Sony pulls XCP CDs, offers to replace bought copies with regular CDs - Engadget

And the good news keeps on coming. This is excellent. But, one of my initial objections to having to register to get Sony's fix for the rootkit, still stands. This is a customer data mining windfall, for Sony. And, as Engadget says "We’re not entirely sure why Sony had to wait this long to do it"

--MissM

Here Comes RAID 6 for Widespread Enterprise Storage

Many enterprises have begun replacing RAID 5 with the relatively new RAID 6, which can handle multiple disk failures and thereby provide greater protection against data loss.

Enabling data-in-place migration between diverse RAID solutions is perhaps the most significant advantage of the DDF specification. Data-in-place migration is increasingly preferred in large enterprises because it is faster and easier than the traditional practice of backup, reconfiguration, and restore. However, with the rapid growth in data volume and associated disk capacity and the sum total capacity of RAID arrays, IT departments are faced with another serious risk of data loss through latent failures, also known as unrecoverable read errors.

To address this trend, the current draft of the SNIA (Storage Networking Industry Association) workgroup called the Common RAID Disk Data Format Technical Working Group (DDF TWG)specification that supports RAID 6. This means that RAID solutions supporting the DDF specification can also support RAID 6, thereby dramatically reducing the risk of catastrophic data loss during RAID rebuilds.

It's conceivable, a decade down the road, that the 40%-plus rate of storage growth curve will flatten as migration in place reduces the need for multiple, redundant data copies.

Gartner warns business on Vista

Well, duuuuuhhhhh!

No business IT operation rushes into any upgrade and the advice Gartner gives is basically to follow good policy with regard to adopting Microsoft's next OS, Vista.

Even so, the warning is unusually weak on endorsing Vista and reads more like the veiled warnings the hero in a bad detective story gets from some hard case. Really. Gartner points out that most of the features, such as desktop search and an improved firewall are already available from either MS or third parties for XP. They 'pooh, pooh' the enhanced security of IE 7 by depicting it as purely a reaction to defections to Mozilla Firefox by some users.

With friends like this, Microsoft doesn't really need enemies, do they?

More and more, Vista is getting "dead-panned" by those who might influence potential adopters. And there are increasing numbers of hints from journalists that Vista might be pushed back even further. I suspect Microsoft has no one to blame for this but themselves. Even so; it looks as if Vista may debut to only a lukewarm reception by a press and analyst community who have already pronounced it to be nearly irrelevant. No matter the reality of Vista, I'm sure it deserves better than that.

Jack

Freedom to Tinker Blog

J. Alex Halderman's "Freedom to Tinker" blog is almost always good reading and I recommend it highly. The link above is to his take on MORE DRM included in Sony CDs.

Jack

There will be a 2 hour outage tonight

Monday, November 14, 2005

We are planning a two hour outage this evening from 9p to 11p (PST). This is to complete the network maintenance we've been performing over the last several weeks.


--MissM

FAQ: Sony's 'rootkit' CDs | Tech News on ZDNet

"On Thursday, a wave of malicious software appeared in the wild that piggybacked on copy-protection technology installed on hard drives by Sony BMG Music Entertainment CDs. "

'Bots' for Sony CD software spotted online | Tech News on ZDNet

"A first wave of malicious software written to piggyback on Sony BMG Music Entertainment CD copy protection tools has been spotted online, computer security companies said Thursday. "

Sony rootkit prompts office clampdown on CD use | Tech News on ZDNet

"Sony's decision to include rootkit-like copy restrictions on some of its music CDs is prompting some companies to review whether they allow their staff to use personal CDs at work."

Microsoft will wipe Sony's 'rootkit' | Tech News on ZDNet

"Microsoft will update its security tools to detect and remove part of the copy protection tools installed on PCs when some music CDs are played. "

Sun Gets Sparc Niagara Out the Door

Sun this week is unveiling its long-touted "Niagara" processor, the third major rollout in the past two months for the Santa Clara, Calif., company, which is aggressively trying to separate itself from its past as a vendor focused solely on its SPARC-Solaris platform for high-end customers. UltraSPARC T1, which will start appearing in systems by the end of the year, marks the largest advance to date in Sun's Throughput Computing strategy.

The chip offers eight cores per chip running up to four instruction threads each and addresses the growing issues of energy consumption and heat generation by using only 70 watts of power.

I recall being briefed on the Niagara roadmap circa 2000. Sun has had a poor delivery record in Sparc over the past several years. That has hurt the company; some say it has hurt badly. Wouldn't this technology have been market-turning, say, mid-2002?

With today's big Wall Street Journal story on computer power consumption, Sun's eight cores in a 70-watt envelope is the right recipe. Niagara is a big help to Sun's Sparc base, but I doubt it will shake the market's penchant for x64-based servers, in Sun's case, AMD Opterons.

Open source cell phone

Mobile phone maker LG Electronics is showing off a prototype that runs on the SavaJe OS, an open-source Java platform. The LG phone running SavaJe (pronounced ''savage") has a 176 x 220 display and can store a gig of applications and media files. LG may release a phone running on SavaJe as early as next year.

Do I have bad caps?

I need your all's help. I think my ASUS motherboard failed, a couple weeks ago. The blue screen frequency was increasing the last few days. I had various error messages atapi.sys was the most frequent. One time it seemed as if the memory address was between atapi.sys and agp.sys. I eventually couldn't boot at all, so I ordered another ASUS mobo A8V from Monarch Computer. I posted an item from news.com.com about bad capacitors showing up in Dells and many other computers. I thought the "explosion" was more obvious, then I relooked at my mobo and wondered if I had bad caps. So. here's the picture:

Bad Caps?? Please post your opinion in the comments.
Thanks!
--MissM

Update: The first picture did reflect a bit much, so here's another, perhaps more clear

OnComputers on Frappr!

I resisted as long as I could... But, EVERYbody is making their own frappr map. Podcacher, TWiT and Scripting.com, to name a few. So I gave in, and totally on my own, without asking permission, and set one up for us. ;)

Pretty please with sugar on top, help us figure out how worldwide our audience is.

