General Gaming Article

General Gaming Article

Maingear Titan 17 Review

Posted: 16 Aug 2011 03:43 PM PDT

Someone tell the boss we need an in-house masseur. Maingear's Titan 17 is the third supersize notebook we've reviewed in the past few months, and our backs are paying the price. We're so beaten down by these behemoths that the sight of the enormous power brick alone makes us cringe in terror. The graphics performance of this SLI powerhouse, however, makes all the hardship worth it.

The philosophy behind the Titan 17 is simple. Take a complete high-end desktop PC and cram it into a notebook form factor. Price and weight and size aren't the limiting factors—all that counts, in the end, is speed. In our tests, the Titan lived up to this guiding principle. The two Nvidia GeForce GTX 485M graphics cards with a total of 4GB GDDR5 memory showed the power of an SLI configuration, running so fast on our usual gaming benchmarks we had to go looking for something extra to throw at it. Unigine's Heaven 2.5 benchmark fit the bill, and the system still managed to crank out 52.5fps at 1920x1080 resolution compared to 28.1fps for Origin's overclocked single graphics card. There's no denying that SLI rules for more intensive games.


Maingear's portable workstation knows how to carry its weight, blasting through benchmarks with SLI-powered graphics.

The six-core Intel 3.46GHz Core i7-990X Extreme Edition is what you'd find on a high-end desktop. Combined with 6GB of Kingston DDR3/1333 and a solid-state 120GB SATA 6Gb/s hard drive, the system also performed exceptionally well on our CPU-intensive photo and video editing tests. All that size and weight, though, couldn't beat the Origin Eon17-S's Sandy Bridge CPU overclocked to 4.7GHz. Admittedly, in apps optimized for its 12 threads, the Gulftown would shine, but an overclocked Sandy Bridge CPU makes it a tough battle. For games, on the other hand, it's really all about the GPU, or in the Titan's case, the GPUs.

Maingear touts its no-frills installation, and takes this to a new level of minimalism with the Titan 17. For instance, while the builders install and test the driver for fingerprint reader integration into the touchpad, they remove the driver before shipping the system. You can install it yourself—if you want it. The company also offers lifetime free labor and phone support, a nice feature for a laptop that you're likely to purchase as a long-term investment.

Of course, Maingear's offering suffers from all the drawbacks we've noted in testing similar systems. For one thing, it is extremely heavy, weighing 17 pounds with the power supply. It also has extremely short battery life, lasting only 36 minutes in our DVD playback test. These are the trade-offs you'd expect from cramming what is essentially a desktop system—with all its power and cooling requirements—into a portable platform.

On the other hand, you have all the power of a desktop in a relatively compact form factor. We'll let you judge whether the undeniable performance justifies the limited luggability and high price. But this laptop has proved yet again that no matter how overclocked the competition, it's no match for a laptop with two graphics cards.

$5,385, www.maingear.com

Origin EON17-S Notebook Review

Posted: 16 Aug 2011 03:43 PM PDT

When the large, wooden crate branded "Origin" arrived at our Lab, we got out our crowbar and a shotgun—one to open the dang thing and the other just in case an alien predator was lurking inside. Once we blasted the box apart, we were not just relieved, we were also a bit disappointed to find an average-looking 17-inch notebook inside. After a bit of testing, though, there was no question—the cleanup of shell fragments was worth it.

There's nothing extraordinary about the CPU used in this system. The Intel Core i7-2920XM Extreme Edition isn't different from what you'd find in any high-performance laptop. What's different is that Origin overclocks the Sandy Bridge proc from its stock 2.5GHz to 4.7GHz. That's quite a boost, and it showed in our CPU-intensive benchmarks, like Photoshop and Premiere. In these tests, it beat Maingear's much heavier and more expensive Titan 17, even with its six-core Gulftown processor.


A cranked-up CPU lets the Origin EON17-S blow through computation-intensive tasks.

