Preview: Danimator's Osx Pack For Sp2

By Danimator
Here's a few screenies from my upcoming Mac Osx 1:1 Trans Pack for Windows XP Service Pack 2. Still a little bit to finish, but should be done soon. Will Include system files, trillian skins, dock skins and icons, etc etc etc etc etc etc (A whole load of stuff) And yes, it will have an installer ;)

Here's a couple preview screenies:
http://www.deviantart.com/view/9925397/
http://www.deviantart.com/view/9925493/
http://www.deviantart.com/deviation/9925564/

News source: aqua-soft.org

Apple Makes Just $.04 Per Track

UK newspaper, The Independent has uncovered data suggesting that Apple make as little as $0.04 per track sold. Apple operates iTunes in the US and Europe, which is the largest legal music download provider. The investigation concludes that because record companies are taking such a large percentage from online sales, many companies will go out of business within years due to lack of profits.

Copyright holders, most often the recording industries, take as much as 60% of the $.99 that Apple charge for each song on iTunes. Music Publishers take the rest, amount to about $.08 per song. The report highlights the fact that even though online publishing has virtually killed costs, record companies have almost doubled their take from each song sold.

Record companies need to wake up to the fact that high prices are going to cause even more problems in the long run. Legitimate downloads have helped stop the tide of music piracy, and to over-price the songs would be disastrous. They desperately need to start thinking long term about this issue. Although Apple has the iPod to help shore up revenues, others do not; market analysts predict that many of the music download start-ups coming to market in the next 12 months could be bankrupt within 5 years. Michael Robertson from MP3.com told the Independent that online music providers are so un-profitable that it's more of "a race where the winner gets shot in the head".

News source: Neowin.net

Google Hacking

Hackers have long use Google's search services for dubious and illegal purposes; using specially crafted queries users of Google can find a large amount of sensitive data, ranging from credit card details to passwords. Neowin recently looked at how easy it was to find sensitive data vai Google’s search facilities. However, Whitehat UK, a security group, is reporting that hackers are now using Google to see what is being copied on corporate photocopiers.

Jason Hart at Whitehat UK remarked to Zdnet that "You don't have to be a genius to do this". The main problem arises from Google's extensive indexing of sites, and the cache function which stores data long after it's been removed from a website. The trick with photocopiers is another hack in a long line of Google exploitations.

Google's advanced services, often incredibly useful for users, are often a pain for server administrators and organizations. Hart advises companies to check what data Google stores on them, and if there was anything sensitive being displayed to ask Google to remove it.

News source: Neowin.net

Microsoft to secure IE for XP only

If you're one of about 200 million people using older versions of Windows and you want the latest security enhancements to Internet Explorer, get your credit card ready. Microsoft this week reiterated that it would keep the new version of Microsoft's IE Web browser available only as part of the recently released Windows XP operating system, Service Pack 2. The upgrade to XP from any previous Windows versions is $99 when ordered from Microsoft. Starting from scratch, the OS costs $199.

News source: CNet news

GOOGLE PICKS GATES' BRAINS

By STEPHEN LYNCH

Google, $1.67 billion richer from its August initial public offering, is spending its money poaching the brightest minds from arch-rival Microsoft and other tech giants.

Based on the half-dozen hires in recent weeks, Google appears to be planning to launch its own Web browser and other software products to challenge Microsoft.

Google has wooed Joshua Bloch, one of the main developers of the Internet programming language Java, from Sun Microsystems.

The company also hired four people who worked on Microsoft's Web browser, Internet Explorer, and later founded their own company. One of them, Adam Bosworth, is credited with being a driving force not only behind IE, but Microsoft's database-management program, Access.

Most recently, Google grabbed Joe Beda, the lead developer on Avalon, Microsoft's code name for the user interface that will part of the next version of Windows, called Longhorn.

Beda even keeps an online diary of what it's like to be a "Noogler," as new Google employees are called. He won't reveal what he's working on but mentions that each Noogler is given a hat with a propeller on the top.

"Google is a magnetic pull for smart technology people," said Gary Stein, an analyst with Jupiter Research. "They're really trying to broaden their tech base. This is all about putting smart kids in a Google sandbox."

Read more...
News source: NY post

Y'z Shadow

Y'z Shadow is an enhancement software which adds a shadow effect to Windows in pursuit of the beauty of a shadow. It also allows the user the option of making menus transparent.

Download: osx-e.com

ObjectDock 1.04 & ObjectDock plus 1.04

ObjectDock is a free program that allows you to have a nice animated launchbar/taskbar on your screen that reacts to your mouse when you mouse over it.

Requirements: Windows 2000 or Windows XP. Program supports accelerated video cards and includes a software rendering mode to run fast on older hardware.



ObjectDock Plus adds a ton of extra features that help turbo-charge your Windows desktop. See Screenshots!

