fix

Executives from the nation's largest phone companies went to Capitol Hill Tuesday to defend themselves against allegations that they've been fixing prices on text messaging.

Executives from AT&T and Verizon Communications testified before the Senate Subcommittee on Antitrust, Competition Policy, and Consumer Rights, saying their companies have not been involved in a conspiracy to hike text messaging rates. And they argued that competition is alive and well in the wireless market.

The hearing was called in response to a letter sent in September from Sen. Herb Kohl (D-Wis.) to the four major U.S. operators--Verizon, AT&… Read more

Free Registry Cleaner has too many problems to be a good choice for anyone except those who prefer to clean their own registries key by key.

Visually, the interface is clean, if unexciting. The program offers a few other functions as well, but nothing that isn't already possible through the Control Panel, Task Manager, or other integrated Windows utilities. It defaults to a wizard interface that not easy to use. Initially, we thought the unpickable picklist was the worst it offered; when asked to select the areas to scan, we found that Ctrl-click did not work. Instead, we could … Read more

Hitachi executive Sakae Someya was indicted Tuesday by a federal grand jury in San Francisco for his role in a conspiracy to fix the prices of LCD screens.

Someya is accused of conspiring with others in the LCD display business "to suppress and eliminate competition" by fixing the price of the panels sold to Dell for notebook PCs. Someya is accused of participating in the scheme between January 2001 through December 2004. That would be a violation of the Sherman Act, which can result in a $1 million fine and a 10-year prison sentence.

Someya's indictment brings … Read more

Correction and update:This post was updated at 1:53 p.m. with a corrected headline (the word "patched" was missing) and additional and winnowed information on the security holes.)

Mozilla published a critical security upgrade for Firefox Friday evening. Version 3.0.8 for Windows, Mac, and Linux fixes two security holes listed as "critical."

One patched an arbitrary code execution hole through an XUL element, and the other corrected an XSL stylesheet exploit. Both fixes patch crash-based security holes in which remote codes could have been run.

The release notes for Firefox 3.0.… Read more

A number of users continue to report broken WiFi under iPhone OS 2.2.1.

As described by one reader:

"I am having problem after 2.2.1 update where the iphone will only detect wifi networks for a moment, and then always go back to edge and no longer detect networks."

Fixes

Enter DNS address Enter your routers configuration page on a laptop or another wireless-enabled computer (usually 192.168.1.1) and find the DNS address, then enter that address in the iPhone's Network settings pane.

Reset network settings Tap Settings, tap General, tap Reset, … Read more

We previously reported on a problem with iTunes Syncing after the iPhone OS 2.2.1 update. Now, a fix from Apple has materialized, and can be executed as follows:

Launch iTunes

Select "Deauthorize Computer" from the Store menu

Enter your iTunes Store Account ID and Password, then clicking on the Deauthorize button.

Select "Authorize Computer" from the Store menu

Enter your iTunes Store Account ID and Password, then click on the Authorize button.

Once this is completed you should be able to sync content again with your iPhone or iPod Touch. However, for some users, … Read more

We were really thinking about calling this episode something to do with prehistoric snake. Because Natali is very into the prehistoric snakes. Although she can't kill them. Instead we discuss Bill Gates releasing mosquitoes at TED, the Congress sort of delaying the DTV transition, and Google trying to steal your health information.

Bill Gates Unleashes Mosquitoes On Rich TED Conference Crowd http://www.alleyinsider.com/2009/2/bill-gates-unleashes-mosquitoes-on-rich-ted-crowd http://news.bbc.co.uk/2/hi/technology/7871210.stm

DTV delay passes, 264-158 http://arstechnica.com/telecom/news/2009/02/dtv-delay-passes-264-158.ars… Read more

When people encounter a problem with their PC, they often go to the Web and do a search to see if others have had the problem. If they are lucky, someone has found a fix and listed the steps on either a support document or within a user forum.

Now, they may have an even better option.

Over the past six weeks, Microsoft has quietly added a "Fix it" button to a few of the thousands of help documents on its Web site. When clicked, the computer then takes all the recommended steps automatically.

"If we know … Read more

Apple has released iPhone OS 2.2.1, a minor update to the device's firmware and operating system. Apple's release notes state only that the update increases the stability of Safari and resolves a problem in which images saved from Mail do not display correctly in the camera roll. However, users are beginning to discover several undocumented enhancements.

In particular, the update appears to address a nasty bug in which users suddenly experience inability to send SMS text messages on the iPhone 3G, receiving the message "error sending" upon attempting to send.

Still unresolved, however, is … Read more