The graphics card, though, is only overclocked from the standard 575MHz core to 605MHz. That's not enough to make a substantial difference, and the 2GB GDDR5 Nvidia GeForce GTX 485M performed pretty much as expected in our graphics-intensive benchmarks. It was no match for Maingear's SLI configuration—when it comes to gaming graphics, one graphics card can't compare to two.

Origin is relatively new to the market. It was founded by refugees from Dell's acquisition of Alienware, and the high price of the system can only be justified by the company's promise of service and support. You're not just buying an overclocked system, you're buying an overclocked system tested by the manufacturer and backed by a warranty. The way semiconductor fabrication works, each individual CPU has a different potential for overclocking, and Origin runs a battery of tests to pick procs with the best overclocking possibilities. This may take some of the Weird Science fun out of overclocking, but should also lower the risk. The company offers some cool customization options, including laser etching of the top of the notebook.

In other regards, the system is a pretty standard high-end gaming laptop. There's a 17.3-inch, LED-backlit screen running at 1920x1080 resolution. In our side-by-side testing, we found this screen to have somewhat richer and more vibrant colors than its archrival from Maingear. The 6x BD-R drive lets you burn your own Blu-ray discs, something that is likely to come in handy. Also included are two storage drives: one 128GB solid-state drive and a 750GB, 7,200rpm hard drive.

If you dream of the performance boost you can only get by overclocking but are afraid of a DIY approach, Origin's laptop provides an excellent solution.

$3,600, www.originpc.com

Computer Cleaning 101: A Complete Guide to a Dust-Free PC

Posted: 16 Aug 2011 03:24 PM PDT

Anyone can buy a PC.  Most of you astute Maximum PC readers can build a PC.  And an elite cadre of you can even build a tricked-out PC with lights, and tubes of fluid flying everywhere, and a beautiful side panel that shows off your system's tricked-out insides.

But the last thing that you'll want to see through your pretty plexiglass is a PC that's covered in dust.  In fact, you don't want to have a dirty PC regardless of your level of desktop sophistication: It can lead to system overheating, it's gross, and it only gets worse the longer you put it off.  We always joke that spring cleaning is the perfect time to bust out the ol' can of compressed air and get to work but, truthfully, cleaning one's system shouldn't just be a yearly affair.

So allow us to shave a few seconds off of your quarterly clean with a quick walkthrough of how to best prepare your assault on dust, dirt, and grime. Leave no survivors!

Step The First: Your Peripherals

We'll start with the easy parts.  Your mouse and keyboard might not be dust magnets, but they sure can attract all sorts of nastiness between their various buttons and surfaces.  Your keyboard is, perhaps, the easiest item to clean in all of your desktop system: Just slap it in the dishwasher.

  

We jest; You can do that, but it requires more preparation than we're prepared to go into with this brief cleaning overview.  Instead, you'll want to hold your keyboard upside-down and use short blasts of compressed air to remove all the fingernail clippings, food particles, hair, and other gunk that's found a home between your keys.  If you're facing a herculean amount of gross, you can also use a small wedged object (like a mechanical pencil or the edge of a nail clipper) to gently pop each key off.  Get in there with a nice damp cloth and wipe the crud out, and then test your geek skills at remembering a keyboard's layout when you go to reattach the keys.

  

As for your mouse, we'll assume that you're rocking a pretty typical design.  If so, you can also gently pop off the left and right mouse buttons without harming the mouse. Now that you have access to the dirt traps underneath, wipe these areas clean.  Once you've reattached your buttons, give the mouse a good overall wiping – and don't forget about the nonstick pads on the bottom of the mouse.  These can be prime targets for accumulated grime.

 

Step The Second: Your Monitor

  

Why invest so much money in a beautiful, huge, possibly LED-backlit monitor if it's covered in dust, dirt, and who-knows-what-else-you've-spilled-on-it? Goodbye, picture quality. But before you bust out the Windex and the rag, hear us: You can clean your LCD monitor with a simple damp cloth. Wet part of the cloth, gently use it to rub your monitor's screen, and use the dry part of the cloth to dry it off. Easy.

