April 17, 2008. This driver has a long and colorful history of causing Windows crashes. [Update 17-Sep: After looking deeper, I can confirm that Apple’s driver is the culprit and that Gear’s driver is unrelated to these crashes. In fact, Gear’s signed driver might even be an innocent bystander in a separate iTunes support issue. See my follow-up post “Apple, not Gear, deserves the blame for iTunes crashes” for details.] I remember dealing with it back in Windows 2000 days. And sure enough, a search for GEARAspiWDM.sys BSOD turns up thousands of hits. I’ve also found anecdotal reports of this driver causing iTunes to crash, including this one from the Gear Software forum last May. The image below shows the Previous Versions dialog box, which I used to determine that the file had been updated.

When I plugged an iPod Nano into my Windows Vista system for the first time, it offered to install a driver and then asked me to reboot. When I restarted, I plugged in the iPod again and the machine locked up solid. No blue screen, just a black screen that didn’t respond to any input. After a restart, I tried again and got the same result when I attempted to open iTunes.

For the third try, I decided to replace the GEARAspiWDM.sys driver file with its earlier version. I used the Previous Versions feature of Windows Vista Ultimate to find the older version, copied it to my desktop, deleted the newer driver, and then copied the January version to the Drivers folder. This time iTunes opened just fine, displaying the contents of the iPod. (When I simply deleted the driver file, I got an error upon starting iTunes warning me that my installation was incomplete and that I might not be able to burn CDs or DVDs until I completed it.)

I can’t say my tests are conclusive, but my long history with this file suggests that it might well be at the root of the problem for others as well.

An even bigger problem is Apple’s attitude toward its Windows customers. These additional software packages and drivers are being installed with no disclosure propecia prostatitis and no consent. A pile of software, including the troubled MobileMe service, is also being installed and enabled at startup on Windows machines, even where the user has no MobileMe account and, for that matter, no mobile device.

Apple’s Get a Mac ads love to tweak Microsoft for its frequent crashes. Someone from Apple needs to look in the mirror and realize that they’re the problem in this case.

September 11th, 2008

Posted by Zack Whittaker

Music is a huge part of our lives, not just students, but it does have a major effect on how we interact, integrate propecia prostate and collaborate. Music can be seen as a work enhancer, a relationship matcher, a commonality between groups or connections – most just see it as something to compliment a mood.

I wanted to explore the two different angles to this: DRM protection or no-DRM protection, and the ability to actually download and/or gain music from an online source. I’ll start with a little background.

DRM is two sided. It stands for “Digital Restrictions Management“, which essentially allows those who legally purchase media from t’Internet like music, videos and software, to use them for themselves and nobody else. Sounds fair, but when you get into the nitty-gritty of it, it means you can’t share a really great song with a friend; you can’t transfer your music or media onto different devices such as portable devices some of the time, and if your computer buggers up, you can’t get the music back.

On the other side of it, it’s a digital padlock which your computer only has the key for. It means regardless of what happens, the end user will/could end up losing out more than those who provide the media – the record producers, the film directors and writers.

For Mac users it’s quite easy, because iTunes is already integrated into your computer. For Windows users, you’ve got Windows Media Player (unless you have the “N” version because of those bureaucratic tossers in Brussels), but with all this legal crap thrown at us, we’re not free to do what we really want to do. I’m just going to take a random selection of legal download service examples.

Which is best to use – the legal way, or the illegal way? Will I now get fired for this post? Or will the lawyers phone me in the middle of the night screaming at me? All very possible.

iTunes: a good platform which allows you to buy, search, play, modify and download music to your iPhone, iPod or any other iDevice they might have. Works great on Mac’s, but not so great on Windows. When using it on Windows, it downloads and installs a whole load of other potentially damaging stuff, can/does cause crashing on some systems and when QuickTime is installed, can overwrite your file type applications so you’ll find your default media application isn’t automatically used anymore.

Not only that, if you download files which are DRM’d, you’ll be able to transfer them to your iDevice but really lucky if you can get them working ion any other device, computer or music application.

