pop-ups

Mac Trojan Horse poses as Adobe Flash Installer

The latest attempt from digital wrongdoers to infect your Mac has been spotted taking on the look and feel of Adobe's Flash Installer.

Despite your feelings on whether you like Flash on your Mac, this Trojan poses a fairly serious threat to those unsuspecting users who may think they are simply updating Flash Player.

F-Secure has named the Trojan Bash/QHost.WB and have provided some insight as to how it works.

Once installed, the Trojan adds entries to the hosts file to hijack users visiting various Google sites (e.g., Google.com.tw, Google.com.tl, et cetera) … Read more

Timbuk2 Pop-Up case fits both iPad and iPad 2

With a lot of people buying Apple's magnetic Smart Cover to go along with their new iPad 2's, many iPad accessory case makers are starting to tout the ability of their sleeve-style cases to accommodate the iPad 2 with that Smart Cover left on. The idea, of course, is that when you travel, you'll want a little more protection for your precious Apple tablet, and the sleeve is the perfect way to completely cover your iPad 2.

Timbuk2's upcoming Pop-Up case is kind of a hybrid sleeve/hard case, with a rigid front for added protection, … Read more

Apple saves SXSW, set to open pop-up store

Austin, Texas, is one of the most civilized cities in America. Except, I am told, when the South by Southwest Interactive Festival comes around. Then, youthful hubris mixed with inebriation can cause the odd ego-laden fracas.

Perhaps mindful of the need to maintain peace and harmony, Apple has, according to the Austin American-Statesman, decided to open a temporary pop-up store in downtown Austin.

SXSW Interactive, you see, part of the broader SXSW music and film event, starts tomorrow. That's precisely the day that the iPad 2 shows off its diminished weight and post-dietary sleekness.

So you can imagine what … Read more

Back to pop-ups

Links from Friday's episode of Loaded:

The Internet goes nearly silent in Egypt during widespread violent political protests

News Corp. announces plans to launch The Daily, its iPad-only publication

Gmail offers a new feature to give you a pop-up every time you get an e-mail or an instant message

The new version of Skype for Mac has a group chatting option

Hulu may be planning to rebrand itself as the Internet's cable channel

Apple may be prepping to launch a new lineup of MacBook Pros

LinkedIn has filed for an IPO

Stop the iPhone AutoPlay pop-up

Ever notice how the AutoPlay window appears whenever you connect your iPhone to your PC? (Correction: your Vista PC. Does this "feature" exist on Macs, too?)

While some users may find the window useful, I end up closing it 99 times out of 100--each time wondering why Vista doesn't give me the option of preventing it from appearing in the first place. After all, the pop-ups for most other devices include a "do nothing" option. Why must the iPhone AutoPlay be different?

Fortunately, there's an easy way to kick it to the curb. Just … Read more

Blocks too well

Web Site Zapper claims to block questionable Web sites from view, but it worked a little too well and blocked us from sites we indicated were acceptable.

Once activated, the program appears in your taskbar, but we found a lag time whenever we tried to access it. A tiny window appeared with very vague instructions such as Learn Bad Sites and Learn Good Sites. The Configuration menu lets you add sites you wish to block and sites you wish to allow. We entered URLs into each category, but when we tried to surf the Web, we were blocked from any … Read more

Effective ad killer

Pop-up advertisements and banners have evolved into more than just simple annoyances. In many cases these complicated advertisements slow down performance and many times clicking on these links could give your computer a virus. BFilter is here to protect your system, but does it do too good a job?

This free program downloads easily and hides in the bottom right-hand tray of your screen. In our tests, the program operated as advertised. Its filtering software ensures that pop-ups never create a window that could be dangerous to click. In addition, banners that change graphics are left as just a blank … Read more

GReader Popup puts Google Reader in every tab

If you like Google Reader, but would prefer to keep it from taking up an oh-so-important tab in your browser, you'll definitely like GReader Popup. This experimental Firefox extension pulls up a version of Google Reader that sits atop any page you have open. You can plow through feeds using all the usual keyboard shortcuts you would in Google Reader. Then, when done, you simply click the icon in the bottom right hand corner of your browser and it goes away.

No fuss, no tab switching, and most importantly--more real estate in your browser for extra tabs.

It's … Read more

Pop-up creator lacks some handy features

Building a custom pop-up for inclusion in an application or Web page is simple and straightforward with Popup Software, it's just not possible to see how you're doing or get any help.

The program's compact interface with tabbed navigation is easy to follow, but we were still disappointed to find that the Help link is for a page that has moved or no longer exists. Users are on their own if they have questions. Fortunately this utility is pretty easy to figure out. We liked that we could set the frequency of a pop-up's appearance, and … Read more