Free Republic

Herman Cain may not have to take a lie detector test because, as one investigator claims, he already did - and passed with flying colours. The sexual harassment scandal has shaken Cain’s campaign but has showed few signs of derailing it, as he spoke at Wednesday night's Republican debate to loud applause. In the face of the accusations, Cain said earlier this week that he was willing to take a lie detector test, but only 'if I have to.' Enter TJ Ward, a private investigator who claims to have a fool-proof method of separating the honest from the liars.

If necessity is the mother of invention, patents are its delinquent offspring, providing stumbling blocks to innovation and progress, inhibiting the free exchange of ideas, and restricting our knowledge of how things work, says Richard Hillesley… Pablo Picasso is supposed to have said that “all art is theft”. The assertion may be controversial, but the intention is clear – the creative process, which relies on the evolution of techniques, observation and criticism, is an assimilation of that which has gone before, and all creativity, whether artistic, technological or scientific, walks a thin line between innovation and originality, plagiarism and parody....

Art is about freedom of expression, and it sometimes results in controversial pieces that challenge the social norms or intentionally push the boundaries of decency for one reason or another. But does there ever come a point when artwork crosses the line? A 1TB external hard drive sitting on a white pedestal at the Art 404 gallery begs that very question, the one you have to ask when someone crams $5 million worth of illegally downloaded software into a storage device and calls it art. Credit goes to thenextweb.com for stumbling upon the "5 Million Dollars 1 Terrabyte" exhibit, which...

"Apple has much to learn about securing an operating system, and it could learn how from Microsoft, Roger Grimes writes in the wake of further evidence that Macs are more vulnerable to attack than Windows machines. 'It's taken Microsoft 10 years to turn security from a weakness into a strength. Apple can use the lessons learned by Microsoft to manage a quick turnaround. Apple has already hired one of Microsoft's former security leaders, Window Snyder, and it has adopted a modified form of Microsoft's Security Development Lifecycle programming practices. Apple has the benefit of seeing how Microsoft fixed its past...

Link only - Small-business nightmare: 8 million sites hacked to harm customers' computers

Good morning. My wife just got an iPad and as I am using it, I think it would be a wonderful tool for an uncle who has had a stroke. He is unable to speak well, but his mind is clear and I can see in his eyes the frustration of not being able to get his point across. Does anyone know of a decent text/icon to speech software product that we might be able to get. If it works well, I am sure it will add a quality to his life that has been missing for a while.

Profits at the world's biggest software maker climbed to $5.87bn (£3.6bn) for the past three months, a 30pc increase on the same period last year. Revenues rose 8pc to $17.4bn, topping Wall Street's expectations. It was Microsoft's business division, which includes the Office set of software, that again delivered the growth. Microsoft had business spending to thank for a rise in profits in a quarter that saw consumers abandon personal computers in greater numbers. Sales of the Windows operating system, which comes pre-installed on most of the PCs sold in the world, edged slightly lower in the quarter.

Bill Gates has given Dutch researchers the task of creating a toilet that works without links to water, sewage or power networks. The Bill & Melinda Gates Foundation has awarded Delft University of Technology a grant to develop a way of using microwaves to process human waste and create electricity. The researchers hope the new toilet could be produced at an affordable cost for people in developing countries with limited access to reliable infrastructure. Waste will be dried and then gasified using plasma created by microwaves. The resulting syngas, a mixture of carbon monoxide and hydrogen, will be fed into...

Prosecutors cited a report prepared by a software program called CacheBack, which the state argued showed 84 web searches for chloroform being made on the Anthony computer. The defense would later contradict the CacheBack report with a separate report generated by another program, NetAnalysis. That report returned only one search result for chloroform. Last week, CacheBack CEO John Bradley posted a statement on his website, acknowledging that the 84-search result was an error, and criticizing the state for its use of flawed data. It was Bradley who introduced those results as a witness for the defense. On the stand, he...

John H. Gass hadn’t had a traffic ticket in years, so the Natick resident was surprised this spring when he received a letter from the Massachusetts Registry of Motor Vehicles informing him to cease driving because his license had been revoked. “I was shocked,’’ Gass said in a recent interview. “As far as I was concerned, I had done nothing wrong.’’ After frantic calls and a hearing with Registry officials, Gass learned the problem: An antiterrorism computerized facial recognition system that scans a database of millions of state driver’s license images had picked his as a possible fraud. It turned...

