Responding to a major security flaw in its Flash Player, Adobe Systems released a large patch Thursday. A security bulletin published on the company’s web site recommends that users of Flash Player 10.0.45.2 and earlier versions on Windows, Mac, Linux and Solaris update to version 10.1.53.64.

To determine which Flash Player version you are running, the company recommends going to http://www.adobe.com/software/flash/about/, or right-clicking on Flash content in the browser and selecting About Adobe Flash Player.

From DroidLife:

Pictures and specs of Verizon’s Motorola Droid 2 are here! As far as appearance, it is very similar to the original Droid while adding some additional features including tethering, an updated keyboard, and a new version of MotoBlur. Complete specs:

-Android 2.1 (unless Verizon pumps out a last minute 2.2 update to it)
-3.7″ screen
-750MHz OMAP processor
-Wi-Fi tethering
-8GB internal
-8GB SD card preinstalled
-Updated keyboard
-5MP camera
-New version of Motoblur
-No HDMI port
-No front facing camera

Is this a worthwhile upgrade from the original Motorola Droid? Which features do you think are missing?

A group of hackers exploited a hole in an AT&T Web site to get e-mail addresses of about 114,000 iPad users, including what appears to be top officials in government, finance, media, technology, and military.

The leak could have affected all iPad 3G subscribers in the U.S., according to Gawker, which broke the story on Wednesday. Among the iPad users who appeared to have been affected were White House Chief of Staff Rahm Emanuel, journalist Diane Sawyer, New York Mayor Michael Bloomberg, movie producer Harvey Weinstein, and New York Times CEO Janet Robinson.

A group that calls itself Goatse Security tricked the AT&T site into disclosing the e-mail addresses by sending HTTP (hyper text transport protocol) requests that included SIM card serial numbers for iPads, the report said. Because the serial numbers, called ICC-IDs (integrated circuit card identifiers), are generated sequentially, the researchers were able to guess thousands of them and then ran a program to extract the data by going down the list.

What do you think of the breach? Does this make you think twice about giving your email address out? Tell us in the comments.

Google announced that it would provide it’s users with a personal background to their search pages recently. Last night they forced the new design for logged in users, and ended up taking the feature away due to a “bug” that covered up Google’s explanation of the new design as well as a link under the search box. Oddly enough, the seventh most popular search term was “remove Google background.” It looks as if this needs some tweaking before it is released again. Do you think the background search is an annoyance or a luxury?

The new iPhone 4 includes new features such as:

• Multitasking - You can switch between applications instantly, pick up where you left off, listen to audio in the background, let items upload or download in the background, keep GPS apps constantly going, and much more!
• HD Video Recording and Editing – The highly advanced camera on iPhone can shoot in HD in high or low light, and there’s also a built-in LED light to help brighten the scene in a dark setting. Then you can use the Camera app to perform basic editing, or you can download the upcoming iMovie app for more robust editing.
• Dual Cameras – In addition to the HD video camera, the camera on the back of iPhone can take 5 megapixel still pictures. On the front of iPhone is a new VGA camera that lets you easily film self-portraits.
• FaceTime – With two iPhone 4′s and a wi-fi connection, people can conduct true video conversations with each other! Even better, they can flip between the front VGA camera and the back HD video camera to show the person on the other end what they’re seeing, all with one tap of the screen.
• Retina Display – The iPhone 4 screen has four times the resolution of previous iPhone models. In fact, the pixel density is so high (326 per inch) that your eye can’t see the individual pixels! iPhone 4 also has a wider viewing angle and four times the contrast ratio for easier viewing and more dynamic colors.

In addition, a free upgrade to the new iPhone OS (iOS 4) will be available for iPhone 3G and iPhone 3GS users.

Pre orders will begin on June 15th and the official launch date is June 24th. Who is getting their hands on one of these?

Flurry Analytics tracked data in more than 20,000 mobile applications to determine that developers who started applications that integrate its mobile analytics package into iPhone applications in January rose nearly three times from December.

Flurry reported developers started more than 1,600 new applications with Flurry. That compares to less than 600 in December and marks a dramatic new year surge — the largest since the company started tracking apps.

The iPad Effect

Flurry is calling the activity “the iPad effect.” Historically, Flurry has measured surges in new application starts within its system in anticipation of new device launches, including for the Motorola Droid and iPhone 3GS, said Peter Farago, Flurry’s vice president of marketing. That history led the company to speculate on the reason for the jump — and that guess is Apple’s iPad event in January.

“For developers who get a jump on customizing their applications for the iPad, there may be an opportunity to stand out early on and earn more downloads,” Farago said. “Android new-application starts are also growing, showing a steady ramp for the second half of 2009 and for January 2010. Over this time period, month-over-month growth has averaged approximately 25 percent.”

Android’s steady new-application growth over the second half of 2009 closed the gap against the iPhone. Android apps represented about 33 percent of new starts within Flurry for December. But the recent spike in Apple iPad support shifted popularity back in Apple’s direction at a level Flurry hasn’t witnessed in six months.

Developer Thumbs Up

Farago sees the unprecedented surge in support of the iPad as a positive early indicator of its commercial potential. And so does Michael Gartenberg, a vice president at Interpret.

“In talking to developers, you get a huge sense that they are viewing the iPad as an opportunity. Where maybe they were a little behind in getting on board with the iPhone, this is a clean slate. It’s wide open,” Gartenberg said. “It’s all going to be about building optimized applications that take advantage of the platform.”

Does the warm developer reception bode well for the iPad? Does it signal a market success? There has been criticism of the new device, and some analysts have noted that the iPad doesn’t offer a camera and is too costly for its class. But Gartenberg said most people who have used the iPad are more positive about its prospects — and so are developers.

