Situsku

Always Follow The Road Signs!

2010-06-11T22:00:00.001+07:00

Apparently, the truck driver didn’t pay attention to the sign of weight restrictions and drove on the bridge. Look after the jump how it all ended.

Source: http://sikalong.blogspot.com/

Now that's a dangerous mountain road

2010-05-03T23:20:00.001+07:00

I hope the driver survived.

Source: http://sikalong.blogspot.com/

Accidents in Norway - the train got off the rails

2010-04-01T14:40:00.000+07:00

For some unknown reason, 16 flat wagons detached from the locomotive, rolled for eight miles to the loading port, rammed the tent and fell into the water next to the terminal. Three people were killed and some others were injured.

Source: http://sikalong.blogspot.com/

Top Ten Cartoons in the 80s

2009-11-12T02:19:00.000+07:00

Oh the 80’s. The decade that gave us the Wonder Years, Who’s the Boss, great video games and a flippant hairstyle as high as a skyriser. What else could the 80’s be known for? What about all the great cartoons that came out in the 80’s? In this list, we will go through what we think are the top 10 cartoons from the 80’s. These are the cartoons that we watched after school, before school, on weekends, and any time we had the privilege to tape the shows on our VCR (mostly after school though). We wanted to revisit these gems to let everyone remember how amazing cartoons were in their yesteryear. We thought about these cartoons in our sleep and talked about them at class during the day. Here then are our the greatest cartoons of the 80’s.

10. Smurfs

One female in the entire population. One red-hatted elder who holds no real power but is in charge of keeping the village work organized. Everyone has the same size house. Everyone has the same power and authority. Everyone has a unique skill that contributes to the harmony of the population. Everyone is blue. Smurf your smurfing communist conspiracies, this was a wholesome tale about being unique. While they all looked the same, dressed the same, and lived the same, they all had unique personality traits that helped to save the group from mean old Gargamel and that hungry, misunderstood Azrael. Coincidentally, there was a local band back in the mid-nineties called Liquid Azrael who did a mean cover of Sesame Street’s 1-2-3-5-6-7-8-9-10-11-12. SMURF YOU! I thought that was entirely smurfing relevant to the discussion (smurfing smurf-holes…).

9. Gummi Bears

Bouncing here and there and everywhere. You remember the show, don’t you? Disney animated Gummi Bears was a fun romp following the escapades of the furry little bears who drank magic Gummiberry Juice and bounced around the forest and outsmarted Duke Igthorn every week. The production quality of the show was great and would set the benchmark for all the other great Disney cartoons that would soon follow it. The show began the great Disney Afternoon timeslot run, which included many great shows such as DuckTales, Darkwing Duck, Chip ‘n Dale Rescue Rangers, TaleSpin, and Gargoyles.

8. GI Joe

GI Joe: A Real American Hero was a half an hour of pure entertainment. Hawk and Sgt. Slaughter on operations with the significance on par with the biggest moments in history. Could Hasbro have any idea how successful GI Joe would be in the animation realm? These cartoons were flashy, loud, in your face, and all around dominating. GI Joe’s strength and rigor were consistently tested by Cobra who was always stealing shit like teleportation units and weapons that could manipulate weather. These were certainly large tasks for the GI Joe team all bundled up in half an hour segments. You got what you sat down for when watching GI Joe. You wanted these cartoon to last an hour instead.

7. He-Man

He-Man was the strongest of the strong. The most powerful of the most powerful, and he embodied all these qualities in the 80’s cartoon that spoke to a generation of nerds who wanted to hold the power of He-Man. Maybe we also liked the fact that He-Man could probably get any women he wanted to, and we couldn’t. At least we were honest in our admiration of that which was better than us lonely nerds seeking solace in a fictional cartoon. Who else could blow a gust of wind so powerful that it could knock opponents off a cliff? Who else could rub their hands together fast enough to turn sand into glass? He-Man is the ubermanch of the modern cartoon world. If only it were real. If only we were able to be He-Man for one day.

6. Transformers

Transformers Generation 1 was a firestorm for the cartoon market. It had everything a kid wanted. Robots destroying robots. Robots transforming into even bigger robots. Robots combining powers to destroy even bigger combining transforming robots. This show was huge and anyone who ever wanted to be a machine man would identify with Transformers austere disposition. Was there ever more of a recognizable robot in all of cartoon fiction that Optimus Prime? He is referenced everywhere in modern TV and for good reason. He was the first non-sentimental protagonist in robot history. He smashed buildings at will and dominated destructive bots at the drop of an oil spill from his energy tank. The transition from comic book to cartoon was flawless for Transformers, with the cartoon actually becoming more successful than the comic book. This certainly can be called a smooth transition.

5. Mario Brothers

Of course we had to include Mario Brothers on our list, not only because it’s Nintendo’s main protagonist, but because the show had such great storylines and ironic twists that it led to a pure entertainment experience. Luigi was being pulled down drains, Mario was rapping with Milli Vanilli up in the clouds, and the Princess was looking as good Natalie Portman in Closer. Their adventures would take them to the sea, the desert and to all the areas in the actual Mario Brothers game. Everyone who played the Mario games enjoyed this cartoon. Bowser was up to his old antics chasing the brothers around the world all the while contemplating world domination. The Mario Brothers can never do wrong, and they continued their successful streak with this fun cartoon.

4. Rescue Rangers

Rescue Rangers went side by side with Duck Tales with the title of greatest cartoon of the 80’s. The adventures of Chip and Dale would last in the viewers head for some time to come. They were always avoiding a fat cat who appropriately smoked a massive cigar signifying smoking negativity to an impressionable youth. Gadget came up with the best technological designs to ward off the fat cat while always looking stunning for a pale faced rat. Both Chip and Dale would fight over her throughout the series. Some of these conflicts became some of the best moments in the cartoon series. Some of the most memorable moments came from their adventures on their hot air balloon traversing the globe in search of their desires. Memorable characters, great inventions, great story lines, Rescue Rangers was a great cartoon.

3. Thundercats

The eighties were all about team work, and no cartoon exemplified this more than Thundercats. Generally speaking, cats are solitary creatures, except for lions of course, which is probably why Lion-o was the leader, since he was the only one who had experience working in groups. You never see packs of cheetahs or jaguars though, let alone a mixed pack of the feline species, or kingdom, or phylum, or whatever (I was never good at biology). Anyway Thundercats had a similar plot to Superman, their planet blew up and they had to flee so they ended up crashing on a planet called Third Earth. What happened to the first two we’ll never know since that was never addressed in the plot. They also fought a mummy and creatively enough his name was Mum-ra. This show was great, personally I loved the snarfs the most. Though I often wondered if the thundercats would eat them if times got bad. I also had a huge crush on Cheetara, she was such a babe.