Napster: after being shut down years ago for being an illegal peer-to-peer service, it’s now a legitimate online music retailer. You pay around $20 a month which lets you download anything you want and as much as you want, or around $30 if you want to be able to download music with a more lenient DRM licence, allowing you to transfer to other devices.

It doesn’t work with Mac’s or iPods; serves you right for being so arrogant and using a crap computer with an equally stupid music player which works with one service only – it’s own. The DRM blows its own brains out when you stop paying for the service, so you have to keep paying to keep playing.

Nokia “Comes with Music”: it’s about time the world’s biggest mobile phone maker jumped on board the online music store bandwagon. It seems to be a “free music service” but it’s not; the key is in fact part of the name. You buy certain phones like the Nokia 5310 (and even that’s not available in all countries) and the subscription is included with the price of the phone, allowing you to download music for a whole year.

After that, it’ll probably cost you to renew the subscription, and even then, you’re downloading DRM files again. You’ll be able to download and playback on the phone, and that’s it. You won’t be able to share it and you won’t be able to back it up, but at least once your subscription expires, you’ll still be able to play the music files – so not all is lost.

Download illegally: it won’t cost you anything, the music tracks are DRM free, but there’s not a guaranteed chance you’ll find what you want. On the other hand, the entire world wide web, all the peer-to-peer networks and BitTorrent networks are all much bigger than the entire collection of downloadable media from all of the above mentioned services.

You run a slight risk of getting caught, fined and thrown in prison, but provided you don’t distribute them back on a massive scale, the chances are you’ll be fine. If you really feel guilty about “stealing” money from those big, rich, important record producers and the spoilt, obnoxious and arrogant music star, put a penny or a couple of cents into a charity box at the local superstore.

I don’t condone illegal activity, to the point where I’ll discourage serious crimes and suchlike. But downloading music should be more open and simple, cost much less and have much lower restrictions. Under the DMCA, you can’t even lend your little sister a CD of yours to listen to or to copy. It’s bloody ridiculous and annoys the hell out of me, but this is how the world works I’m afraid.

Unfortunately, and the CNET lawyers really won’t like this much, downloading music illegally, as in without buying it, actually gives you the most freedom over your music. Copy it, share it, move it, play it, edit it, convert it, or upload it again – you can barely do any, definitely not all, of these things with DRM’d music.

Or… just work out how to remove the DRM from legally downloaded music. It’s still illegal, if not more illegal, but at least you’re buying the damn thing.

September 12th, 2008

Posted by Adrian Kingsley-Hughes

OK, so what kind of PC can you build yourself for a budget of $2,000 (plus change)? Well, as it turns out, you can get yourself one heck of a system!

This PC will be ideally suited to high end gaming, but if you’re not into gaming then this system will also be able to chew through any photo of video editing jobs that you might have, as well as effortlessly convert your CD and DVD library into a digital library.

Check out the full parts gallery here!

Note: As always I start these builds with a disclaimer. The prices I list here do not take into account the ups (discounts, offers, rebates, bundles …) or downs (taxes, shipping …) of life. I’m also not including a monitor, peripherals or OS in the price list.

Also, I’ve chosen Newegg.com as the price benchmark, but that should not be taken as meaning that I endorse any one outlet over another. You should shop around and find the best deals you can yourself.

CPU

propecia pros and cons

Since the CPU is going to be the most expensive part of this PC, it’s a good idea to start right there. I’ve not chosen the most expensive Core 2 Extreme from Intel’s silicon range, but I have chosen one of the best – the 3.0GHz Intel Core 2 Extreme QX9650.

This is a monster (and it needs to be since it’s consuming half out budget!) 130W TDP CPU that has four cores humming away at 3.0GHz, backed up by 12MB of L2 cache and features a super-fast 1600MHz FSB. And if 3.0GHz isn’t enough for you, you can easily and safely push this part up to a whopping 4.0GHz and beyond!

You can find faster CPUs, but you probably don’t need it, and you’ll be adding an extra $500 to the final build price!

