When on Twitter, beware the Pretty Rabbits bearing gifts

Filed under: Internet, Security, News, Social Software

I’ve been hanging around Download Squad HQ enough to know that our readers love hearing about Twitter ad nauseam, and that none of those readers fear being RickRolled or ever click on links originating from profiles they wouldn’t trust. But just in case you should happen upon this post from an outside source, and you aren’t a regular DLS reader (gasp), there’s something you need to know.

The BBC reported today that the first Twitter-specific attack has been discovered by the fine folks at Kaspersky. The fake profile uses the name “Pretty Rabbit” in Portuguese — and it’s frustrating me to all ends that I can’t seem to find a reference or semi-accurate translation of what that user name might actually be — and claims that clicking the tweeted link will take the viewer to YouTube for some adult video action.

But because there is so much wrong in this world, errant clickers don’t get to see the adult video — at least, not without paying the price. Instead, a fake version of Flash is downloaded, which has the hidden skill of harvesting all sorts of data and transforming your beloved Twittering machine into a zombie node, allowing bad men, women and rabbits to wreak criminal havoc all over the web.

Similar worms have been discovered on MySpace and Facebook, so please, choose your friends wisely.

The offending malicious applications only affect Windows-based systems. No word on whether the faux-Flash works with Linux or Mac, so while those users (who are over 18, of course) are safe from the malware, they will probably not get to see the exciting video Pretty Rabbit in Portuguese was referring to.

UPDATE: On behalf of everyone at DLS, I’d like to give a big thanks to Ed Mercer for the heads up that though the Portuguese username literally translates “Pretty Rabbit,” the word “coelhinha” is often associated with Playboy Playmates/Bunnies. “Pretty Playmate” may be a more accurate translation in this case.

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NameGenr8er Released for Creative Writers
Ultimate Music Software has released a simple, but quite useful piece of Mac software aimed at writers. NameGenr8er can generate as many as 500 different names instantly, and also lets you set the level of obscurity the resulted names have.Although described as “a name generator application for creative writers who use US census data to generate lists of male and female names… Ultimate Music Software has released a simple, but quite useful piece of Mac software aimed at writers. NameGenr8er can generate as many as 500 different names instantly, and also lets you set the level of obscurity the resulted names have.

Although described as “a name generator application for creative writers who use US census data to generate lists of male and female names… (read more)
Source: news.softpedia.com

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NameGenr8er Released for Creative Writers
Ultimate Music Software has released a simple, but quite useful piece of Mac software aimed at writers. NameGenr8er can generate as many as 500 different names instantly, and also lets you set the level of obscurity the resulted names have.Although described as “a name generator application for creative writers who use US census data to generate lists of male and female names… Ultimate Music Software has released a simple, but quite useful piece of Mac software aimed at writers. NameGenr8er can generate as many as 500 different names instantly, and also lets you set the level of obscurity the resulted names have.

Although described as “a name generator application for creative writers who use US census data to generate lists of male and female names… (read more)
Source: news.softpedia.com

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NameGenr8er Released for Creative Writers
Ultimate Music Software has released a simple, but quite useful piece of Mac software aimed at writers. NameGenr8er can generate as many as 500 different names instantly, and also lets you set the level of obscurity the resulted names have.Although described as “a name generator application for creative writers who use US census data to generate lists of male and female names… Ultimate Music Software has released a simple, but quite useful piece of Mac software aimed at writers. NameGenr8er can generate as many as 500 different names instantly, and also lets you set the level of obscurity the resulted names have.

Although described as “a name generator application for creative writers who use US census data to generate lists of male and female names… (read more)
Source: news.softpedia.com

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First Look video: Photoshop CS3 (Mac)

Photoshop CS3 for Mac is still your top choice if you’re serious about image editing. Loaded with features for color-correction, photo enhancements, filters, effects, and layer management, Photoshop is the pro-level image-editing software to measure all others by. If you’d like a closer look at some of the features Photoshop CS3 has to offer, check out our First Look video to see if you’re ready to download the trial.