  

Resist the urge to use paper towels. And, please, don't just attack your monitor with a bevy of Windex sprays. In fact, don't use Windex or any other cleaner with ammonia in it, and don't spray any kind of cleaning solution directly onto your screen. If water just isn't doing the trick for you, make a 50/50 mix of water and isopropyl alcohol and gently apply it to a wet rag before you give your screen some elbow grease.

Step the Third: Your Desktop PC

  

Roll up your shirtsleeves: It's time to become the Mike Rowe of computer cleaning. Let's start by talking about the easy method for de-dusting a filthy desktop computer: compressed air.

Tempting as it might be to just buy a few cans and just blast the heck out of your system's insides, you're just going send dust flying all around your desktop or, worse, all over your nice, carpeted floor. You need a battle plan.

  

For the most thorough clean, you really will want to remove every part and piece inside of your PC. You can then use compressed air to target all the nooks and crannies that you might otherwise miss, and you'll be able to wipe down some surfaces (like an optical drive, your tangled mess of power supply cables, or even the outside of a video card) to catch all the dust that even compressed air can't send flying. You'll also be able to give the entirety of your case a thorough wiping to get rid of all the dust and grime that's collected over time: Feel free to once again use the 50/50 mix of water and isopropyl alcohol we mentioned earlier for a quick-drying, disinfecting clean.

  

Now, you might be tempted to do that age-old trick where you blast compressed air against one side of the blades on your system's fans (or, worse, your videocard or CPU cooler's fans), get them spinning nice and fast, and then blast air in the other direction to send dust flying every which way. Don't do that. It's a great way to damage your fans. Instead, you'll want to keep the fan blade stuck firmly in place (by way of a pen or some other creative device) before you attack the dust. If you're especially sensitive to grime, use a cotton swab to wipe the dirt off of the blades manually.

  

When you're ready to reassemble your computer, you'll want to give yourself plenty of time for outfitting your system with proper cable management. Here's why: Cables strewn about the middle of your system deliver inefficient airflow and serve as magnets for dust. You might have noticed this fact if you just spent the last hour wiping down all of your dirty power supply cables.

  

The more you can tuck your cords out of sight (between the motherboard and your case's side panel, for example), the prettier and cleaner your PC will look. And even if you can't hide your cables within your case, at least you can use Velcro strips or twist-ties to bundle them together into one giant chunk. It's not the most satisfactory solution, but it'll at least help you keep your desktop's insides a little cleaner than the alternative spiderweb of cables. A little foresight goes a long way toward reducing the time you spend during next quarter's big clean!

Cheat Sheet: 8 Tips And Tricks For Google+

Posted: 16 Aug 2011 01:25 PM PDT

So you've dipped your toes in the Stream, started a news feed wildfire using only a Spark, and, well, hung out in Hangouts. Not bad – you've certainly jumped feet-first into the social world of Google+. But dabbling is not the same thing as mastering, young grasshopper; grab your Google Bar and let us be your sensei in the art of Google+-Fu.

(Pssst... Before we get started, disable those incredibly annoying email notifications using the process in this article. Really – you should go do it right now. And if you want to export your Facebook data to G+, check out this handy-dandy post.)

Hotkeys, Get Your Hotkeys, Here!

 

Hotkeys work in the notification box, too

Let's start your training at the center of the Google+ experience: in the Stream. Scrolling through your friends' jibber-jabber can be a swell way to pass a lazy afternoon, but all the mouse action might drive you crazy if you're a fanatical keyboard user. Spare yourself the frustration and use Google+'s undocumented hotkeys! Simply press J to move downwards through the posts in your Stream, or K to hop up them. Pressing Enter when a post is selected opens the Share dialogue box so that you can type one of your trademark witty responses. Afterwards, Tab your way to either the Share or the Cancel button and hit Enter again to post the comment. Jamming on the space bar quickly jumps you down the stream; holding down Shift and jamming on the space bar does the opposite. Pressing Q deposits you in the Google Chat box. The same hotkeys work wonders in the notification box (which you can close with a press of the Esc key).