--MissM

OnComputers Radio show Podcast 11-13-05

This is the On Computers Radio show podcast for 11-13-2005. If you prefer, you can download the same file here via ftp. We have lots of Give aways between now and the last LIVE show this year, you might want to listen live for the next 6 weeks.

Some URLs from the show today.

David Notario's WebLog - CLR and JIT Compiler : What is mscorsvw.exe and why is it eating up my CPU? What is this new CLR Optimization Service?


EFF: DeepLinks: "EFF has confirmed the presence of XCP on the following titles

(each has a data session, easily read on a Macintosh, that includes a file called 'VERSION.DAT' that announces what version of XCP it is using). If you

have one of these CDs, and you have a Windows PC (Macs are totally immune, as usual), you may have caught the XCP bug."

Congratulations to Chrissie Cochrane for winning Audio Cleaning Lab 10

Andy Marken interview during the second hour.

Sophos fix for Sony DRM rootkit install.

John C. Dvorak's blog and columns at PC Mag.

Earl won the DVD Copy 4

More giveaways coming up, listen next week, or to the archive, to be posted soon, no doubt.

--MissM

Update: SANS ISC - Sony DRM Rootkit to be removed automatically by Microsoft

Tips: How to Secure Windows XP

This is a readable and useful article for computer users concerned about all they should be doing to secure their Windows XP machines. I would bookmark it.

PC Prices Will Keep Dropping as Component Prices Fall

Gartner says PCs sold in the US for an average price of $960 in Q2 2005, down 15% from Q2 2004. Gartner expects total US PC sales to fall to $59.1 billion 2005. That's down from $59.6 billion in 2004 and a peak of $88 billion in 2000.

Digitimes reports this week that:

• DDR and DDR2 pricing is under a lot of downward pressure, with volatility in the spot market hitting 5% a day.
• CMC Magnetics and Ritek, the top two producers of optical discs in Taiwan, have lowered OEM quotations for 8x DVD+R/-R discs from US$0.20 to US$0.18 for retail chains and distributors in the US, according to industry sources.
• As LCD monitor prices declined over the last five quarters, retail sales skyrocketed, and the market experienced subsequent quarterly gains. Retail LCD monitor prices declined an average 36% from the third quarter of 2004 to the third quarter of 2005, led by 19-inch prices, which declined by a whopping 42% in the same period.

Intel-Inside Mac Arrives January

Well, with no Windows Vista beta 2 to test, what are geeks gonna do those cold winter nights?

Answer: play with a new Macintel, which sage speculation puts at Macworld during the second week of January.

Windows Vista Delayed. Gartner Says Delay Until 2008.

The first completely functional beta of Microsoft Windows Vista, Beta 2, apparently will not be out next month, delayed instead until early 2006. "Completely functional" means all the things Vista is supposed to do are present and accounted for, but may not work correctly, as this is a beta after all. Microsoft claims it is still on schedule to ship before Christmas 2006.

Meanwhile, a Gartner study out last week says no need to rush to install Windows Vista before 2008. Microsoft must love that bit of research and analysis!

Radio Leo | ShowNotes / Show 192

I was listening to Leo's KFI podcast, and he mentioned something I hadn't heard of, that I can recall. Its called the Anti-Spyware Coalition, they are trying to define spyware to protect them from future lawsuits.. They have a report, available online. The option to comment is open until Nov. 27, 2005. According to Leo, modifying the home page, adding url's without notification is not defined as spyware. The document is difficult to read. I think they made it deliberately obtuse, or its typical legal mumbo jumbo. I'd prefer offenses listed by "risk." But, I believe that there are people who check this blog out, that will have some strong opinions about the definition of spyware. There is a link to comment at the top of the report page, and a summary of the comments posted so far.

--MissM

Satire of SCO v. IBM

The link is to a marvelous satire of SCO v. IBM.

Recently, SCO asked the court to order IBM to provide all their contributions to the 2.7 Linux kernel version. The problem is that, while a 2.7 version was suggested, nothing was done with the suggestion. The current 2.6 sreies is taking up all the resources and no one sees a need to start a new kernel at this time. That doesn't stop SCO, who evidently lost their tinfoil hats and are having problems with alternate reality.

Read this one. It is very, very enjoyable and almost sounds plausible.

Jack

On the Effectiveness of Aluminium [sic] Foil Helmets:

Apparently I've been wrong all these years about foil hats and their effectiveness in blocking mind scanning ;)

A very thorough study on foil hats. A good way to start your Friday :)

Happy Veterans Day to all you veterans, and THANK YOU for your service.

--MissM


Update: Another person says there are flaws in the original story. ZPi | AFDB Effectiveness What do you think?

Best Introduction to RSS I've seen.

This is a short VideoBlog (Vlog), superbly produced. Amanda does an overview of RSS and what it is, and what it does. Go! Enjoy! :)

--MissM

Retailers expected to further tighten gift return policies - Nov. 12, 2005

Not that this is really tech related, but as it is the season, its good to make note of it.

CNet's Take on Sony's Withdrawal of Copy Protected CDs

I'm PO'd enough about this that I wonder if it's time for a letter writing campaign or a boycot, or both. Certainly Sony is not getting any more of my money.

People who never, ever care about things like this are up in arms. My wife's parents are afraid and angry! I find that both interesting and quite unique. I've had to remove the thing twice, using the Sophos tool. Even our government, in it's Homeland Security incarnation, tsk, tsk'd at the problem.

I'm not one for this kind of retaliation, but Sony's arrogance angers me so that I think we ought to let them know just how we feel. More on this later, including addresses to write to.

Jack

Sony BMG kills daft DRM CD rootkit scheme

This is good news. However, this rootkit incident has left a lingering sour taste in the mouths of many. Yesterday, a US Department of Homeland Security official cautioned rights holders against the kind of security risks that the Sony BMG rootkit created.

On a more personal note, I had the responsibility this week of researching and recommending the purchase of a camcorder. While I have no idea if a Sony camcorder would have done the job, Sony products were out of the running due to their reckless disregard for the security of their customer's computers. Some time will have to pass and a track record will have to be built before I will trust Sony again.

