Feel safe using Firefox and/or Mac OS X? Don’t. This article discusses recent research showing both are subject to a number of vulnerabilities. Not as many as poor ol’ Windows users using IE, but still enough that it’s wise to be wary.
Not to mention the issues in the various media players.
I’ve been a huge fan of Microsoft’s Desktop Search since it was released, it has changed the way I use my PC and is amongst the first things I install on new PCs. I dream of the day they integrate it with their recently purchase, Foldershare (A magnificent free product that allows you to sync your files seamlessly over the net using P2P technology. It also allows you to search and download from any of your computers from any net connected PC as long as your PCs are turned on. Try it now if you have more than one PC and you want to keep files in sync across them.).
To get an improved version of Desktop Search download the beta of the Windows Live Toolbar. The toolbar doesn’t work in Firefox but it does allow you to update Desktop Search and gain a couple of great features. It installs a new toolbar in Outlook that allows you to save Desktop searches as virtual folders within Outlook – so now Outlook can display search results that include files as well as emails/tasks/appointments. It also changes the Windows default search function (found on the Start menu) to use Desktop Search which means the end of searches that won’t ever find what you’re looking for.
Linux is A European threat to ‘our’ (.us) computers proves how well trolling works.
Windows XP users in some countries who use Windows Update have got a new tool on their machines: the Windows Genuine Advantage Notification. Basically if it reckons your Windows installation isn’t legit, it’ll pipe up “This copy of Windows is not genuine. You may be a victim of software counterfeiting” on the logon screen, with similar messages appearing as popups at random times.
Could be irritating enough to get people to cough up. I’m sure it won’t be long before it’s hacked into submission, of course. Meanwhile Office is joining in with an Office Genuine Advantage verification being pilotted.
Apple launches Boot Camp, to allow Intel Macs to run Windows. There’s already some screen grabs of it running.
As one commenter said: Wow – this is GREAT! Now I can combine the overpriced hardware with the inferior software!
As Ed Bott points out running Windows through virtualisation would be even better. MS’s Virtual PC doesn’t currently run on Intel Macs, but evidently they’re working on it.
Microsoft Says Recovery from Malware Becoming Impossible
“When you are dealing with rootkits and some advanced spyware programs, the only solution is to rebuild from scratch. In some cases, there really is no way to recover without nuking the systems from orbit,” Mike Danseglio, program manager in the Security Solutions group at Microsoft, said in a presentation at the InfoSec World conference.
It’s the only way to be sure.
Here’s a nice list of Australian phone system test numbers, with perhaps the most useful being 12711 (check long distance carrier preselection) and 1800 801 920 (check own number).
They’ve done it: Windows XP is now bootable on an Intel Mac.
Could this be Microsoft’s attempted iPod killer? Origami. Clues on a vague marketing web site. SMH: Microsoft confirms Origami. Leaked advertising video.
Actually looks more like a sub-tablet, PSP-type device to me.
Apple embeds a poem into MacOS:
Your karma check for today:
There once was a user that whined
his existing OS was so blind
he’d do better to pirate
an OS that ran great
but found his hardware declined.
Please don’t steal Mac OS!
Really, that’s way uncool.
(C) Apple Computer, Inc.
Last October the FCC approved a new cordless phone technology in the USA. It’s called DECT… yep, the same DECT those of us in Europe and Australia and elsewhere have been using for about a decade.
As it happens there’s been research floating around that identifies DECT as causing tumours. Is it true? A lot of the information is coming out of the anti-mobile phone tower or anti-powerline movements, which the cynic in me says is just speculation. Likewise, much of the research into radiation from GSM and other mobile phones originates with the phone companies. Vested interests galore.
Even the research from elsewhere seems to be inconclusive, since it’s not an easy thing to detect.
My conclusion is: I don’t know. One could dismiss the risks out of hand, but I always have in mind the stories of my mother as a teenager in the 1960s, getting her foot measured in shoe shops by the use of X-rays. What seems like a useful, safe technology now might seem ludicrously dangerous in decades to come.
So I don’t avoid use of my DECT cordless phone and my GSM mobile phone completely, especially since they’re so damn convenient. But nor do I keep a phone bolted to my head all day. Moderation, as with all things, is the key.