Add Some Colors To Those Cheeks

 

Who was that sexy masked man? Oh wait, that's me. And I'm not wearing a mask.

One somewhat hidden feature in Google+ is its photo-editing abilities. The bare-bones functions will never replace Photoshop (or even Irfanview) in your life, but it's a great way to tweak the look of pictures that you've already uploaded to the service. Open your Profile screen, then click on the Photos tab and select the picture you'd like to edit. Click on Actions, then select Edit Photo. Choose one or more of the filters that appear on the right side of the screen to change the colors and textures in the image.

Circles As Bookmarks

 

Bookmark Circles are lonely Circles.

If your Google+ buddies are anything like our Google+ buddies, they share a lot of cool links in their posts. In fact, our buddies share so many nifty links that there's no way we can look at them all (especially because we should be working). One way to get around that problem is to set the most intriguing posts aside for later viewing. Simply create a new Circle and name it "Saved" or "Bookmarks" or something similar. Add yourself, and only yourself, to the Circle. Anytime you see something cool and saveworthy show up in your Stream, share it with the Bookmark Circle. When you have some extra free time, open the Bookmark Circle in the Stream to bring up all the posts you've saved.

Check Your Junk Mail

 

The Incoming Stream: perfect for people who, um, don't quite speak your language.

All right, Google+ doesn't actually have a junk mail folder. But it does have the social media equivalent: the Incoming Stream. When another user adds you to his Circles but you don't add him to yours, he still has the ability to share his posts with you. Those unsolicited posts are added to your Incoming Stream rather than your main Stream. Check it out by clicking on the "Incoming" listing underneath your Circles on the left side of the Stream screen. You never know when you might find some diamonds amongst the coal.

Get Your PMs Noticed

 

Ryan Whitwam; one of a kind (at least on Google+)

Did you know you can send private messages in G+? Just whip up a new post, type the other user's name into the "Add more people" box and click Share like you always do (Make sure you eliminate any other Circles or names that may be lingering in the "Share with" box). Just because you send somebody a PM doesn't mean they'll see it in a flooded Stream, however. To make sure the other person notices your post, tag them in it! Somewhere inside the body of the PM, press "+" and begin typing the recipient's name until you see their G+ profile pop up in the drop-down list. Click on the name, then send the message off. Your buddy will get a notification saying that they've been mentioned in a post.

Keep Your Background To Yourself

 

Don't want the G+ masses knowing about your epic beard? Use the privacy settings!

Let's make use of the natural segue from private messages and talk about privacy settings for a bit. By default, everything you list in your Google+ profile is open for the Internet to see. If you don't want every random Google searcher on the Web knowing your marital status or work number, you can make parts of your profile private. Start editing your profile normally and click on a section you want to keep  private. See the little box that says "Anyone on the web"? Select it and choose a new privacy setting from the list. You can choose between sharing the info with your circles, your extended circles, just yourself, or a customizable list. Remember to click "Save" when you're done, and repeat the process for each profile section you want to keep private. Check your work by clicking the "View profile as" box in your profile's tab bar and selecting "Anyone on the web."

Keep Your Posts Private, Too

 

Restricted sharing options show up as blue boxes; publicly shared Circles appear green.

Still on a privacy kick? We can help. While your initial urge may be to make the majority of your Stream posts public, public shares show up for everyone to see on your profile page (and we've seen some show up in normal Google searches, too). So if you're describing your alcohol-fueled felonious escapades to your G+ friends, make sure you remove the green Public box from the "Share with" box and brag to a more limited audience. Future You will appreciate it when he tries to land a new job. If you're thinking back to an incriminating post from last week and crapping your pants, fear not; you can delete the evidence by selecting "Delete this post" in the post's options. Access a post's options by clicking on the arrow in its upper-right corner.