"Pay to drive in Manhattan? Yeah, right."

From the NY Times article: The idea is to charge drivers for entering the most heavily trafficked parts of Manhattan at the busiest times of the day. By creating a financial incentive to carpool or use mass transit, congestion pricing could smooth the flow of traffic, reduce delays, improve air quality and raise the speed of crawling buses."

The reason for posting this? Well, there are some intriguing technical/security issues, "Drivers could be required to prepay traffic fees, either online or at street-level vending machines. Video cameras would capture license plates of vehicles in the payment zones, and allow the city to match cars to accounts, people familiar with the study said. Failure to pay would result in a fine. No toll barriers would be involved."

--MissM
P.S. Listening to the latest Security Now podcast about WPA encryption. Wanna know more? Check out the podcast, here.
P.P.S. I'm also planning on posting a picture of my motherboard, but have been too busy to take it.

Upgrade the Linksys WRT54G with open source firmware - Engadget

" A couple of years ago, Linksys — under pressure from the open source community — released the firmware under the GPL, and since then, developers have taken it apart and put it back together again, adding new features, including the ability to run the WRT54G as a VPN or VoIP server, a RADIUS server, or even as a full-fledged (albeit very low-end) computer. WiFi Planet has a good rundown of the options available to WRT54G hackers, along with lots of warranty-voiding tips; the site estimates that by upgrading the firmware, you can turn the WRT54G into the equivalent of a $600 workhorse. "
This is neat. Anybody want to experiment on their router, and tell us the results on the show? I have a netgear, so I can't try. But, I thought that we might have some readers that will try it out.

--MissM

Will the Feds Save Blackberry Service?

On October 27th, I blogged that the U.S. government, a major Blackberry user, might just have to go cold turkey when a court enforces an order that would effectively shut the Blackberry service down pending resolution of RIM's legal problems.

How close I was.

The Wall Street Journal reports this afternoon:

U.S. Government Asks Court To Ensure BlackBerry Service
By MARK HEINZL -- Staff Reporter of THE WALL STREET JOURNAL
TORONTO -- The U.S. Government is seeking to ensure BlackBerry emails continue running among its staff if a Virginia court issues an injunction on BlackBerry sales and service in the U.S.

The Department of Justice filed a "statement of interest" in U.S. District Court in Virginia, which is overseeing a patent-infringement battle between BlackBerry maker Research In Motion Ltd., or RIM, and Virginia patent firm NTP Inc. The court plans to examine whether it should enforce a failed $450 million settlement between RIM and NTP. If the failed settlement isn't enforced, NTP plans to ask the court to reissue a previously stayed injunction on U.S. BlackBerry sales and service.

NTP has said any injunction wouldn't apply to U.S. federal, state and local governments. But the filing, submitted by Paul J. McNulty, U.S. Attorney for the Eastern Disctrict of Virigina, said that is easier said than done.

``The U.S. government is a major user of BlackBerry devices and technology to allow its employees to access email, and to send messages, when they are away from their offices,'' the filing said. If there is an injunction ``it is imperative that some mechanism be incorporated that permits continuity of the federal government's use of BlackBerry devices,'' it said.
``There appear to be significant issues with the manner in which any injunction is phrased and implemented,'' the filing said. ``There does not appear to be a simple manner in which RIM can identify which users of BlackBerries are part of the federal government, so that email directed to them can be relayed through the BlackBerry system,'' it said.

In other words, the Justice Department is saying to the federal courts, "Hey, it's OK if you cut off the public but God forbid you should cut us Feds off. Wow, that would be a major inconvenience!"

Ain't democracy grand?

Sony DRM on Macs, Too, But Less Fearsome

Not that I'm sure I'd want RCA (part of Sony) installing kernel extensions on my machine, but the Mac DRM on Sony CDs has been around a while and nothing I have seen makes it a proven threat. In fact; all allegations against it I have encountered have proven false.

Jack

Sophos Issues Sony DRM Removal Tool

The link above will take you to an informational page at British Anti-Virus firm Sophos. Read it and use the link to download a tool which disables the Sony DRM, removes at least most of it and prevents it reinstalling.

Sophos is to be congratulated for such swift action on this. I'm sure others will follow.

Windows users are now taken care of on this issue. Word is coming around that Macs are also affected by the Sony rootkit. Details are still sketchy as I've been unable to find enough information in English and machine translations are inadequate. I'll keep looking.

Jack

Sunbelt BLOG:Bad Capacitors are still an issue.

I thought this was an old issue, but its apparently not, there's a link to the CNET story, with a picture of bad caps. The degree of leakage is way less than I thought, and I may have had some bad caps on the ASUS board that failed on me 2 weeks, ago, I'll definately have to go back and look at it.

--MissM

Strange New Products

There's just too much goodness to post all of the links. Go there and check out the following:

Watch Traffic Cameras on your Cell Phone: Traffic Vizzion is available in 20 major metro areas, costs only $5.00 a month.

3-D Wedding Planner: For the control freaks getting married. You can go step-by step through a ceremony in 3-D fashion.

The Memory Maintainer: This little contraption keeps your car's clock and radio presets from getting reset when it's battery gets changed.

A Basketball That Stays Inflated for 365 Days, from Spaulding.

--MissM

Silicon Valley Sleuth: Yahoo Maps pranks Google

I thought this was amusing, I think this is all in fun. the Dude's site, is bare, though amusing at the layers of the joke. I got there from Google rumors: GoogleRumors ? Yahoo engineers prank Google

btw, beta yahoo maps looks good. Apparently they use Flash versus Google's DHTML but the navigation screen looks great!
Here's a link to Geeks in Anchorage, AK, put your mouse over the map, on the left, it bursts out at you!! Too kewl. If you go to Anchorage's local page you'll notice there's a wireless search, right there ;)

--MissM

Xbox.com | Xbox News - Enter to win tickets to the ultimate Midnight Madness event!

There's only a few hours left to register!!

