Planning on Touring St. Petersburg?

If your planning on visiting Russia to see St. Petersburg (Санкт-Петербург) you'll not find a better tour guide then these guys Ive used them many times in the past. You can visit her tour page here http://www.ekaterina-voyage.de/

Forget Apple: Oracle to bring Java security fixes directly to Mac users

"Oracle released Java SE 7 Update 4 this week, which finally gives Mac owners the means to receive critical Java security patches at the same time they're available for users of Windows and Linux operating systems. The new release means that OS X should be receiving regular Java updates directly from the source—helping to prevent attacks like the recent Flashback infection—as well as a fully supported Java development environment."

Forget Apple: Oracle to bring Java security fixes directly to Mac users

Half-million Mac infection estimate backed by new analysis

A second security firm took a shot at estimating how many Macs are infected by the Flashback malware and it arrived at the same conclusion as the first—more than half a million machines. That figure, documented in a Kaspersky Lab blog post published on Friday, would mean Flashback has infected slightly more than 1 percent of the 45 million Macs in existence.

Kaspersky Lab Expert Igor Soumenkov said researchers arrived at that number by registering a domain name used as a fallback command and control channel and logging the number of machines that reported to it. In less than 24 hours, a total of 600,000 unique bots connected to their server. Because Flashback shows the universally unique identifier of each bot, he said they're confidant they didn't count the same one multiple times, although they couldn't rule out the possibility that some of the machines were running FreeBSD, Linux, Windows, or other operating systems.

Continue reading: Half-million Mac infection estimate backed by new analysis

Russian Security Experts Analyze Backdoor.Flashback.39

Backdoor.Flashback.39, the piece of malware designed to target computers running Mac OS X, caused a lot of headaches for Mac users, especially because one of the Java vulnerabilities it exploited remained unpatched by Apple.

Security experts have found that even after Apple patched the flaw, the cybercriminals behind the operation didn't seem to be discouraged.

Researchers from Russian security firm Doctor Web analyzed the malicious element and determined that the infection begins when users are redirected to shady sites from compromised domains.

A piece of JavaScript code, placed on websites such as godofwar3.rr.nu, ironmanvideo.rr.nu, killaoftime.rr.nu, or gangstasparadise.rr.nu, loads the Java applet that contains the exploit.

The exploit then saves an executable onto the infected Mac machine. This executable file connects to a remote server from which it downloads and executes the final payload.

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The Enthralling 'Steve Jobs' - Brilliance, Weirdness, Warts and All

"If you are on the fence about whether to buy and read Steve Jobs by Walter Isaacson, I have an answer for you: Do it.

However, I should warn you, the book isn't for the faint of heart. It's 656 pages in the hardcover edition, which translates to a couple thousand on your iPhone if you buy it as an e-book. It covers a lot of ground, from the initial pairing of Jobs and Steve Wosniak in a garage to the rise and fall of Jobs at Apple Computer (Nasdaq: AAPL), to Pixar (Nasdaq: PIXR) and "Toy Story" to the passive-aggressive takeover of Apple 12 years after he was shown the door. Of course, there's the iPod, iPhone and iPad, and the worldwide juggernaut that Apple has become, spawning astounding products, amazing ad campaigns and millionaires left and right.

But that's the best or worst of it. If you dive right into this bio, you might also learn that Steve Jobs was a mean, emotional train wreck of a man wrapped around an intense and focused genius capable of masterful manipulation of others and utter self-delusion. I've got to say, I had a hard time slogging through the "sh*t" -- and it is sh*t, as Jobs was so apparently fond of saying about anything and everything that didn't amaze him -- about his "abandonment" as a child when he was given up for adoption and his subsequent abandonment of his first daughter. As a young man, Jobs was pathetic and sad. Oh, and this whole notion that his fruitarian diet meant that he didn't have body odor or need to shower? Well, you might have some questions come up, like, "How can a guy be so intelligent, so amazingly insightful, and yet be such a freaking idiot?"

Of course, as a creative genius, Jobs was astounding. Mesmerizing."

Continue Reading: The Enthralling 'Steve Jobs' - Brilliance, Weirdness, Warts and All

Apple Is Getting In Touch With iPhone 4S Owners Who Complain About Poor Battery Life

Lytro Comes Into Focus (AsiaD Demo)

"For a generation now, camera development has been measured in megapixels, but Lytro, which demoed today at AsiaD, is hoping its new camera will constitute the biggest leap in imaging since we swapped film for digital.

The company, founded by Ren Ng in 2006, has built a whole new kind of camera capable of performing a number of tricks that standard digital cameras just can’t do. The technology works by capturing a whole scene and digitally recording all the light available, instead of bringing a specific element into focus.
Lytro calls the resulting images “living pictures,” because each one contains more data than the single visible frame can display. After taking the picture, users of the camera can choose what they want in focus, and even switch between 2D and a subtle 3D image."



Lytro Comes Into Focus (AsiaD Demo)