Tech Today w/ Ken May

Hate going into AT&T stores and interacting with real humans? Worry not, as unlocking your AT&T iPhone is turning out to be a simpler process than expected for some users. The process can still be performed in-store by AT&T personnel, but it can also be done at home with the help of AT&T chat, Apple, and iTunes. We reported on Friday that AT&T would begin unlocking iPhones for qualified customers beginning Sunday, April 8. That was yesterday, and readers have begun reporting back with their experiences. As it turns out, all you really need is an active Internet connection and your iPhone’s IMEI number to get started (you can get it from your iPhone under Settings > General > About). After logging into AT&T’s website with your account credentials, you can then bring up AT&T’s Wireless Support Chat where you can request your device be unlocked. As long as you meet the criteria—your phone isn’t associated with an active-term commitment, you’re out of contract, and your account is in good standing—AT&T will likely approve the request. But then it comes down to Apple, which has to push your unlock code to your e-mail address before you can proceed (this happens within 72 hours, but many users have said it took an hour or less). Once you receive the code, you must perform a backup and restore of the device through iTunes while tethered to a computer. As with most processes that are user-facing, the unlock process doesn’t always work smoothly. AT&T’s own documentation on the process points to this Apple support document on troubleshooting unlock issues, though there are a number of forum threads dedicated to discussing the nuances of performing the unlock procedure as well. Do you have any extra tips to offer for those who have yet to go through the process? Read the comments on this post

On April 2, Microsoft released SQL Server 2012 , the latest version of its SQL Server database platform. The company also announced the availability of a second preview for the company’s Hadoop “big data” service for the Windows Azure cloud . Many of SQL Server 2012’s new features serve the high end of Microsoft’s customer base. They focus on supporting hybrid IT environments that blend more traditional data center deployments with those in private and public cloud computing environments. These features  include SQL Server Data Tools, a new common set of tools for SQL Server and cloud SQL Azure application and database development. The release also contains the Power View web-based ad-hoc data visualization tool, which allows users to generate presentations and reports by pulling data from published SQL Server datasets and other data sources published through Microsoft’s Windows Azure Marketplace. The new Hadoop preview ups the capacity and reliability of the trial service on Azure. According to a blog post from Microsoft’s SQL Server team, Microsoft has quadrupled the capacity of the preview from its initial invitation-only trial. The company also added disaster recovery features for the Hadoop Distributed File System in the Azure cloud. The new preview includes the promised data connections for Office and SharePoint. There is also support for connections from SQL Server 2012’s Power View and other business analytics tools—as well as support for open-source Hadoop analytics projects such as Mahout. Microsoft customers can sign up for a slot in the Hadoop on Azure trial at hadooponazure.com . Read the comments on this post

Our view of the Universe just grew quite a bit more detailed as NASA JPL released the compendium of results from the Wide-field Infrared Survey Explorer orbital telescope. WISE was launched into a 525 km orbit on December 14, 2009 and gathered data until the WISE team ran out of funding on February 17, 2011. With hardware over 1,000 times more sensitive than prior infrared space surveys, WISE surveyed 99 percent of the sky at 4 different wavelengths. Over 15 terabytes of data and 2.7 million images revealed 560 million stars, galaxies, comets, asteroids, and various other objects too cool or red-shifted to show up in anything but the infrared. Astronomers saw Y-dwarfs for the first time, which are white dwarf stars that have become nearly invisible as they cooled. The first Earth trojan asteroid also revealed itself to WISE—it scouts Earth’s orbit 60 degrees ahead of us around the Sun. Our view of the solar system also grew quite a bit more detailed, as WISE identified or confirmed over 90 precent of the Near Earth Asteroids. One thing WISE was not able to do was see very much in the Kuiper belt; that task and many others remain for the James Webb Space Telescope now scheduled to be launched in 2018. The JWST will be several times more sensitive yet. Berkeley University has published many WISE images as they become available, and Cal Tech hosts JPL’s WISE website . Read the comments on this post

We are fast approaching the Alpha release of MP 1.3.0! To further enhance the stability of our product, we now include only changes that have been fully tested and documented . This means that our developers post threads in the Area 51 section of the forum depending on the scale of the change, you can download either a full installer, or binary files for testing. So the community plays a very big role in the process of determining which changes will be included in a release and which will not because you can now test every single feature during its development! We have set 18 May 2012 as the deadline for changes to be finalized and merged with the master of our GIT repository. The release of 1.3.0 Alpha is then planned for 14 days later. So head over to Area 51 , and help us testing. The more testing these changes receive, the higher the chances are that you will see them included in 1.3.0, and the faster development will proceed to the final release. :: post a comment :: Continue Reading

Microsoft has plugged a critical hole in all supported versions of Windows that allows attackers to hit high-value computers with self-replicating attacks that install malicious code with no user interaction required. The vulnerability in the Remote Desktop Protocol is of particular concern to system administrators in government and corporate settings because they often use the feature to remotely trouble-shoot e-mail servers, point-of-sale terminals and other machines when they experience problems. RDP is also the default way to manage Windows machines that connect to Amazon’s EC2 and other cloud services. That means potentially millions of endpoints are at risk of being hit by a powerful computer worm that spreads exponentially, similarly to the way exploits known as Nimda and Code Red did in 2001. Read the comments on this post

A 23-year old student from Sheffield Hallam University in the north of England is bound for America. That wouldn’t be unusual—except that Richard O’Dwyer won’t go voluntarily. The UK Home Secretary has today agreed to extradite O’Dwyer over US copyright infringement charges for running a “linking site” called TVShack. Back in June 2010, US Immigration and Customs Enforcement (ICE) seized O’Dwyer’s tvshack.net domain name after a closed, one-sided hearing before a judge. (All domains ending in .net and .com are seizable by US law enforcement, regardless of where their owners are located.) But O’Dwyer soon had the site back up at a new address, TVShack.cc, which did not require a US-based domain name registrar. He slapped a notice to the top of the new site urging users to update their bookmarks. Read the comments on this post

The first beta of Ubuntu 12.04, codenamed Precise Pangolin, was made available today. The 12.04 release, which is the next major version of the popular Linux distribution, will officially launch in April. It’s a long-term support release, which means that it will receive updates and support for five years. Precise will introduce some noteworthy improvements to Unity, Ubuntu’s user interface shell. The biggest enhancement to Unity in 12.04 is the HUD, a new keyboard-driven user interface for accessing menu items. Version 12.04 will also bring better hardware support, such as improved power management for certain hardware configurations, and updated software. Read the comments on this post