Hackers have used a security flaw in Microsoft’s Windows operating system to infect computers with the the Duqu virus, Microsoft has admitted.

“We are working diligently to address this issue and will release a security update for customers,” Microsoft said in a statement.

The Duqu virus, which was discovered in October by Symantec, is thought by some experts to be the next big cyber security threat. It shares some of the code with Stuxnet, a malicious worm which targeted Iran’s nuclear program, but Duqu is specifically created for gathering intelligence data from agencies and corporations.

Microsoft’s statement did not include any additional details, but Symantec discovered that Duqu was initially infecting systems through a compromised Microsoft Word document which installs the malicious software after it’s opened.

Duqu infections have currently been confirmed in several countries, including France, Netherlands, Switzerland, India, Iran, Ukraine, Sudan and Vietnam.

[via Reuters, Symantec]

Image courtesy of iStockphoto, goldmund

More About: Duqu, microsoft, virus

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Computer giant Microsoft’s official YouTube channel appears to have been hacked Sunday morning. All of the official videos, including recent ad campaigns, have been removed from the account. In their place are short clips soliciting advertisers, not surprisingly, as the channel has some 24,000+ subscribers.

As of 1:30 p.m. ET, four videos have been uploaded to the account, all time-stamped within the past two hours. A fifth video, most recently uploaded, seems to have been removed. The video, “Garry’s Mod – Escape the Box,” featured what appeared to be an animated gunman shooting at the inside of a construction box.

The channel’s description reads, “I DID NOTHING WRONG I SIMPLY SIGNED INTO MY ACCOUNT THAT I MADE IN 2006 :/.”

More About: hacking, microsoft, YouTube

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However, when you hit a roadblock with CSS, take it up a level by using JavaScript (JS).

Open source JavaScript libraries can help you craft responsive web designs (a technique that optimizes webpage layouts for mobile devices), implement fun text effects and more. In this post, we will primarily focus on JavaScript libraries that use modern web typography techniques to underscore and promote current web design best practices.

1. Kerning.js

Kerning.js is an open source JavaScript library that promises web designers complete control of web typography. According to the developer of the project, Joshua Gross, the library is admittedly a “work in progress.” However, by extending CSS, it doesn’t need JS programming outside of referencing the library in your HTML. Simply use Kerning.js’s custom CSS properties such as -letter-kern and -word-color.

With this excellent JavaScript library, you can achieve a variety of type techniques normally associated with print design and desktop publishing, such as perfect kerning and conditional fallback fonts for your @font-face rules.

See live demo.

Click here to view this gallery.

Image courtesy of iStockphoto, Punkle

More About: design, dev, features, javascript, typography

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The Occupy Wall Street movement, a series of nationwide demonstrations that opposes corporate greed and social inequality, has caught fire this past week.

Professional unions joined with the protesters last week, including the United Auto Workers, the United Federation of Teachers and National Nurses United. Several political figures have shown support as well, such as Vice President Joe Biden and Democratic House Minority Leader Nancy Pelosi. U.S. Treasury Secretary Timothy Geithner and Federal Reserve Chairman Ben Bernanke have both said that they sympathize with Occupy Wall Street protestors’ feelings of anger towards big banks’ role in the financial crisis.

The Occupy Wall Street movement began in July after anti-consumerist group Adbusters called for an occupation of Wall Street on Sept. 17. It quickly gained support from groups like Anonymous, who managed to slow and then shut down NYSE.com from about 3:35 p.m. to around 3:37 p.m. today.

Around 1,000 protesters showed up for the first protest. Over the subsequent four weeks, the protests have gained steam and have drawn the attention of the mainstream media. The protests have also expanded — about 1,400 Occupy Everywhere communities have taken form on Meetup.

The web chatter about #OccupyWallStreet has been significant as well and has been a large part of how the protesters have communicated. The protests were the subject of more than 0.5% of all tweets at its peak on Saturday, Oct. 1 according to Trendistic.

One Tumblr blog, We Are The 99 Percent, allows protesters and sympathizers to upload stories about why they protest, or why they support those who march. Most submissions include stories of financial and personal woes, as well as stories of how “Corporate America” has failed them in some way or another. The protests have even spurred at least one Craigstlist Missed Connection: two people arrested together on the Brooklyn Bridge and were in neighboring jail cells afterwords.

Protester videos and photos have also become widely circulated, most notably a video that quickly went viral on YouTube of alleged police brutality. The protesters have also created their own newspaper, called the Occupied Wall Street Journal. You can see the first edition of the publication here.

