Fonts break after Windows security patch KB2753842

UPDATE: The security update is now fixed and everything works fine.

We have seen many problems during the last years with updates and patches but this one is really strange. After the security update KB2753842 was applied on 12/12/12, programs that use the vector “side” of fonts cannot show characters of specific fonts that used to work perfectly. You can see the font in the font list, you can select it but the font doesn’t work. This happens with programs like CorelDraw, Adobe Flash, Expression Design etc. Word, InDesign and programs that use the font as bitmap work fine.

Microsoft identified an exploit with the GetGlyphOutline() API call, made a change and everything collapsed. The 12/12/12 date would leave an entry in computer history… So, we are waiting for a fix on this. If you just remove the security update and reboot, things are back to normal (but we are still open to a possible hack). The problem appears on Windows XP, Vista, 7, 8, Server 2003, 2008, R2, 2012 (even Windows 8 RT) and some OpenType or TrueType fonts (not all of them).

Instructions to remove the update:

  1. Click on the “Start” button, click on “Control Panel” and then double-click on the “Add/Remove Programs” icon.
  2. Click the “Show Updates” check box at the top of the window and wait for the list of installed updates to appear.
  3. Click on the update you wish to remove, click the “Remove” button and then restart your computer. The update is now successfully removed from your computer.

Don’t forget to change the automatic updates to manual otherwise it will be reinstalled. As soon as there is a fix for this issue, you can change updating to auto.

http://graphics-unleashed.unleash.com/2012/12/windows-update-kb2753842-will-make-some.html

http://connect.microsoft.com/Expression/feedback/details/774232/microsoft-update-kb2753842-opentype-ps-outline-bug

http://forums.adobe.com/thread/1113943?tstart=0

Windows Phone 8 demo

MegaGeek's avatarA Different Perspective on Tech

Wanting to know more about Windows Phone? Like the idea of live tiles but still wanna try them out before you switch? Have an iPhone or Android device? Microsoft just released the Windows Phone 8 demo site for the aforementioned devices. All you have to do is head on over to wpdemo.com on your phone or scan the barcode that appears on your PC and you will be introduced to many of the new and great features of Windows Phone 8.

Update: Apparently it works on the PC as well

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Facebook And Microsoft Are Working On A Deal, And It Could Change Everything About Advertising

Alicia J. Alexander's avatarSpiceofyourLife

See on Scoop.itSmall Business Development

Facebook may acquire the key product behind Microsoft’s $6 billion aQuantive purchase.

Facebook and Microsoft are working on a deal that, if completed, would put Facebook one huge step closer to launching an ad network that could rival Google’s in size, and change the way advertising is done online forever.

According to several industry sources, Facebook is in negotiations with Microsoft to buy Atlas Solutions, the ad-serving product Microsoft acquired when it bought aQuantive for $6 billion in 2007.

Our sources are outside of Facebook and Microsoft.

Microsoft has been trying to sell Atlas for years, and one of our sources is close to a company that was interested in buying it. In recent days, Microsoft ended negotiations with this company, and said it was moving forward on a deal with Facebook.

Since then, Facebook and Microsoft employees have reached out to other…

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“If this doesn’t work to build sales momentum, however, I’m not sure where else Nokia can find new Lumia opportunities going forward. And in many respects, that’s a shame because the Lumias are a solid line of smartphones that are plagued more by their timing than their actual features and functions.”

Kevin C. Tofel's avatarGigaom

Nokia(s nok) introduced two new smartphones on Wednesday, the Lumia 620 and Lumia 920T. These represent the opposite ends of the spectrum when it comes to handsets: The low-end 620 carries an unsubsidized $249 price tag while the 920T will retail at more than $700 minus any carrier subsidies. Yet, both together represent what may be Nokia’s best chance to gain market share on its peers.

The budget-priced Lumia 620 is aimed at the first-time smartphone buyer and perhaps that’s a good audience to target. Most who have a smartphone have already invested in either iOS or Android apps for their phone, making it a barrier to switch. Some surely will give up their iPhone(s aapl) or Android(s goog) for a Windows Phone(s msft), but so far, relatively few have based on market share and sales figures.

Consider a feature phone owner that hasn’t bought apps tied a…

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Dropbox Launches New Windows 8 App

Abhishek Shelar's avatarTechMad Infodates

Image

Dropbox has announced at the LeWeb 2012 conference in Paris this week that they are currently developing and will soon be launching a new Dropbox Windows8 application which will be designed to be used with and support Microsoft’s new Modern user interface.

It has been rumoured that Dropbox was considering developing a new Windows 8 app, but until today it had never been officially announced.

Dropbox has now now submitted their new Windows 8 app for approval by Microsoft, and as soon as this is complete the Windows 8 Dropbox app will be available for users to download.

