SAMSUNG Unveils Wide Touch Screen Multimedia Phone; The SAMSUNG F490

http://www.samsung.com/uk

SAMSUNG’s latest mobile phone with a touch sensitive 16:9 wide screen and a 5 megapixel camera is to launch in the UK and Europe before the rest of the world

London, 10 January 2008 - SAMSUNG Mobile has today announced the launch of the new SAMSUNG F490, a powerful high speed multimedia phone with a touch sensitive 16:9 wide screen and intuitive user interface. The SAMSUNG F490 will be available in the UK from mid-February. After being launched in the UK and Europe, it will be introduced to the U.S. and Asian markets.

The SAMSUNG F490’s debut comes amid rising popularity of touch screen technology. With a class-leading 3.2 inch 16:9 wide screen, the SAMSUNG F490 provides a panoramic view of pictures or videos as well as a larger screen space for Internet surfing. To make Internet browsing easy and enjoyable, the SAMSUNG F490 also features the Google search engine optimised for mobile use and full Internet browser for viewing web pages both vertically and horizontally.

At just 11.8mm deep, the new handset’s slimline design features rounded corners and a glossy surface that looks chic, making the SAMSUNG F490 a pleasure to hold and use. The stylish and intuitive 'Croix UI' user interface, which won the iF Communication Design Award 2007, involves two bars that cross-hatch, enabling users to control the phone’s many features by simply tapping and dragging.

For example, the intuitive nature of the user interface is demonstrated during song playback where users can easily move left/right to rewind/fast forward and move up/down to adjust volume. This addition of the ‘Croix UI’ interface brings new levels of usability to the SAMSUNG F490 and makes basic navigation, Internet browsing, task management and other activity easier than ever before. Furthermore, haptic feedback from the phone’s keypad offers tangible assurance that a command has been inputted.

From listening to music to snapping photos and video with its 5 megapixel digital camera, the SAMSUNG F490 boasts the very latest in audio and video technology. For connectivity and storage purposes it combines the standard 3.5mm audio jack, support for compatible microSD cards and 130MB internal memory.

The SAMSUNG F490 is geared to offer the ultimate multimedia experience with fast HSDPA connectivity. Downloading large files, streaming videos, and holding video conversations is all easier than ever with speeds as fast as 3.6Mbps. The handset also features Bluetooth 2.0 and USB 2.0 so that users will also be able to connect to a range of peripherals including wireless headsets and mobile printers.

The SAMSUNG F490 will be available in the UK from the mid-February. For more information, please visit www.samsungmobile.com

SAMSUNG F490 Specification
Standard: HSDPA 3.6 mbps / UMTS/ EDGE (900/1800/1900/2100)
Camera: 5 Megapixel Camera
Display: 3.2" 16:9 Wide Full Touch LCD (262K Colors)
Features: Croix UI; Video Recording (MPEG4, QVGA@15fps), Video Playback (WMV, MPEG4, H.263, H.264, VGA@30fps); Bluetooth 2.0 (A2DP+ AVRCP); USB 2.0 (High speed); Google Search, NetFront 3.4 browser, Mail; MP3, AAC+, AAC+(e), WMA; OMA DRM v2.0, WMDRM, Multitasking
Memory: 130MB internal memory + microSD
Size: 115 x 53.5 x 11.8mm
Weight: 102g

10 mistakes new Linux administrators make

Author: Jack Wallen

If you’re new to Linux, a few common mistakes are likely to get you into trouble. Learn about them up front so you can avoid major problems as you become increasingly Linux-savvy.

---

For many, migrating to Linux is a rite of passage that equates to a thing of joy. For others, it’s a nightmare waiting to happen. It’s wonderful when it’s the former; it’s a real show stopper when it’s the latter. But that nightmare doesn’t have to happen, especially when you know, first hand, the most common mistakes new Linux administrators make. This article will help you avoid those mistakes by laying out the most typical Linux missteps.

Note: This information is also available as a PDF download.

#1: Installing applications from various types

This might not seem like such a bad idea at first. You are running Ubuntu so you know the package management system uses .deb packages. But there are a number of applications that you find only in source form. No big deal right? They install, they work. Why shouldn’t you? Simple, your package management system can’t keep track of what you have installed if it’s installed from source. So what happens when package A (that you installed from source) depends upon package B (that was installed from a .deb binary) and package B is upgraded from the update manager? Package A might still work or it might not. But if both package A and B are installed from .debs, the chances of them both working are far higher. Also, updating packages is much easier when all packages are from the same binary type.

#2: Neglecting updates

Okay, this one doesn’t point out Linux as much as it does poor administration skills. But many admins get Linux up and running and think they have to do nothing more. It’s solid, it’s secure, it works. Well, new updates can patch new exploits. Keeping up with your updates can make the difference between a compromised system and a secure one. And just because you can rest on the security of Linux doesn’t mean you should. For security, for new features, for stability — the same reasons we have all grown accustomed to updating with Windows — you should always keep up with your Linux updates.