Enter to win two tickets to the biggest gaming event of the year!
Where is It?

It's somewhere in the Mojave Desert. Top secret.


--MissM

First Trojan using Sony DRM spotted

The virus writers finally got around to taking advantage of Sony's rootkit, courtesy of Dvorak's blog.

--MissM

Visual Studio Express

If you have ever wanted to dabble in Microsoft, here is your chance. MS is offering Visual Studio Express for free. Yes, folks, that is "free as in beer" free. The offerings include Visual Web Developer 2005 Express Edtion; Visual Basic 2005 Express Edition; Visual C# 2005 Express Edition; Visual C++ 2005 Express Edition; Visual J# 2005 Express Edition; and SQL Server 2005 Express Edition. Pretty neat, eh?

This offer will only last for one year -- until November 7, 2006 after which time you will have to pay to play. However, you will not have to pay if you downloaded prior to this date. It really is free. So go and have some fun courtesy of the boys and girls in Redmond.

Most questions about this can be answered by the FAQ .

New worm targets Linux systems | Tech News on ZDNet

"Lupper blindly attacks Web servers, installing and executing a copy of the worm when a vulnerable server is found, McAfee said in its description of the worm. "

World of Warcraft hackers using Sony BMG rootkit

Want to cheat in your online game and not get caught? Just buy a Sony BMG copy protected CD. Sony BMG's content protection software can make tools made for cheating in the online world impossible to detect. The software--deemed a "rootkit" by many security experts--is shipped with tens of thousands of the record company's music titles. Warcraft's anti- cheating program cannot detect any files that are hidden with Sony BMG's content protection, which only requires that the hacker add the prefix "$sys$" to file names.
Thank you Terry B.

Alice Hill?s Real Tech News - Independent Tech ? USB Port to Replace Car CD Players

"A CD changer is two or three times the cost of the USB interface, said Visteon mobile electronics project leader Ian Randall. Those CDs would have only 70 to 80 tracks. With a 1-gigabyte stick you can get 400 or 500 songs."
Thank you Terry B.

OhGizmo! ? Start Your Car Through The Internet

"So, you should be able to get your car started, unlock your doors or even honk the horn through any WAP enabled device."
Thank you Terry B.

Google Wants to Dominate Madison Avenue, Too - New York Times

Google has created what it says is one of the most sophisticated artificial intelligence systems ever built. In a fraction of a second, it can evaluate millions of variables about its users and advertisers, correlate them with its potential database of billions of ads and deliver the message to which each user is most likely to respond.
Because of this technology, users click ads 50 percent to 100 percent more often on Google than they do on Yahoo.
Thank you Terry B.

Singularity - Home

"Singularity is a research project focused on the construction of dependable systems through innovation in the areas of systems, languages, and tools."

Anonymous Sperm Donor Tracked Down by Son

This is an interesting story on privacy -- or the lack thereof in the Internet age. Using recently available DNA testing kits and some web sleuthing, a young man identified the father whom even his mother did not know. Lots of implications on this one...

Cognitive Dissonance: Buy Your AMD CPU from Dell

No kidding, Folks. Dell, the huge online tech sales machine, will even sell you AMD microprocessors at competitive prices.

Skype explains why security evaluation omitted bug reports

The link is to a short analysis of Skype security.

I long ago removed Skype from all our computers and will not reinstall it until I'm satisfied it is not a risk. They seem to be working on it and hopefully that day will come. Call me skeptical, if you will.

Joe and Riley are using Skype to their satisfaction, as are others we all know. I'm somewhat more paranoid than they are (and quite okay with that).

Jack

Lupper Worm Targets Open-Source Software Running on Linux

Don't freak out. SANS rates this one as "low risk", mainly because of the construction of Linux permission structure.

A while back, a buffer overflow flaw was found in XML-RPC for PHP. Most of the affected applications have already been patched. Check the link above for a partial list of affected apps and a link to the SANS report. The cure is to patch your apps and the PHP scripting engine.

As the prominence of Linux increases, there will be more and more of this sort of malware floating around. And by the way; ClamAV detects it.

Jack

OnComputers Radio show Podcast 11-06-05

This is the On Computers Radio show podcast for 11-06-2005. If you prefer, you can download the same file here via ftp.

Sick of automation? Dial 0 for human - The Boston Globe

This is a link to the article in the Boston Globe that was discussed on today's show regarding automated answering systems.

Microsoft's AntiSpyware Rebranded 'Windows Defender'

Apparently, according to eweek, MS new "defender" will include rootkit detection. There are many good links in the article about rootkits and security.

I have a question about MS antispyware, does it run in the background? I've never seen it run explicitly. Help me out, please?

--MissM

An experimental open thread

In the interest of getting a conversation going. What geeky stuff are y'all interested in or intrigued by?? Let us know.


--MissM

Google's been berry, berry good to them

From the Wall Street Journal.

Wide-Flying Moguls:
Google Duo's New Jet
Is a Boeing 767-200
Included Are Two Staterooms,
A Shower, Seats for 50;
It's 'Good for the World'

HEY! I have a great idea! Get google to sponsor geek meet 06 and they could pick us all up ;)

-- MissM

Samsung's Wonky New Laptop Designs - Gizmodo

It must be laptop day here at OnComputersTips! This is too kewl, the 19"LCD detaches from the computer, there's a cool picture at the link in the title. Hold the drool though, if you are in the US, its just been released in the UK, so far (she says optimistically).

I haven't heard of anybody with a samsung laptop, anybody have any experience with them? I know I LUV their TVs!

--MissM

The ThinkPad is returning to retail - Engadget

I've always heard good things about IBM Thinkpads. Lenovo bought them from IBM, I believe, ande it was just announced that Office Depot is picking up the line, and they are going on sale on Sunday, at a SUBstantial discocunt, right around half price. Check it out, in case a laptop is on somebody's holiday list ;)

--MissM

Movie downloads could cost Racine man up to $600,000

Courtesy of Dvorak's blog:" A Racine man who says he doesn't even like watching movies, let alone copying them off the Internet, is being sued by the film industry for copyright infringement after his 13-year-old grandson downloaded four movies on their home computer."

