Author: Dr. Bill

I have always preferred PNG format, not only because it is small, but also it is Open Source! Gotta love that!

The PNG image file format is now more popular than GIF

“Summary:
The PNG image file format has been created in 1995 as a response to some patent issues around the then-prevailing GIF format. PNG has gained popularity ever since, and it is now used on more websites than GIF.

PNG is now used on 62.4% of all websites, just ahead of GIF with 62.3%. GIF was leading by more than 15% one year ago.

PNG is now the most popular lossless image compression format on the web. Only the lossy JPEG, which is the most appropriate format for photographs, is used on more sites.

While GIF’s patent issues mentioned above are long resolved, it’s the technical superiority that now convinces webmasters to chose PNG over GIF. PNG results in smaller files most of the time, it supports a much wider range of color depths and transparency options. The only feature where GIF still shines is its support for animation. However, most people find that dancing icons on a website make it look like it hasn’t been redesigned in the last 15 years. Animation is mostly used for ads nowadays, and even there, animated GIF’s would be considered the poor mans alternative to Flash.

Interestingly, GIF is still more popular than PNG on the top 1,000 websites (67.9% vs. 66.3%, see our head-to-head comparison), but we can expect that to change also within the next months. The trend is very clear: for every site that changes from PNG to GIF, more than 3 sites make the change in the other direction, see our technology change report.

There are some remarkable geographical differences in the usage rate of PNG: it is very popular in Europe, with over 70% in France, Italy, Spain and Netherlands, but much less in Asia, with 41% in Japan, 34.6% in Korea and only 30.6% in China. Usage is also higher on Unix-like systems than on Windows, and Google seems to be a big PNG supporter, it is used on 95.6% of all Google Servers.

The GIF image format, originally developed by CompuServe more than 25 years ago, was a very important standard in the early days of the web. It will probably be around for another 25 years, but it has been dethroned today.”

I have mentioned FreeNAS before, but it has never “made it” to GSotW before this! Check out the cool features below.

FreeNAS – an Open Source Network Attached Storage Solution

Thin Provisioning
Thin Provisioning is another excellent addition to the FreeNAS® features list. Thin Provisioning allows the administrator to allocate users more space than physically exists in the system. When paired with ZFS, it becomes easy to manage your total data pool size, and quickly and effectively grow to meet your users needs as they use more of their allotted space.

Backup and Restore
Remote Replication allows you to copy a snapshot to an offsite server, for maximum data security.

Command Line Interface
FreeNAS® 8 is based on FreeBSD 8.x, and will update and keep current with the FreeBSD project. So if you’re a savvy user, and prefer to use the command line, no problem! ssh in, and control your FreeNAS™ device from the FreeNAS™ custom CLI.

Driver Support
FreeNAS® is based on FreeBSD 8.3 and features much of the same driver support. This gives anyone building their own FreeNAS device or re-purposing old hardware a wide selection of hardware choices.

Snapshots
If your data is somehow lost, FreeNAS® makes it easy to restore from a previously generated snapshot. With the periodic snapshots feature, you can worry less about data loss, and use your system stress free.

File Sharing
FreeNAS® supports many popular networking protocols, and is easy to set up in most home and enterprise environments. You’ll be up and running in no time, and your users can connect with the protocol of your choice, no matter what operating system they run.

Plugins
In order to support third-party software such as bittorrent clients or media streaming servers, FreeNAS® provides an optional Plugin Jail. Plugins may be installed using a version of the PBI system from PC-BSD® that supports integration with the FreeNAS® Web UI.

Dowmnload it now! This is my very FAVORITE Audio Editor! I literally use it daily! So, I was excited to get this email notice:

“Audacity Team (https://audacity.sourceforge.net/) is pleased to announce the release of Audacity 2.0.3. It replaces all previous versions.

Audacity 2.0.3 now uses the libsoxr resampling library by default, instead of libresample, for higher quality and speed. Time Tracks have been improved and bug fixed, and new effects include an accessible Adjustable Fade. See the 2.0.3 Release Notes for details.”

There has been a lot of talk among security geeks about how insecure Java is, and the problems that they have been having. It looks bad for Oracle. Pundits are recommending that you don’t even USE Java! So, Oracle released a security patch! But, sadly, IT, too, has a security issue!

Java Hacker Uncovers Two Flaws In Latest Update

“The Java vulnerability news isn’t getting better.

Less than one week after Oracle released Java 7 update 11 to patch or mitigate two zero-day vulnerabilities in Java that were being actively exploited by attackers, veteran Java bug hunter Adam Gowdiak of Security Explorations in Poland discovered two new vulnerabilities in Java standard edition.

‘We have successfully confirmed that a complete Java security sandbox bypass can be still gained under the recent version of Java 7 Update 11 (JRE version 1.7.0_11-b21),’ wrote Gowdiak in a post to the Full Disclosure mailing list. As a result, any attacker who used the vulnerabilities would be able to craft malware that tapped the Java runtime environment, thus fully compromising a vulnerable system.

Interestingly, the two newly discovered bugs have nothing to do with Oracle’s partial patch of the ‘MBeanInstantiator’ flaw. This was mitigated by Oracle via changing the default Java security setting from medium to high, which requires that an unsigned Java Web apps be authorized by a user before being allowed to run. ‘MBeanInstantiator bug (or rather a lack of a fix for it) turned out to be quite inspirational for us,’ said Gowdiak. ‘However, instead of relying on this particular bug, we have decided to dig our own issues. As a result, two new security vulnerabilities (51 and 52) were spotted in a recent version of Java SE 7 code and they were reported to Oracle today (along with a working Proof of Concept code).’

Gowdiak has numbered the security vulnerabilities 51 and 52, because that’s the number of Java 7 bugs Security Explorations has reported to Oracle since April 2, 2012. In terms of the latest two vulnerabilities reported to Oracle, Gowdiak said, ‘The company informs us that it will investigate based on the data provided and get back to us soon.’

How bad are the vulnerabilities? ‘[Gowdiak] implies that although it locked the office door in update 7u11, Oracle left the entrance to the building open, which he considered as good as an invitation to find another way in,’ wrote Paul Ducklin, head of technology for Sophos in the Asia Pacific region, in a blog post. But per its disclosure policy, Security Explorations has yet to release full details of the new vulnerabilities, pending a fix from Oracle.

News of two new vulnerabilities being discovered comes on the heels of news that another Java vulnerability, unpatched by Oracle, was being offered for sale on an exclusive cybercrime forum.

The recently discovered Java vulnerabilities have led to widespread confusion over exactly which types of Java are at risk, worries about whether Java itself is safe, and questions over how Java-dependent enterprises should best deal with the vulnerability challenge. (Hint: Start by removing the Java plug-in from browsers, whenever possible.)

Oracle has also come under fire for failing to provide enterprises with a reliable method for updating the Java runtime environment across a large number of managed machines. As noted by one reader, ‘there are loosely published methods to do it via Group Policy or Configuration Manager, but these often fail, and are NOT supported by Oracle.'”