Cha-Cha Free Answers to your Questions via Text Message

I recently discovered a really cool free (normal text rates apply) service called ChaCha. ChaCha is a service that will answer questions via text message. Simply send your question to 242242 and you will get a reply within 5 minutes or so. For example I recently texted the question "Which US President had the most vetoes?" Within about 5 minutes I was texted back "Franklin D Roosevelt." Check it out!

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11 ways Android will kick the iPhone's ass

So Android has arrived with the announcement of the T-Mobile G1. The HTC-manufactured phone certainly has a few nice touches, despite its lack of multi-touch (and with T-Mobile's particular variant, no accelerometer).

But while this particular handset might not be the technology king to beat the iPhone, the potential's there. And the OS looks super-hot. Here's why Android can make its presence felt and could really threaten the iPhone.

READ MORE HERE

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Adobe CS4 Releases in October

According to this site, Adobe's CS4 is being released next month and looks to have quite a few new features.

Here are some of the features you all may be interested in, pulled from that site:

Photoshop CS4

• GPU-based drawing of documents onscreen
• 64-bit for Windows
• Expanded 3-D paint, lighting and rendering tools

Illustrator CS4

• Multipage documents with different sizes
• Indesign-style separations preview
• Many updated tools like gradient and blob brush

Indesign CS4

• Live Preflighting
• Easy Flash document creation
• Smart guides and spacing tools

You can check out a full list of features at Adobe's site:
http://www.adobe.com/products/creativesuite/designstandard/features/

Anyone currently using Adobe's Creative Suite looking forward to CS4? Any features in particular? Does it look like a worthy upgrade? Give us your thoughts by leaving a comment!

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Facebook Phishing Attack

From this website:


An trojan-laden phish disguised as a message from the popular social networking website Facebook is making the rounds.

In an alert Monday, web security company Websense said that the email appeared to be sent by the domain facebookmail.com with a subject line that reads "An old friend added you as a friend of facebook." The email contains an attachment called "picture.zip" that is actually a trojan.

The body of the email contained a view of Facebook's login page with a notification that says an old classmate has requested to be your friend and, "To see her picture please check your attachment."

Facebookmail.com is an official domain that Facebook commonly uses to notify its users of friend requests and events, the Websense alert said. It is unclear how the attackers spoofed the address.

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Mac Users - Tips & Tricks

This post goes out to all you Mac users out there that could use a few tricks to make using your computer a little easier and faster. I'm sure several of these shortcuts you may already known about, but I bet there is at least one that surprises you!

1.       Command-w [⌘ w] closes a Finder window and Command-Option-w [⌘ ⌥ w] closes all Finder windows at once.

 2.       Clicking the minimize button in the center top left corner of an open window or document makes it vanish from the desktop and hide in the Dock. You can do the same thing by typing Command-M.

 3.       Want to quickly make iTunes, iChat, Safari, and your mahjong game disappear while leaving that budget spreadsheet open? Hide every open program except the one that’s currently selected (in this case, make sure it’s the spreadsheet app) by typing Command-Option-H.

 4.   When you want to add a letter with a symbol in just about any Mac OS X application, hold down the Option key and press the appropriate symbol key. Release the keys and type the letter you want to receive the symbol. Take café — you type c, a, f, then press Option-E (to get the right-leaning acute accent), then e. Same for résumé, fiancée, or blasé.

 5.       Okay, you probably already know the ol’ Command-Shift-3 shortcut for taking a screen capture of your entire screen, and you may even know about Command-Shift-4, which gives you a crosshair cursor so you can choose which area of the screen you want to capture. But perhaps the coolest, most-secret hidden capture shortcut is Control-Command-Shift-3 (or 4), which, instead of creating a file on your desktop, copies the capture into your Clipboard memory, so you can paste it where you want.

A big thanks goes out to Apple for supplying the Tips & Tricks this week!

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Google Update

We've had some ups and down with the Google Beta Test for SRG. Luckily we are in an upswing and have several volunteers are actively engaged in testing the system. With the release of Chrome last week, a step towards my vision of driving all of our business functions through the web browser has taken a step closer. I was reading The Official Gmail Blog and came across this incredible new feature:

>>The first one I worked on was something we had been experimenting with a few years ago here inside Google but had never launched -- a Forgotten Attachment Detector. Many of us have experienced the embarrassment of having sent a message without attaching the file we said we were going to attach. Turn on the Forgotten Attachment Detector in Labs, and you'll get an alert if you mention attaching a file but forget to do so.>>

It amazes me the functionality that Google is implementing, and more importantly the broader vision for computing that they are executing on.

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DRM and You!

There has been some drama the past few weeks in the gaming world thanks to a game called Spore, which uses DRM (Digital Rights Management) as a security measure on the software. Many of you may be too familiar with DRM on your iTunes music that you have purchased. You must authorize use of a song when playing on a different computer, you must have an MP3player that supports iTunes format, it's not easy changing the format to something you may like more (like MP3), etc. In Spore, you can only install the game three times based on your computers specs. If you upgrade too many components in your computer (maybe because you want to see the game with better graphics and running smoother), you may be forced to purchase another copy of the game.

When does protection become too much? I know my girlfriend purchased a Foo Fighters album a few years ago and because of the DRM on it, it wouldn't even play in her computer. When she contacted the publishing company on what to do, she was told she needed a computer that met certain specs in order to play the audio CD. Ouch!

I've struggled with how DRM is good for anyone. People who download music and games illegally don't have to deal with DRM. They can install a game as many times as they want. They can listen to their music on any computer and any MP3player they want. In a way, DRM seems to only punish the loyal customers of a product.

DRM is definitely something you will be hearing more about in the coming months and years.

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