2. Duck Tales

Everyone remembers the theme song to Duck Tales, and for good reason. Everyone watched every episode of this show. After school at 4:00, you knew where you were. You were on the couch eating an early dinner or snack watching Duck Tales. Scrooge McDuck and the boys were constantly getting into trouble or preventing trouble. The adventures that the three of them would go on would be epic. They went through Amazon rain forests, go back in time to ancient Greece, and even deep underwater looking for a fortune for their rapacious uncle. This show would never get dull, and the viewer was always on edge experiencing the tales of the young anthropomorphic ducks. Duck Tales was one of the best of the 80’s cartoons. You couldn’t watch just one episode.

1. Voltron

This was the pinnacle of 80s cartoons. It combined all the genius of the previously listed cartoons, animals (specifically lions), robots, magic, monsters, space travel, swords, babely babes, and mean bitches. The five robot lines were each stored in the most awesome garages ever, needless to say they were perfectly suited for the elemental association each lion carried with it. Keith was the leader, he was your typical hero, quick on his feet and cool in command. Lance was the cool guy, he might have been French, I don’t know, either way I bet he got laid the most, he had that sort of troubled vibe. The princess was also a babe, I had a crush on her too. Imagine a threesome with her and Cheetara, now that would be freaky. Then there was the nerd Pidge. He seemed like the type that might have installed a camera in the princess’s shower. Finally was the muscle, Hunk. He’s the guy you take to the bar so when you pick a fight he can beat everyone up.

The crew from Voltron fought a cadre of bad guys ruled by King Zarkon. His son, Prince Lothar, always seemed like the rich kid who would take daddies’ Benze and wreck it after a night at the clubs. I have a serious chip on my shoulder about rich kids, never liked ‘em. Basically in every episode the witch Haggar would make a Robeast and Voltron would defeat it. Haggar worked for Zarkon on the contingent that when Zarkon finally defeats Voltron she would get the associated magic. I would have went for health insurance and a good pension but whatever. She’s also the reason that Voltron was broken up into five robot lions rather than the full robot. It never seemed like much of a disadvantage really, maybe she felt stupid after that, and that was why she was working for free. Much of my early childhood was spent pretending to be Voltron. It was great. This line still gives me chills: “Ready to form Voltron! Activate interlocks! Dyna-therms connected. Infra-cells up; mega-thrusters are go! Let’s go, Voltron Force! Form feet and legs; form arms and body; and I’ll form the head!” You always knew a Robeast was going to be slaughtered soon after, well usually right after the blazing sword was formed. The only thing the show left me questioning was what the hell are dyna-therms and infra cells and why are the essential to making a giant robot out of five smaller, though large in there own right, robot lions?

Source: Sikalong

Happy Birthday, Ubuntu!

2009-10-23T10:52:00.001+07:00

With only nine days left until Karmic Koala's official release, it's time to take a look into the past. Five years ago, on the 20th of October, 2004, Mark Shuttleworth and the "warm-hearted Warthogs" from the developer team announced the first official Ubuntu release. Version 4.10, code name "Warty Warthog," was only the first representative in a line of operating systems that were made by human beings for human beings, aiming to let normal people use Linux.

Let's take a quick look at when each of the Ubuntu versions was released, and what it brought new:
· Ubuntu 4.10 (Warty Warthog) - Released on the 20th of October, 2004
· Ubuntu 5.04 (Hoary Hedgehog) - Released on 8th of April, 2005
· Ubuntu 5.10 (Breezy Badger) - Released on 13th of October, 2005
· Ubuntu 6.06 LTS (Dapper Drake) - Released on the 1st of June, 2006
· Ubuntu 6.10 (Edgy Eft) - Released on the 26th of October, 2006
· Ubuntu 7.04 (Feisty Fawn) - Released on the 19th of April, 2007
· Ubuntu 7.10 (Gutsy Gibbon) - Released on the 18th of October, 2007
· Ubuntu 8.04 LTS (Hardy Heron) - Released on the 24th of April, 2008
· Ubuntu 8.10 (Intrepid Ibex) - Released on the 30th of October, 2008
· Ubuntu 9.04 (Jaunty Jackalope) - Released on the 23rd of April, 2009
· Ubuntu 9.10 (Karmic Koala) - Planned for release on the 29th of October, 2009

Ubuntu 4.10 (Warty Warthog) was something weird for its time. It was common back then for Linux operating systems to ship on anywhere from two to even nine CDs, but Warty only had two: a Live and an Installation CD. Another thing that separated Ubuntu from the other Linux distributions of the time was the ShipIt service that sent Ubuntu CDs to anyone who requested them, free of charge.

The Warty Warthog was followed by Ubuntu 5.04 (Hoary Hedgehog), which brought another series of improvements that catered to non-technical users. The update manager and the notifier changed the task of updating the system from a deeply administrative one to something anyone could do. Under the hood, dynamic frequency scaling kept laptops running for a longer while, and the hardware database kept a tight watch on what components worked well out of the box.

The Ubuntu 5.10 (Breezy Badger) release hid the kernel start-up messages that looked like an alien language to most users under a graphical bootloader for the first time. At that time another defining feature of Ubuntu was created: integration with the Launchpad developer portal.

Fast forward to Ubuntu 6.04 and you will see that there is no such thing. Because the development was not complete, Mark Shuttleworth moved the release date to June that year, but made up to the users by giving them the first long-term support release: Ubuntu 6.06 LTS (Dapper Drake). This version changed the installation process in two ways: the two CDs that were typical for a release were merged into one, which served the double purpose of being a live and an install disk and, related to that, the setup process stopped using Debian's installer and switched to a graphical setup tool named Ubiquity.

You probably still remember Ubuntu 6.10 (Edgy Eft), because it was the first release that featured the finished Human graphical theme. Also, this version featured Tomboy, the note-taking application, and F-Spot, the photo manager. The Beryl desktop effects were also one of the attractions.

Those uber-cool desktop effects that were impressive for seasoned users and novices alike were made possible for the first time with the inclusion of Compiz in Ubuntu 7.04 (Feisty Fawn). Switching from Windows to Ubuntu was made much easier by the migration assistant that was created for this release, and virtualization was given a helping hand by including the Kernel Virtual Machine. Along with the packages was improved multimedia support with the restricted driver and codec installation tools.