First a 13year old, now a 67 year old man, what a shame....
--MissM

Magix Audio Cleaning Lab 10 Interview

On Friday, the hosts will be interviewing representatives from Magix Audio Cleaning Lab to discuss the release of their new product. If anyone has any questions, please email them to onair@oncomputers.info.

Sony to patch copy-protected CD | CNET News.com

In an update to a story posted by several of us, Sony is working on an update to the rootkit technology.
To quote news.com : "Sony BMG Music Entertainment and a technology partner are working with antivirus companies on a fix for a potential security problem in some copy-protected CDs."


We'll keep an eye on this for you, as it develops.

--MissM

update: As I was typing the above, I'm listening to Steve Gibson and Leo Laporte's Security Now podcast, and they were actually talking about this rootkit installed by Sony BMG CDs. Gibson says that it hides files and a directory by beginning the filenames with $sys$, these files show up in rootkitrevealer . I've been concerned about BMG copy protection for several years, and as a result of this rootkit, I'm saying bye bye to BMG Music. Leo says that someone searched on amazon.com and there are 24,000 CDs that may have this on it. Gibson said the gentleman at sysinternals was technically breaking the DMCA by looking into this. I consider this another example of how wrong the DMCA is. I also watch DVDs on the computer and, and I've always refused the interactual install, just for those same reasons. Leo says interactual just disables any dvd copying software you have.
The apparent easiest solution: Don't run as administrator! (Tip courtesy of Steve Gibson)
Go Listen and SUBSCRIBE! :)

Blogger /Blogspot notification

"Tuesday, November 01, 2005

We will be upgrading our network access this weekend which will require downtime for both Blogger and Blog*Spot. The outage will occur at noon (Pacific Time) on Saturday and last for 2 hours. Thanks for your patience during this maintenance window."

Just a head's up that there will be blogger problems, this weekend.

-- MissM

Dell Slips Twice. Stock Off 9% Overnight.

Slip No. 1 -- the company is taking a $300 million charge this quarter to cover "the cost of servicing systems that included a vendor part that failed to perform to Dell's specifications." They have to replace lots of motherboards in enterprise Optiplex desktops. I don't yet have any information on whose part failed and why.

Slip No. 2 has been happening all year. This time the company fell down. Dell was overly aggressive on consumer pricing in the first half of 2005. Margins suffered, while units sold went through the roof. Recall that in the second quarter, WW PC unit sales were up 17%. Dell picked up a lot of that growth, but not profitably. The company said it would focus on more profitable, upscale consumer systems in Q3. Bad choice, as the company now has to write off inventory because sales are not at the level expected.

My first thought is that the execs at HP headquarters are going to burn the midnight oil with the accountants. HP's fiscal year ended last night, so the company can make adjustments with knowledge aforethought on Dell's health. Believe me, HP has hated being the weak sister to Dell the last couple of years. So watch HP's earnings announcement on November 17th.

Second, Intel's stock was also down today in sympathy. Dell sells only Intel processors, so Dell is a proxy for Intel.

Third, you can bet the Dell execs in Round Rock, Texas are asking what went wrong with their consumer strategy. One question that's bound to be asked -- again -- is whether AMD's repute for better performance in high-end machines and good value in low-end machines is finally hurting Dell in ways that can no longer be ignored or smoothed over with Intel marketing dollars.

Fourth, as I wrote in July, a 17% global PC unit growth is unsustainable long-term -- and Dell's stock story is all about sustainable growth with profits. Where's the sweet spot for the world's largest PC company? Dell's stock is down more than 17% on a five-year basis, meaning a lot of investors will now more loudly voice their dissatisfaction in the company's performance -- and strategy.

"Training"

Well, got my training yesterday. Four hours worth. The server we were logged into crashed! LOL. I got my log ins. Right now it's email and repair requests. Also my 1st. experience with the "help" desk. That will be a post in and of itself when done. I'm waiting for a call back.

Scot's Newsletter | By Scot Finnie | November 2005

Scot's Newletter is excellent, this month's issue covers Windows Vista and IE7 thoroughly. He also has a lot of information about firefox 1.5 beta (which I reviewed, and had issues with), and suggests the final version will be released, in a couple weeks. One also has to appreciate any newsletter that includes linux command tips (this month's is hdparm). One thing I especially appreciate is Scot uses Eudora like I do, and he keeps me updated.
If you would like to subscribe, use the following link:Get Scot’s Newsletter


OffTopic: CAPTCHA aka word verification in comments and posts:I was at paypal.com last night, and they had an option to have it read to you, which I thought was very cool, the first time, it missed some letters, so I had to listen a couple times, and they said it was case sensitive, and I didn't hear a case reference in the file, but I thought that was a nice workaround to visually impaired people and the word verification.

-- MissM

Sony CDs Rootkit Your Windows PC

This is a good article to skim if you are not a techy, and to bookmark if you are at all interested in self-maintenance of your Windows PC.

The horror show is this: Sony DRM(digital rights management)-protected music CDs will royally screw up your machine, slow it down permanently, take over control of your CD drive, and make life miserable for you -- all without a mention in the EULA and with no way for you to remove the software. For all this joy, you pay $18.99 to Sony. Have a good day.

Makes me recall the time Sony's online music service took over one of my machines. It was a bear to get rid of!

Bottom line from me is:

• Do not allow your CD-ROM drive to Autorun when loaded. It's too easy for automatically-loaded bad software to mess up your machine. To disable Autorun (default is enabled!) in Windows XP: Start->My Computer->right click on CD (and/or DVD) drive->Autoplay tab->Take No Action.
• Don't buy DRM-protected music that requires you to listen to it on your PC. Instead, download the tracks from an online store like iTunes, or copy the mp3 files on an Apple Mac, where the DRM software is not installed.
• If you do not heed the above, and bring your DRM-protected CD to work, make sure you have your resume up to date. Your IT department may be exceedingly displeased when your personal entertainment screws up corporate property.

