TechNews

Recently working away, I came across something I had never seen in my life before! The Biggest Floppy drive ever! I did not even know if such a thing even existed. During my life time with computers, the most I have ever come across is a 5 1/4 inch floppy disk, which have long been extinct. The biggest Floppy Disk that I came across the other day, is a predecessor of even the 5 1/4 inch disk, its an 8 inch disk and holds 79 Kilobytes of data.

In a recent report published at ReadWriteWeb.com, it was predicted that we will reach IP address exhaustion for IP addresses in version 4 format by next year (2011). The announcement came from Chief of ARIN (American Registry for Internet  Numbers - An organization responsible for distribution of Internet Addresses in North America). A massive growth in distributed computing architecture and exponential growth in volume of data due to social networking sites is a prime reason why we are reaching towards the 4 Billion IP addresses limit provided by the IP Version 4 format.

In a surprise announcement, Microsoft announced that it is extending "downgrade rights" for Windows XP til the year 2020. This shows that Windows XP still remains the power house powering the corporate workstations. According to Microsoft, this rock solid operating system still constitutes 75% of the workstations in the industry. By extending downgrading rights, Microsoft is allowing consumers who buy new machines with OEM licenses of Windows Vista or Windows Seven,  to install Windows XP instead, without purchasing a separate license for Windows XP.

The most popular Linux distribution, Ubuntu has launched its own IT certification. Canonical Ltd. , the company that actually makes and sponsors the Ubuntu has announced the certification in combination with the Linux Professional Institute, better known as LPI. LPI offers many other certifications as well but this is the first one its doing in combination and support from a Linux Distribution maker. Canonical has taken to endorse the certification in response to industries demand as well as a professional's need.

In a previous article we had discussed how Pirate Bay's iPreadtor service had offered a secure VPN service that allowed users to hide their real IP addresses while downloading torrents (You can read the complete iPreadtor article here) . However new reports have indicated that due to a serious flaw in Bittorrent technology, the users who might be using the VPN services, might not be able to stay "hidden" and anonymous anymore. At a Telecomix Cipher conference, it was revealed how it was possible for third parties to find the "Real" IP addresses of connected users, even if they were behind a secure encrypted VPN connection. You can read the full report at the TorrentFreak website at http://torrentfreak.com/huge-security-flaw-makes-vpns-useless-for-bittorrent-100617/