Intel Cougar Point Recall, Burns Early Adopters

Intel announced January 31 a design flaw in the P67 and H67 Cougar Point chipsets for its Sandy Bridge platform. In its press release Intel disclosed, "As part of ongoing quality assurance, Intel Corporation has discovered a design issue in a recently released support chip, the Intel 6 Series, code-named Cougar Point, and has implemented a silicon fix. In some cases, the Serial-ATA (SATA) ports within the chipsets may degrade over time, potentially impacting the performance or functionality of SATA-linked devices such as hard disk drives and DVD-drives... Intel has stopped shipment of the affected support chip from its factories. Intel has corrected the design issue, and has begun manufacturing a new version of the support chip which will resolve the issue."

In the wake of the announcement, several manufacturers have either announced recalls or promised fixes in the next few months. Dell was one of the first to post an update in it's blog Direct2Dell, "Customers experiencing issues will be supported under the warranty and service terms. Once we have new chipsets from Intel in early April, we will provide a motherboard replacement that corrects the design issue at no cost to our customers. Replacements will be provided at the customers’ location and convenience via authorized Dell service providers. Affected customers may also take advantage of the applicable return policy, which may vary by region."

Lenovo also took it's turn to assure it's customer that, "Following Intel's announcement confirming a design issue in their recently released support chip, the Intel 6 Series, Lenovo will be putting in place a special service program that will enable customers who purchased affected PCs to receive a system board replacement free-of-charge, as soon as those parts become available."

MSI made public a somewhat similar announcement for it's products, assuring it's customers that, "MSI takes the quality of our products very serious, so at this moment we are investigating product batches that may be affected and, meanwhile, have stopped all shipments to our distributors and resellers."

HP, Acer, Toshiba and Samsung have reportedly made announcements about recalls and release delays for their own products.  The recall is supposed to cost Intel $300 million in lost revenue and $700 million in repairs and replacements.

If there ever was a perfect time not to be an early adopter, this would be one of them. I count myself as one conservative upgrader. This time around, that actually worked to my advantage. And I'm thinking it's about time everyone give AMD a second and well-deserved look.

HowTo Install Dropbox in Windows

Dropbox is software that makes it easy to save, share and sync files between different computers and devices. I posted about it here: Dropbox - Save, Share, Sync Files Between Computers. When you install Dropbox, you get a dedicated folder on your computer that is automatically backed up. The nice thing about it is if you have multiple computers and each one has it, Dropbox syncs the files on each. Your files are available everywhere. You get the same file version on each computer updated automatically. What's more, you can go back to previous versions from the last 30 days should you need to. Here's how to install it:

1. Go to  http://www.dropbox.com/referrals/NTEwMjA1MzQyOQ and sign up for an account:

2. After signing up, you'll be directed to the downloads page:

3. Click Run when prompted:

4. The download may take a while. Go get yourself a cup of coffee:

5. When the download finishes and after you've had a few sips of your coffee, click on Run:

6. Click on Install:

7. Finish your coffee while it installs:

8. Since you signed up using my link **hint, hint**, choose I Already Have a Dropbox Account:

9. Type in the email and password you signed up with and edit the computer's name if you want to, then click Next:

10. Choose the 2GB Free option and click Next:

11. I'd recommend reading the info on the 4 slides, to get a little more background on how to use it. Click on Next to move to each one:

12. Finish the install by ticking either on Add a Shortcut on My Desktop or I Want to Choose Where to Put My Dropbox Folder, then Finish (i personally prefer the Desktop, it makes it easier to find):

13. You should have a link on you desktop after clicking on Finish in the previous step:

14.  Click on the icon to access you Dropbox and start drag-dropping your files:

If you want to keep it free, you only have 2GB to work with. But you can increase your free storage if you invite friends. For every person who signs up using your link, you and that person get 250MB each. You can get up to 8GB free! That's 10 GB total, for free. So if you want to try it out, use click my link (http://www.dropbox.com/referrals/NTEwMjA1MzQyOQ) and we'll both get 250MB free ;-)

What is a Podcast?