#3: Poor root password choice

Okay, repeat after me: “The root password is the key to the kingdom.” So why would you make the key to the kingdom simple to crack? Sure, make your standard user password something you can easily remember and/or type. But that root password — you know, the one that’s protecting your enterprise database server — give that a much higher difficulty level. Make that password one you might have to store, encrypted, on a USB key, requiring you to slide that USB key into the machine, mount it, decrypt the password, and use it.

#4: Avoiding the command line

No one wants to have to memorize a bunch of commands. And for the most part, the GUI takes care of a vast majority of them. But there are times when the command line is easier, faster, more secure, and more reliable. Avoiding the command line should be considered a cardinal sin of Linux administration. You should at least have a solid understanding of how the command line works and a small arsenal of commands you can use without having to RTFM. With a small selection of command-line tools on top of the GUI tools, you should be ready for just about anything.

#5: Not keeping a working kernel installed

Let’s face it, you don’t need 12 kernels installed on one machine. But you do need to update your kernel, and the update process doesn’t delete previous kernels. What do you do? You keep at least the most recently working kernel at all times. Let’s say you have 2.6.22 as your current working kernel and 2.6.20 as your backup. If you update to 2.6.26 and all is working well, you can remove 2.6.20. If you use an rpm-based system, you can use this method to remove the old kernels: rpm -qa | grep -i kernel followed by rpm-e kernel-{VERSION}.

#6: Not backing up critical configuration files

How many times have you upgraded X11 only to find the new version fubar’d your xorg.conf file to the point where you can no longer use X? It used to happen to me a lot when I was new to Linux. But now, anytime X is going to be updated I always back up /etc/X11/xorg.conf in case the upgrade goes bad. Sure, an X update tries to back up xorg.conf, but it does so within the /etc/X11 directory. And even though this often works seamlessly, you are better off keeping that backup under your own control. I always back up xorg.conf to the /root directory so I know only the root user can even access it. Better safe than sorry. This applies to other critical backups, such as Samba, Apache, and MySQL, too.

#7: Booting a server to X

When a machine is a dedicated server, you might want to have X installed so some administration tasks are easier. But this doesn’t mean you should have that server boot to X. This will waste precious memory and CPU cycles. Instead, stop the boot process at runlevel 3 so you are left at the command line. Not only will this leave all of your resources to the servers, it will also keep prying eyes out of your machine (unless they know the command line and passwords to log in). To log into X, you will simply have to log in and run the command startx to bring up your desktop.

#8: Not understanding permissions

Permissions can make your life really easy, but if done poorly, can make life really easy for hackers. The simplest way to handle permissions is using the rwx method. Here’s what they mean: r=read, w=write, x=execute. Say you want a user to be able to read a file but not write to a file. To do this, you would issue chmod u+r,u-wx filename. What often happens is that a new user sees an error saying they do not have permission to use a file, so they hit the file with something akin to chmod 777 filename to avoid the problem. But this can actually cause more problems because it gives the file executable privileges. Remember this: 777 gives a file rwx permissions to all users (root, group, and other), 666 gives the file rw privileges to all users, 555 gives the file rx permissions to all users, 444 gives r privileges to all users, 333 gives wx privileges to all users, 222 gives w privileges to all users, 111 gives x privileges to all users, and 000 gives no privileges to all users.

#9: Logging in as root user

I can’t stress this enough. Do NOT log in as root. If you need root privileges to execute or configure an application, su to root in a standard user account. Why is logging in as root bad? Well, when you log on as a standard user, all running X applications still have access only to the system limited to that user. If you log in as root, X has all root permissions. This can cause two problems: 1) if you make a big mistake via a GUI, that mistake can be catastrophic to the system and 2) with X running as root that makes your system more vulnerable.

#10: Ignoring log files

There is a reason /var/log exists. It is a single location for all log files. This makes it simple to remember where you first need to look when there is a problem. Possible security issue? Check /var/log/secure. One of the very first places I look is /var/log/messages. This log file is the common log file where all generic errors and such are logged to. In this file you will get messages about networking, media changes, etc. When administering a machine you can always use a third-party application such as logwatch that can create various reports for you based on your /var/log files.

Sidestep the problems

These 10 mistakes are pretty common among new Linux administrators. Avoiding the pitfalls will take you through the Linux migration rite of passage faster, and you will come out on the other side a much better administrator.

First Quad-core Mobile Laptop

Alienware, Dell’s extreme-high performance computing arm, has announced the arrival of its M17 laptop, one of the first such machines powered by the Intel Core 2 Extreme QX9300 (2.53 GHz, 12MB cache, 1066MHz FSB), the world’s first mobile quad-core processor.

Ladies and gentlemen, start your engines.

Typical of the company’s products, the machine is a barnburner: For one, the 17-inch notebook is the company’s first with ATI CrossFireX multi-GPU technology, featuring dual ATI Mobility Radeon HD 3870 cards. (That means solid HD video playback, full DirectX 10.1 support and frame rates up to 80 percent higher than single GPU setups.) You’ll have up to 4GB of DDR3 memory at your disposal, achieving speedy transfer rates, data retrieval, load times and multitasking.