Stuxnet-style malware that attacks computer hardware could put your company out of business by physically destroying the servers, networking equipment and storage resources in your data center. Unlike Stuxnet, however, this type of malware is easy to create. That's the stark warning Itzik Kotler issued at the HackInTheBox hacker convention in Amsterdam last month. Kotler is the chief technology officer of the information security company Security Art. Software attacks that stop the physical hardware from ever working again are known as Permanent Denial of Service (PDoS) attacks. The Stuxnet virus -- which attacked Iran's nuclear facilities -- was so complex...

I am having a problem with some software; specicifally Family Tree Maker (2008 edition). When I open the program, the lines tend to overlap one another, making data entry difficult. I have tried everything my limited computer skills can come up with, including compatiblity (I have Windows 7), but no luck. As I bought this from an aftermarket source, I am not registered, and cannot ask the publisher for help. Any ideas on how I can fix this. I have a new (2011) e-machine computer, and an Envision Model G218a1 monitor. Any help will be appreciated.

Greetings, fellow FReepers. I have a need for some video editing software. Currently running Windows 7 64-bit / AMD Phenom II X4 965 / 8 GB RAM / Radeon HD 6870 1 GB. I'm trying to edit some video from my son's little league season. Dub out some of the more colorful language caught from over-zealous parents, add some music, transitions, simple effects. I have some experience with some basic software but I'm looking to get something that is intuitive while not breaking my bank (i.e. around $100 or less if at all possible). My concern is that I've had...

Diskeeper Corp developed "ExpressCache," software that enhances operating speed of personal computers (PCs) by using a small-capacity SSD as a cache for HDD, and demonstrated it at Computex Taipei 2011. In the demonstration, operations such as booting Windows 7 and launching applications were compared between a PC equipped with a 500-Gbyte HDD (5,400rpm) and a PC using the same hardware in addition to an 8-Gbyte SSD for a cache (made by SanDisk Corp, connected via mSATA). As a result, the software and the SDD halved the time it takes to perform those operations. ExpressCache is software that monitors the read/write...

This week, Microsoft revealed a little of what to expect from the next Windows operating system. With its Windows Phone look and touch - literally - and tiles everywhere, it will be a major refresh, but there's a still a number of unanswered questions. Here are my top five: Can Microsoft keep desktop users happy with Windows 8? In demonstrations this week, Windows 8 is shown running legacy applications like Office side-by-side with the hip new OS. But the version of Windows 8 that runs on the ARM processor won't have legacy support. That creates an OS quandary. While Microsoft...

Isn't it great? You no longer have to buy your software. Why, it's on the "cloud". Maybe even Cloud 9. Like beer, which you never buy, you rent it. It won't take up valuable space on you 1,024 gigabyte hard disk, no updates to worry about, no fees for updating the damn thing. But wait, something ain't right! Let's say you are using Google Docs (and let's not get into the discussion of Google being Communists, as they all supposedly are according to some here. If they support the RATS it's only because we've allowed the RATS to control the...

Trying to find out which software is actually good data wipe software to clean up a hard drive for installation of new OS.

Excerpt: Social networking—that is, the ability to use free form methods of communication from many to many, now, in an instantaneous fashion—changes the balance of power in society away from highly organized vehicles of state control towards people in their own lives. What has happened in Iran, in Egypt, in Tunisia—and what will happen in other societies over the next few years—demonstrates the enormous political and social importance of social networking. But everything we know about technology tells us that the current forms of social network communication, despite their enormous current value for politics, are also intensely dangerous to use....

My wife has convinced me that I should really start making plans to finally tear down my old shop and build a proper one in its place. I have in mind a 20 x 16 footprint building with a second story for storage with a barn shaped roof. I've sketched things out on paper but I need to have a proper print for the permit and for the contractors who are going to build it for me, not to mention coming up with a cost and a budget for the construction. I don't want to reinvent the wheel trying to...

I have need of a software program, but I don't even know the right terminology to describe it for searching. I spend a lot of time out of town running projects on customer's sites. I have to keep track of hours, expenses, samples, etc. I would like a very simple to use program where I enter all this information each evening and it tracks and compiles it automatically. I've looked at some of the PM programs out there and they're about 1000x what I need. I could built something like this myself in Excel, but I would certainly think somebody...