Sony, Rootkits and Digital Rights Management Gone Too Far

Mark Russinovitch has discovered that DRM on a Sony CD installs a rootkit. Anyone purchasing one of these CDs gets some nasty "bonus" material. Thank goodness there are people out there shedding light on these things. Knowing that a CD has DRM is one thing, but DRM that installs a rootkit is a huge breaking of consumer trust.

I guess that at least on "respectable" (not any more) content company not only thinks it owns your computer; it actually "owns" your computer.

Sony Rootkits your computer

Charlie Demerjian writes (rants?) in The Inquirer about Sony's DRM on music CDs. I'm not sure if calling the DRM a "rootkit" is appropriate. However, no matter how you brand it, it's invasive enough that removing it will kill your Windows installation.

Seems to me our choices in music are becoming more and more limited, at least as far as playing CDs on our computers goes. (They still work fine in dedicated CD players.) I, personally, have given up on CDs, though I love music. Seems as if every one I buy is unable to play on one or another device I own, because of the record company's fear that I'll steal something from them, thus cheating them out of money they can then cheat the artist out of.

Jack

Ruby on Rails

As we spoke a little about programming and programming languages on the show yesterday, I thought finding this article timely. I had even mentioned the Ruby scripting language.

Ruby on Rails (RoR) seems a successful attempt to provide a framework; a system, if you will, for generation and maintenance of web services and web site code. The philosophy of rigorous simplicity is interesting in it's own right. The article is an interesting read and can even give those who don't program a fairly decent idea of RoR's strengths and weaknesses.

Jack

OnComputers Radio show Podcast 10-30-05

This is the On Computers Radio show podcast for 10-30-2005. If you prefer, you can download the same file here via ftp.

"It's Not Excel, It's Magic!!" Contest Winners

Please join us in congratulating Barry Bouchard and Mike Iversen for winning a copy of Mike Umlas' book, "It's not Excel, It's Magic!"

Senators question file-storage shift - The Boston Globe

Interesting article here. Apparently, users with visual disabilities are complaining because the office applications that support the OpenDocument format don't really work well with devices made to make lives of these users easier.

Maybe Riley can comment on this.

Aaron

IBM is working to eliminate the need for Anti-Virus apps

This Techworld.com article is about AXE (Assured eXecution Environment) which is kernel level execution control. With it in place, unauthorized code simply cannot run.

While not here yet, neither is this the sort of press conference "pie in the sky" we hear so often. Instead, it is a real and progressive effort to provide us, the users, with protection. More power to them.

Jack

Sun lets JDS on Linux roam free

Trust me on this when I say this is a HUGE development!

For those of you who aren't familiar with Sun's "Java Desktop System" (JDS) it is a desktop layer which, until now, ran on Sun's version of SuSE Linux, Sun's Solaris operating system or their SunRay thin client OS. The JDS is based on the Gnome Linux desktop with heavy dependence on Sun's Java programming language.

Unlike a Linux distribution, the JDS contains only one application for any given purpose. It thus presents a rather less confusing set of choices to the user, in much the same manner as Windows or the Mac OS X do. To a corporate IT department, this is very attractive because they do not have to support a lot of duplicate application nor strip them out of a distro before turning the machine over to the user. And now Sun has freed it to be shipped with any Linux distribution.

I am not really a fan of Gnome, though the most damning criticism I can level at it is that it doesn't really suit me as a user. And I have to say it does suit a lot of users. It's a personal preference thing and no more than that. In my opinion, the JDS version of Gnome is the best, most usable desktop around, period! I ran it here for a while and would have kept it had it supported the hardware I needed it to. I also have several friends and one business with which I am assocaited using it They won't use anything else, so this development is good for them. In fact; I think it's good for all of us.

The article above has screenshots and if you get really curious, you can find information on the JDS at Sun's web site and several Linux sites, including LinuxQuestions.org.

Jack

Open Sources 2.0, The Continuing Evolution

The link is to an O'Reilly web site page. The book is a collection of essays by verious open source luminaries about the evolution of what can now safely be called a movement and their views of the future. I've read a couple samples and found it thought provoking and well enough written to be thoroughly enjoyable.

Jack

Congress to Face Crackberry Cold-Turkey Withdrawal

Supreme Court Rejects RIM's Stay Request By MARK H. ANDERSON, DOW JONES
U.S. Supreme Court Chief Justice John Roberts denied Research In Motion Inc.'s request to freeze lower court proceedings in a patent dispute between the BlackBerry maker and NTP Inc. Shares of Research In Motion fell 4%, or $2.36, to $55.04 on the Nasdaq Stock Market after the decision was announced.

The emergency request was denied without comment. RIM could refile the request with another justice, but such a move isn't likely to result in a different outcome. Chief Justice Roberts handles emergency requests for cases out of the Washington-based Federal U.S. Circuit Court of Appeals, which reviewed the case on appeal because it dealt with patent law.
Research In Motion, a Waterloo, Ontario, maker of Blackberry wireless email devices, has been trying to ensure a U.S. District Court doesn't enact an injunction restricting its ability to sell and support Blackberry operations in the U.S. because of a patent infringement case the company lost against NTP, a Virginia patent holding company. It filed an emergency appeal with the Supreme Court on Monday.

In a statement after Wednesday's decision, RIM confirmed the high court had denied its emergency request, but added the court "was not asked to, and did not decide, whether it ultimately will accept an appeal of the decision in the case."

Congress discovered Blackberries a couple of years ago, after Wall Street, tech execs, and lobbyists. My take on the legal battle that RIM is waging is that an injunction will be granted, forcing RIM to shut off the Blackberry e-mail service. So if you see an IM junky walking the corridors of power with a nervous tic, be kind to these withdrawing addicts.

Back Up for Dummies from Dell

For all of $99, Dell will now provide you with a second 80 GB hard drive on some Dimension models. All your files are backed up continuously and, when the dreaded hard drive crash comes (as it eventually will) you're protected.