I can actually remember Ubuntu 7.10 (Gutsy Gibbon), because it allowed me to save files on an NTFS partition. NTFS-3G's inclusion opened the way for tighter interoperability with Windows systems, while AppArmor watched the system's security and Compiz Fusion took the graphical aspect of the desktop one step further.

Ubuntu 8.04 LTS (Hardy Heron) will continue to be on desktops for a while, because its official support will end in April 2011. It featured a new desktop search tool, Tracker, the Brasero disk burner, the Transmission bit-torrent application and many other new programs. Most of us remember it because of PulseAudio, that was a new thing back then and it caused a lot of problems with audio. Also, Hardy was another big step towards an easy installation, because Wubi allowed you to skip partitioning and stuff Ubuntu in a file on one of your Windows disks.

Ubuntu 8.10 (Intrepid Ibex) was released into a world where netbooks were starting to conquer the market. Since most of those portable computers had no optical drive, Ubuntu came up with the Live USB Creator that allowed you to transfer the bootable image to a USB drive. Also, 8.10 had a lot of security improvements, like home folder encryption support and a ready-made guest account. Rebuilding kernel modules by hand was made obsolete by the inclusion of Dynamic Kernel Module Support.

You must be familiar with Ubuntu 9.04 (Jaunty Jackalope), because you're probably running it right now. It brought us the new Notify OSD and fresh graphics, along with faster boot times and web service integration. The hardware in netbooks was supported, and Wacom tablets were now hot-pluggable. On the development side, everything was moved to the Bazaar revision control system.

Now we're leaving the past and moving on towards the future. Ubuntu 9.10 (Karmic Koala) will be here in nine days, should everything go according to plan. The anniversary presents will be a new graphical theme, ultra-fast boots and a Netbook Remix that truly deserves the Ubuntu name.

Since such a trip down the memory lane would not be complete without a mental image of each release, we prepared this screenshot tour. It represents the journey of a free operating system that truly changed the way people use their computer. Enjoy the Ubuntu timeline, 11 releases in 5 years!

Ubuntu 4.10 (Warty Warthog)

Ubuntu 5.04 (Hoary Hedgehog)

Ubuntu 5.10 (Breezy Badger)

Ubuntu 6.06 LTS (Dapper Drake)

Ubuntu 6.10 (Edgy Eft)

Ubuntu 7.04 (Feisty Fawn)

Ubuntu 7.10 (Gutsy Gibbon)

Ubuntu 8.04 LTS (Hardy Heron)

Ubuntu 8.10 (Intrepid Ibex)

Ubuntu 9.04 (Jaunty Jackalope)

Ubuntu 9.10 (Karmic Koala)

Happy Birthday Ubuntu!

Source: sikalong.blogspot.com

Mandriva Linux 2010.0 Alpha 2 Has KDE 4.3 RC3 and GNOME 2.27.5

2009-08-02T08:27:00.001+07:00

The second alpha of Mandriva Linux 2010.0 was launched last night, on July 31st, by the Mandriva team. The development cycle of Mandriva Linux 2010.0 will continue with a beta release at the end of August, two release candidates scheduled for September and October, and the official public release expected around November, 2009.

Mandriva Linux 2010.0 Alpha 2 is still not available as a Live CD, the only way for you to test it is to grab the DVD and install it. It is available for both 32-bit and 64-bit architectures.

The features of this release are exactly what everyone was expecting, the newly released GNOME 2.27.5 and KDE 4.3 RC3 desktop environments, Linux kernel 2.6.31 RC4, and many more.

Highlights of Mandriva Linux 2010.0 Alpha 2:
· Linux kernel 2.6.31 RC4;
· KDE 4.3 RC3;
· GNOME 2.27.5;
· Xfce 4.6.1;
· X.org Server 1.6.2;
· OpenOffice.org 3.1.0;
· KOffice 2.0.1;
· Amarok 2.1.1;
· Digikam 1.0 Beta 3;
· Kipi plug-ins 0.5.0;
· KMess 2.0.0;
· Apache 2.2.22;
· PHP 5.3.0;
· Improved Drakxtools;
· Device permission handling changes.

Mandriva Linux 2010.0 Release Schedule:
June 19th, 2009 - Mandriva Linux 2010.0 Alpha 1
July 31st, 2009 - Mandriva Linux 2010.0 Alpha 2
August 20th, 2009 - Mandriva Linux 2010.0 Beta
September 17th, 2009 - Mandriva Linux 2010.0 RC1
October 8th, 2009 - Mandriva Linux 2010.0 RC2
November 3rd, 2009 - Mandriva Linux 2010.0 Final release

Download Mandriva Linux 2010.0 Alpha 2 right now from Here, Here, Here, Here, Here, Here, Here, Here, Here, Here, and Here.
Remember that this is an alpha release and it should not be installed on production machines. It is intended for testing purposes only. Please report bugs to the Mandriva Bug Tracker.

By: Marius Nestor

Switch to Ubuntu Today - Canonical's support services for Ubuntu Desktop Edition

2009-08-01T11:14:00.001+07:00

Canonical has announced today in a press release that it will offer new support services for both individual and small businesses, which will ease the transition to the popular Ubuntu operating system, from Microsoft Windows or Apple Macintosh. Ubuntu is a 100% free and open-source Linux OS for both desktop and server platforms, with millions of users around the globe. With these support services offered by Canonical, users can take now take full advantage of the Ubuntu OS. They will include support for installations, desktop configuration and general assistance (see below for details about each package).

Steve George, director of Canonical's Corporate Services division says: "Canonical's Desktop Support Services provides an easy, inexpensive way to get Ubuntu up and running in the home, home office and small business - reaching the vast majority of computer users. [...] With our team supporting them, Ubuntu is ideal for people who just want their computer to work, where the goal is to get up and running with no fuss, focusing on the things they want to accomplish."

Canonical's Desktop Support Services includes three packages: Starter, Advanced and Professional:
- The Starter Desktop Service offers support for installations and basic configuration and functionality of the Ubuntu system, like creating various documents, playing audio and video streams, using various applications or setting up the Internet. The package's price starts from 34.73 Pound Sterling (GBP) + VAT;
- The Advanced Desktop Service offers support for power users who need help or assistance for migrating documents or settings from a Microsoft Windows or Apple Macintosh operating system. Advanced installations, personnel accounting and desktop publishing are also covered by this offering. The package's price starts from 72.62 Pound Sterling (GBP) + VAT;
- The Professional Desktop Service offers support for experienced users who already use Ubuntu as their main operating system, but need help with network installations, various applications support, advanced productivity, advanced system administration and more. The package's price starts from 138.03 Pound Sterling (GBP) + VAT.