Are you there? Please share any pictures you may have with the Mashable community by uploading to the widget below, or tell your story in the comments section.

So you can get a scope of the protest, we have embedded a livestream below.

Livestream: Occupy Wall Street

More About: Occupy Wall Street

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Dungeon Masters, start your engines. Dungeons & Dragons, the original table-top role-playing game, is coming to Facebook.

Atari has created a new social game for Facebook called Dungeons & Dragons: Heroes of Neverwinter.” Players can customize their own characters, find loot and fight ghastly, digital beasts.

The app looks much like a top-down strategy game — and somewhat similar to the actual style of the tabletop version.

While the game is known for long sessions and user-created narratives, Heroes of Neverwinter offers short bursts of gameplay and a largely standardized plot from the game’s creators. Fans of the slower, more complex original might decry this as breaking from the game’s root, but it’s probably a smart move to appeal to social gamers which are, for the most part, casual users who play for shorter periods of time.

The game will feature more than 50 dungeons, 40 monsters, 30 skills and hundreds of items. Gamers can play solo, recruit friends, or even become a sort of digital Dungeon Master and come up with their own mini-narratives as side quests.

Heroes of Neverwinter, which is currently in open-beta, joins a group of other games targeted to nostalgic players. Oregon Trail received a social gaming update for Facebook, and The Sims Social has been one of the top Facebook games since its launch at the end of summer.

It’s good to know Heroes of Neverwinter hasn’t foregone the traits that made its tabletop ancestor so popular. But will it be able to attract new users without alienating its base? If a sentence like: “Legions of Halflings, Dragonborn, and Eladrin will sharpen their blades and ready their spells as Facebook players around the world create their unique heroes and set forth for adventure!” appeals, this social game might just have some legs.

Will you gear up for Dungeons & Dragons as a social game? Let us know in the comments.

More About: Facebook, Gaming, social gaming

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Twitter announced Monday that it will soon begin reformatting all links posted to its service with t.co, regardless of length.

Previously, only links that were 20 characters or greater were reformatted with t.co.

T.co is Twitter’s official URL shortener, which is designed to prevent malware and phishing attacks. Unlike other URL shorteners, such as bit.ly, Twitter displays the domain name in full so users know what they’re clicking on. Existing URL shorteners, such as bit.ly, will continue to function as normal, although fewer characters will be displayed.

For example, if you entered this YouTube URL:

It would appear as a shortened version of the original URL:

This same process will now apply to shorter links as well.

More About: t.co, Twitter

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The sound-free video, above, leaked on the Japanese forum AppVV.com, appears to show a 4S being put through its paces. The BrowserMark number is significant as it’s roughly double the number you’ll get on an iPhone 4 running iOS 5 — meaning the iPhone 4S will browse the web at twice the speed of its predecessor.

The site does not explain how the phone was obtained ahead of launch. So how do we know it really is an iPhone 4S? Because Siri appears to be baked right into the OS — note the preferences screen that allows you to select English (in Australian, British or American dialects), French or German. Also note the options to have Siri talk back and to activate the service when you lift the phone to your ear.

Want to learn more about Siri? We have its history, and an interview with the app’s co-creator, here.

[Via Macrumors]

More About: apple, iPhone 4S, siri, Video

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Considering the nature of a web-based e-mail contact form we are also required to dive into two separate application fields, which is the PHP backend code for sending email and jQuery functions for rich user interface. By the end we will be left with a fully dynamic and functional contact form written with later customization in mind.

Get started now to build your own advanced contact form!

Shortcut to:

• Demo – Get a preview of what you are building
• Download – Download all files (php + css)

Structuring the Application

To get started you’ll need some type of web server to work over. If you’re running a Windows machine WAMP is probably your best option. Mac users have a similar program named MAMP which is just as easy to install.

These packages will set up a local server on your machine with full access to PHP. Alternatively if you own server space or have full server access into a remote location you may use that instead. We are not going to need any MySQL databases, which should simplify things a bit.

Once your server is set up create a new folder to house the application. You can name this whatever you’d like as it isn’t detrimental or even related to the final product. The folder structure will be used when you access your files in a web browser. A simple example would be http://localhost/ajaxcontact/contact.php

Let’s Build our Files!

We will only be working within 2 core files. We’ll first need a core .php file to house not only our application logic, but also frontend HTML markup. Below is sample code taken from our starting file.