What's not to like? It's cheap enough, capacious enough for all but the most rabid file traders and probably as reliable as any electro-mechanical system can be. And it happens automatically, so Joe or Jane Consumer isn't troubled by administrative details they don't understand.

It's about time.
Jack

Itanium Delay Puts HP in a Bind

[Google Blogspot ate my 10 paragraph blog. Honest. Below is a thumbnail of what never got posted.]

HP has by far the greatest risk to Itanium disappointments due to the company's heavy commitment to the processor family. HP 9000, VAX, and Tandem NonStop customers who bought into the Itanium migration are now facing some difficult choices. The delayed Montecito will have reduced features and a lower clock than planned when it arrives mid-2006. Future Itaniums are pushed out nine months or so. Thus, the future for tier-1 backend database machines based on Itanium is cloudy and deteriorating.

HP's Itanium engineers were sucked into Intel last year, meaning HP is stuck with what Intel can deliver on the Itanium platter. There's lots of speculation that Intel, absent its contractual commitments to HP, would sunset Itanium as a distraction. If nothing else, Intel needs the Itanium engineers as troops in its big battle pitting Xeon -- and its architectural descendants -- against AMD's Opteron.

The question I hear HP's Itanium customers asking today is basically this: "When can we jump from an Itanium multi-processor in a scale-up architecture to a scale-out architecture with 4-way Xeon (or Opteron) processors?" The answer is that many can. Today.

SANS - Internet Storm Center

Skype has a couple security issues that are fixed by downloading the latest here.
"Our avid reader and contributor Juha-Matti let us know that there are two new vulnerabilities in the free IP telephone software Skype.

http://www.skype.com/security/skype-sb-2005-02.html

and

http://www.skype.com/security/skype-sb-2005-03.html

CVE entries: CVE-2005-3265
CVE-2005-3267

Secunia advisory: http://secunia.com/advisories/17305/

Please upgrade to the new version ASAP, they have been rated highly critical by Secunia, and high by Skype."


--MissM

IBM's xBox 360 Details

From IBM's press release:
The chip features a customized version of IBM's industry leading 64-bit PowerPC core. The chip includes three of these cores, each with two simultaneous threads and clock speeds greater than 3 GHz. It features 165 million transistors and is fabricated using IBM's 90 nanometer Silicon on Insulator (SOI) technology to reduce heat and improve performance. The chip's innovative 21.6 GB/s Front Side Bus (FSB) Architecture was customized to meet the demanding throughput and latency requirements of the Xbox 360 gaming platform software.
Other Xbox 360 chip features include:
-- 3 identical multi-threaded PowerPC-based CPU cores operating at 3.2 GHz enhanced with specialized function VMX acceleration for gaming applications and a high speed 128-bit vector unit
-- 1 MByte Shared L2 Cache with custom logic for high-speed data streaming for graphics and system applications
-- 5.4 Gb/s per-pin Front Side Bus (with an aggregated bandwidth of 21.6 GBs)
-- Highly configurable and programmable utilizing eFUSE technology

The aggregate FSB bandwidth at 21.6 GB/second is an eye-opener. That ought to allow for near-photo realism in games and 2x HD video (2160i).

CNET news story on the chip here.

Meanwhile, Microsoft's plans for a simultaneous global launch guarantee shortages. Want the hot, unobtainable Christmas product you can sell on eBay? Better order in advance of the November 22nd launch. Then again, the shortage story may be part of a brilliant PR campaign to focus media attention on the xBox 360. You decide...

The Rinky-Dink Software Rant

Dvorak is at it again. I read this column with my head nodding. Even my favorite Paint Shop Pro is overly complicated, yet a lot easier to use than a full-blown copy of Photoshop. Its easier on the pocketbook, too.

So far my favorite all easy "get the job done" solution is Photoshop Elements.

As to the Kindegarten interface programs. The bundled software litters my hard drive and is rarely if ever used. Often uninstalling these pieces of candy corn (pretty, sweet, and otherwise useless) break another part of the bundle so they sit there idly, taking up bits. Then again, that's what 160 GB hard drives are for!

Why OpenOffice.org 2.0 Is Your Best Choice

From the article:

"Let me get down to the nitty-gritty: It's free (as in free beer) and it works. What's not to like?"

Can I say more. I'm going to start my download today :-)

Rat outsmarts scientists

If nothing else, it is a great headline.

Note that the one thing they don't mention having in the anti-rat arsenal was a cat. By the way, I have no doubt that cats can outsmart scientists, too.

OnComputers Radio show Podcast 10-23-05

This is the On Computers Radio show podcast for 10-23-2005. If you prefer, you can download the same file here via ftp.

Today's URLs

This isn't Excel, its Magic! By Bob Umlas

Sysinternals Freeware - RootkitRevealer

Security Now podcast, transcript.
Mike Tech Show
Flock browser
Open Office 2.0
Strider Ghostbuster from Microsoft Research

--MissM
a url I didn't get to mention on the show. Gizmondo stolen from a store, so they text message the guy, and use social engineering against him. Picture and story here. What do you think? Is it really tracking him? Place your bets in the comments ;)

Very first :-) on the Internet

Ever wondered where the first :-) came from? Well now you do. Microsoft research has been nice enough to post the dialog.

"The contents of the "joke" thread on the CMU CS general bboard that led to Scott Fahlman's invention of the smiley are below. This was retrieved from the spice vax oct-82 backup tape by Jeff Baird"

Page 2 of Internet history

--MissM

read more | digg story

SANS - ISC Possible issue with MS05-050 Patch

"If you have manually downloaded and installed the patch for MS05-050, you may want to check again to make sure you have the correct patch. Microsoft has recently released a Knowledge Base article on "The computer may not be updated after you install the "Security Update for DirectX 7.0 for Windows 2000 (KB904706)" on a Windows 2000-based computer that is running DirectX 8 or DirectX 9".

According to the Microsoft, this only applies to:
• You are running Microsoft Windows 2000
• Microsoft DirectX 8.0 or DirectX 9.0 is installed on the computer

This is likely due to the incorrect patch that you have manually downloaded and installed. If you have installed using Microsoft Windows Update website, you should be protected and free from this problem.