All three offerings described above include:
- Live phone support 9x5
- Email support
- Security upgrades
- Product upgrades
- Duration: 1 year or 3 years

For more details and prices you can check out the Canonical Store.

By: Marius Nestor

Download Threat Analysis and Modeling 3.0 Beta

2009-07-28T07:55:00.000+07:00

Download Threat Analysis and Modeling 3.0 Beta - With support for Windows 7, Vista, and XP.

The Beta milestone of Threat Analysis and Modeling 3.0 is live on the Microsoft Download Center and available for download. The tool is designed to allow business users to perform threat modeling and essentially to streamline application risk management. According to Microsoft, the work poured into version 3.0 is designed, on top of expanding the solution with new features, to enhance performance while reducing costs associated with threat modeling. Threat Analysis and Modeling 3.0 Beta is capable of putting together a threat model after being served with information including business requirements and application architecture, but also to deliver security artifacts on top of pointing out threats.

“TAM v3.0 release is focused on 3 main areas of the tool including: threat modeling methodology; gathering application architecture; and security guidance,” revealed Anil Kumar Venkata Revuru, senior software development engineer for Connected Information Security Group.

Customers running Threat Analysis and Modeling 3.0 Beta will be able to enjoy backward compatibility. Revuru noted that “V3.0 is completely backward compatible with v2.1 threat models. A new plug-in has been added in the import section for users to import v2.1 threat models.” At the same time, the Redmond company has taken the necessary steps to ensure that users are always running the latest version of TAM. In this respect, version 3.0 comes with an Auto Updated Client, designed to inform customers of the latest refreshes available for the threat analysis and modeling tool and to point to the downloads.

Microsoft enumerated the new features specific to version 3: “Azure based CTL store; Visio drawing surface for use cases; Intelligent TFS Sync; automated tool update detection; modified methodology to make threat modeling simpler; Composite Threats and single threat for a call; improved Automatic Threat Generation; v2.1 Import with automated countermeasure mapping; updated countermeasure structure; other minor UI and functionality tweaks.”

Threat Analysis and Modeling 3.0 Beta is available for download here.

By: Marius Oiaga

It is Dangerous to Drink Ice Tea

2009-07-15T15:03:00.000+07:00

It is Dangerous to Drink Ice Tea (3 Pics)
A guy bought a bottle of ice tea, the equivalent of Ice Tea in China. And just before drinking it, he stopped. When you are in China, be extremely careful

ArtistX 0.6, Now Based on Ubuntu 8.10

2009-02-23T04:30:00.000+07:00

Marco Ghirlanda, team leader of ArtistX, announced the immediate availability of version 0.6, now created with the help of Remastersys Live CD creation software. Using the 2.6.27 Linux kernel, ArtistX 0.6 lets you choose between GNOME 2.24 and the recent KDE 4.2 desktop environments and has Compiz Fusion included for a full 3D-effects experience.

Having plenty of space on a DVD, ArtistX 0.6 comes with almost 2500 free multimedia applications designed for all Linux users. This version is based on the latest stable Ubuntu 8.10 (Intrepid Ibex) release and features the Ubiquity installer.

The software packages that are included in ArtistX 0.6 are, among many others:
· The GNU Image Manipulation Program (GIMP), Inkscape, Nip2, Krita, Cinepaint, Synfig, Rawstudio, Skencil and Hugin for the 2D Graphic suite;
· Blender, Wings3D, K3D, Kpovmodeler and Povray 3.6 for 3D Graphics;
· Cinelerra, Kino, Openmovieeditor, Kdenlive, Pitivi, Avidemux, Devede are some of the video editing tools;
· MPlayer, Helix Player, VideoLAN (VLC media player), Xine, Kaffeine, Kmplayer, LastFM for playing audio and video files;
· PD, Rosegarden, Ardour, TerminatorX, Cecillia/Csound, Gnusound and Mixxx for creating and editing audio files.

About ArtistX
ArtistX Linux Live DVD, an Ubuntu based distribution, transforms a normal computer into a full-featured multimedia production machine. Containing almost all available free audio, video and 2D/3D graphics tools, ArtistX is a good choice for multimedia enthusiasts, professionals and amateurs alike. Being a Live DVD, there is no need to install ArtistX on the hard disk, thus leaving your partitions untouched. All the created files can easily be saved on USB drives and even burned on CDs or DVDs.

Download ArtistX 0.6 right now from here, here.

Source: http://akupunyasitus.blogspot.com/

Kubuntu 8.04.2 Released - Now with KDE 3.5.10

2009-02-23T04:22:00.001+07:00

The Kubuntu team announced on Saturday (February 21) the second maintenance release of Kubuntu 8.04 (Hardy Heron), which is supported with security fixes and maintenance updates until October 2009. Kubuntu 8.04.2 brings to its dedicated users a lot of security updates and corrections (over 200), all with a single goal: to keep Kubuntu 8.04 a stable and reliable Linux distribution!

"In all, over 200 updates have been integrated, and updated installation media has been provided so that fewer updates will need to be downloaded after installation. These include security updates, and corrections for other high-impact bugs, with a focus on maintaining stability and compatibility with Kubuntu 8.04." - said the Kubuntu team in the official release announcement.

Highlights of Kubuntu 8.04.2:
· The K Desktop Environment was updated to version 3.5.10;
· Kaffeine's codec installation loop bug was fixed;
· KHelpCenter's indexer now works with dash;
· Kopete's latexconvert now works with dash;
· Repaired a dash latexconvert incompatibility;
· Fixed some Kontact crashes, when using GCal;
· The hdparm power management was set to 128 for all hard disks while on battery, and 254 while on AC (please note that the suspend/resume functions still crash this and a complete fix will arrive in the third maintenance release of Hardy Heron);
· Added support CDs with compressed packages, which will allow everyone to upgrade to future release using CDs;
· Updated the MySQL 4.1 packages, which will allow a smooth upgrade from Ubuntu 6.06 LTS (Dapper Drake);
· Repaired the checksum recheck, after reset, for Asus Eee PC 1000.

