If you're still clinging to Windows XP, at least one security firm will have your back.
As previously reported, Microsoft plans to end support for Windows XP
(SP3) as of April 8, 2014. The Redmond company also plans to shut off
Security Essentials for the platform, leaving Windows XP users depending
on third-party products. For those still refusing to upgrade to Windows 7 or Windows 8, Kaspersky Lab has your back. According to CIOL, Kaspersky Anti-Virus 2013 and Kaspersky Internet Security 2013
will keep on protecting Windows XP users in accordance with Kaspersky
Lab product lifecycles, which may span at least two future generations
of both security solutions. The corporate protection solution Kaspersky
Endpoint Security 10 for Windows will end support for Windows XP SP3 in
the second quarter of 2016.
Meanwhile, Microsoft is gearing up to patch a serious vulnerability in Windows XP
that could allow hackers to take full control of the PC. "The
vulnerability is an elevation of privilege vulnerability. An attacker
who successfully exploited this vulnerability could run arbitrary code
in kernel mode. An attacker could then install programs; view, change,
or delete data; or create new accounts with full administrative rights,"
Microsoft explains.
Russ Ernst, director of product management at Lumension, recently told PC World
that the Windows XP patch was classified as "Important" due to a number
of reasons, one of which is because Microsoft will end support for
Windows XP in April. For those still using XP, this will be an important
patch to deploy and install.
3D printing aficionados can now get more creative control over their projects. Adobe is bringing 3D printing functions to its Photoshop Creative Cloud software. The update, which will be available for free for all Creative Cloud members today, also integrates output options with printers such as the Makerbot series or vendors such as Shapeways.com.
While users have been able to work with 3D objects in Photoshop
CC for years now, this update integrates the option for 3D output, so
you can print directly from the program. You can also import existing 3D
projects in OBJ, STL, 3DS, Collada and KMZ files and beautify them with
Photoshop's tools. MORE: Best 3D Printers 2014
Compared to existing 3D modeling tools, Photoshop
CC gives you more creative options to refine, preview and prepare your
objects. Add colors and textures or choose materials to personalize your
model. Hit Print and Photoshop CC will let you preview what your
masterpiece will look like based on the printer and materials you've
chosen. It will also build scaffolds to prevent your structure from
collapsing, and you can also preview these scaffolds.
With CES over, and MWC just around the corner, we'll soon be on our
way to Computex in June. It's the show for PC hardware and components,
and it looks like we might see some machines based on updated Haswell
chips at Computex 2014.
According to Digitimes, Intel's next
generation Haswell Refresh processors are expected to hit retail channel
availability in May. The site doesn't offer details on a source for
this information but says Q22014 will bring approximately 20 new SKUs
across its Core i-series, Pentium, and Celeron brands. This includes Core i7-4790, Core i5-4690, Core i5-4590, Core i3-4360, Pentium G3450 and Celeron G1840 as well as Core i7-4790S, Core i5-4590S and Core i3-4150T in the low-power segment.
Intel
announced Haswell at Computex Taipei in 2013. Based on the 22 nm
process, Haswell will be succeeded by Broadwell, which is scheduled to
begin production in Q1 of this year. Back in October, Intel revealed
that the chips, based on the 14 nm process, won't be available until
later this year due to a delay caused by a 'defect density issue,'
(that's too many defect chips per circuit print to you and me). Intel
first showcased Broadwell at IDF in September, promising a 30 percent
improvement in power consumption compared to the 2013 Haswell chips.
It’s a life lesson anyone can live by: if what you’re doing isn’t
working, try something new. That seems to be the motivation behind HP’s
latest venture into India.
Re/code reports
that HP has announced plans to re-enter the smartphone market with two
new phone-tablet hybrids in India, an emerging market where other major
phone manufacturers have also taken their business. HP was once a
proponent of touchscreen, PDA devices, but lost its steam after buying
Palm in 2010. The company hasn’t released a mobile phone since 2009
(though it did release a few tablets, including a few Android-powered
ones and the WebOS-powered TouchPad).
The two phablet devices coming to India are the 6- and 7-inch Slate 6
and Slate 7 VoiceTab, respectively. The phones run Android 4.2.2 Jelly
Bean, feature quad-core processors, and come with 16GB of internal
storage, as well as expansion slots. Both devices will be available for
purchase next month, though HP hasn’t mentioned a price just yet.
If you’re exhausted by the idea of more large-sized smartphones, you’re justified: according to IDC,
devices with larger screens, ranging from 5 to 7 inches, accounted for
nearly 23 percent of all smartphone sales. It makes sense for a company
like HP, which is looking to gain some footing, to go after the
low-hanging fruit.
It also makes sense that HP is diving into an established emerging market. Samsung and Nokia hover around 15 percent
marketshare in India, and numbers like that can make any country seem
like a veritable investment to a company struggling for a piece of the
pie.
Ron Coughlin, senior vice president for the consumer PC business at HP,
expressed hope about entering the market overseas, telling Re/code that
the devices resonated with India’s consumers and that “India had the
highest purchase intent.” If the company is successful, it’s likely it
will try on the US for size—again. For now, Coughlin said that HP is
merely focusing on a successful launch in India.
Two-year-old startup Wickr is offering a reward of up to US$100,000 to
anyone who can find a serious vulnerability in its mobile encrypted
messaging application, which is designed to thwart spying by hackers and
governments.
