Wednesday, July 12, 2006

Nashua Telegraph reports on Northeast Linux Symposium Dave Brooks of the Nashua Telegraph reports on the recent Northeast Linux Symposium held at Gould Academy in Maine. NLS is focused on bringing Free and Open Source software into the schools, something that is increasing in popularity around here. I thought Dave's reaction to FOSS and its zealots was promising: FOSS is no panacea, but an alternative worthy of consideration. 9:49:13 PM    comment []

How Google Works Baseline Magazine has an interesting article entitled, "How Google Works," containing some history, interesting links, rumors and speculation. 9:39:07 PM    comment []

Microsoft Monthly Patch: 7 Patches, 5 Critical, Remote Code Execution - patch now! OSNews also notes Microsoft Patches Seven Vulnerabilities. "Microsoft alerted us this time about seven vulnerabilities of which five were rated critical and two important. There are vulnerabilities in the Server service, the DHCP Client service, Excel and Office that could allow remote code execution." Seven patches, 5 Critical with Remote Code Execution possibilities, 2 Important, which includes Remote Code Execution within IIS. Bulletins MS06-033 through MS06-039 issued on the 28th week of the year. It looks like this kind of velocity, more than one per week, has been steady at Microsoft for nearly three years now. I would have expected the more secure IIS6 and Windows Server 2003 to stem the flow a bit. But these product continue to be listed in the affected systems list. Hmm. MS06-033: Vulnerability in ASP.NET Could Allow Information Disclosure (917283) MS06-034: Vulnerability in Microsoft Internet Information Services using Active Server Pages Could Allow Remote Code Execution (917537) MS06-035: Vulnerability in Server Service Could Allow Remote Code Execution (917159) MS06-036: Vulnerability in DHCP Client Service Could Allow Remote Code Execution (914388) MS06-037: Vulnerabilities in Microsoft Excel Could Allow Remote Code Execution (917285) MS06-038: Vulnerabilities in Microsoft Office Could Allow Remote Code Execution (917284) MS06-039: Vulnerabilities in Microsoft Office Filters Could Allow Remote Code Execution (915384) Security is not a feature, it's a process. Patch now to avoid more problems later. 5:42:05 PM    comment []

Parallels virtualization software for Macs reviewed OSNews points out that "Ars reviews Parallels Desktop for MacOS X, and concludes: "People pondering the switch to a MacBook can rest assured that with the exception of USB device support and hardware accelerated 3-D applications, their needs will be well met by this little workhorse of a program. Between the networking that just works, the impressive speed and the inability of the client operating systems to know they are running within a 'virtual machine', I think you'll be hard-pressed to find software for any x86 OS that doesn't work within a Parallels VM." It's hard to imagine a more desirable machine than a laptop or desktop with dual-core processors and the ability to run Windows, OS X and Linux in separate virtual machines. 4:26:24 PM    comment []

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