For the complete list of the changes, please check the official release notes.

About Kubuntu
Kubuntu is a Linux distribution based on Ubuntu, and built on top of KDE (K Desktop Environment). Kubuntu can be used on your desktop or server. Among its features we can notice a fast and easy install, regular releases, a tight selection of excellent packages installed by default, every other package you can imagine available from the network, and professional technical support from Canonical Ltd. and hundreds of other companies around the world.

Download Kubuntu 8.04.2 (Hardy Heron) right now from here.

Source: http://akupunyasitus.blogspot.com/

Mandriva Announces Pulse 2 v1.2

2009-02-04T23:59:00.000+07:00

Mandriva Announces Pulse 2 v1.2 - A technology for Linux and Windows desktop roll-out projects. Mandriva announced the immediate availability of version 1.2 of their Pulse 2, an Open Source tool for managing workstations, mobile computers and servers. Mandriva Pulse 2's purpose is to make managing of information systems much easier for those who choose to use it.

Mandriva Pulse 2 keeps a software and hardware inventory for each computer in its database, deploying and updating applications. Other features include diagnostic and remote control modules. This set of tools automates the management of workstations, servers or even mobile computers and, at the same time, reduces management and information system administration costs, regardless of the operating system.

Pulse 2 identifies instability risks and security errors in time to prevent further problems, and it is able to detect differences between current features and security policies that are pre-established.

"Companies are called upon to manage information systems ever more heterogenous whilst at the same time assuring their global availability. [...] The status of Open Source software gives Pulse 2 a powerful capacity of integration within highly diversified environments. It helps users to manage this diversity by enabling updates and maintenance tasks no matter the number of platforms and their location, to reduce the time and cost of the system administration.", stated Mandriva's Business Products and Services Division VP, Sebastien Lefebvre, in the official release announcement.

Mandriva Pulse 2 increases the overall security and reliability of user environments by automating roll-outs, maintenance and update processes. It can also observe and record user's choices, making migration a faster process. Having a modular architecture and bandwidth management mechanisms, Mandriva Pulse 2 is a great solution for large, wide-spread IT infrastructures.

Highlights of Madndriva Pulse 2 v1.2:
· automatic management
· available for a wide range of operating systems
· identifies risks in time
· reduces costs
· modular architecture

About Mandriva:
Mandriva is the publisher of one of the most popular Linux distributions, Mandriva Linux, a user-friendly operating system. Mandriva's products are available online in 80 languages, with dedicated servers in 140 countries. More information can be found by accessing their website.

Source: http://akupunyasitus.blogspot.com/

Slamd64 12.2 Released - Brings important system-wide updates

2009-02-04T23:29:00.001+07:00

Slamd64 12.2 Released - Brings important system-wide updates. Fred Emmott announced yesterday the release of version 12.2 of his Linux distribution, Slamd64, a system compatible with both 32- and 64-bit hardware. Its multilib capability enables this distro to have an increased support for both 32-bit software and 64-bit binaries, but without the cluttering of the root directory. The nspluginwrapper viewer is still included in the distribution, making it easy to install and use 32-bit plugins on 64-bit versions of Firefox and Konqueror, which are included in this release.

"Like previous releases of Slamd64, 12.2 provides seamless FHS-compliant 32-bit compatibility, via a multilib system (/lib for 32-bit libraries and /lib64 for 64-bit libraries). [...] nspluginwrapper is still included in c/, allowing you to easily use 32-bit browser plugins (such as Adobe Flash) in the included 64-bit browsers, such as Firefox and Konqueror - given the availability of prerelease 64-bit versions of Adobe Flash Player and Sun's Java Plugin, this will hopefully vanish soon." – said Fred Emmott in the official release announcement.

Highlights of Slamd64 12.2:
· Linux kernel 2.6.27.7
· GCC 4.2.4
· Apache HTTPD 2.2.10 server, with SSL support and PHP 5.2.8
· Updated development tools
· KDE (K Desktop Environment) 3.5.10
· XFCE 4.4.3
· The latest Mozilla Firefox 3.0.5
· Mozilla Thunderbird 2.0.0.19
· Sun's Microsystem Java (JRE and JDK) 6 update 11

Fred Emmott also reminded that the support for Slamd64 11.0 would soon be dropped.

About Slamd64
Slamd64 first appeared in 2004 as an unofficial port to the 64-bit architecture of Slackware Linux. Because of this, almost all packages created for the x86 version of Slackware can be run by Slamd64. The minimum system requirements are: 128 MB of RAM, 100 MB disk space for the text-only install or 3 GB for the full version and a VGA card. 3D graphics are also supported with a recommendation to use NVidia or Intel cards.

Download Slamd64 12.2 right now from here.

Source: http://akupunyasitus.blogspot.com/

Automatic Wallpaper Changer

2009-01-15T08:31:00.001+07:00

Automatic Wallpaper Changer - Create image playlists with the least effort. BioniX Wallpaper is an advanced desktop wallpaper cycler and wallpaper manager.

Features:
Low memory usage
Can "smart stretch" big images
Can tile/stretch/center an image
Low flicker when changing desktop image
Automatically starts at Windows startup
Interface can be transparent
Possibility to load more external skins
Doesn't mess your system/registry with dirt
It can remember user's settings

The desktop background of the computer may seem of little importance to some but other users pay very much attention to the image set as background of the screen. It either says something about their personality or it is simply an image conveying their state of mind.

Although the process of changing a desktop background is nothing complicated and implies opening a wallpaper with Windows' image viewer and choosing the option from the context menu, there are ways of completely automating it. BioniX Wallpaper Changer is one of the most appreciated wallpaper managers on the Internet and it comes jam-packed with options.

The application has three versions, one for every pocket: the Lite edition is absolutely free, the Extreme version is $14.2 and the Insane edition is $21.4 but you can get a 30% discount for the last two if you use the coupon code Disc30 upon purchasing from the developer's website. All three are differentiated by the number of active features. For a complete list of features for each of the mentioned versions you can check up this link here.

We're going to test the Insane version, which has all the features of the Lite and the Extreme editions and then some. Besides lifetime access to updates, it gives access to over 125 application skins, enables the wallpaper change shortcut, makes available the “lock on folder” feature and supports an unlimited amount of images in the playlist.

From the moment Bionix Wallpaper Changer is launched you can clearly see that the developer did not aim to impress with the aesthetics of the software but with its slew of features and options. Even so, there are a bunch of skins available to change the main application window and make it more pleasantly looking.

