By Michael Santo
Executive Editor, RealTechNews

It’s no secret that Internet addiction is rampant in China and other Asian countries. Well, a recent survey which indicated that up to 14% of teenagers in China faced addiction problems has alarmed the Communist Youth League … and they have taken stern steps.

The clinic in Daxing, a suburb of Beijing, the capital, is the oldest and largest, with 60 patients on a normal day and as many as 280 during peak periods. Few of the patients, who range in age from 12 to 24, are here willingly. Most have been forced to come by their parents, who are paying upward of $1,300 a month — about 10 times the average salary in China — for the treatment.

Led by Tao Ran, a military researcher who built his career by treating heroin addicts, the clinic uses a tough-love approach that includes counseling, military discipline, drugs, hypnosis and mild electric shocks. Source: MSNBC

We Say: Electro-shock therapy. Whoa, that’s heavy-duty. However, in the past China has had great success dealing with both drug and alcohol dependencies … but has also been criticized for its harsh treatment, as well.

By Kyle Reasons
Contributing Writer, RealTechNews

Windows 2000/XP/Server 2003

General

• assoc

• Used to view and change file extension associations in Windows

• Enables you to schedule one or more programs to run at a designated date and time

• Enables you to view the attributes set for a file and to change one or more attributes

• Causes the system to check for a break key only during standard operations, such as while making input or output (break off) or during all program execution options (break on)

• Enables you to set, edit, or view the security permissions associated with a directory or file

• Enables you to change to a different folder or to view the name of the current folder

• Used to view the currently active code page number or to set a different code page number

• Used to report the disk file system statistics and to correct file system errors such as lost clusters (for FAT and NTFS)

• Used to report the disk file system statistics and to correct file system errors such as lost clusters (only NTFS)

• Clears the information currently displayed on the screen

• Used to start a new NT DOS Virtual Machine (NTDVM) session; a new command line session

• Sets up the foreground and background screen colors

• Enables you to compare the information in two files or in two sets of files to determine the difference in content

• Compress files and subfolders within a folder or removes the compression attribute

• Converts a FAT formatted volume to NTFS at the time a server is booted

• Copies files from one disk location to another

• Enables you to view the date to reset it

• Deletes specified files on a volume

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By Michael Santo
Executive Editor, RealTechNews

A while ago I wrote I was going to give a Vista Upgrade a shot, but I wasn’t too optimistic. In reality, I thought it might be frustrating, but not impossible. After all, I’m a major techie right? Well, currently it’s impossible, and Dell is the one frustrating me. (This is Part 1 … I will write updates as time goes on).

I purchased an Inspiron XPS M1710 over the holidays … a great gaming laptop, and I managed to get a great price for it. I opted for the Vista “Express Upgrade” when I bought it, meaning it will run Vista, right? Wrong.

The Upgrade is only for Vista Business, and I wanted Ultimate, so I bought Ultimate myself. Dell hasn’t even shipped the Upgrade DVDs yet, though they say they will start shipping today. Good luck! I ran the Upgrade Advisor before starting the install. It told me it didn’t have drivers for a buncha stuff … no problem, right? All on Dell’s site, right (naturally I had already gone to the site to download everything)? Wrong. No driver for the Dell Wireless 1500 Draft-N card. Derailed before I even started. And BTW, I had already asked Tech Support about this missing driver and they assured me Vista had an inbox driver for it. Hah.
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By David Johnston
Contributing Writer, RealTechNews

Today I received my PayPal security key in the mail and I figured I would give my first impressions. The security key’s goal is to provide an extra layer of protection beyond the usual username and password. The advantage of the security key over traditional password authentication is that it changes constantly and is essentially “random” to the outside observer. Additionally, if you were to accidentally fall victim to a phishing scam, your login information would likely be expired by the time the scammer tried to use it (within 30 seconds). This makes it nearly impossible for anyone to illegally access your PayPal account, even if he or she has your username and password. In my opinion, you can never be too careful when it comes to keeping your accounts safe, so when I heard about the PayPal security key, I was quick to sign up.

