Computer Tips -Tech Info

I sometimes forget that VLC is cross-platform. Given that linux is my primary platform I’ve used it quite a bit in playing around with streaming a video from one machine to another. Engadget has a great tutorial up on using VLC (Video Lan Client) to stream multimedia content from one pc to another. It’s really a great utility. It’s also available for a variety of platforms including Windows (even CE (PocketPC)), and Linux, OSX…

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The Google reader team have been working on ways to simplify adding RSS feeds to your Google Reader profile. There are a couple ways now to do this (outside of logging into reader and entering the address (or site) and searching for the feed that way. First up is a little tiny button with a plus sign and the text “add to Google”.

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For a long time, email was the primary vector for viruses, before that floppy discs carried bugs from pc to pc. Then came network worms exploiting windows security vulnerabilities which led to the rise of firewalls and the increase in viruses piggy-backing into the system through browser bugs. But, any program that listens for data coming from the network could be an entry way for good traffic, or bad. The Securityfix is talking today about November being a record month for Instant Messenger worms.

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According to Planet Mozilla it looks like we should expect the release of Mozilla Firefox 1.5 at around 3PM EST (12 noon PST). There are no promises, but that’s what I’m seeing, no exact time mind you, but ~around 3PM EST today. Likely once there is an official announcement news will spread quickly and the download servers will get pounded, so I know I’m going to be trying to get in earlier if possible.

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DesktopLinux has the news of a new release of Inkscape, an open source SVG editor for Linux, Max, Windows and Unix.

The program boasts capabilities similar to Illustrator, Freehand, CorelDraw, and Xara X, which also use W3C standard SVG file formats.

I’ve used Inkscape before and I’m not big into drawing graphics, but it’s VERY full featured. The new version is 0.43

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New York’s Attorney General is trying to hold Sony’s feet to the fire. Over a week after the recall of the Sony discs carrying the controversial DRM Rootkit XCP, affected discs were still available for purchase at several retail outlets. From the betanews article…

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Desktoplinux.com has a story on a new application directory for KDE. The directory can be found here and lists all applications that are native to KDE, (or QT). There are ratings for how well integrated into KDE the app is, links to the homepages for each application. (Some may need help with a homepage where none exists.)

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Somewhere along the line, there was a review up of Mandriva 2006 where the reviewer mentioned extremely slow performance in KDE, but on loading GNome instead, things were just fine. I’ve seen some slow KDE performance on the laptop that I upgraded and thought I’d pass along some of what I’ve done to help the situation. For starters, it’s probably a good time to review the main system services (yes I know it seems to be just KDE, but it never hurts to ask “do I really need to leave the webserver running all the time?”)

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InnoDB (and MyISAM) has been the backend MySQL engine up until now, but Oracle’s purchase of InnoDB could threaten that. MySQL has wasted little time in search for replacement options. InnoDB is open source, but there is the threat that Oracle could work a change in the license and make it an “unattractive choice” for MySQL to use as a backend engine. The purchase itself doesn’t automatically disqualify InnoDB, but what Oracle decides to do with it may.

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There’s a local Denial of Service vulnerability in the linux kernel’s ptrace function according to secunia.com. It reportedly is present in kernel’s prior to 2.6.14.2 and is listed as a non-critical vulnerability. (However any security vulnerability should be treated seriously.) 2.6.14.2 is safe and fixes the vulnerability. The vuln was reported “by the vendor”, in this case, the linux kernel devel team.

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