One thing needs to be mentioned about BioniX Wallpaper Changer: it is not a regular wallpaper manager as it is capable of handling an entire folder of images and change them according to a user-set time interval. It can shuffle them for a touch of ‘the element of surprise’ or roll them in the exact order they are stored on the hard disk.

In the main screen of the software there is a set of options very similar to the controls of an audio player. These can help you skip to the next or previous image and start/stop the countdown timer, which can be set down to a second but in this mode you will notice a computer drag as the CPU is used pretty intensely.

The main application window contains a drop-down menu that, once unrolled, gives you access to different menus situated in the lower part of the window: Desktop, Enhance and Lock on Folder. The Info tab shows the amount of free space on the drives of the system. Each of them contains options for configuring the wallpaper style, choosing the resampling quality and the contrast, saturation and brightness for the best looks.

Given the tooltips popping up upon mouse hovering over an option and their brief explanation, working with the application should be a cinch. The list of resample filters includes the famous Lanczos and Mitchell filters as well as B-Spline, Hermite and Bell.

The Lock on Folder feature allows you to spin the images in a specific folder automatically every time you start the program. They make for the software playlist and you can add as many pictures as you want after the locking has been enabled because the application will simply count them all.

Playlist view can be enabled from the main application window (top right) and, just like in an audio player, you get to create as many of them as you want and save them on the hard disk. Sort options let you randomize the list or reverse the order of the items.

Configuring BioniX Wallpaper Changer is nothing complicated and allows for setting up the action to be taken at software start (change wallpaper and then close, start the countdown timer or do absolutely nothing). It can also be set up to start with Windows in minimized mode.

The application supports additional interface tweaks besides the various skins available, consisting of changing the opacity and making it transparent.

Additional options relate to the Playlist Editor. Here you can choose the action attributed to the Delete button (removing the file from playlist only or from the hard disk as well) or select the default resample mode.

If the tooltips are popping up too slow, their appearance time can be changed, together with the duration they remain on screen. The place these can be set up is the Icon/Help tab of the Advanced Settings.

A very interesting option present in the Insane version of the software is the system-wide hotkey. This enables you to change the current wallpaper with the next one instantly without calling on complicated menus. You just press a key combination that supersedes all apps on your computer and the desktop background is immediately switched with the next in line. However, you should be careful for the hotkey not to double with a different action in a different piece of software.

BioniX Wallpaper Changer makes for a great wallpaper manager both in terms of options and regarding the ease of use. It may not be the greatest looking application but its looks are irrelevant compared to the discounted price and the set of features it puts on the table. System resources are kept down to a minimum (in our case peak RAM usage was registered at 9MB while CPU was used only when changing the wallpaper) and it can help you create multiple playlists and load them up one at a time, just like in an audio player.

An exciting caboodle is represented by the Tools menu. It gathers options for hiding desktop icons and even the taskbar. These come in handy when combined with a lower wallpaper change delay as you can watch an whole playlist just like a slideshow on the entire monitor screen, without any hindrance from the shortcuts.

One of the biggest drawbacks of BioniX are the looks. The interface and even some of the skins are not in tone with Vista's shiny slick looks, not to mention with the upcoming Windows 7. Also, we noticed that the main application window and the Playlist Editor do not stick together when moved more vigorously.

The Good
BioniX Wallpaper presents an amazing set of options and features dedicated to automating the way your wallpapers change on your desktop. It is extremely easy to use, runs on low computer resources and can give you details on the fill level of the various drives available on the system.

You can select the time interval for the desktop background to be changed and select a specific folder for the application to take the images from. Each image can run as it is or you can tweak the contrast, saturation and brightness to make it more artsy.

The tested version makes available no less than seven resample modes for the wallpapers to show their best.

The Bad
The looks are nothing Bionix should be proud of. Not even some of the skins can do a better job and the Playlist Editor just can't keep stuck to the main application window if the latter is shaken a tad quicker.

The Truth
If the current discounted prices remain ($9.9 for the Extreme edition and 14.9 for the Insane one) I'm sure BioniX will rake a whole lot more adepts. However, even without the discount BioniX makes for a pretty tempting offer.

It works quite well and besides the aforementioned mischiefs there is little to add on the downside. It can start with Windows and run minimized, you can use a system-wide hotkey to immediately change the current wallpaper and it can be set up to take user-specific actions once it is launched.

Try the Lite version for free for as long as you want, compare the features of the other two versions and decide if it is worth the money (hopefully, the coupon code will become a permanent offer). Download BioniX Wallpaper right now from here.

Here are some snapshots of the application in action:

Available Now: Absolute Linux 12.2.1

2009-01-10T02:25:00.000+07:00

Paul Sherman, father of the Absolute Linux, announced on January 8th, a new bug fix release of his Slackware-based operating system. Absolute Linux 12.2.1 delivers updated versions for the Pidgin (2.5.2), Samba (3.2.7), the GIMP (2.6.4), WPClipart (7.1), Audacity (1.3.6) applications and the following Mozilla products: Firefox 3.0.5, Thunderbird 2.0.0.19, Seamonkey 1.1.14. Moreover, this point release version of Absolute Linux 12.2 updates the PTP camera auto-mounting feature, the wireless/wired networking manager (wicd 1.5.8) and it also introduces a newer version of the Help System, which is now located on the second disc and works properly. Last but not least, wxPython was updated to version 2.8.9.1 and it replaces the older wxPython and wxGTK packages.

"This is primarily a security update. [...] Also in this release, PTP camera auto-mounting has been updated as well as wicd (wireless and wired networking manager), GIMP has been updated twice since the last release, and the newer version of the help system now works properly and is on CD2. Just a couple other updates and you may also notice that the package for WPClipart-7.1 is online and ready to install onto Absolute (note that the complete package is well over 700 MB)" - said Paul Sherman in the official release announcement.

Absolute Linux is a lightweight modification of the Slackware Linux distribution. It makes maintenance and configuration much easier, and it has common applications installed and configured. Absolute Linux allows you to play audio CDs, DVDs and movies "out of the box," and is easy to configure and use. Highlights of Absolute Linux include:
· icewm/ROX_Filer as a window/file manager combination;
· Time-saving utilities;
· Preconfigured shortcuts/menus;
· Desktop-oriented software;
· Customized installer;
· Manuals, HOWTOs and other useful documentation.