The new Dropbox Windows app will work across the both versions of Windows 8, offering access to files, photos and media files stored in the cloud from the desktop but also on Windows RT devices like the Surface.

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Free textbooks for everybody: piracy or disruption?

Is copying Wikipedia articles and assembling a textbook legal? If you sell it, there are issues. But what happens, if you just give it away? Boundless has created a system (with real people behind it) that creates textbooks for specific subjects with content collected from Wikipedia and other free online sources. It then provides you with an almost perfect textbook with the best price in the world: $0.00!

Educational publishers like Pearson and Cengage have already started the fight but venture capitalists are funding Boundless because they see a disruptive trend. A huge discruption actually when you consider that some of these books cost a couple of hundred dollars. A $6 billion industry in the United States alone…

Publishers today operate using what Mark Perry, a professor at the University of Michigan, calls a “cartel-style” model: students are required to buy specific texts at high prices. Perry has calculated that prices for textbooks have been rising at three times the rate of inflation since the 1980s.

Read the full article at MIT Technology Review: Free Textbooks Spell Disruption for College Publishers

Mobile flexibility for you or your employer?

I was reading an older article at the online edition of MIT Technology Review about mobility and productivity. An experiment at Boston Consulting Group with Deborah Lovich, a consultant and head of staff, and professor Leslie Perlow from Harvard Business School turned out to have very interesting results.

In one survey of 1,600 managers from multiple companies, Perlow found that about half checked e-mail continuously while on vacation or just before bedtime. Some didn’t stop there: 26 percent admitted to Perlow that they brought their mobile device into bed with them.

Perlow even wrote a book on this issue: Sleeping with Your Smartphone: How to Break the 24/7 Habit and Change the Way You Work.

I liked this part:

Some companies, particularly in Europe, are starting to enforce time away from e-mail during nonwork hours. Volkswagen has programmed its e-mail servers to stop sending messages to many of its German employees after their shifts end. Atos Origin, a French IT company, has plans to end internal company e-mail entirely, claiming it is a waste of time—only 15 of the 100 e-mails its average employee received each day were deemed useful.

How can we do this? Especially when you work for a company that handles customers from different timezones and different cultures. Weekend is not Saturday and Sunday for everybody out there…

Read everything here: How Is Mobile Computing Good For Productivity?

Windows 8 has surpassed OS X in Steam downloads

Statistics are sometimes very hard…

win7shop's avatarWindows 7 Home Premium Key

To say that Windows 8 has been met with mixed reactions is one of the greatest understatements you will likely read all day. There are those who love it, and those who would rather it simply not exist at all. Valve CEO Gabe Newell has been highly vocal on the topic, going so far as to call Windows 8 a “catastrophe” that has spawned a massive push for Steam on Linux. Apparently these opinions haven’t slowed the adoption rate of Windows 8 among Newell’s own customers, as Steam reveals that Windows 8 users now outnumber OS X users by a significant margin.

Steam’s monthly hardware and software survey does a great job of demonstrating what hardware the average user is packing. There’s not a lot of surprise here when you look at the specs. You’ve got 64-bit Windows 7 soaking up most of the glory, which is to be expected. If you take a…

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Nokia Lumia 920: Detailed specifications (with highlights)

Nokia Lumia 920

A lot of people ask me about the new Nokia flagship with Windows Phone 8. So, I highlighted and underlined all the specs and features that I believe are worth pointing out. Lumia 920 is not an ordinary smartphone. It carries a number of innovations that will be available in the future on other smartphones like the super sensitive screen that can be “touched” even with gloves or the optical image stabilization (you don’t even have this on most of the dedicated cameras…).

There are also many things that can not be described with technical terms but give you the experience of using this device like the fluidness and responsiveness of the Windows Phone software. So don’t get this as a review, it’s a copy of the device specifications from Nokia’s website.