The reward puts the small company in the same league as Google, Facebook
and Microsoft, all of which offer substantial payouts to security
researchers for finding dangerous bugs that could compromise their
users’ data.
Wickr has already
closely vetted its application so the challenge could be tough.
Veracode, an application security testing company, and Stroz Friedberg, a
computer forensics firm, have reviewed the software, in addition to
independent security researchers.
In a statement, Wickr said “we expect finding critical vulnerabilities
in Wickr to be difficult and are honored to work with those that do.”
Companies benefit from these bug bounty programs because they create an
incentive for a large number of engineers with various types and levels
of expertise to test their applications. It can be a better investment
than hiring full-time staff, according to one study.
Wickr said vulnerabilities that substantially affect the confidentiality
or integrity of user data could qualify for the maximum reward. Less
severe bugs could garner a researcher $10,000 or more. Researchers are
required not to publicize their discoveries for three months without
written permission, giving Wickr time to review and fix potential
issues. Bug information should be sent to bugbounty@mywickr.com.
Messages sent through Wickr are encrypted on the mobile device. Although
the scrambled data passes through Wickr’s servers, Wickr does not have a
key to decrypt the content. A message can be tagged with an expiry date
that causes it to be erased on the recipient’s phone after a specific
time.
Wickr, based in San Francisco, promotes its application, which runs on
iOS and Android, as a safe way to send messages, photos, files and
video. Since it does retain data on its servers, the company maintains
it would be unable to turn over users’ data to law enforcement.
Back in the days when mechanical hard drives with spinning platters were
the norm, you could simply hand your old hard drive to a deserving
relative or friend as an upgrade, get a thank you, and call it a day.
It’s not so simple with today’s solid-state drives.
In many cases, used SSDs simply aren’t as fast as newer ones. The
biggest issue in retasking, reselling, or even maintaining an SSD for a
prolonged period stems from an inconvenient characteristic of NAND flash
memory: Previously written cells must be erased before they can be
rewritten with new data. If the SSD is forced to reuse cells rather than
use new ones while storing data, performance will plummet.
To avoid this problem with NAND flash memory, modern SSD controllers use a number of tricks,
including building in extra capacity that users can’t touch—a technique
known as over-provisioning. There’s also a command called TRIM that
tells an SSD when blocks of memory are no longer needed and can be
consolidated and erased.
Sounds good, right? But there’s a catch.
Better in theory than in practice
Intel
NAND memory inside an Intel enterprise-class X-25E Extreme SATA SSD.
Not all garbage collection (as the cleaning up of an SSD’s NAND is
known) is created equal. It doesn’t run constantly, and some older
operating systems don’t even support the TRIM command. As such, more
“used” NAND cells are left hanging around on your SSD than you’d
suspect, according to nearly every vendor and data-recovery specialist I
consulted
After prolonged use, these idle cells can add up to a big hit on your SSD’s performance. That’s not good.
Simply deleting files and repartitioning and formatting your drive won’t
do the trick, however, as those operations take place at levels above
where true garbage collection occurs. In fact, due to the total absence
of utilities that force complete garbage collection, there’s only one
way to return an SSD to pristine, like-new condition—the ATA secure-erase command.
Secure erase to the rescue
Secure erase, a function built into every ATA-based drive since 2001,
erases everything on a drive and marks the cells as empty, restoring the
drive to factory-fresh default performance.
Once upon a time, you could invoke secure erase only via command-line utilities such as Linux’s HDparam or the DOS-based HDDerase, developed
by the University of California San Diego (with funding from the NSA,
incidentally). But now, many SSD and hard-drive vendors provide a free
utility—such as OCZ’s ToolBox, Samsung’s Magician, or Seagate’s SeaTools—that provides a secure erase capability.
Note that while the command is standard, many vendor utilities work only
with their company’s products. If your vendor doesn’t provide a
secure-erase command, you can use the DriveErase utility found in the stellar Parted Magic software.
Got all that? Good. Here’s how to restore your SSD to top performance, step by step.
How to restore your SSD to peak performance
First things first: If you have data on the SSD you’d like to retain, back it up. If
you’re worried only about backing up files, simply drag and drop them
onto a flash drive or external hard drive, or use your favorite backup
program.
If you have a working operating system that you’d like to keep, however, use an imaging program such as Acronis True Image or R-Drive Image that copies everything. Do not
use Windows System Recovery unless you’re restoring the data to the
same drive. It won’t restore to a smaller drive and it sometimes hiccups
even with a similar-size drive that has plenty of room.
Next, download the drive utility provided by your SSD vendor, or snag Parted Magic.
Before you get down to brass tacks, disconnect all other drives and boot from a flash drive
to perform the erase procedure, to avoid accidentally overwriting the
wrong drive. Parted Magic is a great option for this, since it works as a
bootable flash drive. If disconnecting your other hard drives is too
much hassle, make darn sure you’ve selected the correct drive to erase
throughout this procedure. Secure erase is irrevocable.
Now run the secure-erase function. The exact method varies by program. PCWorld’s guide to securely erasing your hard drive
explains how to activate secure erase in Parted Magic, which runs on a
bootable flash drive. Some SSDs implement the enhanced version of secure
erase by default—which also deletes the drive’s housekeeping data—but
if an enhanced erase option is available, you might want to use it.
Definitely use it if you’ve been doing work for the CIA.
Intel 