“Developers are looking at the success of the iPhone, looking at where the money was made and who made that money,” Gartenberg said. “I suspect you have a lot of folks that don’t want to be left out this time around, particularly when iPad app development, for the most part, is going to be about building new applications rather than just running the same old apps.”

Have A Great Day & We Hope You Like Our New Design!
Macwise Admin For ZTF

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Have a Great Christmas and A Happy New Year!
Macwise Admin for the ZTF Team

One of the biggest complaints that XP users had with Windows Vista was its hardware incompatibilities. Older printers, scanners, network cards, and other peripherals simply didn’t work with Vista. Here’s the bad news: They won’t work in Windows 7, either, because Windows 7 uses the same driver model as Windows Vista. So XP users will be out of luck.

XP users also tend not to be fans of Vista’s Windows Aero and other interface enhancements that they dismiss as so much frou-frou. Guess what – there’s even more frou-frou in Windows 7, such as a new taskbar and a nice new feature called Aero Peek. Those features won’t make XP users happy.

Some XP users I know simply don’t like change. They’d like the old Windows Explorer back, or the Run box back, or would have liked to have seen the same desktop icons in Vista that were in XP. Even though Vista lets them customize it so that it had some old XP features, it was still different enough that they weren’t happy.

Once again, Windows 7 won’t make them any more happy. It’s different than XP — and as far as I’m concerned, better as well.

Have A Great Day!
Macwise Admin for ZTF

What’s the difference between Snow Leopard and Leopard?
First thing to know: This is not a complete overhaul of Mac OS X. Rather, it’s a series of small to medium-sized improvements, what Apple calls “refinements”. Much of the new shine to OS X 10.6 comes from changes that are under the surface, possibly not obvious to the unobservant. But Apple does say that the improvements make the overall OS much faster, including a 45-percent faster installation than the previous version of the operating system, OS X 10.5, or Leopard. Apple is also promising faster boot times, quicker shutdown, a speedier process when joining wireless networks, and faster backups to Time Machine. And it’s not just quicker, Apple says it’s lighter: Upon install, it frees up 6GB of space.

Specific applications have been tinkered with as well, with a lot of attention focused on QuickTime, Expose, and a shiny new Safari 4 browser which was released in June.

QuickTime gets a mysterious new version number and is now called QuickTime X. It’s a bit slicker, and the new interface appears similar to the iPhone’s media player. The real change is that many features previously in the Pro version of QuickTime are now in the free version. You will be able to edit video inside QuickTime using a video timeline ribbon that appears along the bottom of the screen. And there will be fewer steps involved in video uploading. You don’t have to worry about file formats–QuickTime will do any necessary conversion and upload directly to video-hosting sites or MobileMe, Apple’s subscription service that syncs personal files on any of its devices. Apple promises it will take just one click to record audio or video (on a Mac’s built-in mic or camera) with the new QuickTime. It will also support HTTP streaming of a wider variety of file formats (like H.264 and AAC). It’s a feature that many competing media players have long offered, and it automatically adjusts the playback bit rate according to what the connection can handle. It also means you can stream video or audio through more firewalls.

Expose, an operating system UI feature for organizing open application windows, or just the windows from a particular application currently running, gets tweaked a bit, too. In Snow Leopard, Expose is integrated with app icons in the dock, which cuts out the need to first switch to the specific application you want before activating Expose to see its open windows. It also means you don’t have to use a keyboard or a trackpad gesture to call it up. Clicking and holding an app’s icon will bring all windows open that are associated with that program to the front.

What’s the one killer feature worth upgrading for?
Many people will probably consider support for Microsoft Exchange Server 2007 the most important new feature of Snow Leopard. Improved Exchange support will be integrated into Mail, iCal, and Address Book in Snow Leopard, which means email, calendar appointments, to-do lists, and contacts from Outlook will be viewable on your personal calendar, mail, and address books. It also allows things like dragging and dropping contacts into iCal to schedule meetings, and your Mac will be able to discover time conflicts between personal and work calendars and change the meeting time and location.

On a related note, Microsoft is improving its Exchange support for the Mac, too. This week Microsoft said that Outlook for Mac will replace Entourage, the current email and calendar program in the Mac Office suite. Although it will still differ from the Windows version of Outlook, it will add support for more Exchange features, such as public folders and rights management features.

How much?
Apple surprised people by putting the price to upgrade to Snow Leopard at a very attractive US$29 for a single license, and US$49 for a five-user family pack. But there’s a catch: You have to already have Leopard installed to pay those prices. If you’re upgrading from a previous version of Mac OS X 10.4 (Tiger), you’ll have to pay US$169, which includes an upgrade to 10.5 (Leopard) and 10.6 (Snow Leopard). For a five-user family pack license, it’ll cost US$229. And Snow Leopard is compatible with only Macs containing Intel chips. On the OS front, Leopard is the end of the line for PowerPC Mac owners.

Is it worth upgrading right away, or should I wait?
Some people are fans of waiting until the first update, the 0.1 release, which tends to correct any of the immediate issues that inevitably pop up when a new operating system is released to the public. Some who upgraded to the first version of Leopard ran into trouble after the software was installed, and when they attempted to restart their machines a blue screen would appear instead. But it seemed to hinge on a specific piece of third-party software many had installed that was out of date. The majority had a smooth transition to Leopard.

Overall, we think this will be a worthwhile upgrade if the speed claims turn out to be true. Another way of looking at this is that for the price of the QuickTime to QuickTime Pro upgrade, you get most of the QuickTime Pro features plus a newly tweaked core OS. We think it’s a good deal for Apple OS X 10.5 users

Have A Great Day!

Macwise Admin for ZTF