The device itself is fairly small and made of cheap-feeling and hollow-sounding plastic. Considering the device only cost me $5 I wasn’t expecting something too fancy, so this was no surprise. It comes with a nice attachment which easily slides onto your existing key ring. It’s also very simple to use; it has only one button. When you press the button, a 6-digit numeric code will appear on the screen for 30 seconds. This is the key that you need to enter, along with your username and password, to log in to PayPal. After receiving the security key, I had to go to PayPal’s security key website and enter two consecutive codes as well as the serial number which is printed on a label on the back of the key. The process took about a minute since I had to wait 30 seconds in-between key codes but after that I was done. Now whenever I want to log in to PayPal, I must enter the code that shows up on my security key. It adds a few seconds to the log-in process but it’s worth it to me to know that my account is that much safer. As an added bonus, the key also works with eBay accounts, so I can use the same security key with both my eBay and PayPal accounts. That’s not too surprising given that eBay owns PayPal, but it is nice nevertheless to get this integration with both services. All in all, I’m very satisfied so far. I’ve tested the log-in process on both eBay and PayPal and it works perfectly.

We say: This idea seems to be catching on rather quickly, as E*Trade has also started an identical program for use with its services (but they’re charging $25). These devices are certainly no substitute for good security habits, such as using complex passwords (and keeping them secret), but they are an excellent addition for anyone worried about their online security. Given that hackers can also get your login information by hacking companies’ servers, I cannot recommend these devices enough. Better safe than sorry!

By Alice Hill
RealTechNews

After two hard drive failures (curse you Hitachi, you are dead to me!) it was time to get serious. Here’s a handy utility called HD Tune that does everything except raise your old drives from the dead. Features include:

* Benchmark: measures the raw performance
o Transfer Rate
o Access Time
o CPU Usage
o Burst Rate
* Hard Disk information which includes partition information, supported features, firmware version, serial number, disk capacity, buffer size, transfer mode
* Hard Disk Health
o S.M.A.R.T. Information (Self-Monitoring Analysis and Reporting Technology)
o Power On Time
* Error scan
* Temperature display
* Copy text to clipboard
* Copy screenshot to clipboard

We Say: It even measures temperature? What more can you ask for? Download it Here. Source: HDTune.com

By Michael Santo
Executive Editor, RealTechNews

Over 1700 Connecticut state workers were recently informed that their personal info, including Social Security numbers and names have been posted to the Internet. Even worse, the information may have been there since 2003!

The employees were notified by letter just last week. State officials apparently learned of it last month when a state worker found his name on a site.

“With all the attention that has been given to similar losses of data at the Veterans Administration and at banks and universities, I would have thought somebody would have been a lot more careful with that information,” said Ken Clair, one of the 1,753 state employees who received one of the letters. Source: USA Today

We Say: Apparently the information was not accessible by link, but only by searching by name. However, you would think they would offer them free credit monitoring service for a year, as often happens in these cases. Instead “those affected workers have been advised to monitor their personal finance records the next few months”.

By Chief Gizmateer
Contributing Writer, RealTechNews

I’ve been tooling around Google Earth for the last couple of days while following the 2007 Round-The-World Flight Simulator Race and would love a better way to fly around the application when I remembered my visit with Logitech at CES. 3Dconnexion, a Logitech company, has an award-winning 3D navigation devices that unlocks the power of 3D applications.
Whether flying through three-dimensional worlds or manipulating 3D objects, users can easily move in the 3D world by avoiding repetitive mouse clicks to perform simple navigation tasks.

Simply push, pull, tilt and twist the controller cap to simultaneously pan, zoom and rotate 3D imagery with over 100 of today´s most popular and powerful 3D applications for visualization and design including, Google Earth™, Google SketchUp™, Autodesk Inventor®, SolidWorks®, Autodesk® Maya® and many, many more.

I was able to pick up the feel of the 3Dconnexion device within seconds and fly around Google Earth and I’m not known as the most coordinated of people.

Source: Gizmos for Geeks

By Chief Gizmateer
Contributing Writer, RealTechNews

Leave it up to the crafty members at SlingCommunity to sniff out new hardware from Sling Media before any kind of announcement! Yesterday Brandon C. found a listing on Amazon for a brand new model SlingLink Powerline Ethernet Bridge, called the SlingLink Turbo, boasting some new features and updated specs.

According to Amazon, the anticipated shipping date is February 27th, 2007. However, Sling Media has not yet made any official announcement regarding availability.

The new SlingLink doesn’t look like a full replacement to the original SlingLink… more of a “PRO” verision. The original offered 14 mbps (max) transfer rates, but was intended to connect to one device at a time. The Turbo’s built in 4 port switch at 85 mbps (max) transfer speed hints that this is a solution geared for not only running a Slingbox in a remote location, but any other home entertainment gear that may be there as well, like a game console or DVR.

Source: Sling Community