Extensions

 

Check out the -1 button under the post. No, we didn't use it; we were scared of Gordon's wrath.

Got Chrome? Developers have been hard at work ever since Google+ hit the Web, whipping up extensions for the service that range from stupid to stupendous. Here's a few of our favorites:

Extended Share: For you social media mavens. Extended Share adds Twitter, LinkedIn and Facebook share buttons to every G+ post.

+Photo Zoom: Sick of the tiny thumbnails G+ uses in the Stream? Hovering over a pic with +Photo Zoom installed displays a larger version.

Facebook+: If you love Google's social network, but aren't quite ready to rip off the Facebook band-aid, Facebook+ helps you kill two birds with one stone; it plops your Facebook news feed into a "Facebook" Stream in Google+.

Plus One (+1) Button: Web developers haven't embraced G+ with the same enthusiasm of the service's 20 million-plus users. This extension adds a +1 button to Chrome's browser bar so that you can easily +1 a page even if its owner hasn't included the option.

-1 Button: Guess what this does? Only people who have the extension installed can see the Nay votes casted on G+ posts and comments, but it's still a lot of fun. If only it didn't add an annoying button to the black Google bar...

The Journey Is Just Beginning

As long as this article was, we've still only just scratched the surface of Google's new social network. What did we miss? What extensions do you use? Let us know in the comments!

Google's Real Names Policy Is Evil

Posted: 16 Aug 2011 11:37 AM PDT

Google's horrible new policy on using real names in Google+ effectively means that the service is now a danger to real people. You have to ask yourself why a company that pledged to not be evil would do this.

Google has said that if you don't "use your full first and last name in a single language" you're in violation of it's terms of service. If it flags you, you'll have four days to change it or it'll boot your ass. You can't use initials (even that's what you go by). You can't use a pseudonym (even if that's what you go by). And you can't use numbers or symbols (even if they are part of your name).

Æ, e.e. cummings, Malcolm X, and T.S. Eliot would all be in violation of Google's policy. So, too (by my reading) would be Mark Twain, George Eliot and doubly so, R.U. Sirius. I'm pretty sure nobody whose name you actually know in the band U2 can use Google+ or, by extension, Gmail.

It's hard to understand why Google would embark on such a wrong-headed policy. The most likely answer is that this is a pure identity play. Forget social networking, the big goldmine of the future is online identity verification. This could be Google prioritizing getting ahead in that race over its users' preferences and safety.

In other words, it's Google putting money and greed over humanity. It's Google being evil.

Last week, Danah Boyd very eloquently laid out the case against a real names requirement. In short, if you don't let people use pseudonyms online, you're putting people in danger. Real, physical, danger.

Let's say you are a gay teen considering suicide who wants to reach out online without fear of your family finding out. Or maybe you are a whistleblower who fears retribution. Or a person of faith who could be subject to religious persecution. Or a dissident who fears imprisonment. A battered wife seeking shelter.

Or maybe you're somebody whose actual real name violates Google's policy. For example, it doesn't allow any numbers or symbols. So, sorry, Jennifer 8. Lee. I know you're a highly-respected and well-known journalist, but your name has a number in it so you've got four days to change that or you can fuck off back to Facebook.

And I don't know what the heck Prince is going to do about this.

The easy answer, of course, is simply to not use Google+. And I'm quite sure some people will posit that as a solution. But there are two reasons that's not the answer.

First, Google is too big and too important. As goes Google so goes the Web. It is one of a handful of companies that has real power and influence, capable of changing the status quo all on its own. If this becomes Google's universal policy, soon it will be that of the Internet itself.

Second, and this is related to the first, is that Google+ is a community. And we as a society we have a duty to work to make our communities free and open. We have a duty to change what is wrong, rather than to simply say "move along." Imagine, for example, if instead of working to change civil rights laws in the American South, the freedom riders had just offered one-way bus tickets to Massachusetts. If you don't like it in Birmingham, you should just move to Boston.