MP3 players are a popular way to bring your music with you. One of the first to really innovate in this space was Apple with their iPod some nine years ago. MP3's were gaining popularity at the time because it enabled people to easily move music from device to device by turning it to data and compressing it. Apple, by launching the iPod with their online music store, changed the way music was bought and brought along. The Apple scheme changed the way music was distributed and sold. Podcasts are a natural evolution that stemmed from that piece of innovation. Now, think of podcasts as radio shows. The difference is that while radio shows are broadcast over the air, podcasts are recorded and distributed through the internet. You subscribed to a podcast using podcatchers. iTunes, aside from managing your personal MP3's can also be used to subscribe to podcasts. To learn how to subscribe to podcasts using iTunes, go to this page.

Here's how podcasts work. With every new episode, an update is posted on the internet. The update or notice is published on a special page called an RSS page. A podcatcher, or say iTunes, regularly checks the RSS pages of the podcasts that you've subscribed to. When it notices a new episode, it then downloads that. Depending on your preferences, you iPod can be updated with the new episodes automatically or only when you tell it to do so.

Listening to podcasts isn't limited to the iPod or iTunes. There are a plethora or MP3 players and portable media devices that can be used to listen to them. A few that I have tried and liked are the Creative Zen M, RCA Lyra and Sandisk Sansa. There are also a veritable cornucopia of podcatchers and management software that you can use to subcribe to podcasts and sync them to your music player. One of my favorites is DoubleTwist, touted by some as an iTunes alternative. I like it because aside from syncing media players, it can also sync media to phones. It can be slow at times though. Over on the linux end, I use Banshee. Starting with version 1.7.2 (i think), it supports syncing to Android phones ;-)

In recent years, video podcasts have also gained popularity. Think of a video podcast as a TV shows, only not broadcast over the air or distributed through cable channels. Video podcasts are distributed over the internet, much the same way podcasts are.

Podcasts are usually very focused on specific niches and most cater only to specific interests. Two of the most popular podcast networks are TWIT and Revision 3. A lot of traditional news organizations have also jumped on the podcast band wagon. BBC and CNN offer their own niche-interest podcasts as well as news over their feeds. Even Fox News has a podcast.

So if you've got some interest in something, why not try and look for a podcast. You might find the knitting show that you've been looking for for so long.

What is DNS?

A DNS or Domain Name System is responsible for pointing your networked or internet-connected computer to the the right website or server for your request. Every networked or internet-connected computer is assigned an IP address. Basically an IP address functions the same was a postal address. Your mail gets delivered to the postal address, the same way that a request to connect is directed to a specific IP address.

Say you want to go to OpenDNS’ website. You type in http://www.opendns.com. Your browser will ask a DNS server, “Hey, how do I get to www.opendns.com?” The DNS server will then look it up in its records and reply, “Oh, that. Go to the IP 208.69.38.160 and you’re all set.” Your browser goes to that IP and you see the webpage.

Your ISP or office network (in the case of corporate networks) will usually have their own DNS server. It is not uncommon though for ISP’s and other companies to use DNS services provided by third parties so they don’t have to maintain it themselves. There‘s also the issue of speed. The internet is one gigantic intricate web of interconnected computers. Depending on where you physically are and where the server of the site you’re browsing is, your computer may have to find a route through different servers in different countries. It will ‘hop’ through each before it finds its way to the website’s own server. Your computer will have to find its way through that maze. Services like OpenDNS have servers all over the world and that helps because it can find the fastest route to the computer hosting webpage your going to.

If you would like to try and use a different DNS server to see if that’s faster than you ISP’s, give OpenDNS a try. It’s what I personally use. You also get the added benefits of web content filtering and phishing protection if you want to turn those on. That means it filters out those unsavory porn sites and fake banking sites that try to steal your login credentials. For instructions on how to change the DNS server settings on your Windows computer, go here.

