Goodbye petabytes and exabytes, hello zettabytes!

Goodbye petabytes and exabytes, hello zettabytes!: "
In a relatively humorous and sarcastic post, blogger Paul McNamara looks at a recent news release from EMC and attempts to understand, and help us understand, just how big a zettabyte is.

Here are three analogies from the EMC article:

• “The digital information created by every man, woman and child on Earth ‘Tweeting’ continuously for 100 years.”
• “75 billion fully-loaded 16 GB Apple iPads, which would fill the entire area of Wembley Stadium to the brim 41 times, the Mont Blanc Tunnel 84 times, CERN’s Large Hadron Collider tunnel 151 times, Beijing National Stadium 15.5 times or the Taipei 101 Tower 23 times.”
• “A full-length episode of FOX TV’s hit series 24 running continuously for 125 million years.”

As McNamara points out, these analogies are oftentimes outside the scope of what the normal human — even the normal IT person — can fully grasp. For example, the “tweeting” example requires the knowledge of how many humans there are in the world (which sources can’t seem to agree on) and some fairly fuzzy math, since the unit of time is 100 years.

Beyond the analogies, the EMC article outlines the fact that humans created 800 billion gigabytes (800 million terabytes, 800,000 petabytes, 800 exabytes, or 0.8 zettabytes) in 2009 and, based on the growth of 62% over 2008’s data, posits that humans will create about 1.2 zettabytes in 2010. This number is just massive, especially considering most humans have never even seen a terabyte of data. Even the storage experts among us are only considering data storage in the dozens to hundreds of terabytes. When you add it all up — all the big companies, governments, healthcare institutions, big-budget CGI movies (Avatar) and the like — 800 million terabytes does not seem outstanding for the entire world’s storage.

Don’t plan on seeing petabyte hard drives any time soon, let alone zettabytes; some of the largest storage arrays are only holding about half of a petabyte. In addition, this count of 1.2 zettabytes is highly inflated; much of the world’s data (some say 75%) is copies. In truth, only 0.3 zettabytes of unique, new information will be created this year.

The report estimates that data creation will grow 44-fold by 2020, putting us well on our way toward yottabytes. Wrap your head around that, if you can.

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Windows Error Message Grabber

Windows Error Message Grabber: "
Windows XP only software Error Report Grabber is an indispensable tool for users who frequently experience error messages in the operating system. Many error messages in Windows are displayed in windows without the option to copy or process the information easily.
It is for instance not possible to copy the error message title to research the error on the Internet. This has to be done manually by the user.
Error Report Grabber is a portable software that can grab the information from open Windows error messages to provide the user with a text version of the information that can be copied easily.

The process is semi-automated. The user needs to start the Error Report Grabber application if a Windows error message is displayed on the screen. It is then necessary to enter the first words of the error report title and error text so that the program can identify the correct window.
A click on the Find Report button scans all open windows for the error message. If the program finds the correct windows handles it will display their contents. A click on the Grab button will grab the information and display them in the program’s interface. These can then be copied by clicking on Copy.
Error Report Grabber is unfortunately only compatible with Windows XP. The program can be downloaded from the developer’s website. (via BlogsDNA)

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Tabjacking: a new and ingenious phishing attack

Tabjacking: a new and ingenious phishing attack: "
Filed under: Internet, Security, Browsers

By now, all but the most geriatric Web users know about phishing. Usually it takes the form of a seemingly-official email from a bank or other money-related Web service. Most of the time these attacks are painfully obvious -- but what if you removed the email attack vector? What if you removed those daft give-away URLs? What if the phishing attack was pure, seemingly-benign JavaScript that's invisible to all but the most judicious of Web users?



That's exactly what 'tabjacking' does. Open Aza Raskin's proof of concept in a new tab. Admire the sample code. Now, change tabs, wait five seconds, and then watch in horror as his site seemingly becomes GMail.



Malicious JavaScript injection isn't a new thing -- and this particular exploit only works in Firefox (and partially in Chrome) -- but you have to admit it's pretty damn scary. It's certainly only a matter of time until workarounds are found for the other browsers -- and the implications when combined with targeting 'hacks' such as CSS history mining are petrifying.



You wouldn't have to hack the site to inject the JavaScript either: an add-on or extension would work just as well...



If you're like me, I always check the address bar before typing a sensitive password. I'm not actually sure what I'll do, now that tabjacking code is in the wild.



As Aza says, it's high time we move to browser-based authentication solutions like the Firefox Account Manager."

Google Wave now open to the public: faster, Robots and Gadgets aplenty!

Google Wave now open to the public: faster, Robots and Gadgets aplenty!: "

Filed under: Internet, Google

If you somehow missed it, Google Wave is now a bonafide Labs project: rather than being an invite-only alpha, it's now a public beta test! If you don't already have an account, just head on over to Wave and use your regular Google login details. If you've not seen any of the Google Wave introductory videos, you should check them out -- they explain the whole thing a lot more succinctly than I ever could. Wave has also been enabled for Google Apps domains -- businesses could convert their internal communication to Waves today!



Leading up to this public release there have a lot of changes. It's by no means finished, but Google Wave is now a lot faster. It's also more intuitive -- more useful -- and given the large number of Robots and Gadgets now reaching prime-time readiness, it feels like the mass adoption of Wave is imminent. Also, if you're an old, disillusioned user, Wave is now deserving of 'just one more go'.



In the following days I'll be highlighting some new Wave Robots and Gadgets that have caught my eye. I will take it upon me to convince you of Google Wave's awesomeness -- just you wait!

Google Wave now open to the public: faster, Robots and Gadgets aplenty! originally appeared on Download Squad on Thu, 20 May 2010 12:00:00 EST. Please see our terms for use of feeds.

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Boot From a USB Drive Even if your BIOS Won’t Let You

Excelente artigo explicando a forma de como ultrapassar o problema de realizar um boot apartir de uma pen USB quanda a Bios do computador não o permite.

Boot From a USB Drive Even if your BIOS Won’t Let You: "
You’ve always got a trusty bootable USB flash drive with you to solve computer problems, but what if a PC’s BIOS won’t let you boot from USB? We’ll show you how to make a CD or floppy disk that will let you boot from your USB drive.

The Secret Mission of the Terminator