Source: www.download.com

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10 + tools to pimp out your Friendfeed

Filed under: Internet, Features, News, Social Software

We’re big fans of FriendFeed, the social network aggregator that helps you keep track of your friends’ activities across different platforms like Twitter, LastFM, Flickr, YouTube, Facebook and about 1,000 36 others. If you’re a fan or if you’re just getting started, below are 10 tools to help you experience it just the way you like, after the jump.

Continue reading 10 + tools to pimp out your Friendfeed

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Google gooses Apple’s Safari with Gears beta

As promised in May, Google has brought the open-source Gears technology to Apple’s Safari, augmenting some browser abilities such as using Gears-tailored Web sites while offline.

The company announced a beta version of Gears for Safari (DMG file download link) on the Gears users mailing list Monday.

“We would love for you to install it and test it and file bug reports so we can polish it and find all the corner cases,” said Google’s Jeremy Moskovich.

Gears extends a browser so, for example, some Google Docs can be edited or viewed while the user isn’t connected to a network. It also can speed up use of the WordPress blogging software and some operations at MySpace, and Google is expanding its scope to geolocation services and other areas, too.

The software requires Safari 3.1.1 on Mac OS X Tiger 10.4.11 or Leopard 10.5.3, he said.

Gears already works on Firefox and Internet Explorer; Opera is working on a version for both its desktop and mobile browsers.

(Via Google Operating System.)

Source: www.download.com

First Look video: Photoshop CS3 (Mac)

Photoshop CS3 for Mac is still your top choice if you’re serious about image editing. Loaded with features for color-correction, photo enhancements, filters, effects, and layer management, Photoshop is the pro-level image-editing software to measure all others by. If you’d like a closer look at some of the features Photoshop CS3 has to offer, check out our First Look video to see if you’re ready to download the trial.

Source: www.download.com

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Forumwarz - a potentially offensive time waster

Filed under: Fun, Games, Time-Wasters

After spending the better part of an hour on Forumwarz I still can’t decide if it’s just sick or if it’s kind of fun. It’s a bit like a car wreck on the highway. I know I shouldn’t be looking but I can’t quite turn away.

It’s sick, it’s twisted, it’s the internet on it’s worst level and darn it, it’s kind of fun. At least for a little while.

Forumwarz is a parody role-playing game that takes place on the internet - or at least the Forumwarz version of it. Your goal is to complete missions that are given to you through a mock up of GoogleTalk called Sentrillion.

Your first “friend” is ShallowEsophagus who begins giving you missions to pwn various forums by being a troll. Depending on the character type you are assigned at start up, you have tools like drooling on the keyboard or bashing your head on the keyboard that you can use to destroy forum threads and eventually, pwn a forum.

Future missions involve buying illegal software from the Russians, pwning more difficult forums and other internet oddness.

Completing missions gives you cash, called Flezz in game, and items that you can pawn or use in other missions. The game is NOT for those easily offended. It’s crass, coarse and there are frequent f-bombs in the fake chat sessions.

This is also a game for a more mature audience as it requires you to shop at the Drugs R Fun store to get various concoctions to improve your playing, engage in certain cyber activities to get more Flezz and just generally use a more adult perspective.

If you can get past that, here are the more enjoyable and time-wasting aspects.

Continue reading Forumwarz - a potentially offensive time waster

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When on Twitter, beware the Pretty Rabbits bearing gifts

Filed under: Internet, Security, News, Social Software

I’ve been hanging around Download Squad HQ enough to know that our readers love hearing about Twitter ad nauseam, and that none of those readers fear being RickRolled or ever click on links originating from profiles they wouldn’t trust. But just in case you should happen upon this post from an outside source, and you aren’t a regular DLS reader (gasp), there’s something you need to know.