<!DOCTYPE html>
<html xmlns:fb="http://www.facebook.com/2008/fbml" xml:lang="en" lang="en">
<head>
<title>HTML5/CSS Ajax Contact Form with jQuery</title>
<script type="text/javascript" src="http://ajax.googleapis.com/ajax/libs/jquery/1.4.2/jquery.min.js"></script>
<link href="styles.css" rel="stylesheet" type="text/css" />
</head>

To begin we have written a simple heading section to our document. This includes a general Doctype declaration for HTML5 and some HTML/XML document elements. These aren’t exactly required, but will ease the rendering process in older (and newer) browsers. Also it never hurts to offer more information.

A bit further down we can see 2 lines right before our closing heading tag. The first includes our jQuery script from the online Google Code Repository. This is required for our dynamic page errors to work. Directly below this we have the inclusion of a basic CSS document containing all of our page styles.

Inside our document body we have a few containing divisions withholding a main contact form. This houses 3 input elements for the user’s name, e-mail address, and personal message. The HTML markup is fairly standard and shouldn’t boggle the mind of any intermediate developer.

<!-- @begin contact -->
<div id="contact" class="section">
	<div class="container content">

	 <?php if(isset($emailSent) && $emailSent == true) { ?>
     	<p class="info">Your email was sent. Huzzah!</p>
     <?php } else { ?>

Here we have a basic PHP conditional code nested within a few page containers. This checks for the set value of a variable named $emailSent and if equal to true, it will display a success message.

Inside our Form HTML

The else statement is what will run on first page load since there won’t be any content to send initially. Inside here we will include a brief collection of form elements and a submit button.

<div id="contact-form">
<?php if(isset($hasError) || isset($captchaError) ) { ?>
    <p class="alert">Error submitting the form</p>
    <?php } ?>

	<form id="contact-us" action="contact.php" method="post">
	<div class="formblock">
	<label class="screen-reader-text">Name</label>
	<input type="text" name="contactName" id="contactName" value="<?php if(isset
($_POST['contactName'])) echo $_POST['contactName'];?>"
class="txt requiredField" placeholder="Name:" />

	<?php if($nameError != '') { ?>
		<br /><span class="error"><?php echo $nameError;?></span>
	<?php } ?>

	</div>

	<div class="formblock">
	<label class="screen-reader-text">Email</label>
	<input type="text" name="email" id="email"
value="<?php if(isset($_POST['email'])) echo $_POST['email'];?>"
class="txt requiredField email" placeholder="Email:" />

	<?php if($emailError != '') { ?>
	<br /><span class="error"><?php echo $emailError;?></span>
	<?php } ?>

		</div>

	<div class="formblock">
	<label class="screen-reader-text">Message</label>
	<textarea name="comments" id="commentsText"
class="txtarea requiredField" placeholder="Message:">
<?php if
(isset($_POST['comments'])) { if(function_exists('stripslashes'))
{ echo stripslashes($_POST['comments']); } else
{ echo $_POST['comments']; } } ?></textarea>

	<?php if($commentError != '') { ?>
	<br /><span class="error"><?php echo $commentError;?></span>
	<?php } ?>
	</div>

	<button name="submit" type="submit" class="subbutton">
Send us Mail!</button>
	<input type="hidden" name="submitted"
id="submitted" value="true" />
	</form>
</div>

<?php } ?>
</div>
</div><!-- End #contact -->

You may have noticed there is another conditional block directly after the starting form. This checks for a variable named $hasError and will display an error message upon confirmation. This fallback method is only used if JavaScript is disabled in the browser and thus can’t generate dynamic errors.

All the way down we can find individual PHP variables being checked. The statements are regulating if the form has already been submitted with only partial amounts of data filled in. This is another fallback system which displays the contents of fields already filled out – a nice trick for proper user experience!

Directly after our form completion is the few jQuery functions we’ve written. We will talk over these first since they are the default implementation on pageload. However if the browser doesn’t accept JavaScript then by default we can rely on our PHP code.

Opening to jQuery

The easiest way to get started talking on this topic would be to dive right in. I’ll break down individual blocks line-by-line so you can see what the script is actually checking for.

However if you get lost just review the project code files. All of the full blocks are pre-written and well documented in the jQuery website. To get started we open our code similar to any other:

<script type="text/javascript">
<!--//--><![CDATA[//><!--
$(document).ready(function() {
	$('form#contact-us').submit(function() {

The first few lines are checking for specific event occurrences. After our CDATA comments to hide the code from older, buggy browsers we get started checking for ready events.

The first bit checks if the document has fully loaded and is ready for manipulation. This is a classic technique and the easiest way to start coding a jQuery project.

