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If you thought those pics of you doing those awful, unspeakable things had been deleted from Facebook's servers, think again. The company has been working on a fix for the problem though - since 2009. Read more...

Another day, another leak of screenshots from Windows 8 build 8220. While the classic desktop is still more of the same, there is a new tasty UI tidbit - and it's not the Start orb. Read more...

One of the most anticipated debuts of a startup company happens today when Nicira, a maker of network virtualization software, comes out of stealth mode.

Cloudyn is launching a hosted service on Monday that aims to monitor a company's cloud usage and recommend ways to optimize that usage in order to cut costs.

As we draw closer to the Windows 8 public beta this month, we've come to learn many different details of what Microsoft is cooking behind the scenes in the new OS, which is expected to debut in final form by the end of this year.

If you're an American and have always wanted a Samsung Galaxy Note and its whopping 5.3 inch display, then you're in luck. AT&T has just announced the pricing of both the handset and contracts. Read more...

Google Chrome's sandbox, plus automatic updates of its components and the Flash plugin, earned a recommendation from the German Federal Office for Information Security. Read more...

The New England Patriots' quarterback Tom Brady admitted this week he viewed the 2011 Super Bowl via a web site that illegally streamed video from the NFL's championship game. Read more...

Research in Motion is cutting prices again for the Blackberry Playbook tablet, with the 16 GB version down to $199, the 32 GB version down to $249 and the 64 GB version down to $299 until Feb. 11. Read more...

Micron chief dies in crash Steven R. Appleton, chairman and chief executive of Micron Technology Inc. and one of the most prominent figures in the semiconductor industry, died Friday when the high-performance airplane he was piloting crashed at Boise, Idaho's airport. The death of the 51-year-old stunned Micron, the well-known maker of...

EMC today announced the availability of its 'Project Lightning' PCIe flash cards, dubbed VFCache, which install into application servers to increase I/O performance.

Memory company Micron Technology has appointed Mark Durcan as its new CEO, quickly replacing the former CEO Steve Appleton who died in a plane crash on Friday.

Microsoft is asking Windows Phone fans and users for their ideas and suggestions to help better promote and market the mobile operating system and their devices. Read more...

In a move obviously destined for the world of social media, Microsoft has trademarked the term 'People Powered Stories', which could form the backbone to a future advertising campaign. Read more...

Microsoft has now issued a statement denying previous media reports that the Kelihos botnet is back in operation, although it did say a new malware variant seems to be on the rise. Read more...

SHA hashing is frequently used with distribution control systems to determine revisions and to check data integrity by detecting file corruption or tampering. For common usage, a SHA checksum provides a string that can be used to verify a file been transferred as intended. If SHA checksums match, the files integrity has been maintained.

Checking SHA1 Hash in Mac OS X

Launch the Terminal, found within the Applications and Utilities folder, and use the following syntax:

shasum /path/to/file

To verify a file named “DownloadedFile.dmg” on the desktop, it would be:

shasum ~/Desktop/DownloadedFile.dmg

This will output something like this:

$ shasum ~/Desktop/CheckMe.zip
ddfdb3a7fc6fc7ca714c9e2930fa685136e90448 CheckMe.zip

That long hexadecimal string is the SHA1 hash.

An easy way to check SHA1 files buried deep in the file system without typing out the full path, is to type the first part of the command then drag and drop the file into the Terminal window. This automatically types the path for you:

shasum (drag and drop file here)

Remember to put a space after “shasum” for this to work properly.

The default for the shasum command is to use SHA1, the most common hash type, but this can be changed with the -a flag if necessary to 224, 256, 384, or 512. Also, though SHA1 is becoming more common than MD5, you can still easily check md5 hash in Mac OS X as well with the md5 command.

Examples of Using SHA1 to Verify Files

A practical use that Mac users may encounter is when downloading software updates directly from Apple, who lists the SHA1 hash of each file offered through their servers at the end of each downloads page. You can see such a string highlighted in the screenshot below. This string allows users to easily verify the integrity of their downloads either from Apple or when the file has been hosted on a third party mirror site.

This is also how it was discovered that OS X 10.7.3 had been quietly updated, and several questions about this spawned this post.

Using SHA1 hash strings are also an easy way to verify file transfers from peer to peer networks and to make sure a download has finished, or that a file was not tampered with somewhere along the line. By knowing the origin SHA1 checksum, you can verify your version of the file(s) in question matches, and determine if the file is indeed valid and has arrived as intended.

The US government shut down 307 web sites this week in a new operation that targeted sites that sold pirated NFL merchandise along with sites that illegally streamed pro football telecasts. Read more...

Microsoft is offering customers who purchase a new Windows Phone device in their retail Microsoft Stores a free one year subscription to their Zune Pass online service until February 14. Read more...

Did you know the split iPad keyboard in iOS 5 includes six hidden ‘phantom’ keys that make typing even easier?

The hidden keys are Y, H, B, T, G, and V, and technically they’re just duplicates of the keys directly across from each other while the touch keyboard is split in two. This makes some of our quirkier and habitual typing gestures still work despite the fact that the user is technically typing onto nothing. Try it out yourself.

I had no idea this existed, but this great find from Finer Things has made the rounds on the web and does a great job of emphasizing how Apple pays attention to even the littlest things in their quest to protect the user from their own error and frustration.

If you have tried to delete Safari, Mail, FaceTime, Chess, Photo Booth, Stickies, QuickTime, or any of the other default Mac OS X apps before, you’ll know the Finder prevents you from doing so. Try to move one of these apps to the trash to uninstall it and you’ll get a message saying: ‘”Safari.app” can’t be modified or deleted because it’s required by Mac OS X.’

That message is more to dissuade you than anything else, because there is a way to delete any of these default apps that are required by Mac OS X, it’s just generally not recommended to do so. For apps like Safari and QuickTime Player, this is particularly true, as other apps may use Safari or it’s elements to function properly (including other web browsers), but for apps like Stickies, Chess, FaceTime, and Photo Booth, you can safely delete them without any mal effects.

How to Delete Safari, Mail, FaceTime, Photo Booth, & Other Default Apps

Warning: There is no undoing the app deletion without reinstalling the individual application or Mac OS X. This will result in permanent removal of the specified applications and could result in abnormal system behavior or improper functionality. If you don’t know exactly what you’re doing and why, this is not recommended. Perform a backup beforehand, and proceed at your own risk.

• Launch the Terminal, located in /Applications/Utilities/
• Type the following at the command line to change to the Applications directory:

cd /Applications/

Now that you are in the Applications folder, you can start deleting apps. You will not get a confirmation of the removal, the app will simply be deleted completely. The following commands will only work when used in the /Applications/ directory.

Delete Safari
sudo rm -rf Safari.app/

Delete Mail
sudo rm -rf Mail.app/

Delete FaceTime
sudo rm -rf FaceTime.app/

Delete QuickTime Player
sudo rm -rf QuickTime\ Player.app/

Delete Stickies
sudo rm -rf Stickies.app/

Delete Chess
sudo rm -rf Chess.app/

Delete Photo Booth
sudo rm -rf Photo\ Booth.app

If you’re comfortable enough with the command line, you could supply the full application path with /Applications/Appname.app but considering the potential for catastrophic error with sudo rm -rf we used the safer method.