I’ve been keeping an install of Vmware virtual Server through their beta and Release Candidate phase and have seen several places that they’ve released the 1.0 version today. This release is free (as in no charge.) Although support is available….
On the heels of yesterdays massive update day from Microsoft, Adobe has released an update for the free Adobe Reader. The Adobe reader is one of those ALMOST essential applications that MOST everyone has installed. So, this will be of particular interest to MOST computer users. A SERIOUS security flaw (They’re tagging it CRITICAL) could be exploited with a specially crafted PDF file in version 6.0.4 (or earlier – back to 6) of the Reader for Mac or Windows.
Version 6.0.5 has been released to address this. It should be noted that the current newest version available is 7.0.8….
I’ve seen a couple places referring to some improvements in the way google maps handles zooming and so I decided to take a look in Firefox. The zoom handling of Google maps is the one thing that I’ve wished for an improvement in for some time. After noticing MSN’s virtual earth had the capability of scroll wheel zooming, I really wanted it in Google Maps.
I don’t know much about the dv format, except that it is a standard format that many camcorders use. For this reason, many video editors (such as kino for linux) prefer to see files coming in dv format. The problem I ran into is that the new handycam dvd puts images in .VOB files (which are really MPG). So, I found this handy script… that runs on Mac or Linux and is called mpeg2dv. It does the trick and is public domain. The only requirement I can see is ffmpeg.
Well, the Sony Handycam DCR-DVD405 that I ordered from Amazon has arrived today (ordered the 5th of July, arrived the 11th with the “slow boat” free shipping option.) I’ve had it long enough to charge batteries, set time and do a few still pictures and a few short video clips. So, these will be my initial impressions, and I’ll likely follow up later with further thoughts/experience/etc. This was certainly not a small purchase for us and I spent quite a bit of time narrowing down choices. I really wanted a dvd based recorder. The idea of having it already in a format that we could archive was a real plus there. Yes, I might pull it onto the computer for editing, but life will be much simpler if I don’t HAVE to….
and they affect no fewer than 18 issues in Office and Windows. 13 issues are tagged as critical, others as important. They are all bundled into 7 update downloads. 8 vulnerabilities within Excel have been addressed in all of this. Office 2000 users will have to manually update (Office XP/2003 updates can be brought in through Microsoft Update.) It looks like the flaw I found most interesting was a remote code execution vulnerability in the DHCP client… .(Affects 2000/xp and 2003).
From time to time I’ve done product reviews on this site and I’m getting ready to do a first impression review on something else. I’d like to take a step back though and give you my thoughts on product reviews in general and their value (or lack thereoff…) I usually take product reviews in a magazine with a grain of salt for a number of reasons. One of those reasons is who pays their advertising bills, maybe the editorial board of a publication is fond of a certain product for financial reasons…. also, they usually get the sample for free, so there’s a disconnect in the VALUE assessment of a product…
The SecurityFix reports on this clever two-factor authentication phishing attempt. They were looking for Citibank Business customers and in addition to username password information they were looking to verify a supplied token. The bottom line is that phishers will look to find any way possible to social engineer you out of your information credentials, whether they’re one-factor, two-factor or three factor, etc….. It appears as though it was a well done phish with a few exceptions and that it even checked some credentials by the citicard site giving an error message if you entered invalid login info.
There are articles out about the demise of official Windows 98 and ME support would be a boost to linux uptake. Realistically, I suppose it may, but I personally am not holding my breath. Here’s why. 1) The people still running Windows 98/ME are likely doing so because that’s what came with their PC. There is a common perception that ~6 is a point where they might replace it anyway with a new pc. 2) IF you’re running Windows98 on original equipment (as opposed to someone that opted for 98 instead of xp on a slightly newer system, or has upgraded from the original equipment.) You might be frustrated with the performance of MOST linux distributions on your equipment. Let’s face it, linux can run on most anything, but most of the distributions that people HEAR about focus on newer hardware….
I have spent about a week with the 2x page open in one of my browsers. I’ve been trying to get to know PXES’ new incarnation. For background. PXES was hosted on sourceforge.net and was an attempt at making a multi-protocol thin-client boot distribution…. In other words, among the files released were iso images that you could use to boot up and select to be a thinclient for rdp, vnc, xdm, nx (compressed and optionally encrypted x), citrix, etc. What was really interesting to me is that you could also customize your disc to only connect to a specific protocol (or hard code a disc to only be a client to a specific server address.)
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