This week we learned how to cleanup a Windows 7 login screen and remove unwanted logon items, play SNES Games on an iPad with Wiimote support, “harmonize dual boot systems with Symbolic Links, upgrade a Canon Camera’s firmware, & use an easy method to clean a keyboard”, found out how you like to keep your notes, made out like bandits with some great Geek Deals, and more.

Photo by Andreas.

Weekly News Links

Photo by Ed Bott – ZDNet.

• New Apple antivirus signatures bypassed within hours by malware authors [Update]
  The cat-and-mouse game continues. Apple has now released the fourth update to its XProtect definitions list covering all five known versions of the Mac Defender software.
• MacDefender taking on more names of legitimate software packages
  The MacDefender developers are continuing to uphold their criminal attempts to steal Mac users’ information by changing the name of their scam software yet again.
• Beware the bogus ‘TimeSpentHere’ Twitter app
  A new rogue app is spreading on Twitter that purports to tell you how much time you have spent using the microblogging site, but instead tricks you into spreading the scam and appears to harvest e-mail addresses from victims, Sophos said this past Wednesday.
• No Attacks against Internet Explorer Cookiejacking 0-Day Vulnerability, but Patch Coming
  Microsoft will plug a zero-day security hole in Internet Explorer that can allow potential attackers to steal session cookies from users even though it has made it clear that it doesn’t consider the vulnerability as posing a high risk to customers, and without having detected active attacks in the wild.
• Google: Chinese attackers monitoring Gmail of activists, journalists, officials
  Scammers based out of China have been hijacking the personal Gmail accounts of “hundreds of users,” Google revealed on Wednesday. The company wrote in a blog post that the attacks appear to be originating out of Jinan, China and that the main goal appears to be to covertly monitor the contents of users’ e-mail accounts.
• Report: Targeted attacks aimed at Hotmail, Yahoo, Gmail
  Users of Hotmail and Yahoo Mail have had targeted attacks aimed at them similar to the attacks Google says have been directed at U.S. officials, political activists, and journalists who use Gmail, according to Trend Micro.
• Exclusive: CEO says hackers tried to extort data, money
  Karim Hijazi knew his nightmare was just beginning when he saw that a mysterious e-mail had arrived in his inbox at 3 a.m. on May 26 that included his e-mail password and the subject line “Let us talk.”
• Hackers go wild: An overview of recent incidents
  A new burst of hacks has left companies and government organizations picking up the pieces. This report provides a summary of recent attacks.
• LulzSec hacks FBI liaison and security firm
  On Friday, LulzSec announced that it had hacked one of security organisation InfraGard’s web servers, which led it to a security firm’s confidential data; the head of the firm used the same password for his email account.
• Is new spam scourge coming, as botmasters repopulate networks?
  Have you noticed a decline in spam reaching your inbox? Sadly, the respite won’t last long. More spam is coming your way.
• IT worried over unmanaged ‘cloud sprawl’
  The rapid rise and ease of adoption of public cloud services is creating concern for businesses where 60 percent of IT executives cited worries about cloud sprawl within their organization, according to a new global survey released this past Thursday.
• Firefox nudges Aurora to version 6
  Mozilla updated its bleeding-edge browser Firefox Aurora to version 6 just before the Memorial Day holiday in the U.S., finally giving Firefox fans the same range of in-development browsers that have been easily accessible to Chrome users for some time.
• Beta version of Opera adds password synchronisation
  Four weeks after releasing an alpha version, Opera Software has made version 11.50 of its web browser, code named “Swordfish”, available as a beta. The beta’s most important new feature is the capability to synchronise passwords that are stored in the browser.
• Oracle ‘donates’ OpenOffice.org to Apache foundation
  Oracle has ceded control of the OpenOffice.org code base to the Apache Software Foundation Incubator project, it announced this past Wednesday.
• What creatures inhabit the surface of your cell phone?
  A team from the Department of Medical Microbiology at Inonu University in Malatya, Turkey, set out to answer the question that serves as the title of their report: Do mobile phones of patients, companions, and visitors carry multidrug-resistant hospital pathogens?

Random TinyHacker Links

• Why Internet Explorer 9 has four Types of Add-ons?
  Want to understand why Internet Explorer 9 has four types of add-ons? What’s the difference between them, what do they do? Check out this very complete tutorial, explaining everything about them.
• The Joy of Tech 5/30
  A fun comic showing how a proper geek meditation session would be run.
• Memorial Day (USA)
  An infographic detailing the history of this particular holiday.

Super User Questions

Got a question that needs a good answer? Then Super User is the place to go.

• Linux: how to display a message before login?
• How can I take screenshots of the PC before it boots up?
• Are there any Windows programs to resize partitions?
• How to (legally) get Windows virtual machine on linux via VirtualBox without buying Windows
• Is it safe to keep semi-sensitive information in Dropbox?

How-To Geek Weekly Article Recap

Enjoy reading through our hottest HTG Main articles of the week.

• How to Thoroughly Clean Your Keyboard (Without Breaking Anything)
• How to Recover Windows and Software Keys from a Broken Computer
• 7 Search Tips You Probably Don’t Know About
• Top 10 Geeky Projects to Earn Yourself a Memorial Day ER Visit
• Ask the Readers: How Do You Keep Notes?

Geeky Goodness from the ETC Side

Add a bit of fun to your weekend with our most popular ETC posts of the week.

• Computer Case Desk Build Stashes CPU in Plain Sight
• Maximize Battery Life with a Joule Thief
• Gmail Rolls Out Three New Features: Superstars, Nested Labels, and IMAP Controls
• Play Doom in Your Web Browser
• Wake Up Your Computers Using Your Android Phone
• Photosynth Creates Effortless Panoramic Photos
• Google Boots Game Emulators from Market; Find Them at SlideMe
• Fun with Thermite [Videos]
• How to Shoot Video That Doesn’t Suck [Video]
• Hack a Balance Arm Lamp into a Microphone Stand

One Year Ago on How-To Geek

Add some awesome geekiness to your weekend with these terrific articles from one year ago.

• Add Fun Graphics to Remember The Milk Logo in Firefox or Chrome
• Run Windows in Ubuntu with VMware Player
• Disable the Splash Screen in Portable Firefox (and Other Portable Apps)
• Friday Fun: Play Your Favorite 8-Bit NES Games Online
• Enable DreamScene in Any Version of Vista or Windows 7

How-To Geek Comics Weekly Roundup

• Backing Up Correctly
• Job Search
• Feedback
• Upgrading