Once inside we are checking for a form element under the ID "contact-us", and we want to know when it is submitted. Upon doing so we call another function to display our error messages or slideUp() upon success.

$('form#contact-us .error').remove();
var hasError = false;
$('.requiredField').each(function() {
    if($.trim($(this).val()) == '') {
        var labelText = $(this).prev('label').text();
        $(this).parent().append('<span class="error">Your forgot to enter your '+labelText+'.</span>');
        $(this).addClass('inputError');
        hasError = true;
    } else if($(this).hasClass('email')) {
        var emailReg = /^([\w-\.]+@([\w-]+\.)+[\w-]{2,4})?$/;
        if(!emailReg.test($.trim($(this).val()))) {
            var labelText = $(this).prev('label').text();
            $(this).parent().append('<span class="error">Sorry! You\'ve entered an invalid '+labelText+'.</span>');
            $(this).addClass('inputError');
            hasError = true;
        }
    }
});

First we remove any pre-existing errors so we don’t hold any previous messages from before. A few lines down we can see a selector for all elements under the class “requiredField“. These are all of our required field elements – name, e-mail, and message.

jQuery will take the value of each field and remove all spaces from the value. If the content is equal to nothing, then we display an error message next to that field warning our user to fill in some value. Right before the end of our logic there is a bit of Regex code validating the e-mail value.

Lastly we can see if no error is set and check for full input content. If this is the case we call a jQuery method named post(). This will submit our form and check within the PHP code for any errors. Assuming none are found the slideUp() animation is called to hide our contact form and display a “success!” message.

if(!hasError) {
	var formInput = $(this).serialize();
	$.post($(this).attr('action'),formInput, function(data){
	$('form#contact-us').slideUp("fast", function() {
	$(this).before('<p class="tick"><strong>Thanks!</strong> Your email has been delivered. Huzzah!</p>');
	});
	});
	}

	return false;
});
});
//-->!]]>
</script>

If you are familiar with callbacks you may notice the post() function has a built-in set of parameters. Callbacks are smaller functions which are called upon the response of data from another function.

So for example, when our jQuery.post() function successfully shoots an e-mail it will call its own internal function to display the sliding animation. All of this code could be written in its own block and moved elsewhere. However for the sake of this tutorial it’s much easier writing the callback as an inline function.

Breaking past our PHP

The final hurdle to mention is the logic behind our PHP processor. This is the backend system which will actually call a mail function and send out the message. All of the code used in the examples below can be found directly at the top of our main .php file, before any HTML output.

There are also a few internal styles which freshen up the page. There isn’t anything specifically new here so we won’t be going into any of the details. However the styles.css document is included within the project code and contains rudimentary CSS3 techniques.

<?php
//If the form is submitted
if(isset($_POST['submitted'])) {

To start we open our PHP clause and check if the form was even submitted. The POST variable “submitted” was actually a hidden input field added at the very end of our form. It’s a useful way to check if the user has submitted anything yet so we don’t waste server resources.

After this we have 3 separate if/else statement checking to see if each input field has been filled out. I won’t include each bit of logic here since they are all very repetitive in nature. However, to give you a brief example I’ve included the e-mail verification clause below:

// need valid email
if(trim($_POST['email']) === '')  {
	$emailError = 'Forgot to enter in your e-mail address.';
	$hasError = true;
} else if (!preg_match("/^[[:alnum:]][a-z0-9_.-]*@[a-z0-9.-]+\.[a-z]{2,4}$/i", trim($_POST['email']))) {
	$emailError = 'You entered an invalid email address.';
	$hasError = true;
} else {
	$email = trim($_POST['email']);
}

PHP will trim all whitespace from the value and check to see if anything is left over. If so we have a detailed Regular Expression (Regex) to see if our user’s input string matches up with an e-mail pattern.

You certainly don’t need to understand how preg_match() works to build this script. It is a useful function to determine rules and requirements for a successful type of data, but commands advanced programming knowledge to really grasp. In this scenario we are ensuring the user only inputs a select few characters, includes an @ symbol followed by 2-4 characters representing a Top-Level Domain.

After all of our logic passes and we return no errors it’s time to send our message! This bit of code will set individual variables to customize our e-mail message and setup some mail headers for the process.