Extra features include:

* Tabbed Docks
* Multiple Docks
* System Tray support
* Custom icons for system tray icons
* Fly-out menus
* Smart edge docking
* Taskbar grouping
* Multi-monitor support
* Tons of customization features


Download: Stardock.com

Glossy Skin For Rainlendar

d.crowley released his great work, Glossy Skin For Rainlendar. Screenshot

Installation: simply unzip into Rainlendar's "Skins" folder - et voilà! wink.gif

The three icons I used are from the "Longhorn Pinstripe Vol 1" set from http://enhancedlabs.com - I've included their original readme png file within the zip. Please read it for copyright information.

My first skinning work ever. Hope you guys enjoy! smile.gif

CHANGELOG:

v1.2
- Added event profiles (birthday, date, dinner, exam, important, party, trip, work)
- Changed Today's image (works together with events now)

v1.1
- Added weekdays
- Fixed a bug with the message box showing up incorrectly

v1.0
- Initial release

Download: 1.2

Icons: Equal O2 Drives

Small update for Equal.
New Drives a ready for use.
This is lite version of Equal Drives.
Download: http://www.maidanov.spb.ru

Miranda To Proteus Mod, how to get miranda to look proteus-like

Article by holden

Hey guys, how's it going? Well after much work today, miranda's kinda looking like Proteus.Click here to see the screenshot

How to do it:

-First off download tabSRMM 0.0.8 here and put it in your Miranda\Plugins folder..

-Now download tabsrmm_unicodel.dll and place it in your Miranda\Plugins folder.

-Next off, download SmileyAdd plugin and put it in your Miranda\Plugins folder.

-Download Proteus.msl and Proteus.dll Put them both in your Miranda\Smileys folder.

-Now open up Miranda, go to Options->Events->Smileys and in the field "Smiley Library" browse for the "Proteus.msl" file in your Miranda\Smileys folder.

-Go to Options->Contact List->List and set "Ident groups by:" 15 pixels.

-Go to Options->Events and make sure only the following options are checked in the following fields:
Message containers: Hide tab bar if there is only one tab, Enable popups if minimized, Show contacts name, Show container name in title bar -> Never.
Message tabs: Limit nicknames on tab to 15 characters, Hide status bar, Use flat buttons.
Messaging Log: Show names, indent events: 5 pixels, Ignore per-contact log settings, Load unread events only. Also, change the font and message background color here.

-Next download some nice icons for Miranda. Download these and exchange them with your current Miranda icons in Options->Contact List->Icons. I'm not gonna explain how to do that, since it's pretty straight foward. Note: The icons in this iconpack are in PNG format, you need to convert them to ICO format using an appropriate application. Iconworkshop does the work well, and so does Ave's application.

-Now download the Contact List background. I suggest saving it to your miranda folder and keeping it there.

-Go to Options->Contact List->List Background and select the file you just downloaded (background_tiny.jpg). Make sure just the following options are checked: Use background bitmap, Stretch to width, Tile vertically, Scroll with text.

-Go to Options->Contact List->List Text and set the font to Arial, size 14 and bold. Set row height to 22.

-Now for the hassle. Open up Proteus.msl in a text editor (I recommend notepad) and check the last entries. Those entries tell Miranda which text strings will be replaced by emoticons. Change the values I use for the ones you want to use. For example if you nickname in MSN is Mike, change the value
Smiley = ".\Proteus.dll", -128, "David: " to
Smiley = ".\Proteus.dll", -128, "Mike: "
Please note that the negative number (-128) indicates which image from the Proteus.dll file will be used. Please open up Proteus.dll with reshacker or whatever and check out the available avatars and icons, feel free to use whichever you want by replacing the numbers on the Proteus.msl file with the icons you desire to use.

-That's pretty much it I guess. You can mod it a little further, set the messages background to silver or something, or the font, but that's straight foward. I hope you find this helpful.

NOTE! For some people, the tabSRMM dll file is called tabsrmm_unicode.dll not tabsrmm_unicodel.dll. Please change the name of the modded file before replacing if this is your case.

news source: aqua-soft.org

Microsoft server crash nearly causes 800-plane pile-up

For three hours last week 800 airplanes were left flying in the air with no way to contact air traffic control. This serious problem was a combination of human error and a 'design glitch' in Microsoft’s Windows 2000 server.

According to the Los Angeles Times, "Microsoft's software contained an internal clock designed to shut the system down after 49.7 days to prevent it from becoming overloaded with data." In order to avoid this automatic shutdown, technicians at the airport are required to restart the servers manually (every 30 days), and as you can guess last week one of the technicians messed up. Even after all that the airports software analysts still say such a feature is preferable over others to prevent an overloaded system, as an overloaded system might very well give controllers wrong information about flights.

No system is prefect, but I would have thought that the airline industry would have been a lot better prepared. Still you have to give credit where credit is due, and Laura Brown a FAA spokeswoman said that "the agency plans to install a system that would issue a warning well before shutdown." Surely this Windows server feature could have been disabled, and if not is it really Microsoft’s fault for someone else's choice to keep it enabled? I say no (assuming it could be disabled), because there are other alternatives out there and if you're running something this major on Windows 2000 servers you're kind of asking for it. Luckily no one was harmed from this incident, and that gives us another chance. A chance that I'm sure won't be wasted.