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Tech News Blog
5.10.05
Googlecellerator?
Google released their ‘Web Accelerator’ last week and per usual it has some people cheering, while it leaves others jeering about possible privacy issues. I haven’t tried it yet, and with broadband speed to my PC, I’m not sure if Google’s new tool will make a noticeable difference. According to a CNET article a frequent surfer can save up to three hours a month using this software that caches and compresses web pages. Read more at CNET:
FAQ: Hard facts about Google's Web Accelerator
The downloadable software speeds the delivery of Web pages but has its critics. What is it, and how does it work? CNET News.com

More on Mac Widget Security Problem
As we reported yesterday, the security of Apple’s Widget architecture or lack thereof, is in question and more experts are weighing in on this issue. The following report is from MacCentral:
News: Dashboard: Widget (In)Security
A new Web page documents an issue with Mac OS X v10.4 Tiger's new Dashboard feature that, left unchecked, could potentially be exploited by malware developers, according to the page's author. The exploit is described and demonstrated on a page called Zaptastic: Blueprint for a widget of mass destruction. Going by the nom de plume of Stephan.com, the author has described how Safari 2.0's default preference settings could lead users to unwittingly download and install a Dashboard widget. MacCentral

Update iTunes to Avoid Security Flaw
According to Secunia, Apple’s iTunes 4.x has a ‘highly critical flaw’ that and could allow crackers to compromise your machine through a “MPEG-4 file parsing buffer overflow”. Secunia advises iTunes users to “update to version 4.8”. MacFixIt and MacCentral are reporting the availability of Apple’s latest version, read more about by following these links:
Apple releases iTunes 4.8
Apple has released iTunes 4.8, available as a 11 MB standalone Web download. According to Apple, the new release offers the following enhancement … MacFixIt

Feature: New in iTunes 4.8 [updated]
Apple has released a new version of iTunes and, in typical fashion, tells us very little about what it improves and adds. Here’s what we’ve discovered in our first look. MacCentral

Open Source Update
Secunia released the following bulletins for open source systems: Fedora (1, 2), Gentoo, and Debian (1, 2).

Multiple Platforms Tip of the Day: Common Error Messages
The Apple web site has a page listing the most common error messages received by Mac-heads when they are downloading files. Find out what those annoying messages really mean by visiting the Apple Support site. PC owners can visit the error message page found at the Microsoft Support Site.

What is Kernel Panic?
According to Wikipedia, “A kernel panic is a message displayed by an operating system upon detecting an internal system error from which it cannot recover. Kernel panics often provide cryptic debugging information that is useful only to the developers of the operating system.
Attempts by the operating system to read an invalid or unpermitted address are a common source of kernel panics. A panic may also occur as a result of a hardware failure.
Kernel Panic (http://ubersoft.net/kpanic/index.html) is also the name of a web comic by Christopher Wright. The comic revolves around a group of unix and linux server admins ordered to change the server farm over to Nifty Doorways (a parody of the Windows operating system.).”