// upon no failure errors let's email now!
	if(!isset($hasError)) {
		$emailTo = 'your...@googlemail.com';
		$subject = 'Submitted message from '.$name;
		$sendCopy = trim($_POST['sendCopy']);
		$body = "Name: $name \n\nEmail: $email \n\nComments: $comments";
		$headers = 'From: ' .' <'.$emailTo.'>' . "\r\n" . 'Reply-To: ' . $email;

		mail($emailTo, $subject, $body, $headers);

        // set our boolean completion value to TRUE
		$emailSent = true;
	}

If you were wondering how the code was going to figure out your e-mail address, this is the part to fill in. The first variable in our set is titled $emailTo and should contain whichever e-mail address, which is going to receive the message.

Inside our $body variable we take advantage of the \n delimiter to add new lines into the message. This adds small placements for the sender’s name, e-mail address, followed by a break for their message content. Of course you could spend time prettying up the display, but this structure works just fine.

Conclusion

This closes our tutorial for an advanced contact form. If you’d like to style your elements in relation to mine you can check out my example styles.css within the project code. However, the page is structured well enough that you could design your own look & feel very easily.

Feel free to download the source code and examine what I’ve done a bit closer. It’s good to follow a tutorial but having direct access to the project source can be invaluable. I’ve also included a brief stylesheet to make customizations a breeze, thanks for your view!

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Take one look at these multidimensional photos and you’ll think there’s magic afoot, but there’s a reasonable explanation for this. Artist/photographer Ignacio Torres used conventional digital SLR cameras and a bit of fairy dust to create a series of photos that give you a peek into the third dimension.

How was it done? We asked Torrres, and he revealed his secret that you might have already figured out: He combines four images in an animated .gif file.

“I created the images shooting the subject from four different angles,” he says, taking the pictures “all at the same time with a synched flash.” At the same time, he sprinkles a bit of dust and reflective confetti into the scene, and the result is magic.

In this project entitled “Stellar,” Torres is making a deeper philosophical point, channeling Carl Sagan with the notion that “we are all star stuff.” On his website, he describes his “Stellar” project:

“This project began from the theory that humans are made of cosmic matter as a result of a star’s death. I created imagery that showcased this cosmic birth through the use of dust and reflective confetti to create galaxies. The models’ organic bodily expressions as they are frozen in time between the particles suggest their celestial creation.

“In addition, space and time is heightened by the use of three-dimensional animated gifs. Their movement serves as a visual metaphor to the spatial link we share with stars as well as their separateness through time.”

Ignacio Torres: “Stellar”

Ignacio Torres: “Stellar”

Ignacio Torres: “Stellar”

Ignacio Torres: “Stellar”

Ignacio Torres: “Stellar”

Ignacio Torres: “Stellar”

Ignacio Torres: “Stellar”

Ignacio Torres: “Stellar”

Ignacio Torres: “Stellar”

Ignacio Torres: “Stellar”

Ignacio Torres: “Stellar”

Ignacio Torres: “Stellar”

Photos courtesy Ignacio Torres, used with permission

[Ignacio Torres, via Gizmodo]

More About: 3D Photos, animated gif, Carl Sagan, Ignacio Torrres, trending

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Fruitful detail after jump!

What You’ll Be Winning

Each winner will get 8 entirely different logo design samples to choose from within 5 business days after filling out the order form. A team of 2 to 4 designers will be collaborating on each logo design project. For sure you will be receiving customer friendly service, as LogoBee will make any changes requested by client before sending the final kit.

LogoBee has very rich experience on designing different kinds of logo, below is our selection to showcase some of the quality designs LogoBee has done for their precious clients. You can view more designs by visit its official website, then click on the “Logo Samples” on the image slider.

But what happened if you don’t like any of the initial 8 samples? No worries, LogoBee will come up with 8 completely new ones! The best advantage here is for an unlimited time, LogoBee will modify your logo design free of charge until you are, yes, fully satisfied.

It’s not just about fruitful logo samples, below are more advantages offered from this $329 golden design package:

• Unlimited Colors
• Samples applied on business card, envelope and letterhead layout design
• Logo kit with optimised files for the web, printing, and high-resolution image
• Free printing 500 business cards in CMYK (1 name only)

Check out more advantages in LogoBee’s Golden Package page. Also you can understand more about the logo creation process by viewing the Process page, be noted that the step 2 will be skipped if you’re the winner of this contest. If you’re not really quite sure about certain feature or process, friendly LogoBee has prepared a FAQ page to answer almost your every question.

How To Win

Well if you’re our regular reader you will probably know, all we need from you is just drop a comment, that’s all.

So what are you waiting for? Comment before 16th August, and you will possibly be the randomly chosen winner of this $329 golden logo design package!

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