Tech Pulse 20070823: Monster.com Hacked, 700 MHz and Google, Open Letter to Palm, and more!

Josh talks about Monster.com user data being stolen, Google preparing to bid on the 700 MHz spectrum, Engadget's open letter to Palm: get with the times, full screen mode in QuickTime Player without 7.2 or Pro, and the Mac browser Camino!

Notes and links related to this episode:

Tech News

• Monster.com Hacked through Spear Phishing, User Data Stolen
• Google May Bid on 700 MHz Spectrum
• Minimum Bid: U.S. $4.6 Billion
• "In the United States, TV stations are changing to digital broadcasting and giving up 700 MHz airwave spectrum by 2009." (source: Wikipedia)
• the frequency can travel long distances and penetrate through walls (source: Engadget)
• some speculate that it could be used for a unique version of WiMAX—basically a very long-distance alternative to Wi-Fi
  
• Wal-Mart now offers 94¢ DRM-free tracks, with many advantages over iTunes Music Store:
• 256 kbps MP3 format, which is compatible with lots more devices than iTMS's 256 kbps AAC
• 94¢ instead of $1.29
• Tracks from both EMI and Universal (so far only EMI sells DRM-free tracks on iTMS)
  
• Wal-Mart's downloads are "clean" versions of tracks (e.g. "radio edited" versions)
  
• Engadget's open letter to Palm: Get with the times already!
  

Tech Tips
Josh's

• How to get QuickTime to display movies in full-screen without QuickTime 7.2 (or buying the Pro version)
• tell application "QuickTime Player"
  present front movie scale screen
  end tell
  
  Save the above script as an application (you can do this with either Script Editor or Automator). The next time you open a video file in QuickTime Player, just run the AppleScript, and violà! Full-screen mode.

• useful for systems that can't upgrade to 7.2, or when using restricted accounts without installation privileges
  

Software/Hardware/Site etc. Picks
Josh's

• Camino browser for Mac OS X
  
• uses the same engine as Firefox (Gecko)
  
• built-in ad blocking and Flash blocking options (which are two of my favorite Add-ons for Firefox anyway)
  
• built using Apple's Cocoa API rather than Carbon (i.e. it's a more modern-style Mac app under the hood)
  
• seems to be more stable than Firefox in my very limited testing (more stable, at least, than Firefox with a few third-party Add-ons installed such as Adblock and Flashblock)
  
• cons: not as extensible as Firefox, and fewer choices in Preferences
  

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