08.02.10
Posted in Uncategorized at 11:05 am by Sean
I already have some of these loaded on my DROID. In case you’re new to the Android scene, you might want to check these out.
According to the article, this sounds like it’s only temporary. Still, it’s disappointing. How many “advanced users” order stuff over the phone? Seems to me they have it backwards. In my experience, the advanced users are more likely to complete an order on Dell’s online system without calling in for advice. Why? Because Dell’s ordering process online is long and asks WAY to many questions. They try to up-sell you on everything but the kitchen sink. Everyone I’ve ever pointed toward Dell for purchasing a system has had to ask me a dozen or so questions about what they’re trying to push them into. The conspiracy nut in me would like to believe that this is a direct result of the Linux department’s bash of Windows, as mentioned in the article and previously on my blog. Somebody got in trouble. 
Two things to watch out for: 1) Reconcile your bank transactions, or you might be giving money to these criminals without knowing it. 2) Don’t become a money-mule. That means don’t reply to any of those job ads or emails regarding a job where you are supposed to transfer money, especially overseas. No real job will involve you receiving checks on behalf of someone else.
The latest volley in the ebook reader category. I haven’t bought any of them yet, but I do own a few book on the Kindle platform. I just use the Windows client to read them for now. The new price makes it very attractive as a gift for my wife, who reads a lot, but mainly I would need it for textbooks. Most IT training and college textbooks are not available on Kindle, and even the ones that are don’t work very well. The main flaw is the lack of page numbers. You can’t collaborate in a classroom or with other readers (some with the paper version) if you can’t say what page you’re on.
This is a techie article that bashes Windows for needing a reboot when patches are applied, as opposed to Linux. While it’s not all that insightful (this is VERY old news that’s still true to this day), the fact that Linux servers are becoming more of an option for businesses in recent years means that this could be a factor if 20 minutes of downtime every month isn’t acceptable.
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06.24.10
Posted in Uncategorized at 9:10 am by Sean
Google Voice for everyone
I’ve been using this service since September of 2007, when it was still called GrandCentral and Google hadn’t bought it yet. I find it very useful, and have even setup my cell phone to use the GV’s voicemail instead of Verizon’s crappy visual voicemail service. If your callers speak clearly, you’ll get a pretty accurate translation of what was said in text. This feature alone makes it worthwhile. Imagine you’re in a meeting and someone important calls, but you just can’t excuse yourself. You let the call go to voicemail, and then just check your cell phone’s screen a few moments later to see what they said on the voicemail. If they were just calling to say Hi, you continue with your meeting uninterrupted. There are a ton of other features, like being able to direct calls to certain phones depending on who’s calling. You can make callers who aren’t in your address book record their name before it will forward the call to you. That’s awesome for getting rid of spam calls from automated systems, and if I recall correctly that’s another service that Verizon charges extra for. This is all free, and now they’ve opened it up to everyone in the U.S.
http://googlevoiceblog.blogspot.com/2010/06/google-voice-for-everyone.html
Microsoft claims “1B people rely on [MS] Office”
Yeah, that’s a pretty crazy figure. This article gives you some of the numbers behind this “extrapolated” figure. For example, that free trial version of office that they’re shipping out on new machines counts.
http://www.zdnet.com/blog/microsoft/about-that-1-billion-microsoft-office-figure-/6555?tag=nl.e589
Apple removed “GNU Go” game from app store because it’s GPL
Apple’s terms of service regarding their apps store are very restrictive. The GPLv2 license used for “Go” specifically prohibits redistribution under a more restrictive license. When the Free Software Foundation brought this to their attention, they simply removed the app. My opinion? They did this as a safeguard against lawsuits while they ask the legal team about it. Google avoids this by including a phrase in their ToS that nulls their apps-store restrictions in the case where rights are “expressly permitted or required by law”.
http://www.networkworld.com/community/blog/apple-would-rather-remove-app-leave-open-sour?source=NWWNLE_nlt_linux_2010-06-16
Dell posts Top 10 list for Ubuntu, #6 bashes Windows security
Of course since this article was published, Dell has changed the wording so that it does not mention Windows. For anyone who doesn’t know… Ubuntu and other forms of Linux are safer than Windows. Mostly this is because 99.9% of viruses, worms, spyware and such are written to only work under Windows. Macs also enjoy and almost virus-free existence. This also leads to a performance boost, since anti-virus programs slow down your computer and Linux/Mac don’t need them. There are, of course, some tradeoffs depending on how you use your computer. Now that there are so many apps either available native (OpenOffice) or available in the cloud (Office Live, Google Apps, etc.) the OS on your computer is starting to matter less and less as a factor in productivity. It’s no wonder that some businesses have switched away from Windows entirely.