Anonymous Browsing -- Hide Your IP

Once the question came up, there was no turning back. One time my wife asked me why I was freaking out about IP addresses. I explained that due to some enterprising people, geo-location has become a lot easier. It makes a useful add-on to social networking. Take a look at this site where you can test with your own IP:
http://www.ipligence.com/geolocation. Different services can use IP address information and cross-reference that with open API's like that of Google Maps to map the actual location of an IP. This is useful when sharing geo-location on services like that of Google Latitude, Foursquare and Gowalla.

If for example I go to Robinson's Place and they happen to have free WiFi, I connect and the outside world gets an IP. The ISP knows the billing address and what IP was assigned to its connection at the time. That's one way to trace the physical address. I check in to Foursquare and see another user had already noted the address of Robinson's Place. That's another way to establish the location, a user contributing the location so a social networking site. Foursquare sees I'm checking in from a location using the same IP. So the site knows where I am based off an earlier user's check in. Surprisingly, it knows where I am. It suggests I check in to Robinson's Place and tells me who the 'Mayor' is. My Foursquare friends will see I'm at a particular address at the time I checked in. If map data for Robinson's Place is available, my location will show up courtesy of a map service. All my friends need are driving directions. This all happens in the background when all I did was tap a button on the Foursquare app on my phone. This is all dandy, but it's a privacy hazard at times.

Say, you want to keep your IP address info confidential, like if you're browsing from home and you don't want anyone snooping your location. There is a quick and easy way to protect your IP address from prying eyes. Use The Onion Router. TOR, as it is popularly called, makes use of anonymous exit nodes. There are people who volunteer to have their internet connections used as exit nodes for TOR. What that means is they volunteer their IP to be used by anyone else in the TOR network to hide the original IP. There are literally thousands of these exit nodes.

Here's normal browsing is handled by your computer and ISP. Your computer is given an IP by you ISP. Your browse to a website and your IP information is visible to the website you go to as well as to any other servers that the connection passes through. This is how the web works. It's called the web for a reason. Computers are connected to other computers and if there isn't any 'straight line' to the website you're browsing to, your computer finds a route through other computers until it eventually connects to the right server hosting the website. The information from the website finds its way back through the complicated web by using your IP to identify you.

IPLigence on a TOR Browser, I'm in Chicago

Here's how TOR works to anonymize your traffic. Your browse to a website. Instead of computer following your ISP's directions to connect to the website's server, your computer connects to the TOR network. Inside the TOR network, your traffic is randomly routed to an exit node. The website sees your traffic coming from that exit node and it thinks the request is coming from that IP. Remember, I said that lots of people volunteer their IP's as exit nodes. Random is important because it is harder to trace back that way. The website you browse to with then only see the IP of your exit node and not your own.

Think of it this way. Let's say water in a river flows through a certain route, connecting to other rivers until it reaches the open sea. The route as well as the source is visible. It can be traced back to the source, as the routes are known and in the open. That's how web traffic usually works. Then imagine water flowing through underground pipes, the pipes branching off to many different pipes and water flows to the sea from many different exits points. Imagine at any given time water takes a different route and exits through a different pipe. Imagine there is no fixed pattern where the water flows through or which pipe it exits to the sea. That's how TOR works, routes are hidden and random. You can't trace it back because only the exits are visible.

TOR has been especially useful to people living in countries that restrict internet use to control information. It's well known that TOR is used by people in places like China or Burma to circumvent Internet restrictions imposed by their government.

Though our needs may be different, we can still use TOR to anonymize our browsing. It's a free service and volunteering is optional. For Windows users, there's a pre-packaged portable version of Firefox that's been set-up with TOR. You can download it from here: http://www.torproject.org/torbrowser/dist/tor-browser-1.3.9_en-US.exe. Just remember where you save it. When you want to browse anonymously, open the folder and launch the Firefox browser. There is no need to install it. It works straight out of the box. The default settings work just fine so no need to fiddle around with the TOR network settings unless you're comfy doing so. More information on its features can be had here: http://www.torproject.org/faq.html.en. Read the FAQ if you want to learn more about the settings and how to use all the features.