Three years ago the company was considered a parasite and a scourge. Today it’s a rising star – selling virtually the same product. How a pop-up pariah won the adware wars.
Daily Archive for December 2nd, 2005
Close on the heels of “Google Base”, Microsoft is set to foray into online classifieds with “Fremont” – a service which will focus on classified announcements of products and services for sale, by individuals or commercial entities without a Web presence.
“Fremont” has reportedly been available in test form to Microsoft employees since last week, and is expected to launch in a couple of weeks from now.
Microsoft’s “Fremont”, which derives its name from a Seattle neighborhood hosting a busy Sunday market, has been tested by MSN – the company’s online services arm.
“Fremont” will allow users to enter details of personal items in a specially designed database. The database information will either be made search-able by Microsoft’s internet search engine, or will be restricted to a limited group of personal contacts.
In many ways, “Fremont” echoes “Google Base”, which is also a structured database inviting users to enter information in a prescribed format.
However unlike Google, which has apparently not given any thought as to how users will control the data that they feed into Google Base, “Fremont” promises to give users the ability to restrict access to information to particular groups of people. “Fremont” will be integrated with other MSN services, such as the Messenger instant messaging service.
TeenPattiParty.com has become the first Web site to target the country’s market, by offering “real money” Teen Patti beginning today.
TeenPattiParty.com was launched as a free site over five months ago, and site officials maintain that it has since become the largest community of Indians on the net.
Neil Shah, a company spokesperson, said, “We are proud of where we are. The people here at TeenPattiParty.com understood that the Indian community was new to online gambling, and accordingly we initially focused on creating a free platform where first-time players could practice and learn to play Teen Patti online. Now we are proud to be the first Web site in the world to offer ‘real money’ Teen Patti games and tournaments to Indians from around the world.”
Players can still play for free or they can use a number of deposit methods, including Neteller, Moneybookers and even their credit card to fund their account and play Teen Patti for real money. TeenPattiParty.com also offers real money poker and casino games like blackjack and craps.
Starting every new player who signs up at teenpattiparty.com automatically receives $5, and the site will match 100 per cent of every player’s first deposit until Dec 20.
“It is exciting to take our Web site to the next level and with our state-of-the-art software, friendly promotions and quick pay outs, we are confident that we will be the pioneers of online gaming in the South Asian market” Shah said.
TeenPattiParty.com is owned and operated by an online development and promotion company in Costa Rica, which specializes in developing online gaming for corporate clients in Asia, Europe, and the United States.
Announcing that attackers have let loose malicious software to take advantage of an unpatched bug in Internet Explorer; Microsoft has urged users to run a complete system scan on its new Windows Live Safety Center, for the purpose of detecting and deleting this malicious code.
Microsoft has said that both proof-of-concept and an exploit code are in circulation, and that the exploit code can compromise PCs running IE on Windows 98, Windows Millennium Edition, Windows 2000, and Windows XP operating systems.
A hacker can gain complete control of vulnerable systems, by hosting malicious code on a Web site. In the event an IE user visits such a site, the malicious program will run sans any user interaction.
The security bug in IE was originally reported to Microsoft in May, however it was initially thought to allow only a denial-of-service (DOS) attack, rendering IE to close.
Recent research by security vendor, Computer Terrorism, says that the flaw can be used to hijack a machine simply by luring users to a malicious Web site. Security vendor Secunia, has given the problem an “extremely critical” rating.
Microsoft has not as yet produced a patch for the vulnerability; but has advised customers to visit its free-of-charge Windows Live Safety Center and use the Complete Scan option therein to check-for and remove the malicious software.
In its security advisory, Microsoft has said that it will either provide a security update through its monthly release, or will provide an out-of-cycle security update, depending on customer needs.
However Microsoft’s advisory does include several work-arounds to deflect possible attacks including clicking on the Custom Level button, disabling Active scripting in Internet Explorer by choosing Tools/Internet Options, scrolling to the Scripting section, clicking the Security tab, and selecting the Disable radio button next to Active scripting.
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