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Windows/Mac/Linux (Adobe Air): Desktop to-do application App For The Milk puts your Remember the Milk tasks into a stand-alone Adobe AIR window, with both offline and online support.

Once you’ve installed the application and entered your credentials, you’ll be prompted to authorize the application with your Remember the Milk account and synchronize your tasks down to the desktop client. As long as you are connected to the internet, the client will operate in “online” mode, adding or updating your to-do items immediately, but when you go offline you’ll be able to use the cached set of items and they will synchronize again the next time you are online.

The application is still a little rough around the edges, and not everything is supported—the noticeable lack of smart list support will keep me from using it, but it’s a very promising new tool for keeping yourself organized with Remember the Milk. App for the Milk is a free download for all platforms, requires Adobe AIR.

Originally posted 2009-09-29 18:25:28. Republished by Old Post Promoter

Filed under: Apple, iPhone, SDK

The new beta version of the 3.2 SDK (beta 3, for those of you keeping track) is now available for download. The Apple developer site will likely be getting slammed over the next hour or two, so plan your downloads accordingly. The beta is available to all paid members of the iPhone developer program, with at least the $99/year membership. You will need your credentials to sign in and download the new SDK.

As usual, the new beta SDK is under NDA, so please go check out the details for yourself to get further information about the changes between this beta and the last. Good luck, and happy programming!

Update: Here then gone? Readers report that Apple seems to have pulled Beta 3 for the moment and when I returned to Apple’s iPhone developer site, I saw the same. Watch this space. We’ll update as we find out more.

Update: This was not an accidental upload, per Michael Jurewitz, the Mac and IPhone Applications Frameworks and Developer Tools Evangelist:

TUAWiPhone SDK 3.2 Beta 3 available now originally appeared on The Unofficial Apple Weblog (TUAW) on Tue, 23 Feb 2010 15:05:00 EST. Please see our terms for use of feeds.

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It has now been confirmed that the usernames and passwords of more than 10,000 Hotmail users were posted online last week to a website for sharing code snippets.

According to Neowin, who first reported the breach, “the list details over 10,000 accounts starting from A through to B, suggesting there could be additional lists.”

The list has since been removed, and Microsoft is now investigating the situation, which impacts users with @hotmail.com, @live.com, and @msn.com email addresses.

All users of Hotmail are obviously advised to change their passwords, as it’s not yet known how many accounts may be compromised. Meanwhile, TheNextWeb reports that the site where the passwords were posted – Pastebin – has been frequently used for sharing stolen account credentials.

Once again, the need for strong passwords and a variety of them across services has been brought to light. More on the Hotmail situation as we get it.

Tags: hotmail, security

Originally posted 2009-10-05 18:26:43. Republished by Old Post Promoter

Google Voice may have its own mobile webapp now, but it doesn’t provide notifications on your phone when you get new SMS messages. Free web service GVMax solves this problem by putting full SMS support into email and IM on your smartphone.

Google Voice’s free SMS feature is reason enough to use the service, but it doesn’t always integrate well with your current mobile setup. We’ve featured ways to turn Google Voice into a desktop-friendly, Growl-integrated Windows and Mac app, which you could, in theory, also use to forward notifications to your iPhone with previously mentioned Prowl—but that still requires your computer to be connected and running 24/7. And, if you have a different smartphone, or want to use Google Voice’s SMS through something other than it’s webapp, you’re out of luck. GVMax is an open source web service that allows you to send and receive SMS messages through either email or GTalk, as well as get push notifications of new SMS messages on your iPhone without keeping your computer on at home.

GVMax does this by using Google Voice’s SMS-to-email forwarding system, and sending those messages onto other protocols. Setting up GVMax is incredibly simple—all you need to do is log in with your Google credentials (which you may or may not be comfortable with) and it will set up all the necessary filters for you. You can then go into your preferences and decide whether you want SMS support in GTalk or email, as well as whether you want notifications pushed to your iPhone. If you’re uncomfortable providing GVMax with your Google credentials (you can read their privacy statement here), you can manually set up the filters yourself as well, for which GVMax has a pretty easy tutorial.

If you choose to get SMS support in GTalk, you will receive SMS messages as IMs in your IM client (both on your computer and smartphone). Replying to the IM sends your reply as an SMS message to your contact. If the sender is in your Google contacts, their alias will already be set and you can add them to your buddy list—although you can also add contacts to your buddy list by adding [their phone number]@mygvmax.appspotchat.com as their handle (e.g. 3135551212@mygvmax.appspotchat.com), so you can initiate SMS messages from GTalk as well.

GVMax also provides email features beyond that which Google Voice provides, most namely that you not only get SMS messages forwarded to you and can reply to them via email, but you can also initiate SMS conversations by sending an email to [your contact's number]@mygvmax.appspotmail.com. Note that this email must be sent from an email address somehow associated with Google Voice, either a forwarding email or the Google account tied to it.