The BBC reported today that the first Twitter-specific attack has been discovered by the fine folks at Kaspersky. The fake profile uses the name “Pretty Rabbit” in Portuguese — and it’s frustrating me to all ends that I can’t seem to find a reference or semi-accurate translation of what that user name might actually be — and claims that clicking the tweeted link will take the viewer to YouTube for some adult video action.

But because there is so much wrong in this world, errant clickers don’t get to see the adult video — at least, not without paying the price. Instead, a fake version of Flash is downloaded, which has the hidden skill of harvesting all sorts of data and transforming your beloved Twittering machine into a zombie node, allowing bad men, women and rabbits to wreak criminal havoc all over the web.

Similar worms have been discovered on MySpace and Facebook, so please, choose your friends wisely.

The offending malicious applications only affect Windows-based systems. No word on whether the faux-Flash works with Linux or Mac, so while those users (who are over 18, of course) are safe from the malware, they will probably not get to see the exciting video Pretty Rabbit in Portuguese was referring to.

UPDATE: On behalf of everyone at DLS, I’d like to give a big thanks to Ed Mercer for the heads up that though the Portuguese username literally translates “Pretty Rabbit,” the word “coelhinha” is often associated with Playboy Playmates/Bunnies. “Pretty Playmate” may be a more accurate translation in this case.

Read

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Premiere Elements 7 preview: Finally, AVCHD

As with its sibling, Adobe Photoshop Elements, Premiere Elements Adobe pushes the Web subscription message a bit too hard. Take, for instance, the Welcome screen, which is your first encounter with either one of the applications. The InstantMovie, Open Project, and New Project options get relegated to a task bar that’s relatively inconspicuous compared with the large, rotating slide show heralding the many benefits of the free and $49.99 Plus membership for Photoshop.com (more project templates, remote access, and 20GB-plus of storage space). Adobe might as well have sold the space as an ad; it’s that annoying. (For more on the online and mobile aspects of the Elements release, read our coverage on Download.com.)

This version really feels like an attempt to catch up to competitors. It now includes AVCHD support, for which Adobe has lagged far behind its competitors for a long time. The good news is that it handled every AVCHD file format on my hard disk–from a variety of Canon, Sony, and Panasonic camcorders–without problems.

Its new InstantMovie basically rolls selected clips into prefab templates. They’re nice templates, and it does a good job. But when compared with innovations like Pinnacle Studio Plus 12’s Montage themes, which allow for some really clever, sophisticated effects, and a friendly implementation for editing them, InstantMovie seems fairly basic and uninspiring. Ditto for its basic SmartSound music-generation implementation. Adobe licenses it like everyone else, but didn’t even bother to give it a similar interface to the rest of Premiere.

Using technology from Adobe’s Ultra, Premiere Elements now supports rudimentary chroma keying. On one hand, this Videomerge feature is dead simple to use. When you drag a video with a (relatively) solid-colored background into the timeline or onto another video, the program asks if you want to treat it as a Videomerge clip and automatically combines them with the background chroma keyed out. However, Adobe provides no controls for you to tweak the results. Even a simple color tolerance slider could have prevented the flag from showing through Dan Ackerman’s skin here.

Granted, orange isn’t your standard chroma key color, but in a consumer product, not everything that’s shot is intentional. If the point was to find fun new ways of using the clips you have, the implementation just missed the boat.

The one interesting new capability is Smart Tag, which can automatically analyze your clips and keyword them based on video characteristics such as blurred, shaky, high quality, in focus, and so on. You can then, say, choose all the clips that are “high quality” and “in focus.” Since it shares much of the organizer with Photoshop, you have access to all the same album and search features. Unfortunately, it can’t display basic information such as video resolution without popping up the properties of each individual clip.

This beta was quite sluggish and unstable, at least on my system (which more than meets minimum requirements), but I’m assuming that will disappear by the time the product ships at the end of September ($99.99). I’ll let you know, and give you an update on these first impressions.

Source: www.download.com

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