Ah, it also comes in 5 colours…

  • Design
    • Dimensions
      • Height: 130.3 mm
      • Width: 70.8 mm
      • Thickness1: 10.7 mm
      • Weight: 185 g
      • Volume: 99 cm³
    • Display and User Interface
      • Display size: 4.5 ”
      • Touch screen technology: Capacitive Multipoint-Touch
      • Screen height: 1280 pixels
      • Screen width: 768 pixels
      • Display features: Polarization filter, Light time-out, Ambient light detector, Brightness control, Corning® Gorilla® Glass, Orientation sensor, Proximity sensor, High Brightness mode, RGB Stripe, Sunlight readability enhancements, Pixel density 332 ppi, Luminance 600 nits, Aspect ratio 15:9, Super sensitive touch, Color boosting, IPS, Refresh rate 60 Hz, Sculpted 2.5D glass
      • Display height: 97.0 mm
      • Display width: 58.0 mm
      • Display colors: 16.7 million
      • Display technology: PureMotion HD+
    • Keys and Input Methods
      • User Input: Touch
      • Dedicated hardware key: Camera, Power, Volume, Search, Back, Windows Start key
    • Form factor
      • Phone form factor: Monoblock
  • Hardware
    • Connectivity
      • Dual SIM: No
      • Connectors: Micro-USB Charging Connector, Micro-USB Data Connector, Micro-USB 2.0, 3.5 mm audio connector
      • Wireless connectivity: Bluetooth 3.0, Near Field Communication, Wi-Fi Channel bonding, WLAN IEEE 802.11 a/b/g/n, Qi Wireless charging
      • Syncronization: Windows computer companion application, Mac computer companion application, Exchange ActiveSync
    • Data Network
      • Data bearer2: HSPA+ (3G), EDGE/EGPRS (2G), FD-LTE (4G), HSUPA (3G), GSM (2G), HSDPA (3G), WCDMA (3G)
    • Operating Frequency
      • Operating band3: GSM 850, GSM 900, GSM 1800, GSM 1900, WCDMA Band V (850), WCDMA Band VIII (900), WCDMA Band II (1900), WCDMA Band I (2100), LTE 800, LTE 900, LTE 1800, LTE 2100, LTE 2600
      • Data speed – Upload: LTE Cat 3 – 50 Mbit/s, HSUPA Cat 6 – 5.76 Mbit/s
      • Data speed – Download: EGPRS MSC 12 – 236.8 kbit/s, HSDPA Cat 24 – 42.2 Mbit/s, LTE Cat 3 – 100 Mbit/s
    • WLAN features
      • WLAN Security: WPA2 (AES/TKIP), WPA, WEP, PEAP-MSCHAPv2, EAP-SIM, EAP-AKA
    • Power Management4
      • Battery: BP-4GW
      • Battery capacity: 2000 mAh
      • Battery voltage: 3.7 V
      • Removable battery: No
      • Maximum 2G standby time: 460 h
      • Maximum 2G talk time: 18.6 h
      • Maximum 3G standby time: 460 h
      • Maximum 3G talk time: 10.8 h
      • Music playback time: 74 h
    • Processor
      • Processor name5: Snapdragon™ S4
      • Processor type: Dual-core 1.5GHz
    • Memory
      • Internal memory: 1000 MB
      • Mass memory: 32GB and 7GB in SkyDrive
  • Snapdragon™ S4 Processor
    • Performance
      • Do more. Wait less: Tap into faster performance. The Snapdragon™ processor CPU cores enable extra performance when you need it and puts you in charge of running the most demanding applications, including gaming, photography, as well as business and personal productivity.
    • Power consumption
      • Less charging. More doing: The Snapdragon™ processor’s unique asynchronous technology enables each core to power up and power down independently, resulting in maximizing core performance level without wasting battery power.
    • Technology
      • Beyond mobile. And beyond all expectations: Snapdragon™ S4 processor is a highly integrated, mobile-optimized system on a chip that delivers dynamic, immersive experiences and powerful, battery-friendly performance that can put new possibilities in your hands.
  • Software and applications
    • Personal Information Management (PIM)
      • Features (Personal information Management): Calculator, Clock, Calendar, Phonebook, Notes, Reminders, To-do list, Phonebook with integrated social networks, OneNote, Wallet
    • Other Applications
      • Gaming features: DirectX 11, Accelerometer, Gyroscope, Touch UI, XBox-Live Hub
    • Software platform & User Interface
      • Supported amount of phonebooks: One integrated Phonebook
      • Developer platform: Windows Phone 8
      • Software release: Windows Phone 8
      • Development technology: Silverlight, XNA, Visual Basic, DirectX, Java Script, XAML, C++
  • Communications
    • Email and Messaging6
      • Email solution: Hotmail, Yahoo! Mail, Outlook Mobile, Windows Live / Hotmail / Outlook.com, Gmail, Mail for Exchange, Office 365, Nokia Mail
      • Email protocol: SMTP, IMAP4, POP3
      • Email features: Viewing and editing of email attachments, Email with filtering, Always up to date, Multiple simultaneous email accounts, HTML email, Text-to-speech message reader, Email attachments, Conversational view on email
      • Instant messaging: Twitter, Facebook chat, LinkedIn, Windows Live Messenger
