Now, I’m not going to write and harp on C.J.’s blown save from last night. I believe the radio said that the Rangers were 50-0 when leading after 8 innings, so I mean, it’s baseball, blown saves are going to happen every now and then. When you’ve been lights out for that long, you are allowed to have a setback here and there.

No, last night belonged to Neftali Feliz and even a hard loss isn’t going to take away his electric debut.

With 30 pitches, 21 of which were strikes, Neftali started his career with two perfect innings. Not only did he pitch lights out, he struck out the first four batters he faced. Two of those strikeouts came via his splitter/changeup, clocked at 90 and 91. He hit triple digits three times, topping out at 101.

He throws hard.

There is zero doubt he has the potential to be a truly dominate power pitcher for the Rangers. While his future will be as a starter, I am going to be glued to Ranger games in the middle innings to see if he will get to come in the game.

I know Holland has been touted as the better prospect in rankings, but even as much as I like watching Holland pitch, there is nothing more electric than watching someone walk up to the mound and throw 100+ like it is nothing.

To hell with the Angels playing out of their minds and the fact that we blew a win last night. These are still damned good baseball times in Texas.

Apple has released OS 3.0.1 via iTunes and it is the fix we’ve been looking for in regards to fixing the SMS exploit. I would definitely suggest downloading this ASAP if you own an iPhone unless you would like to allow someone to make your phone act like Skynet.

In following up with yesterday’s story, I saw that AppleInsider had gotten wind of a BBC report that the iPhone SMS exploit should be patched by this weekend via an iTunes update.

For tech-heads that want more detail about how this exploit actually worked, the AppleInsider article detailed it:

The exploit takes advantage of the fact that SMS can send binary code to a phone. That code is automatically processed without user interaction, and can be compiled from multiple messages, allowing larger programs to be sent to a phone. The exploit supposedly exposes the iPhone completely, giving hackers access to the camera, dialer, messaging and Safari. It occurs regardless of hardware revision or which version of the iPhone OS is running.

The technique involves sending only one unusual text character or else a series of “invisible” messages that confuse the phone and open the door to attack. Because users won’t know whose messages to block in advance, there’s little iPhone owners can do but to shut off the phone immediately if they suspect they’re at risk — a real problem as the trick could also be used to make an iPhone send more messages of its own.

Hopefully this will indeed put any fears of possible hijacking by SMS to rest. Again, I will continue to update if I see any more news.

According to a recent Forbes report (and many other reports all over), two researches will plan on revealing a major security hole in iPhones this afternoon (Thursday, July 30th) at the Black Hat cybersecuirty conference. SMS text messages are apparently the culprit as detailed below:

If you receive a text message on your iPhone any time after Thursday afternoon containing only a single square character, Charlie Miller would suggest you turn the device off. Quickly.

That small cipher will likely be your only warning that someone has taken advantage of a bug that Miller and his fellow cybersecurity researcher Collin Mulliner plan to publicize Thursday at the Black Hat cybersecurity conference in Las Vegas. Using a flaw they’ve found in the iPhone’s handling of text messages, the researchers say they’ll demonstrate how to send a series of mostly invisible SMS bursts that can give a hacker complete power over any of the smart phone’s functions. That includes dialing the phone, visiting Web sites, turning on the device’s camera and microphone and, most importantly, sending more text messages to further propagate a mass-gadget hijacking.

“This is serious. The only thing you can do to prevent it is turn off your phone,” Miller told Forbes. “Someone could pretty quickly take over every iPhone in the world with this.”

The problem has been reported to Apple; however, I have yet to see any official statement from them, but I will continue to look for them throughout the day. The best I have seen so far is an article from AppleInsider stating that Apple is indeed working on a fix and was supposed to be out at the end of this month (July) and before the conference reveals the bug too all.

Charles Miller is the one primarily responsible for finding this nice little loophole, and he’s done it before. So I would definitely believe this exploit is legit.

Being an iPhone owner myself, I will definitely be staying on top of this as best as possible. In the meantime, if you see any strange characters in a SMS text message, shut your iPhone off. Of course, if you don’t even want to risk it, you can try keep your iPhone off until this problem is resolved.

Although I’m sure that route will be as easy and trying to cut off a heroine addict cold turkey.

Quick little update: Found a CNET article that describes in detail what this hack can do.

Congrats to TheSpeedGamers who have just now broken their second goal in their Final Fantasy Marathon raising over $50,000 for ACT-Today (Autism Care and Treatment).

Since last Friday, they have been attempting to play through every numbered game in the Final Fantasy series while asking viewers to donate to ACT-Today. Originally, they set their sights on $20,000 which was quickly reached on their third day. Seeing the huge response, they decided to shoot even higher and raised their bar to $50,000.

At around 5:30pm CST, just 30 minutes before the close of their marathon, they hit their mark for the second time.

They have done all kinds of crazy things to try and raise money (beyond depriving themselves sleep playing through these long games). They have eaten Vegemite in several different forms for donations. One commentator performed “barrel rolls” for a donation. They also auctioned off character naming rights in the games, even to the point where one donor threw down $1800 to have every character named Sephorith in FFVII.

They have definitely put a lot of work, sleepless nights, and crazy antics all in the name of charity and have performed a simply amazing feat. Their previous charitable marathons had all raised $32,000 in 11 marathons combined. This turnout has been unreal.

Kudos to everyone at TheSpeedGamers for putting this together and reaching such an amazing goal.

If you wish to donate to ACT-Today, the Chip-In widget below should still work for now.

Ian Kinsler, on his weekly show on 1310 The Ticket’s (KCTK) BaD Radio, he admitted and wanted it to be known “on the record” that every time he swings the bat, he swings for the fences. The hosts even tried to clarify (and give Ian a chance to back off) by asking if he simply meant that he tries to hit the ball as hard as he can. His response was no, he tries to hit the ball as high and as far as he possibly can.

News flash Ian: That mentality can be forgivable if you are in the middle of the order, not in the leadoff spot. Your job is to get on base every AB, not to trot around them. Games are not equivalent to the HR Derby.

Note to Wash: I would hope you knew Ian had this mentality before, and if you didn’t, you sure as hell better know now. Put him in a different spot in the order and let someone like David Murphy or Elvis Andrus lead off — hell even Michael Young would be a better fit. Make sure you get someone up there that will be ducks on the pond for your big sticks, and if you consider Ian one of those big sticks, put him in the middle of the order.

I appreciate Ian’s honesty, but I’d also appreciate it if he would realize his role in the order and would at least attempt to hit accordingly and not try to hit the first pitch out of the park every time he steps up to the plate.