Dr. Bill | The Computer Curmudgeon
Join Dr. Bill as he examines the wild and wacky world of the web, computers, and all things geeky! Hot Tech Tips, Tech News, and Geek Culture are examined… with plenty of good humor as well!
Dr. Bill pontificates on all things technical!
Malware is becoming too big of a problem to handle according to M$. They suggest just re-formatting and starting over.
“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.
Microsoft, it seems, will deign to host Linux on it’s Virtual Server Platform.
Microsoft to Host Linux Virtually
“Microsoft will support customers who chose to run Linux with Microsoft’s Virtual Server 2005 R2, software for running multiple operating systems on one machine. In addition, the company on Monday said that it has now made Virtual Server 2005 R2–which the company had charged either $99 for up to four physical processors or $199 for an unlimited number of processors–a free download. The announcements were made in conjunction with the LinuxWorld conference in Boston this week.”
Scott Redmon, my former co-worker (at Guilford County IS) and current Webmaster there, designed a new header for the ol’ Doctor! It is way cool! Thanks, Scott! If you need awesome computer graphics or logos done, see Scott… he da’ man!
By the way, Scott is a “hired gun” for graphics, at Triad Web Solutions, check him out:
This Monday night’s (April 3rd at 7:00 PM) GLUG (Greensboro Linux User’s Group) meeting will be on Linux-based media players like MythTV. More info on MythTV is here:
The meeting will be out at the Center for Creative Leadership, where I work. Directions can be found here:
Come out and enjoy learning about a REAL operating system!
Although how one “sues Linux” is open to question… M$ (the Evil Empire) may be considering trying to destroy Linux, since they can’t beat it in the marketplace.
Microsoft set to attack Linux with patents?
“Is Microsoft getting ready to attack Linux and open-source software with its patents? Florian Mueller, spokesman for the European NoSoftwarePatents.com and a leading anti-patent activist, thinks that may be the case. Mueller sees a recent Forbes interview with Microsoft’s CEO Steve Ballmer as stopping just ‘short of announcing patent litigation against Linux.’ In the interview, Ballmer said, ‘Well, I think there are experts who claim Linux violates our intellectual property. I’m not going to comment. But to the degree that that’s the case, of course we owe it to our shareholders to have a strategy. And when there is something interesting to say, you’ll be the first to hear it.'”
Here’s a great article on the history of M$’s FUD (Fear, Uncertainty and Doubt) campaign over the years!
I reported last week that there was a big, and grievous exploit that was targeting a hole in Internet Explorer. Well, turns out there are two OTHER big holes in IE as well. So big, that M$ is thinking about releasing a special patch BEFORE the normal April patch cycle.
MSRC Program Manager Stephen Toulouse said, “…the IE patch is ‘on schedule’ to ship as part of next month’s Patch Tuesday, which will take place on April 11, but the company is not ruling out an emergency, out-of-cycle release if the threat escalates. ‘We’ll release it sooner if warranted,’ Toulouse said.”
Again… Mozilla Firefox. ‘Nuff said.
Linspire is my favorite Linux-that-works-like-Windows. I use CentOS on my servers, and Debian Sarge on my home file server, but I use Linspire as my desktop of choice. In fact, this weekend, I am setting up my son, Ben’s, laptop with Linspire! Now, Linspire has announced a “Mac-Mini”-like PC!
“Chalk one up for the Linux guys. Linspire, the creators of the Debian/GNU Linux based Linspire OS, showcased a self-branded mini PC at CES 2006 that somehow slipped under the radar. According to TUX Magazine, the sweet little $399 (approx.) PC takes its looks from Apple’s Mac mini but the similarities end there. The 2.8 pound PC features a front panel backlit power button, a slot loading combo DVD drive, two rear USB ports, one Firewire connector, S-Video/DVI video outputs, 10/100 Ethernet port, speaker/mic jacks, Pentium M 740 processor (or Celeron M), a single slot for DDR2 memory, and a choice of a 40 or 80GB hard drive.”
The Doctor has warned you that Internet Explorer should not be trusted and is unsafe to use as your browser. Now, there has been yet another serious exploit released for a gaping security hole in IE.
Gaping Security Hole in IE Exploited
“The advisory confirms the existence of a code execution hole that was discovered and publicly reported by Secunia Research of Copenhagen, Denmark. ‘When Internet Explorer displays a Web page that contains certain unexpected method calls to HTML objects, system memory may be corrupted in such a way that an attacker could execute arbitrary code,’ the software maker said. Separately, the SANS ISC (Internet Storm Center) warned that a proof-of-concept code has already been unleashed that could be easily modified into a dangerous exploit. The ISC’s threat meter has been raised to ‘yellow’ to sound alarm bells for what is deemed a ‘significant’ new threat.”
Again, use Firefox. It is safe, and it rocks!
The fastest laptop tested running Windows XP is… an Apple? What?!!? Yep. Check it out!
“The two Mac desktops outran even blazing-fast single core systems, which typically do the Windows Media Encoder test in 10-13 minutes. We haven’t tested any other Intel Core Duo desktops, but the iMac competes well against a Polywell machine with a dual-core Athlon 64 X2 3800+, while the Mini and MacBook Pro are held back a little by their slower laptop hard drives. Predictably, all the Macs blow away the Shuttle XPC M1000, which has the previous generation single-core Pentium M processor. That system scored 16 minutes on Windows Media Encoder, and took 2:52 to complete the Photoshop script.”
So, again I ask, folks: “Should I buy a MacBook Pro?” What to do?
Looks like all those cute, colorful aliens (PCs) will be coming from Austin, TX soon!
“Dell confirmed on Wednesday what had been rumored on blogs for nearly a week: its purchase of trendy gaming PC manufacturer Alienware. The company said the buy was aimed at strengthening its position among computer enthusiasts. Alienware fans should not fear that their favorite PCs will soon bear the Dell logo — the company would be a wholly-owned subsidiary of Dell, yet operate separately. The move is merely mainly aimed at bettering the company’s supply chain, says Dell and Alienware.”