Price: $999.99

Motherboard

I really like the Gigabyte EP35-DS3R for a number of reasons. It offers broad CPU support, decent overclocking facility, as well as support for both DDR2 and DDR3 (although not mixed). Oh, and it’s about half the price of a high end ASUS board.

I also like the board because of the combo of the P35/ICH9R chipset, which in my experience is a good combination. But one of the most attractive features of the EP35-DS3R is the eight SATA ports.

Nice board, nice price.

Price: $139.99

RAM

For this build I want to add 8GB of RAM to the system so that it is both future proof and ideal for running a 64-bit OS. However, I don’t want to overspend on the RAM and need to find something good that sells for a reasonable price.

This is why I’ve turned to GeIL RAM – two sets of GeIL 4GB (2 x 2GB) 240-Pin DDR2 800 (PC2 6400) dual channel kits. This is reliable, robust RAM with a lifetime warranty and low latency. It’s not the fastest around but at the price it’s a steal.

Price: 2 x $82.90 = $165.80

Graphics card

I had a tough time picking a suitable graphics card. I wanted something powerful enough to be able to handle high end gaming, but I didn’t want a noisy, power consuming card that cost a fortune – I also wanted a single powerful card because I didn’t want the expense of having to go down the Crossfire of SLI road and fit two or more graphics cards (a path that delivers diminishing returns for the cash that you’re injecting into the system).

In the end I chose the SAPPHIRE 100247L Radeon HD 4870 512MB that offers everything most gamers could dream of at a very competitive price.

Price: $279.99

Hard drive

What we’re looking for here is huge capacity at a decent price. If you can also get a drive that sips Watts rather than gulps, so much the better. Also, to give the system redundancy I’m going to fit two drives, something which I find gives users greater flexibility.

I’ve chosen a 1TB 7200 RPM Western Digital Caviar GP WD10EACS SATA 3.0Gb/s drive. This one is out of Western Digital’s Green Power range so it’s thrifty with the Watts.

Price: 2 x $139.99 = $279.98

Case

There’s nothing I hate more than having to choose a case for a PC. There are just too many to choose from and while some people like to spend a lot of money on a stylish case, others want to spend as little as possible. Me, I just want a case to hold all the bits that isn’t full of sharp edges.

Because I’m pressed into choosing a case, here’s one I like – the COOLER MASTER Centurion 5.

Note: Don’t choose a case that comes with a PSU … I’ve yet to see a PSU bundled with a case that’s any good.

Price: $54.99

DVD drive

I’m not going to waste too much time discussing the right CD/DVD drive here.

Let’s just pick something cheap and cheerful – the LG 22X DVD±R DVD burner model GH22NP20.

Price: $54.99

Total build price: $2034.72

Alternative reality: What if you want to include the price of a copy of Microsoft Windows Vista Home Premium SP1 64-bit System Builder ($99.99) into the deal and still keep the build price at under $2,000?

Easy! Buy one hard drive instead of two (a saving of $139.99) and add the copy of Windows Vista Home Premium ($99.99). This brings the cost of the build down to $1,994.72.

Thoughts?

Download here

Overview:

Rohos Mini Drive encryption software that allows you to protect your USB stick by using hidden and protected partition. Those who has Megabytes of sensitive files on the USB drive and seriously concerned with data security cannot imagine their USB stick without the hidden propecia problems and encrypted volume that is created using this tool. Allows to open encrypted partition on any guest computer even without having Administrator's rights.Version 1.19 now offers up to 1 GB encrypted partition size, support Windows XP x64 and has a virtual keyboard to enter password on a guest PC to prevent malicious loggers to steal your password.

(Is this item miscategorized? Does it need more tags? Let us know.)

Format:	Software	Size:	1,374 KB
Date:	Jul 2008	Version:	1.19
License:	Free
System Req:	Windows 2000/XP/2003 Server/Vista

September 1st, 2008

Posted by Larry Dignan

Updated: Google will launch a Web browser called Chrome that will take on Microsoft’s Internet Explorer and apparently Mozilla’s Firefox, which the search giant essentially funds.