Of course, and that devilishly-fast QX9300 processor, too, which also appeared in Lenovo’s ThinkPad W700 earlier this year. (About; benchmarks)

On the storage front, dual 500GB hard drives linked in a RAID 0 configuration offer a massive 1TB storage capacity. Your Blu-ray and HD video will enjoy the 17-inch “Extreme High-Definition” 1920 x 1200 resolution display.

Plus, all the typical Alienware amenities, including the Alienware Command Center control panel, which includes the AlienFusion power management system, AlienSense facial recognition software and AlienTouch touchpad controls.

What color does that Skullcap case come in? Matte black. As if you even had to ask.

The company notes that power users and gamers on a budget can even get in on the action: The M17 starts at $1,399, and a configuration with an Intel Core 2 Duo processor, ATI CrossFireX technology, 3GB of DDR3 memory and a 1920 x 1200 Extreme High-Definition LCD can be had for under $2,000.

On the other hand, a fully loaded machine with all the trimmings will run you a cool $4,199. Anyone want to donate to the Toybox gift fund?

The M17 is available today in the U.S. and Europe.

(Posted By: Andrew J. Nusca is an assistant editor for ZDNet.com)

Four more Hayden s*x videos

stir.ph-by: Edgar O. Cruz | STIR Editor (Chief Agitator)
18 May 2009 | 10:56 AM

“Yeah,” answers Vicki Belo when daughter Crystalle Henares asked her if she had seen the Hayden Kho and Katrina Halili “Careless Whispers” video.

Vicki had admitted Hayden and her are more than f___king friends. They have returned as boyfriend/girlfriend. The buzz is Hayden already got back his luxury SUV and high-end condo unit, both gifts from Vicki which she took back in their split last January. To start off Hayden on his own, Vicki is also going to build his own clinic. She did this despite Hayden’s confirmed streak of infidelity which is turning out to be psychological sickness.

It now appears the “Careless Whispers” video is just a preview to the release of the real thing: the Katrina-Hayden’s sex video!

First to come out is a 40-minute sex bout with Katrina Halili in what appears like a hotel room showing them in all kinds of sex including animal-style copulation. Two more videos are taken, before Hayden was notoriously popular, with a Filipina model that are

18 and 27 minutes long. Another video is with a Brazilian model. Except for the last one, video qualities are exceptionally clear, indicating they were purposely videotaped.

To be released next is Rufa Mae Quinto’s sex video with Hayden. To preempt public opinion, Rufa Mae has admitted she has a sex video. She strongly denied this before. Another sex video with Katrina is coming out. These sex videos has been compiled in DVD by Quiapo pirates known as the “Hayden Video Scandal.” And everybody’s worst fears...Hayden’s sex video with Vicki.
Somebody’s clearly not happy with the Vicki-Hayden reconciliation. The buzz is the person releasing these

videos is the same ex-best friend who gave Hayden’s stolen laptop to Vicki that caused their split. As previously reported by STIR, this person and his group of friends tried to get even with Hayden to punish him for wronging thisperson’s girlfriend.

It’s clear they are back at it again. If not, why are these sex videos appearing only now?

“What can I do?” Crystalle Henares says in frustration when questioned how she feels about the reconciliation of Vicki and Hayden. Elder brother Quark Henares and Crystalle are openly against the relationship. They have warned Vicki that they will leave the family house if Hayden enters it again. But brother and sister cannot slam their mother out of love for him Crystalle reconsiders, “Ang important ngayon masaya ang mommy ko.”

When told about her mom’s sex video, Crystalle could only exhale, “Naku! Huwag naman!”

(***Due to the sensitive nature of the videos, STIR decided not to post them. This article contains nude photos and is not advisable to be viewed minors***)

Windows XP integrated in Windows 7

In a few days, exactly April 30th, the Release Candidate of Windows 7, the operating system of Microsoft, will be available for download by MSDN and TechNet subscribers (public availability will begin on May 5th) and Microsoft announced that they have integrated in Windows 7 a feature Windows XP Mode (XPM).

Windows XP Mode is specifically designed to help small businesses move to Windows 7. Windows XP Mode provides you with the flexibility to run many older productivity applications on a Windows 7 based PC.

All you need to do is to install suitable applications directly in Windows XP Mode which is a virtual Windows XP environment running under Windows Virtual PC. The applications will be published to the Windows 7 desktop and then you can run them directly from Windows 7.

Windows XP Mode and Windows Virtual PC are best experienced on your new Windows 7 PC. We will be soon releasing the beta of Windows XP Mode and Windows Virtual PC for Windows 7 Professional and Windows 7 Ultimate.

Specifically designed to help businesses move smoothly to Windows 7, Windows XP Mode runs using the Virtual PC technology. Thus, many applications designed for Windows XP can be installed and runned without risk of incompatibility on a PC with Windows 7 and a processor based virtualization.

Available for Windows 7 Professional and Windows 7 Ultimate, all information will be accessible directly from the desktop of Windows 7.

Source:

• The Windows Blog
• CrystalXP on your site (RSS Feed)