Absolute Linux includes applications such as:
· Pidgin (multi-protocol instant messenger)
· Avidemux (video editor)
· Azureus (P2P client)
· Mozilla Firefox (web browser)
· Mozilla Thunderbird (mail client)
· OpenOffice.org (office suite)
· Scribus (desktop publisher)
· Adobe Acrobat Reader (PDF viewer)
· Bibletime (Bible study application)
· Deluge (BitTorrent client)

If you want a fast, lightweight, Slackware-based Linux operating system for your personal computer, you can download Absolute Linux 12.1.1 right now from here and here.

Hansika Motwani

2008-12-22T00:27:00.000+07:00

Hansika Motwani Profile:
Name: Hansika
Birth name: Hansika Motwani
Birthdate: August 09, 1991
Birth location: Mumbai, India
Height: 5' 5" (1.65 m)
Sex: Female
Profession: Actress
Debut Film: Koi... Mil Gaya
Education: Podar International School
Brother: Prashant Motwani
Father: Pradeep Motwani
Mother: Mona Motwani
Claim To Fame: 10-year-old mentally challenged girl in the Film 'Jaago'

Parted Magic 3.3 Offers Support for NFS - Includes NTFS-3G 1.5130 and GParted 0.4.1

2008-12-19T22:13:00.000+07:00

Patrick Verner announced a few days ago the third maintenance release of Parted Magic 3, a Slackware-based Linux distribution designed to help users with partitioning tasks. Parted Magic 3.3 contains a few new applications, brings improved support for video drivers, adds NFS support, and updates various packages. On top of that, the USB edition of Parted Magic 3.3 was drastically cleaned up (see the following quote for details).

"Files in the USB version have moved. GRUB files are in the /boot/grub folder and syslinux files are in the /boot/syslinux folder. The proper command to boot the USB is 'syslinux -d /boot/syslinux /dev sdXX' for Linux and 'syslinux -ma -d /boot/syslinux X:\' for windows." - said Patrick Verner in the official release announcement.

Changes since Parted Magic 3.2 release include:
· Improved support for video drivers by downgrading the xorg-server package to version 1.4.2;
· Included all the extensions and drivers, such as GLX and DRI, from the standard build;
· udhcpc is no longer used for obtaining DHCP leases;
· NFS daemons will automatically start at boot. To cancel them use the nonfs boot parameter.

The following packages were updated in Parted Magic 3.3:
· NTFS-3G 1.5130
· Udev 135
· GParted 0.4.1
· Busybox 1.13.1
· hdparm 9.3
· XArchiver 0.5.2

The following packages were added in Parted Magic 3.3:
· gFTP 2.0.19
· dhcp 3.0.7
· dhcpcd 2.0.8
· Portmap 6.0
· nfs-utils 1.1.2

Parted Magic is a business-card operating system, based on Slackware Linux, with programs that allow you to partition hard disks with ease. Programs like Partition Image, TestDisk, fdisk, sfdisk, dd, ddrescue, and a good documentation will help you in your partitioning tasks. Parted Magic is licensed under the GNU General Public License (GPL) and it can be downloaded right now from here and here.
Source: http://linuxarticle.blogspot.com/

Linux Mint 6 (Felicia) Released

2008-12-17T00:55:00.000+07:00

Clement Lefebvre and the Linux Mint community proudly announced last night, on the official Linux Mint Blog, the final release of Linux Mint 6 (dubbed Felicia), a popular Linux distribution based on the Ubuntu operating system. Linux Mint 6 is a new and important step in the evolution of the Linux Mint OS, it is based on Intrepid Ibex (Ubuntu 8.10), and it includes all the latest technologies, such as Linux kernel 2.6.27, GNOME 2.24 or X.Org 7.4. Why is Linux Mint 6 so important? Because it now offers a new, in-house tool called mint4win, which will allow everyone to install the Linux Mint operating system directly from Microsoft Windows!

"The team is proud to announce the release of Linux Mint 6 “Felicia”. Congratulations and thanks to all the people who contributed to this release, to all the translators, to the upstream developers and projects which made this possible and above all to the development team for their continuous support." - said Clement Lefebvre, developer of Linux Mint, in the official release announcement.

Highlights of Linux Mint 6:
· mint4win allows you to install Linux Mint from the Microsoft Windows operating system;
· mintInstall 5 with a new offline interface, software versions information and support for multiple portals;
· mintUpdate 3 with a revamped GUI, proxy support, updates history;
· mintUpload 2 with support for FTP transfers;
· mintNanny, a useful parental control tool;
· Giver, a LAN (Local Area Network) transfer tool;
· Gufw, a Graphical User Interface (GUI) frontend for the ufw firewall;
· Flegita, an utility for scanners.

On top of that, the Linux Mint team is proud to present the introduction of the Linux Mint Universal Edition, a customized version of Felicia, available as a Live DVD. The Universal Edition contains the following features:
· Installs all the missing audio and video codecs;
· Offers support for English, Italian, German, Spanish, Indonesian, French, Norwegian, Portuguese, Polish, Dutch, Swedish, Russian, Hindi, Greek, Urdu, Finnish, Chinese, Japanese, Danish, Filipino, Bulgarian, Czech, Hungarian, Slovak, Romanian, Ukrainian, Turkish, Thai, Arabic, Hebrew, Korean, Catalan, Esperanto, Croatian, Serbian and Farsi languages;
· Available as a Live DVD.

What are recommended system requirements? To install Linux Mint 6, you will need minimum 512 MB of RAM (however, the system will work very well with 256 MB of RAM after installation). Be aware that the installation may hang if you have less than 512 MB of RAM. As a solution, you can try to repeat the installation process several times. Also, you must have at least 3 or 4 GB of free hard drive space.

What is Linux Mint? Linux Mint is an elegant, easy to use, up-to-date, 100% free and comfortable Linux desktop distribution based on the very popular Ubuntu operating system. It offers paid commercial support to companies and individuals. Also, free community support is available from the forums and the IRC channel. If you want to give Linux Mint 6 (Felicia) a try, download it right now from here, here (torrent). The Linux Mint Universal Edition can also be downloaded from here.
Source: Linux Articles

More GeForce GTX 285 Details Emerge

2008-12-16T22:45:00.000+07:00

As we are approaching the now inevitable release of the 55nm GeForce GTX 285, more details regarding said card surface on the Internet. NVIDIA's new GeForce flagship graphics card is expected to come as an overclocked version of the company's current GeForce GTX 280.

