Mobile Malware is Increasing

According to a report by Juniper, mobile malware is increasing dramatically.

In 2011, we saw unprecedented growth of mobile malware attacks with a 155 percent increase across all platforms. Most noteworthy was the dramatic growth in Android Malware from roughly 400 samples in June to over 13,000 samples by the end of 2011. This amounts to a cumulative increase of 3,325 percent. Notable in these findings is a significant number of malware samples obtained from third-party applications stores, which do not enjoy the benefit or protection from Google's newly announced Android Market scanning techniques.

We also observed a new level of sophistication of many attacks. Malware writers used new and novel ways to exploit vulnerabilities. 2011 saw malware like Droid KungFu, which used encrypted payloads to avoid detection and Droid Dream, which cleverly disguised itself as a legitimate application, are a sign of things to come.

News story.

I don't think this is surprising at all. Mobile is the new platform. Mobile is a very intimate platform. It's where the attackers are going to go.

Getting Internet Calendar Feeds on a Windows Phone 7

I use TripIt.com, which exposes a nice iCal calendar feed for my travel details. At first I didn’t see a way to subscribe to my TripIt iCal feed on my Windows Phone 7. But if you’ve setup your Windows Phone 7 with a Windows Live account, here’s an easy way to subscribe to iCal feeds and have them show up on your Windows Phone 7:

1. From a desktop, sign in to your Windows Live account at www.live.com
2. Choose Calendar from the Hotmail menu at the top of the page
3. Choose Subscribe from the calendar tool bar
   
   
4. Select Subscribe to a public calendar radio button, and provide your calendar iCal feed and calendar name in the text boxes, choose a color, then click the Subscribe to calendar button.
   
   
5. Windows Live / Hotmail will process the request and you’ll be returned back to your Hotmail Calendar. You should see your new calendar on the left-hand side.
   
   
6. Now change to your Windows Phone 7.
7. Go to the Settings application, then tap emails + accounts
8. On your list of accounts, tap and hold the Windows Live account, then choose Sync from the menu.
9. Return to the home screen and select the Calendar application
10. Choose settings from the Calendar menu
11. Choose which Calendars you want to include in your Calendar view and assign the colors.

Note: I use a custom domain with my Windows Live account and don’t use the Hotmail email account but can still use the calendar features. You can also disable the Hotmail email on the phone if you’re not using it.

Free Windows Phone avatar prop for Xbox 360 owners

The Xbox 360 is a great place to advertise Windows Phone 7 as the phone’s Xbox Live features are designed to appeal to console gamers. Now gamers can learn about Windows Phone and get a free avatar prop for their trouble.

Here’s what to do:

• On the Xbox 360, switch to the Inside Xbox section of the dashboard.
• Find the tile that reads: Get a free Windows Phone for your avatar/Your avatar is the special guest on Hot Apps with Laura Foy (it’s marked as an Advertisement).
• Watch the video and then…
• You’ll see a zoomed-in view of a Windows Phone. Navigate the cursor to the “Keep the phone!” tile. Click it and download the avatar prop.

Hurry, this is probably a limited time offer.

That’s it! Have your avatar call my avatar. We’ll go out for ice cream.

Fix for "Add STS Reference" missing in Visual Studio 2010

If for some reason, you reset your designer settings or revert to an older version, you will notice that the add STS reference command is no longer available.

To resolve this:

1. Run Visual Studio Command Prompt in administrator mode
2. Run the following commands
   

   cd "C:\Program Files (x86)\Microsoft Visual Studio 10.0\Common7\IDE\"
   devenv.exe /ResetAddin Microsoft.IdentityModel.Tools.VS.VSAddin.FederationAddin

   
   

Getting TFS to Remember You

If you’re like me, you do a lot of development work inside of Virtual Machines. Sometimes these VM’s are not joined to the Windows Domain, so when you launch Visual Studio and access any of the Team Foundation Server (TFS) features, TFS prompts you for your domain credentials. This credentials box does not have the familiar “Remember my credentials” checkbox.

To get TFS to remember who you are:

1. From the Windows Start menu, open the Control Panel
2. Click on User Accounts, then Credential Manager
3. Click “Add a Windows credential”
4. Fill in the fields:
   • In the Internet or network address field, enter the host name of your TFS server
   • In the Username field, enter your domain\username
   • In the Password field, enter your password
   • Click OK

Now, next time Visual Studio needs to access the TFS server it will use these credentials instead of prompting you.

Note: If you change your domain password, you will need to manually update your stored credential.