Finding the real news in today’s media is getting more complicated.

This is extends to tech reporting.

Check these 597 news articles about UK ISP’s sending out warning letters to music file sharers.

Link: all 579 news articles »

Check out these 299 news articles about a DNS flaw that puts every Internet user at risk.

Link: all 299 news articles »

One of these stories is important…

What is DNS? Link: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Domain_Name_System

It turns names like  www.mysitewhatever.com into an ip address example 111.222.121.12

The DNS exploit allows hackers to divert your web traffic to another site without you knowing.

So you may think your on www.mybank.co.uk but you could be invisibly re-directed to a site the hackers set up to capture your data.

Typically your ISP needs to patch/update their own DNS servers as you use these to route your web traffic around the Internet.

So how do you know if you are vulnerable?

Tech Tip:

There is a DNS checker on this site (http://www.doxpara.com/)

Look for this in the right hand side of the page.

or

On this really useful site  (http://www.dnsstuff.com/)

Look for this at the bottom left:

If you find your are vulnerable send an e-mail to you ISP asking when they will patch their DNS servers to protect you.

In the mean time be extra careful. Oh and stop downloading music.

I posted here about the Nvidia mobile graphics cards that Nvidia themselves reported as “failing in the field at higher than normal rates.”

Dell have now announced the list of possibly affected laptops and has issued Bios Upgrades that change the fan profile.

These include the

Inspiron 1420

Latitude D630 and D630c

Precision M2300

Vostro 1310, 1400, 1510 and 1710

XPS M1330 and M1530

What do end users need to do?

Well you basically download and install the Bios update. The change to the fan profile will probably mean the fan’s kick in earlier to keep the system cooler. Step by Step Instructions are here.

Some people have commented (on the direct to dell blog) that this isn’t really an acceptable solution.

Tip1: If you purchased one of the above laptops with only 1 years warranty I would definitely contact Dell and upgrade your existing warranty to 3 years to give you some additional protection. Upgrading the Bios can only do so much.

Tip2: Normally I would recommend installing this immediately but in the comments of the conversations below there have been some people with bios install problems. I would hold off for a couple of days then check for any known problems.

Link: NVIDIA GPU Update for Dell Laptop Owners

Other online Conversations about this topic.

Dell explains NVIDIA GPU issues, throws out BIOS updates to help

http://www.ideastorm.com/article/show/10090995/Replace_All_Faulty_Nvidia_Laptop_GPUs

http://direct2dell.com/one2one/archive/2008/07/25/nvidia-gpu-update-for-dell-laptop-owners.aspx#comments

http://search.twitter.com/search?q=dell+nvidia

Back in March 2008 there was a fire in a manufacturing plant used to build Dell Li-ion batteries.

There was some concern at the time that this would affect laptop shipments but nothing happened in the immediate April/May timeframe however it seems to have caught up with Dell and orders are now being delayed due to the shortage.

Dell take pains to point out this is an industry problem and is not Dell Specific.

I do take umbrage however in yesterdays statement from the Direct2Dell Blog.

“This availability issue was also the reason we increased our prices for spare laptop (or secondary) batteries”.

I appreciate they want to slow down laptop battery sales but most existing laptop customers want and in some cases need replacement batteries and are being penalised with higher costs.

I can sort of see this from both sides but is increasing the cost the only way to control stock?

Dell are handily promoting tips for maximizing battery usage.

Link:

http://direct2dell.com/one2one/archive/2008/07/24/update-on-laptop-battery-availability.aspx

The FT this morning reports that a businessman has been awarded £22k in damages from a former school friend who created a fake profile of him on Facebook.

This is a judgement that could have some far reaching consequences in the social networking world.

Link: http://www.ft.com/cms/s/0/c12423a8-59e3-11dd-90f8-000077b07658.html

The mobile phone company O2 had to shut down their web based MMS viewing web site.

If an o2 customer received an MMS (picture or video) and did not have a MMS capable phone O2 would host the content (picture or video) on their web site.

However it would appear for some of this content Google was able to search and index the supposedly private content and it was publicly viewable by doing a Google search.

The viewing  Web site has now been taken offline to protect customers privacy.

To make matters worse the contact details of the sender and recipient were also exposed.

Link: http://news.google.co.uk/nwshp?tab=wn&ned=uk&ncl=1228737394&hl=en&topic=t