Lastly, if you are on an iPhone, you can get push notifications of SMS messages using Prowl—this is particularly useful if you don’t use the above features, or if you use an IM client that doesn’t stay logged in, as is common on the iPhone. The difference between the normal Prowl set-up and GVMax, though, is that GVMax doesn’t require the Growl middleman, meaning your home computer doesn’t need to be on and running all the time to give you notifications—instead, any time someone sends an SMS to your Google number, you will get a push notification sent straight to your iPhone. In addition, if you choose to have, say, both Prowl and GTalk set up, GVMax will default to GTalk when you’re signed in and resort to Prowl when you’re not—so you won’t find yourself inundated with duplicate notifications, which is really nice.

There’s quite a bit more that GVMax can do, but these are the essentials (which are still far beyond any Google Voice solution we’ve seen yet). Check out their user manual for more details. Thanks, manderson!

Filed under: Apple

Here’s the thing. You know, and I know, that AT&T has not yet enabled tethering in the US, while carriers all across the globe have already given their iPhone customers the ability to use their phones as wireless modems for their laptops. You and I also know that strictly speaking tethering falls outside the normal terms of use for your iPhone data contract — and that there are jailbreak solutions to get around this (hopefully temporary) constraint.

That having been said, you know, and I know, that there are times when your cable modem goes down and you have a bandwidth emergency. You’re not planning to abuse your data contract, but you do need a backup plan for those rare instances so you can get some work done.

Enter MyWi, for jailbroken iPhones.

Selling for ten bucks via the Rock Store and Cydia, MyWi enables tethering on your 3.1+ iPhone (2G, 3G, 3GS) and creates a personal Wi-Fi hotspot. It’s as if AT&T had actually enabled the feature on-board. What’s more, it works just like a real hotspot does.

Unlike other solutions that require you to create ad-hoc Wi-Fi networks on a Mac and then connect to them from your iPhone, MyWi works like the Sprint/Verizon MiFi. You can connect to your iPhone data from an iPod, a laptop, or even an iPad. They’ll see your iPhone as just another Wi-Fi hotspot. If security is an issue, MyWi offers optional WEP with a customizable key.

This week, I had the chance to install and test MyWi on an actual iPhone. I found the purchase and installation process to be quite a bit more complicated than an App Store purchase, but then again, I knew it probably would be as this involves a secure transaction through third party software. I had to authenticate with my Google credentials as part of the process.

Once installed, I ran into a few little quirks. Getting the tethering service to turn off ended up involving rebooting my phone. This is a known bug with MyWi and once I moved past that first glitch, I had no problem starting and stopping service from then on.

I tested the software with both an iPod touch, while driving in my car and while waiting at a doctor’s appointment, and with a Mac mini, that I disconnected from my normal wired net. The Wi-Fi hotspot worked very well in each instance, providing smooth data reception.

I could even quit the application and leave the tethering running in the background. (See screen shot.) For me, this was the single best feature of MyWi. I could continue checking my mail and surfing the web while my daughter, a few feet away, was able to watch her YouTube videos.

There is one really, really big elephant in the room though — beyond the obvious AT&T Terms of Service one I mentioned earlier — and that is battery life.

This application is a battery vampire. It’s beyond a battery vampire. It’s a battery Dracula. A battery bloodsucking monster. I mean it seriously, seriously, seriously consumes power. It will drain your iPhone battery even when fully connected to a power source. I had to test while docked to my Monoprice 2200 mAh external battery supply, and even then, I could see the battery level slowly creeping downwards.

This app really, really, really uses a lot of juice.

Mario Ciabarra of Intelliborn, the company behind the software, recommends that you keep your unit plugged in via USB or a power cord. Your unit will stay mostly charged with, what he calls, “reasonable surfing.” He writes, “If you surf the web and say download [many-megabyte] files — the 3G connection uses a lot of battery (no way around that ). The Wi-Fi isn’t too bad on the battery I believe.”

I found that when I stopped surfing but kept the tethering option enabled, the battery did start recharging back up to where it needed to be. However, due to this issue, you’ll want to use this technology sparingly, and not just because of your obligations to AT&T.

I personally rarely tether, but I’m really happy that I’ll have access to this software when I need it. Especially during the winter months, when Comcast lines and connections tend to fail during the biggest snow storms, it’s nice to know that I have an emergency backup that will allow me to use a full size computer if needed rather than falling back to just the iPhone.

TUAW is commonly provided with not-for-resale licenses or promo codes to permit product evaluations and reviews. For more details, see our policy page. Promo code requests are not guarantees of reviews.

TUAWiPhone hacksugar: Creating a MyWi WiFi hotspot with your jailbroken phone originally appeared on The Unofficial Apple Weblog (TUAW) on Wed, 10 Feb 2010 14:45:00 EST. Please see our terms for use of feeds.

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Filed under: Apple, iPhone, SDK, iPod touch

Time to update your iPhone SDK to 3.1.3! It’s a required update, otherwise Xcode will not recognize or work with your 3.1.3 device. Head on over to the iPhone dev center (developer credentials needed to log in) to download the latest version.

As always, the iPhone SDK includes Xcode, the iPhone simulator, and other tools for developing applications for iPhone and iPod touch. If you want to develop for the iPad, you’ll need to join the $99/year developer program and download the 3.2 SDK instead.

