The Project Guru pilot provides individuals with a secure, scalable Web-based environment that enables users to provide remote technical support without the need to spend a lot of time on the phone or visiting in person. The pilot service enables secure remote desktop connections leveraging the same internally developed technology as Symantec’s Software as a Service (SaaS) Online Remote Access offering. Project Guru is complementary to Symantec’s NortonLive™ PC help services, which provide consumers who need immediate PC help with a direct, convenient, affordable and simple way to maintain and fix their PCs by calling a NortonLive expert 24/7.
To administer remote support using Project Guru, users sign up as a “Guru” by creating an online account and inviting friends and family members to join in their circle. Once the invitation has been accepted by a friend or family member and the minimal set up requirements are complete, the Guru can connect remotely to the system to troubleshoot and correct issues using the Project Guru online tools. Remote connections between the two systems are secured via encryption and authentication. The Project Guru pilot currently includes diagnostic tools for network monitoring and identifying the software installed on the remote system to aid the Guru in efficiently fixing computer problems for friends and family.

You can find the full press release here.

I found the fix today!!!

For the impatiant the fix is to add SecFilterEngine Off to your .htaccess file location that your xmlrpc.php file is.

If you want to know how I figured this out read on…

First let me review the problem.

You have installed ScribeFire and are trying to setup access to your blog. You go through the configuration process and get to the screen where you enter the user name and password. You enter these but you get a response back indicating that you have entered the wrong user name and password.

Knowing you have enter the correct login info you are stuck.

I decided to run wireshark and sniff my http traffic. Low and behold I find I am getting 403 forbidden error when scribefire tries to access the xmlrpc.php file.

I check the permissions and they are the same as all the other .php file. Then I remember that several months earlier I had a problem with 403 forbidden errors with my wordpress blog. The solution had been to add SecFilterEngine Off to the .htaccess file located in wp-admin.

This time added it the .htaccess file at the root of my wordpress blog. I added this below with rewrite rules.

Volia! Now it works as expected.

Then I moved all the wordpress files into the production locations by executing the following commands.

• from site/wordpress I ran mv * ../    this moved everything except wp-admin and wp-content
• from site/wordpress/wp-admin I ran mv * ../../wp-admin.
• from site/wordpress/wp-content/themes I ran mv * ../../../wp-content/themes
• from site/wordpress/wp-content/plugins I ran mv * ../../../wp-content/plugins

Then I went to my site in firefox.  I was asked to upgrade the database.

That was it.  Now I have the nifty new admin interface!!!

Did this for 4 sites in about 1 hour.

OpenID eliminates the need for multiple usernames across different websites, simplifying your online experience.

You get to choose the OpenID Provider that best meets your needs and most importantly that you trust. At the same time, your OpenID can stay with you, no matter which Provider you move to. And best of all, the OpenID technology is not proprietary and is completely free.

For businesses, this means a lower cost of password and account management, while drawing new web traffic. OpenID lowers user frustration by letting users have control of their login.

Read more about OpenID…

Current technology is over 50 years old and looses about 1 sec over 30 million years. The new technology is expected to loose only a fraction of a second over 14 billion years.

The technology has not been proven yet. The clock must run for a couple of weeks before they will know if it works as expected.

Current clocks are based on the oscillation of the metal cesium, a technology which is more than 50 years old, notes Andrei Derevianko, a professor of physics at the University of Reno and one of the new study’s authors.

The researchers propose what is called an optical lattice clock, where a set of lasers creates a wave that holds atoms of mercury at rest. Another set of lasers reads the atoms’ energy levels to determine the time.

Read the full article…

AT&T (NYSE: T) and Starbucks Corp. (NASDAQ: SBUX) is making the wireless Internet service free to all qualified AT&T broadband and U-verse Internet customers. AT&T officials say they have 12 million of these customers. The company also has another 5 million remote access service business customers that will be able to use the service.

AT&T now has more than 17,000 U.S. hot spots and more than 70,000 globally.

Starting this spring, Starbucks is also giving its card holders two free hours of free Wi-Fi service per day at participating locations.

I will have to see how this plays out as the service is really in my roommates name. I have the account number but not sure what else I will need to be able to connect at a Starbucks.

I did a lot of google searches but almost everything was wrong or had no answer. I find one reference to changing the default appliction within Ubuntu. I then found on my own where to make the changes in Firefox Below is what I did to make this work.

First start by setting xmms as your default within Ubuntu.

1. Click on System -> Preferences -> Preferred Applications.
2. Click on Multimedia.
3. Click the drop down and select XMMS from the menu. If it is not in the menu click on Custom and enter XMMS.
4. Click close.

Now from within Firefox.

1. Click Edit -> Preferences
2. Click the content button.
3. Click Manage under File Types section.
4. This will give you a list of files types. In the search field enter m3u.
5. Click the Change Action button.
6. Click the radio button for “Open with this application”
7. It will open a file manager window. XMMS should be located in /usr/bin/.

This should make XMMS your default m3u play list player.

The company has signed agreements with all four major labels and some 150,000 indies to give access to a massive catalogue. Users will be able to listen to any track three times. After that, they’ll be encouraged to buy the track from one of a number of sources.

The beauty of all this is that Last.fm has promised to pay the artists a royalty every time a track is played – even unsigned artists who have their music available. If a track is purchased, Last.fm will share the fee.

Read the full article…