      • Messaging features: Integrated text messaging and chat, Instant messaging, Concatenated SMS for long messages, Multiple SMS deletion, List of recently used numbers, Audio messaging, Text-to-speech message reader, Conversational SMS for chat-style SMS, Text messaging, Common inbox for SMS and MMS messages, Unified MMS/SMS editor, Automatic resizing of images for MMS, Distribution lists for messaging, Multimedia messaging
    • Call management
      • Features (Call Management): Voice dialling, Voice Commands, Conference calling, Video calling, Call waiting, Voice mail, Call diverts, Video sharing, Integrated hands-free speaker, Call forwarding, HD audio, Call history
      • Contacts: Unlimited
  • Device security
    • Security
      • Enterprise security features: Remote security policy enforcement
      • General Security features: Remote device locking via Internet, Application sandboxing and integr check, Secure NFC, Track and Protect via internet, Firmware update, Remote wipe of user data via Internet, Application integrity check, Device lock
      • Device startup security: Device passcode, Secure device start-up, PIN code, Firmware and OS integrity check
      • Advance security features: Lost device tracking, Anti-phishing protection
      • Data encryption: User data encryption for device
  • Sharing and Internet
    • Browsing and Internet
      • Internet sharing: Use as a Wi-Fi Hotspot for up to 5 Wi-Fi-enabled devices
      • Supported web technologies: XML, CSS 3, HTML 5, HTML 4.1, CSS
      • Browser: Internet Explorer 10
  • Navigation
  • Photography
    • Main camera
      • Primary camera sensor size: 8.7 megapixels
      • Camera Flash Type: Short pulse high power dual LED
      • Carl Zeiss Tessar lens: Yes
      • Camera resolution: 3552 x 2448 pixels
      • Camera Focus Type: Auto focus with two-stage capture key
      • Camera F number/aperture: 2.0
      • Camera digital zoom: 4 x
      • Camera focal length: 26.0 mm
      • Flash operating range: 3.0 m
    • Main camera features
      • Camera feature: Nokia PureView camera, Touch to Focus and capture in a single tap, Landscape orientation, Geo-tagging, Auto and Manual White Balance settings, Still image Editor, Optical Image Stabilization, Lenses applications, Sensor type: BSI, True 16:9 sensor, Pixel size 1.4 µm, Sensor size 1/3″
      • Camera image format: JPEG/Exif
    • Image capturing
      • Flash modes: Off, Automatic, On
      • Scene modes: Automatic, Night portrait, Sports, Night, Close-up, Backlight
      • Capture modes: Video, Still
      • White balance modes: Cloudy, Incandescent, Fluorescent, Daylight, Automatic
      • Photos viewed by: Camera Roll, Timeline, Photo editor, Favorites, Album, Photos from Social networks
    • Secondary camera
      • Secondary camera resolution: 1280 x 960 pixels
      • Secondary camera minimum focus range: 35.0 cm
    • Graphics
      • Graphics format: JPEG
  • Music and Audio
    • Music
      • Music package: Nokia Music Store, Nokia Mix Radio
      • Noise cancellation: Multimicrophone noise cancellation
      • Music features: Music player, Media Player, Audio Streaming, Dolby Headphone
      • Other Features (Music and Audio): Selection by artist, album and genre, Cloud music playback, Podcasts, Cloud music offline playback, Playlists, Album graphics display, Music recommender
      • DRM support: PlayReady
    • Music format
      • Codecs: MP3, AMR-WB, AMR-NB, WMA 10 Pro, WMA 9, AAC LC, AAC+/HEAAC, eAAC+/HEAACv2
      • Audio format: ASF, Wav, MP4, AAC, AMR, MP3, M4A, WMA, 3GP, 3G2
    • Voice and audio recording
      • Recording: Voice Commands
      • Audio recording file formats: Wav, 3GP, 3G2
      • Audio recording codecs: AMR-NB
      • Speech codecs: AMR-WB, GSM FR, AMR-NB, GSM HR, EFR
      • Audio recording features: Mono with high dynamics
  • Video
    • Main video camera
      • Video playback frame rate: 30 fps
      • Video camera resolution: 1080p (Full HD, 1920×1080)
      • Video recording features: Video Light, Video zoom, Optical Image Stabilization
      • Camera video frame rate: 30 fps
      • Camera video zoom: 4 x
      • Video white balance modes: Cloudy, Fluorescent, Incandescent, Automatic, Daylight
    • Main video camera features
      • Video streaming: YouTube browsing and video streaming
      • Video feature: Video recorder, Video call, Video sharing, Video player
    • Other features (video)
      • Video sharing and playback: Video sharing to social network, Video sharing to Facebook, Video sharing to Skydrive
    • Secondary video camera
      • Secondary video camera resolution: 1280 x 720 pixels
  • Environment
    • Environmental features
      • Eco content and services: Available at Store, Nokia Maps: pedestrian navigation
      • Energy efficiency: Automatic screen brightness adjustment, Battery Saver feature
      • Materials: Free of BFR, rFR as in Nokia Subst. List, Free of PVC, Contains recycled metals, Free of nickel on the product surface
      • Product is recyclable (up to): 100% recoverable as materials and energy
      • User guide: Small printed guide, full on nokia.com, In-device user guide