TUAWiPhone 3.1.3 SDK now available originally appeared on The Unofficial Apple Weblog (TUAW) on Tue, 02 Feb 2010 14:20:00 EST. Please see our terms for use of feeds.

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Android: Despite being otherwise entirely hooked into the Googleverse, your Android phone can’t edit Google Docs files on its own. The handy GDocs app steps in to download and edit (some) docs, upload files from your phone, and view PDFs.

It’s not an elegant cloud solution to your Android system’s lack of Docs connectivity, but GDocs gets the job done. Set it up with your Google credentials, and the app grabs your Google Docs folder and file list. Press and hold on any file to edit its title, delete it, or download it to your SD card. If it’s a word processing document, you can download the file, edit it through GDocs (or another word processing app you might have), then re-upload it to Docs. Not exactly an automatic, save-as-you-type setup, but then again, you probably wouldn’t use your phone for more than just quick, minor edits.

If you need to view a PDF file from your account, GDocs can do that natively, and with Docs now allowing any type of file upload, you can use GDocs to push files off your phone to your Docs account.

GDocs is a free download for Android systems. If you’re having trouble connecting to your account and listing files after GDocs updates, be sure to visit the “Accounts” section, under the “More” options, and hit “OK” to re-verify your credentials (and hopefully that wonky bit gets fixed).

News that cybercriminals are seeking out user names and passwords for resale is nothing new — but according to researchers at the anti-virus company Kaspersky Lab (via Computerworld), stolen Twitter accounts are fetching a higher price than other credentials among criminals. One Twitter account with only 320 followers recently sold for $1,000.

Hackers have relied on malware software for some time to gather credit card numbers, bank log-ins, and whatever else they could find from unsuspecting computer users. Since 2005, they’ve been developing a new breed of malware to streamline the hunt for bank credentials, but generic data stealing software that aims to grab as much data as possible remains the most rampant on the web.

Speaking at a press event, Kaspersky Researcher Dmitry Bestuzhev said that many cybercriminals are aiming for more than just credit card numbers and bank log-ins these days. He has also seen Gmail accounts being sold for around $80 on Russian hacker forums, as well as Rapidshare accounts (for $5 a month), instant messaging, and Facebook credentials.

Twitter accounts are popular because they give the hackers a platform to spread their trojans to hundreds or thousands of users at once. Pricing on the Twitter accounts depends on follower numbers, and the name of the account. The account that sold for $1,000 had a simple three letter username, possibly making it more useful to criminals.

Bestuzhev has seen MSN accounts going for $1.40, and went on to say that the price for Twitter accounts is “really high.” He also mentions that the high prices are probably justified because hackers can get up to $1,000 worth of data from a single hacked computer.

A 2008 report found that cybercriminal organizations were maturing into “mafia-like” outfits, and were becoming increasingly efficient at data theft due to their new-found structure. Competition between criminal groups has dropped the prices of previously valuable intel — credit card numbers and bank log-ins used to sell for $100 or more, at the time of the report they were selling for $10-$20 in some cases. I’d wager that prices have fallen even more by today.

It’s no big surprise that Twitter accounts are being valued so highly. It’s a form of communication that lies between e-mail and instant messaging, both of which have been heavily utilized to spread malware. Twitter users are trained to click on links from the people they follow, and they probably don’t apply the same amount of caution as they would to a suspicious link in an e-mail or IM message. The new trend of shortened links — which disguise the true destination of URLs — must certainly be appealing to cybercriminals as well.

Hopefully, as Twitter users learn to become more aware of malware threats, their value among criminal organizations will drop.

Update: CompTIA has backed down.

Original story: CompTIA is the computer industry group that oversees common certifications such as A+, Network+, and Server+, and its certifications have always been good indefinitely.

Not anymore. In a policy change announced this month, CompTIA dropped a bombshell on the hundreds of thousands of people who hold its certifications: those credentials are now good for only three years—and the change in policy is retroactive.

Filed under: Video, iPhone

Tired of restrictions about what you can and cannot stream over 3G connections? Elgato, the makers of EyeTV, have introduced a novel solution for their many customers to access live and recorded TV shows using an iPhone and a 3G connection. Their new Live3G web site provides a web app solution for remote video access.

The website uses HTTP live streaming to deliver high quality video to the iPhone’s Mobile Safari app. Powered by the EyeTV 3.3 update (free to existing owners of EyeTV software), this technology avoids App Store hassles while providing on-demand video access to your home TV recordings and live programming.

As an added bonus, since Mobile Safari has access to the iPhone’s TV Out capability (third-party apps can’t use it, but Apple apps can), you can use a component or composite video-out cable to display your streamed video on any convenient TV.

If you’re worried about other people gaining access to your library of “Dora The Explorer” episodes, or to personal videos you have digitized using an EyeTV box like the 250 plus, don’t. You must authenticate yourself with your My EyeTV credentials before being granted access to any library.

The EyeTV update and web site are live now.

TUAWEyeTV now offers HTTP Live Video streaming over 3G via Safari originally appeared on The Unofficial Apple Weblog (TUAW) on Wed, 16 Dec 2009 12:40:00 EST. Please see our terms for use of feeds.

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