Google is one of the largest companies in the world, it touches billions of people. Governments regularly subpoena data from it. The things it knows about you matter. A lot.

Of course, Google does make it easy to quit Plus. It does offer a data liberation service that lets you take everything you've done on Google+ and put it on your hard drive.

Yet while it's admirable that Google is offering ways to liberate data, it also ought to be offering to liberate its users from fear of persecution. Sadly, right now, it's doing just the opposite.

Gizmodo is the world's most fun technology website, focused on gadgets and how they make our lives better, worse, and more absurd.

Copyright Lawsuit Group Uses Asinine Argument To Try To Wiggle Out Of Legal Fees

Posted: 16 Aug 2011 11:02 AM PDT

Think the whole RIAA/MPAA lawsuit factory is ridiculous? You should see what what Righthaven's pulling in the newspaper world. The company's entire purpose is to sue the pants off of small-time bloggers, websites and forum members who post newspaper clips and articles online. They target itty-bitty operations who probably can't afford litigation and strong arm them into ponying up $2,000 to $5,000 settlements instead. Well, that M.O. backfired recently; a Righthaven case was tossed out of court and they were ordered to pay $34,000 in legal fees to the defendant – but you should hear the shenanigans they tried to pull to get out of paying.

Righthaven sued Wayne Hoehn, a forum poster on the Madjack Sports website. Ars Technica reports that Hoehn had posted two op-ed pieces on the forum, with one coming from the Las Vegas Review-Journal – who's publisher helped form Righthaven. The Las Vegas Review-Journal signed a contract with Righthaven that gave the lawsuit-happy group the right to sue Hoehn, which they promptly did.

The problem is, only copyright holders can sue for infringement, and Righthaven's contract awarded the company the right to sue, but didn't transfer copyright. Apparently, Righthaven's lawyers, despite their frequent impulse to drag forum posters into court, didn't understand the simple concept that, um, you can't give somebody else the right to sue in your stead. Because of that, they didn't even have a legal basis for bringing the lawsuit to court. Righthaven was simply wasting everybody's time.

The pissed-off judge called Hoehn's posting fair use – neatly plucking Hoehn out of legal hot water and establishing a precedent that could derail Righthaven's entire business model. Hoehn then requested $34,045.50 to cover the legal fees of his lawyers. Righthaven resisted. Its argument? Since the judge ruled the case frivolous, that took away his right to jurisdiction – including the awarding of legal fees.

The defense lawyer strongly disagreed and called the proposal "bizarre," although he admired Righthaven's "chutzpah" in making such a stupid claim. After hearing Righthaven's asinine plea, the judge quickly agreed with Hoehn's attorney. Righthaven has until September 14th to pay Hoehn's legal fees. 

Yahoo, Facebook Put "Six Degrees Of Separation" Theory To The Test

Posted: 16 Aug 2011 10:24 AM PDT

Hey, Tremors fans; we still don't know if you're actually only six connections away from having a BBQ with Kevin Bacon in your backyard. If you're looking to advance the technology that could one day put that question to rest, though, you should check out the Small World Experiment. No, it doesn't have anything to do with Disney rides; it's a joint venture between Yahoo! and Facebook to put the whole "six degrees of separation" thing to the test by tapping into the social network's 750 million member-strong user base.

The project's already recruited a bunch of targets. Now, it's looking for senders, or people who are willing to tap into their social networks to help track down the targets. The Small World Experiment will keep count of exactly how many degrees of separation exist between the initial sender and the target to figure out how many degrees of separation exist between them.

You'll be asked to identify which of your Facebook friends is most likely to know the target. That person will be sent a message from the project, and they will be asked to select one of their friends who is likely to know the target. The daisy chain continues until the target is eventually reached – at least in theory.

Sound interesting? Check out Yahoo!'s Small World Experiment page to join in on the fun.