http://www.networkworld.com/community/blog/dell-says-ubuntu-safer-windows?source=NWWNLE_nlt_linux_2010-06-16
Google has released command line tools
For the very geeky among us, Google has created some tools that can be used in scripts to do things like add calendar appointments or upload Picasa photos and YouTube videos. Seems likely this will result in more 3rd party apps being able to interact with Google’s API’s. How about your servers all participating in a blog to note any strange log entries? Interesting….
http://code.google.com/p/googlecl/
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06.22.10
Posted in Uncategorized at 2:30 pm by Sean
For those that don’t want or need to spend the $$$ on Microsoft Office, there are several alternatives. The latest one is by Microsoft itself. In order to compete with Google Docs, they have released their own online versions of Word, Excel, Powerpoint and OneNote. With these, you can create, edit and share documents right in your web browser. This could be especially useful for people who prefer Linux or Mac. Now, if they would just somehow integrate Outlook Web Access from MS Exchange, it would be a real contender for use in the office. Here is the link to the MS blog entry:
Office is now live on SkyDrive!
It seems a researcher at Google posted the details of an exploit to Windows XP and Server 2003′s HCP protocol handler. There is a lot of discussion over whether the Google employee was irresponsible or criminal because he didn’t give Microsoft time to respond with a patch. If I were to put my “everyone has an agenda” hat on, I would say that Google has reason to post such things because they are preparing to be a direct competitor in the OS market. The more frustrated consumers are with the constant virus infections they get, the more likely they are to throw in the towel and convert to Chrome OS when it comes out. Of course, that also means that since Chrome OS isn’t really out yet that those people might not wait and just switch to one of the many other Linux distributions or Mac.
Googler Drops Windows Zero-Day, Microsoft Unhappy
It seems that Microsoft made some FireFox users unhappy when one of the Automatic Windows Updates installed an add-on to FireFox without permission or warning. It’s a shared library that is used by Microsoft’s various toolbars, such as Bing, to extend search capabilities. The thing that is upsetting people is that they didn’t have any of those toolbars installed in FF. If you have an MS toolbar installed in IE, even if it was disabled, you would get the update and the add-on. The kicker is that it’s not easy for the average user to remove. You actually have to go into the file system and delete the files manually, as there is no removal option in the Control Panel or FireFox. They have since adjusted the update so that you only get it if you have Bing Bar or version 4 of the MSN Toolbar installed. Removal instructions are provided on the second link.
Microsoft hides mystery Firefox extension in toolbar update
Microsoft explains mystery Firefox extension, “fixes” update
This article is somewhat of a rebuttal to another author’s statement that Windows access control “blows Linux out of the water”. I agree with Dustin Puryear’s opinion here. The basic security model that Microsoft implemented from the start, where a new Windows machine is setup by default to log into an administrator account, is horribly flawed. MS knows this, and has attempted to fix the problem with UAC in Vista and Windows 7. It sortof works, but some users find it annoying and turn it off without realizing the security ramifications. Even worse is the fact that many applications are written to assume the user has administrative rights. (Those programmers should be fired.) Linux doesn’t have this flaw, and runs by default with all users having limited privileges. Personally, I think that Ubuntu’s method of requiring the user’s password it still superior since it prevents another user from making system changes when someone forgets to lock their workstation. In the area of file system ACLs, Windows is certainly better in some respects. In my experience, though, it’s not the OS that is the weakest link here. Most network admins don’t take the time to properly set the ACLs under either OS. One place I worked had most of the Windows servers set to “Everyone” having “Full Control” on the shares. Pretty scary, huh?
Comparing Access Control in Windows and Linux
ZDNet reports that there has been a rash of counterfeit cashiers checks recently. Don’t get taken in by any of those scams that go around in email. Remember that emails from banks and credit card companies can easily be faked, and often are. Never trust a web site link you receive in one of these emails. Never reply to an email giving information… None of the legit companies will ask for sensitive info via email reply. Use only your own bookmarks or favorites to get to bank web sites, and pay attention to the security verification indicator in the URL bar of your browser. If your browser doesn’t have this feature, upgrade to a newer version. Here is the link:
Counterfeit check security and bank closing alerts (6/17/2010)
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