Thursday, August 26, 2004

Does anyone like XPSP2? After reading more propaganda about more bugs found in XPSP2, I wonder where were all of these people when XPSP2 was being debugged.  I just think it's strange that after the release date, then all of these issues are being broadcasted.  And they call themselves "Security Experts"?  While I wouldn't want to be in the dark about flaws in a O/S that I depend on, I also believe that it's not fair that groups always pick on Microsoft. I will give PC Magazine some credit.  Although they are disclosing issues with SP2, they are also showing Microsoft responses to the issues.  (Most of these vulnerabilities require the user to do something stupid like download a EXE and be running as Administrator.)  They also gave a positive recommendation about XPSP2: Do we think that end users should upgrade? Yes, Windows XP Service Pack 2 is a must do, especially for end users. However, we would recommend users not take the WSC [Windows Security Center] as gospel, If you use an antivirus, or 3rd party firewall, look at their status panels as a sanity check. Keep your Antivirus, windows, firewall updates current, and most of all, be very careful of what you run on your system. I'm banking on XPSP2. It's better than what we had. 7:53:52 PM    comment []

Breakfast with PAG Daddy Today, I was invited to a breakfast hosted by the PAG Daddy himself, Ron Jacobs.  The reason we call him PAG Daddy is because he runs the PAG group, and is responsible for the documents from Patterns and Practices.  This has to be one of the best resources out on the Internet today. I attended the breakfast with Tim Landgraves (no blog), Michelle Leroux Bustamante, John Alexander, and Mitch Rubush.  I had never met Ron before, but it was very easy to see that he cares about providing quality guidance to the Microsoft developer and architect community.  He was asking us our opinions on different things that we see in the field and what we would do if we could control the next PAG deliverable.  It was a lot of fun, especially when there a bunch of RD's brainstorming - and there may have been some cutting up too. 7:01:36 PM    comment []

What Else Is New in SP2? From eWeek, What Else Is New in SP2?: Despite this perception, SP2 does include some new features and functionality outside the security purview. SP2 adds updated support for Wi-Fi and Bluetooth drivers, as well as a new Bluetooth networking client. SP2 also includes Windows Media Player 9, which has been available to XP users only as a download until now. For XP users who also are running IIS (Internet Information Services) to host their own Web sites, Microsoft is offering support for IIS version 5.1 as part of the SP2 bits. The company also is including an updated version of MDAC (Microsoft Data Access Components), a collection of technologies that provide access to information across heterogeneous data sources. So, with .NET V2, there is also a HttpListener class that is dependant on http.sys that is included in XPSP2 (IIS5.1) and W2K3 Server (IIS6). 6:32:07 PM    comment []

Looking for September arrival of .NET Framework SP I'm still meeting people that do not know a .NET SP is coming out.  Be sure to watch this site for more information, including FAQ's, feature list, and newsgroup info.  One part of the page says: Update! The .NET Framework Service Packs – .NET Framework 1.0 SP3 and .NET Framework 1.1 SP1 - will be available in the MSDN Download Center in September. Check back here for the links. 6:03:25 PM    comment []

© Copyright 2004 Jon Box. Last update: 9/1/2004; 12:12:04 AM.