Microsoft: Pre-Release Windows 8 Launching in "Coming Months"

Posted: 16 Aug 2011 09:27 AM PDT

Itching to get your hands on a copy of Windows 8? You won't have to wait much longer, or at least that's the case if you're willing to roll the dice on beta software being stable. Microsoft announced in a blog post yesterday that a pre-release version of Windows 8 is slated to ship real soon, which likely means a beta build is just around the corner.

"We've been hard at work designing and building Windows 8, and today we want to begin an open dialog with those of you who will be trying out the pre-release version over the coming months," Microsoft's Steven Sinofsky stated in a blog post. "We intend to post regularly throughout the development of Windows 8, and to focus on the engineering of the product."

Microsoft's calling the open-communication initiative "Building Windows 8," or "B8" for short. The ultimate goal is "to have a two-way dialog with you about design choices, real-world data and usage, and new opportunities that are part of Windows 8," Sinofsky says.

Sinofsky goes on to state that "Windows 8 reimagines Windows," but promises Microsoft is fully committed to making sure that Windows 8 supports all Windows 7 hardware and software.

U.S. Businesses Steaming Over Triple X Domain Fees

Posted: 16 Aug 2011 09:07 AM PDT

American businesses are scrambling to protect their brand names before .xxx Internet domains launch in December, and the $200ish fee has a few them feeling a bit peeved. What's rubbing them the wrong way is the potential for cybersquatters to cherry pick high profile brand names and turn them into sultry websites. A person could, for example, scoop up Nike.xxx and get creative with the company's "Just Do It" slogan, or Reebok.xxx with its "Life is short, play hard" tagline.

According to Reuters, ICM Registry has already received more than 900,000 "expressions of interest" from companies looking to pre-register .xxx websites, either to claim their trademarks or prevent others from abusing their brand, like in the examples above. Companies like MTV Networks and even the Red Cross have sent in pre-registration requests as a preventative measure against having to sic their lawyers on cybersquatters. The problem is these companies don't want to use the domains, they're just trying to make sure their brand name isn't sullied, and they aren't real keen on the fees involved.

"Many feel they're being blackmailed to protect their brands," said Kristina Rosette, a trademark lawyer.

ICM Registry founder Stuart Lawley denies the charges, claiming this is nothing like a virtual shakedown and that his company isn't making any money from the registration fees.

"We're doing it on a cost-recovery basis. We don't make a dime out of it," Lawley claims. According to Lawley, the money is used to verify that an applicant is really who he says he is, and that he owns the trademark in question.

So far it appears that most of the application fees are coming from businesses outside of the porn industry. According to U.K. registrar Easyspace, 8 out of 10 pre-registry applications are from brands that have no affiliation with pron.

Study: Microsoft's IE 9 Browser Tops at Blocking Socially Engineered Malware

Posted: 16 Aug 2011 08:31 AM PDT

Apparently Microsoft's Internet Explorer browser leads the pack in more ways than just market share. With regards to IE9, socially engineered malware (SEM) barely has a chance of wreaking havoc, according to a study put together by NSS Labs. The study's data has IE9 way out in front of all other browsers tested with a better than 99 percent protection rate.

According to NSS Labs, SEM is more prevalent than any other Internet-borne threat, and as many as 33 percent of all Internet users fall prey to these attacks. The study's data shows that your choice of browser could play a big role in how susceptible you are to SEM attacks.

IE9's SmartScreen URL and new Application Reputation feature combination proved highly effective in NSS Labs' tests, so much so that no other browser tested came close to offering the same protection. Chrome 12 came in at a distant second by blocking 13.2 percent of live threats, followed by Safari 5 (7.6 percent), Firefox 4 (7.6 percent), and Opera 11 (6.1 percent).

It should be noted that some of those browsers are out of data, which is largely the result of rapid release schedules. Nevertheless, it doesn't diminish IE9's near flawless performance, more of which you can read about in the full report (PDF).
Posted by Shri Krishna

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