Posted 10/17/09 at 01:30:02 PM by The Maximum PC Staff

I am getting an HP TouchSmart tx2z Tablet PC in the next couple of weeks for college. However, I need to install Windows XP on it, as it’s a requirement for the engineering software I will be using. Is it possible to repartition the hard drive and still keep the copy of Vista that comes preinstalled? If so, how would I do it? I don’t want to pay for a laptop with Vista on it, just to lose it for XP. Especially with Windows 7 right around the corner.

Read the answer to Andrew's question after the jump.

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Posted 09/18/09 at 10:14:57 AM by Pulkit Chandna

Phishers have added another trick to their copious arsenal. RSA, the security division of EMC, recently discovered a new type of phishing attack targeting online banking customers. It discovered phishing sites that contain fake live chat support for plausibility’s sake. RSA put its appellative faculties to good use to come up with a name for this new form of phishing attack: “Chat-in-the-Middle."

The attack proceeds in a routine way with unsuspecting online banking customers being led to a phishing page designed to extract their account details. After these gullible visitors are through with the first page, instead of being sent to another phishing page or to the genuine website, they are lead to a fake live-chat support window. The fraudster at the other end, posing as a customer support personnel, then tries to extract more account details from them through social engineering.

According to RSA, the fake live chat support window is powered by Jabber, an open source instant messaging protocol. “While at this point RSA has witnessed only a single instance of this attack, we are recommending extra vigilance to operators of all online banking websites and other websites where user credentials are targeted,” RSA wrote on its blog.

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Posted 12/09/08 at 10:00:35 AM by Paul Lilly

If you haven't yet made the plunge to Firefox 3.0, you might want to put it near the top of your to-do list (don' forget to call your mother as well). Should it still slip your mind, Mozilla will actively be encouraging users to upgrade.

"With the holidays fast approaching, later today Mozilla will start offering a gift to Firefox 2.0.0.18 users - a free upgrade to Firefox 3.0.4," Mozilla wrote in a blog post, "the very latest and  best browser from Mozilla offering more speed, requiring less memory, and providing the safest and easiest web browsing experience available."

Yes, Firefox is still free, despite what we assume is a tongue-in-cheek blog. But it's not all a laughing matter. According to TGDaily, Mozilla might be making plans to kill off support for Firefox 2.0. Should that happen, those using the older browser could find themselves at increased risk of attack, particularly as hackers have now started targeting Firefox with malware written solely for the open-source browser.

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Posted 07/25/08 at 02:54:27 PM by Paul LIlly

As if the tech community needed any more proof that DRM schemes only serve to hurt paying customers, Yahoo has decided to remind everyone why the whole concept sucks in the first place. Come September 30, Yahoo will shut off support for Yahoo Music, locking customers who purchased their tracks through the service from being able to transfer their tunes to a new hard drive or PC.

Here we go again. Microsoft pulled the same stunt when it pulled the plug on its MSN Music service. Amid community outcries, the software giant eventually caved to pressure and reversed its decision, offering customers a reprieve "until at least the end of 2011."

Who knows if Yahoo will end up doing the same thing, but as it stands now, customers who want to keep playing their purchased music after the end of September are being prevented from transferring their songs to another machine or even performing a clean OS install on their existing PC. Or they can choose to transfer their music library to RealNetwork's Rhapsody music service. And while customers decide between losing their music or jumping through hoops, pirates will continue to snag the songs they want through Limewire, Piratebay, and everywhere else where pirated music runs rampant.

Can DRM's death knell sound soon enough?

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