William Computer Blog

Apple just updated a new MacBook Pro with Intel Core 2 Duo processors. You can choose between Intel Core 2 Duo 2.16 GHz or 2.33 GHz. The MacBook Pro is now upgradable to support 200GB Hard drive and 3GB RAM.

Unlike the previous MacBook Pro 15-inch, the new MacBook Pro have 6x dual-layer SuperDrive (DVD burner). The 15-inch also support FireWire 800, unavailable in the previous version.

According to Apple, the new MacBook Pro is faster up to 39% faster than the previous MacBook Pro. Intel Core 2 Duo processors are built on a 65-nanometer process.

Secunia, the Danish computer security company, discovered the first vulnerability in Internet Explorer 7. The flaw can be exploited by malicious people to disclose potentially sensitive information.

The vulnerability is caused due to an error in the handling of redirections for URLs with the “mhtml:” URI handler. This can be exploited to access documents served from another web site.

Internet Explorer 7.0 with a fully patched Windows XP SP2 systems are vulnerable and the advisory is currently unpatched. You shouldn’t worry too much though since Secunia rated the advisory as less critical. It is less critical because the attacker have to lure you to visit the malicious site.

For those who wants to be extra careful, you can disable active scripting support to avoid any problem.

The MacBook Pro is back from 3 weeks repair to solve the shutdown problem.

The logic board and the LCD panel had been replaced with a new one. I’ve been trying to crash the notebook by putting stress on the cpu and try to heat it up.

1. Connect the notebook to the Apple Cinema Display
2. Encode a DVD with HandBrake
3. Open Terminal.app and type

   yes > /dev/null &

   press enter
4. Type

   yes > /dev/null &

   press enter
5. Open a lot of quicktime movie trailers and play it.
6. Turn the heater on
7. Activate screensaver

In the past, doing the above mentioned steps would shutdown the machine once it got to 80 degrees celcius. I used CoreDuoTemp to monitor the temperature of the notebook.

Anyone experiencing the same problem should contact AppleCare.

Google has just bought YouTube for $1.65 billion in stock. YouTube is a video sharing web site which allows users to upload and share videos. The company was founded in February 2005 by Chad Hurley, Steve Chen, and Jawed Karim.

Following the acquisition, YouTube will operate independently. I wonder what will happen to Google Video? Are incoming traffic to video.google.com will get forwarded to youtube?

For more information, Read the Google Press Release.

I have just completed realigning the design of this site. Here are the changes:

• Favorite Links are now located above the fold on the right side of the site. It is now more visible to users. The favorite links are interesting articles/news/sites that I stumbled upon while browsing the web.
• The sponsor links are now separated from the site’s navigation.
• This site design no longer supports 800 x 600 screen resolution.
• My Contact information is now using microformats hCard markup.
• Reviews published on this website will be using microformats hReview.

Feel free to comment on the new design, feed subscribers please come and visit.

Microsoft announced a new technology in Windows Vista to reduce the risk of piracy. Windows Vista and Windows Server “Longhorn” are the first two products to ship with this new technology called Software Protection Platform.

Just like Windows XP, users are required to activate their Windows Vista within 30 days of installation. If Windows is not activated within 30 days, the operating system will go into reduced functionality.

When Windows Vista is in Reduced Functionality mode, the default web browser will be started and the user will be able to purchase a new product key. Start Menu will be disabled, there will be no desktop icons and the desktop background will changed to black. After one hour, the system will log the user out without warning although it will not shut down the computer.

Windows Aero and Windows ReadyBoost feature will also be disabled under the Reduced Functionality mode.

For more information about SP platform, visit Microsoft announcement.

One of my favorite feature of Windows Vista is a new feature called ReadyBoost. ReadyBoost allows you to use removable flash memory device (i.e. USB flash drive, SD card, Compact Flash, etc) as system memory to improve system performance.

When a flash memory device is plugged in, the “Autoplay” dialog box will appear and ask you what you want to do with the device. A new option called “Speed up my system using this device” is available. When you select this option, you can choose much memory to use for ReadyBoost.

ReadyBoost requirement:

• The USB Key must be at least USB 2.0
• The device must be able to do 3.5 MB/s for 4 KB random reads uniformly across the entire device and 2.5 MB/s for 512 KB random writes uniformly across the device.
• The USB Key has to have at least 64mb of free space

This feature is useful for people whose computers have no memory expansion, preventing them from adding more RAM. Another reason to use ReadyBoost is for those who don’t know what type of memory is compatible with their computer.

For more information visit Tom Archer’s blog: Using Your USB Key to Speed Up Windows Vista and his ReadyBoost Q & A.

Perian is a free plugin that enables Quicktime to play almost every popular media format. Except WMV, any Mac OS X applications that use Quicktime will support popular formats such as DivX, XviD, FLV, AVI, and many more.

Install perian along with Flip4Mac and you can now use Quicktime instead of VLC Media player.