To check whether your system is correctly updated, you can verify the version number of Quartz.dll. The steps are detailed in Microsoft KB article 909596."

Also they post info on Exploit Code for MS05-47, I've got all my updates, finally, though they arrived in bunches. Are you all patched??

--MissM

Happy Birthday Email!

Official Google Blog:"It's difficult to pin down the exact origin of email, but in October 1971, an engineer named Ray Tomlinson chose the '@' symbol for email addresses and wrote software to send the first network email."

--MissM

Wired News: Creating the Global Hot Spot

"Telecom giant Inmarsat is weeks away from launching the second in a series of two super-satellites -- designed to be among the most powerful commercial communications spacecraft in orbit -- that will beam broadband data and voice services to almost any location on the planet." Can you beam me Up Now!
Joe

Dude, they gave me a password

Got a login password yesterday, while I was trying to have my lunch! lol. It's only to use the computer locally. To log into the main server, I have to wait until I get trained. (smirk) lol. Looks like I have a P4 2.8 gig. 512 Meg memory, Intel onboard video. 8 mem shared for video. Also got office 2003.
Computer is online and in the right domain. The fun part comes when I can login to the server! Update after I get my "training". ;-).

OpenOffice celebrates turning 2.0 | Tech News on ZDNet

"Programmers released version 2 of OpenOffice.org on Thursday, a major overhaul to an open-source software suite that has recently become a more serious rival to Microsoft Office. "

Guest for this Sunday on the show

This Friday we will be prerecording an interview for the show with Bob Umlas the author and MVP, If you have any questions for this guest please send them to me at Joe@AlaskaJoe.com

Professionals who use Microsoft® Excel know the value of the widely-used spread sheet program around the world. However, they may not know the 85 tips and tricks discovered by Excel guru and author Bob Umlas, now published in THIS ISN’T EXCEL, IT’S MAGIC!.
Bob Umlas will be a guest on On Computers to discuss this tips and tricks of Excel. He was a contributing editor to INSIDE MICROSOFT EXCEL and has written over 300 articles on all aspects of the program. For 10 years he co-led New York City’s PC Excel Special Interest Group and has authored several chapters in various Excel books on "tips and tricks" and array-formulas.

THIS ISN’T EXCEL, IT’S MAGIC! is capturing world-wide attention, with daily sales coming in from all over the globe and reviews from a variety of readers. It is a handy and portable book, full of easy-to-understand graphics and chock full of tips and tricks for getting the most out of Excel.

Security Now! Now featuring episode #9

Superb Podcast on rootkits, with Leo Laporte and Steve Gibson, "la creme de la creme," of explaining technical subjects . They pick one topic a week and talk for about 30 minutes or so, and thoroughly explain the topic. Its a great thing to see two such professionals cooperate on such a desperately uncovered topic, security.

My interest in rootkits was motivated by a post at Sunbelt Blog. This rootkit detector /fixer found a couple suspicious entries, but couldn't fix them. Therefore I need to find out more info, and poof! Leo and Steve do a podcast on rootkits (insert twilight zone theme here (yes, I tried to find the blasted thing, and couldn't)). In addition to the rootkit detector above, Steve Gibson mentioned that sysinternals has one too, I am not going to post the url here, cause anybody who's not afraid to break their computer, can find it :)

I was typing this as I listened to the podcast, Steve says MS is going to, if not already, going to check for rootkits, so this vulnerability is getting more and more attention paid to it, Bravo!

All the posts at sunbelt blog are interesting, its one of the blogs that I subscribe to, in my rss aggregator.

Back to my rootkit research....

--MissM

Why Software Sucks (and what to do about it)

Scott Berkun is a thoughtful essayist and once you've read the one I've linked to above you might want to look at the others he has on his site. He has a knack of simplifying things without dumbing them down.

Starting with the premise that no one sets out to create bad software, Scott explores why they often do. It's interesting to view programming from his point of view and I recommend you take this one in.

Jack

Dude update 3

The link is what dell they gave me. You'll need java to see it. It's a DELL Optiplex GX280 in a small Desktop case. Peter, saw your comment. TY I'll check it out as soon as they give me my password for the thing. :-).

OnComputers Radio show Podcast 10-16-05

This is the On Computers Radio show podcast for 10-16-2005. If you prefer, you can download the same file here via ftp.

Phishing fight may be paying off | CNET News.com

"The number of phishing sites on the Web hit a record high in August, but coordinators in the fight against the prevalent Web scams say they have made some progress. "

Gates to students: Microsoft wants you | CNET News.com

"WASHINGTON--Microsoft Chairman Bill Gates on Friday preached the 'magic of software' to a packed ballroom at Howard University here and said it's up to today's generation of college students to drive innovation in the future. "

Free Software from PC Magazine

AMD is on a Serious Roll

With server market share north of 20% and climbing -- up from about nothing a couple years ago, AMD must be pleased to garner more than half of U.S. retail PC sales in the just-ended back-to-school period. With a new fab open in Dresden, Germany, the company has a 50 million microprocessor capacity ramping to 100 million chips a year. Once pooh-poohed as a manufacturing laggard, AMD has been pounding Intel on many fronths for a year now. The results are beginning to tell.

Apple's iPod Nano: Staggering Demand Meets Supply Reality

If Apple can get past the NOR memory supply problem -- they bought 40% of Samsung's global capacity, then I think Apple will sell over 5 million of the Nano iPods a year.

Windows Vulnerabilities Just Keep Cropping Up

The bad guys now pounce on the code for fixing vulnerabilities, decompile it, and build worms to take advantage of the problem. I conclude on the continuing evidence that Windows is a problem that will not be fixed.

Why all the Interest in AOL?

Road kill a year ago, AOL is now meat in the eyes of investment bankers. Who was smart enough to buy the stock in 2004?

Find the Black Helicopters

The satellite data at Google Earth is so good that it is a cause for contests. The recent interesting one is "find the black helicopters" around the globe. Stunning results.

Any suggestions for our own contest?