In an odd leak, Google sent Google Blogoscoped a comic book outlining the technology in its Chrome browser. The leak was confirmed by Kara Swisher and the Wall Street Journal (see the full comic book via Swisher). Philipp Lenssen outlines the following technical details (Techmeme):

• Google’s browser will be open source;
• Chrome will include a JavaScript Virtual Machine built from scratch;
• Tabs will be moved around;
• The browser has an address bar with auto-completion.
• There’s a privacy feature like IE has;
• And Google aims to be proactive about fighting phishing and malware attacks.

Update: Google confirmed that Chrome will launch on Tuesday in a beta that will cover 100 countries. Google said on its blog:

All of us at Google spend much of our time working inside a browser. We search, chat, email and collaborate in a browser. And in our spare time, we shop, bank, read news and keep in touch with friends — all using a browser. Because we spend so much time online, we began seriously thinking about what kind of browser could exist if we started from scratch and built on the best elements out there. We realized that the web had evolved from mainly simple text pages to rich, interactive applications and that we needed to completely rethink the browser. What we really needed was not just a browser, but also a modern platform for web pages and applications, and that’s what we set out to build.

On the surface, we designed a browser window that is streamlined and simple. To most people, it isn’t the browser that matters. It’s only a tool to run the important stuff — the pages, sites and applications that make up the web. Like the classic Google homepage, Google Chrome is clean and fast. It gets out of your way and gets you where you want to go.

So what does all of this mean and why is Google aiming to target a crowded browser market?

For starters, Google obviously thinks that it can grab share quickly and browser customers are valuable. Just look at the folks still using Netscape–some customers are lifers. If you buy the argument that the browser will ultimately serve as an operating system–or at least be the vehicle to tap into the OS–Google will have to be a player. Double bonus for Google if it connects Chrome, Desktop and Android.

Also see: IE 8 Beta 2 ready for download

Internet Explorer 8 gets a massive makeover

Meanwhile, it’s really unclear what Google’s move means for Mozilla. Google has reupped with Mozilla to occupy Firefox’s search box through 2011. And Google practically bankrolls Mozilla and that won’t change–for now. Now Google could be construed as going hostile. The reality may be different, however. Google may want to launch Chrome to see how much share it can grab in the browser market. Perhaps Google views Chrome and Firefox as a nice IE tag team combination.

Adrian Kingsley-Hughes notes:

What this means is that when Google does release this new browser then it has the potential to have quite a sudden and dramatic effect on the other players. But who’s likely to be the main casualty of Google Chrome? Right now it’s probably too early to put bets down, but my guess would be that Google’s primary target will be Internet Explorer. After all, that’s the browser with the largest market share and it’s also the browser that’s likely to look the worst when compared to Chrome (IE is slow, cumbersome, shaky, poor at following standards and perceived by many to be a security vulnerability). When it comes to ranking the browsers, apart from “it comes pre-installed on your system,” IE has little else going for it.

Firefox currently has 19 percent market share according to Janco Partners and IE’s market share has fallen to 58.5 percent. Meanwhile, Google Desktop has a 4 percent share.

Google’s browser playbook could look something like this:

• Google and Mozilla can grab collectively grab share from IE;
• If Google is unsuccessful it will at least have a business unit to acquire Mozilla Corp.;
• The Mozilla and Chrome code bases could ultimately merge;
• The more browsers targeting IE is a win for Google.

In propecia pricing other words, Google is launching a browser, but the plan is open ended. The only thing that is certain is that Google wants IE’s market share to fall further. If Google’s browser grabs 10 percent market share in a year it’s likely to take it from IE, which is finishing up its latest effort (right). And if Google’s Chrome isn’t a hit it could be a vehicle to acquire Mozilla. The Journal called Google’s browser play risky, but that’s debatable. Why not toss a browser out there and see what happens?

Update 2: After giving this Google browser move some thought I reckon that Opera is in for a world of hurt. The browsers on my desktop are getting crowded and after IE, Firefox and Google there won’t be room for Opera, which is already a stretch as the third browser download for me. Another casualty: Safari for Windows. Safari will likely be fine for the Mac, but Google’s Chrome will be a threat there too.