bug

Buzz Out Loud 799: Pop a cap in your usage

Comcast comes clean with its bandwidth cap: it's coming, it's coming in October, it's 250GB, and they won't give you any tools for monitoring their use, and if you exceed your cap twice, you get the boot for a year. So, we have a little fun with that. Also, a little fun with IE 8 Beta 2 bugs, the lack of Kindle this year, and the pseudo-alphabetical distribution of spam. Listen now: Download today's podcast EPISODE 799

Comcast puts a cap on Net usage http://www.bizjournals.com/portland/stories/2008/08/25/daily35.html … Read more

Report: iPhone app crash fix coming next month

Apple has reportedly acknowledged the fact that many third-party iPhone applications have been crashing on launch, according to AppleInsider.

One of AppleInsider's readers says that after he contacted Apple about the problem, he received a response from CEO Steve Jobs himself: "This is a known iPhone bug that is being fixed in the next software update in September."

Apple representatives did not immediately have confirmation.

That was the full extent of Jobs' e-mail, AppleInsider said. While the most talked-about mobile-software problems for Apple right now are still the issues with MobileMe, crashing apps have been causing a … Read more

Open-source gadgets at LinuxWorld

Attending LinuxWorld might be a first for us here at Crave. But I did want to head over to the expo, held at the Moscone Center here in San Francisco, to see Shuttle's latest mini desktop, the KPC K4800, live and in person.

Turns out there was more for us to see than we thought--bonus! Along with its just-released $299 mini desktop, Shuttle also had the $199 K4500 on display at the Foresight Linux booth. (Foresight actually created a custom OS just for Shuttle machines.) The KPC 4800 was hooked up to a new display Shuttle is offering.

The … Read more

Facebook's iPhone app: a bug that gives out magical iPhones (not really) to friends you never knew you had

This morning Facebook told me that 27 of my friends had downloaded the iPhone Facebook application. 27 out of 300+ is a good chunk of people and speaks to the fact that more and more people are getting iPhones. Of course, this is only if they can be patient to wait at least 2+ hours in line and if a given Apple/AT&T store actually has them in stock. It's hard to imagine that this has been going on for at least two weeks.

Anyway, I clicked the link to see who actually downloaded the Facebook iPhone … Read more

Robot crabs coming to an office near you

This August, you may be dodging something other than Frisbees at the beach or your boss at the office.

Innovation First is releasing the Hexbug Crab, the latest in its line of Hexbug microrobotic toys that sell for about $9.99.

While the minirobot is geared toward kids, it's easy to see the Hexbug Crab gaining a place alongside office stress balls in cubicles across the country.

Like other Hexbugs, the Hexbug Crab can be left to roam around and respond to its environment. Think of it as a little pet that doesn't need to be fed.

"… Read more

No dessert until you finish all of your bugs

A friend of mine has cockroaches in his house as pets. As confusing as his choice of pet might be to all of his friends, he just might be on to something. Cultivating microlivestock might just be the next big food movement.

Westerners have traditionally been squeamish about eating creepy crawlies, but perhaps it is time that has changed. The rest of the world has long since recognized and appreciated bugs for the protein source they are. Turns out, once-pesky critters can be considered a good source of vitamins and minerals too.

The UN Food and Agriculture Organization sites more … Read more

TopCoder's interesting twist on community-based development

An old friend from the open-source world, Ira Heffan, called me today about his company, TopCoder. Ira is a smart guy so I figured anything with which he was involved must be good.

And it is. At its most basic, TopCoder stages programming competitions, both for itself (that is, its direct consulting clients) and for third parties like Google. Companies hire TopCoder to stage competitions to build functionality for them (as well as to scout for new talent). TopCoder also provides consulting services and uses competitions to create the requested applications, and heavily reuses its portfolio of applications and components to drive down development costs.

As an example, TopCoder has its premier competition in Las Vegas next week at the 2008 TopCoder Open (May 12 through 15), hosting 120 finalists from 30 countries. $260,000 in prize money is on the line.

Ira told me that one developer made over $500,000 last year in TopCoder prize money. Not too shabby. This, coupled with recruiting interest from top companies means that developers may be winning themselves a new job, as well as a competition.

However, it's actually a lower-profile component of TopCoder's business that I find the most fascinating: Bug Races.… Read more

Patches for Firefox and Flock

The past 24 hours have seen Mozilla Firefox (download from CNET Download.com for Windows and Mac) getting another security hole plugged, while its social-networking derivative Flock (also at CNET Download.com for Windows and Mac) earns a minor behavioral bug fix.

Firefox's most recent safety snafu is another JavaScript engine security problem that was causing the browser to crash during JavaScript garbage collection. Although there was no indication that this error was exploitable, says Mozilla, other similar errors in the past were. Not to mention the benefit of not having your browser randomly going kablooey.

Flock's fix … Read more

Adobe releases debugged Lightroom 1.4.1

Correction, 5:30 p.m. PDT: This blog initially misstated the day Adobe released Photoshop Lightroom 1.4.1. It is Thursday.

After a debugging session to fix problems with the flawed 1.4.0, Adobe Systems on Thursday released Photoshop Lightroom 1.4.1.

Raw images from higher-end digital cameras have more flexibility and quality than JPEGs, but also require processing in a computer to convert to more useful formats. Lightroom handles that task, along with cataloging and other chores. Adobe also released the corresponding version 4.4.1 of Adobe Camera Raw, the raw-image converter plug-in for regular … Read more