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hacking

Team debuts electronic-hacking how-to videos at HOPE conference

NEW YORK--Want to know how to build your own cell phone charger? How about putting an old-fashioned pay phone in your home to make voice over Internet calls?

A team of do-it-yourself technology gurus are creating a video series that will show you how to hack everyday gadgets to get more--and novel--uses out of them.

Limor Fried, who owns the Adafruit Industries electronics building business, and Phillip Torrone, senior editor at Make Magazine, are calling their series "Citizen Engineer." They debuted it at the Last HOPE conference here on Friday.

The video series demonstrates how to create the … Read more

Listen to the 2600 hacker conference

The seventh Hackers on Planet Earth conference, organized by 2600, starts Friday in New York. If you can't be at The Last HOPE, you can listen online.

Radio Statler (the hotel hosting the conference used to be called The Statler) will be broadcasting from radio.hope.net. The station will be live from 10 a.m. ET Friday until the close of the conference at 8 p.m. on Sunday.

There isn't a published schedule, most likely because there isn't an unpublished one, either. Plans are to stream the keynote presentations and other popular seminars, interview some … Read more

San Francisco IT worker arrested in hijacking of city network

A network administrator for the city of San Francisco has been arrested on charges of taking control of the city's computer network and locking administrators out, according to the San Francisco Chronicle.

Terry Childs, 43, was due to be arraigned on Tuesday after his arrest Sunday. He remains in jail on $5 million bail.

Childs, who has worked for the city for five years, is accused of tampering with the new Fiber Wide Area Network after allegedly being disciplined for poor performance. He is accused of electronically spying on his supervisors and their attempt to fire him, according to … Read more

Get the iPhone 2.0 Firmware early

As is being reported by almost every blog on the planet, the direct link to iPhone 2.0 firmware has been uncovered in some XML related to the new version of iTunes.

This link is unwarranted and only for geeks folks, but if you want to see how it works, check out Brian Tong's video on CNET TV.

Here's the link : http://appldnld.apple.com.edgesuite.net/content.info.apple.com/iPhone/061-4955.20080710.bgt53/iPhone1,2_2.0_5A347_Restore.ipsw

Update: Many people are reporting problems with the unofficial iPhone firmware. If you're having issues or just want … Read more

CNET Live - Episode 61

Veronica Belmont from Revision3's Tekzilla and Sony PS3's Qore show stops by to talk about what she's up to and engage in an impromptu Buzz Out Loud reunion.

Watch the show on CNET TV.

Things we Crave

Water-cooled Panasonic projector.

Get a free hands-free headset.

First Look

iPod Boom Box.

Download of the Week

PDFCreator

Insider Secrets

Make your laptop a hotspot

Best of the Web

TinySong

Your calls

Play real media files in Linux with Helix and in Linux and OS X with MPlayer

You should be able to get Verizon or Sprint to unlock a … Read more

Insider Secrets: How to stream Netflix movies directly to your Xbox 360

Don't feel like dishing out $100 for the Roku Netflix player? Well, if you have an Xbox 360 and a Windows Vista PC, you don't have to.

Last week we reported about this amazing hack and now we're showing you how to do it! It comes courtesy of Lifehacker.com and takes about 20 minutes to set up.

Streaming Netflix movies isn't the only thing you can do with this connection--once your Xbox 360 is added as a Media Center extender, you can stream pictures, music, or video from your PC to the console as well. … Read more

Buzz Out Loud 758: Return of the living MicroHoo

The rotten corpse of the Microsoft-Yahoo merger has apparently reanimated itself and is wandering down Wall Street, munching on the brains of News Corp. and Time Warner, recruiting them to its unholy cause. Sigh. In other news, Microsoft has a new Office subscription service, Blockbuster decided Circuit City just isn't worth it, and we debunk the Texas PC repair hysteria that's sweeping the blogosphere. Listen now: Download today's podcast

EPISODE 758

Microsoft seeks partners for new run at Yahoo http://online.wsj.com/article/SB121496732802022117.html http://news.cnet.com/8301-10784_3-9982741-7.html

Office subscription service ready to … Read more

Hacker changes news releases on sheriff's Web site

Someone hacked into the Web site for the San Bernardino County sheriff's office in California and changed the wording on several news releases, forcing the agency to shut down the site last week, according to the Daily Bulletin.

One news release warning motorists about a DUI checkpoint in the nearby town of Highland was changed to read that officials wanted to "stick our big government schnoz into your private business, check your papers, and be sure you are toeing the line."

Also modified was a news release earlier this month with information about the law that takes … Read more

Three useful Firefox 3 'awesome bar' hacks

The Firefox 3 honeymoon is over.

It is indeed awesome, but it could use a little tweaking to keep your surfing a high-speed affair, right? You're in luck, because there are some easy tweaks.

The other day, we pointed you toward how to get rid of the updated address bar's new features completely, but why not just tweak what you see, instead? Here are some tips to bail you out.

1. Control how many listings you're getting. The default number of sites that show up on the Smart Location Bar, or "awesome bar," of the … Read more