Also, unlike the current card, the GPU of the upcoming GTX 285 takes advantage of a 55nm process technology, which basically allows for better performance and overclocking capability, while it should also provide a better power consumption level.

According to a recent post on the Chinese language Expreview, the upcoming single-core GTX 285 is expected to boast frequency levels a bit over those available for NVIDIA's current GeForce GTX 280. The core speed of the GTX 285 should settle at 648 MHz, compared with the 602 MHz available with the GeForce GTX280. The Shader and Memory frequencies have also been brought up to 1476MHz and 1242MHz, respectively.

Given that the 65nm-based GTX 280 has Shader and Memory clock speeds of 1296MHz and 1107MHz, the performance boost might not be all that impressive. Still, the performance of the GTX 285 is expected to surpass that of ATI's HD 4870 and to come close to what the HD 4870 X2 can now provide. We are yet to see a comparative review between any pair of aforementioned cards, but we should keep our peeled for one such piece as it would give us a general idea of what we should expect from NVIDIA's next-generation GeForce graphics card.

After the release of the GTX 280 and the dual-GPU GTX 295, the Sunnyvale, California-based AMD is also expected to unveil a new range of cards as well. The rumored Radeons are to compete directly with NVIDIA's upcoming 55nm range of products. What is yet unclear is whether said cards are to remain at 55nm, or whether AMD plans to jump straight to 40nm.

Source: http://akupunyasitus.blogspot.com

PC-BSD 7.0.2 Released, Now with KDE 4.1.3 - The Fibonacci Edition

2008-12-15T01:37:00.000+07:00

Kris Moore from the PC-BSD development team announced today the immediate availability of the second maintenance release of PC-BSD 7.0 (Fibonacci Edition). "The PC-BSD Team is pleased to announce the availability of PC-BSD 7.0.2, with an updated FreeBSD 7.1-PreRelease under the hood and the latest KDE 4.1.3." - said Kris in the official release announcement.

Therefore, PC-BSD users can upgrade their systems today with the new version, which includes KDE 4.1.3, improved support for NTFS partitions, better desktop performance for owners of Nvidia video cards, enhancements and fixes to HAL, bug fixes to the installation.

Here are the changes since PC-BSD 7.0.1:
· Updated KDE to version 4.1.3;
· Updated HAL to version 0.5.11_8 (fixes an issue when trying to eject a CD/DVD in KDE4, and offers enhanced NTFS-3G support);
· Resolved an issue with the scanner permissions that prevented users to scan;
· Resolved an issue with PBI updates;
· Fixed knotify4 bug, which made the computer hang at shutdown sometimes;
· Better Online Updater utility, which now supports proxy servers and allows the use of TMPDIR;
· The sound-detect script was updated to support various new cards;
· Nvidia cards owners have now a new script (automatically activated on startup), which improves the desktop performance (lag and compositing effects);
· Fixed some empty hard drive installation issues;
· Resolved three System Manager bugs.

How to upgrade? Just apply the update and reboot your PC-BSD system. Remember that it may take 15-25 minutes to complete (depending on your system's specs).

If you want to install PC-BSD, it is recommended to have at least a Pentium 4 or higher CPU (or AMD64 alternatives) with 512 MB of RAM, minimum 12 GB of free hard drive space (either a partition, or an entire disk), a network card, a sound card and a 3D-accelerated video card (Nvidia or Intel).

PC-BSD is a free operating system, based on FreeBSD, created with ease of use in mind. Like any modern system, it allows you to watch movies, listen to your favorite music, work with office documents, and install your favorite applications with a couple of mouse clicks (and a nice setup wizard).
PC-BSD 7.0.2 can be downloaded right now from Here (Link 1), Here (Link 2).
Source: Linux Articles

Microsoft to Kill Windows XP 'Blue Edition' - In the fight against pirated software

2008-12-05T06:38:00.000+07:00

Microsoft is attempting to kill the “Blue Edition” of Windows XP. In mid-2008 the Redmond company discontinued the availability of retail and OEM licenses of Windows XP, with the exception of copies of the operating system going onto ultra-low-cost laptops and desktops. However, XP “Blue Edition” is by no means a part of Microsoft's efforts to focus consumers and partners on Windows Vista and beyond. Killing XP “Blue Edition” is an illustrative example of the company's actions to stop the software counterfeiting phenomenon affecting its products.

According to Microsoft, “Blue Edition” is nothing more than a fabricated marketing program used to market and sell pirated copies of Windows XP. In this regard, the software giant informed that it had debuted legal actions against multiple online auctioneers worldwide, which were allegedly responsible for selling pirated copies of XP “Blue Edition” and not only via various global marketing schemes.

“Dishonest auctioneers are too often using these online auction sites to sell counterfeit and illegal copies of Microsoft software, taking advantage of unsuspecting customers around the world,” revealed David Finn, associate general counsel for Worldwide Anti-Piracy and Anti-Counterfeiting at Microsoft. “These dealers are peddling bogus products that can put customers and their personal information at serious risk.”

Microsoft has indicated that auctioneers in 12 countries around the world are now facing lawsuits for selling counterfeit software on online auction sites. A total of 63 legal actions involve lawsuits in the US (16), in Germany (12), in France (12), and in the UK (7). In addition, the software giant is also going after software counterfeiters in Argentina, Brazil, Canada, Colombia, the Dominican Republic, Japan, Mexico and New Zealand.

“By taking legal action against these and other alleged counterfeiters, Microsoft is helping ensure that consumers around the world are protected from those who sell counterfeit software over the Internet,” Finn added. “We are also continuing to arm our customers with the information they need to keep from falling victim to counterfeit software. Consumers should be aware that the so-called ‘Blue Edition’ software is nothing more than low-quality counterfeit software burned onto a CD.”

Source: http://microsoftarticles.blogspot.com

Opera 10.0 Alpha 1 Available for Download - Get it here

2008-12-05T05:49:00.000+07:00

Having released Opera 9.5 and Opera 9.6 in 2008, the Norwegian browser maker is now offering the first taste of Opera 10.0. While Microsoft and Mozilla are laboring to hit the Release Candidate stages of Internet Explorer 8 (now at Beta 2) and Firefox 3.1, respectively (now still at Beta 1, and on the verge of Beta 2), Opera is also cooking the next iteration of its browser. The first Alpha development milestone for Opera 10.0 is now available for download.

“It seems like yesterday we released Opera 9.6 and now you can all get your hands on Opera 10.0. Rather than ramble on, here's a quick list of what's new: Presto 2.2 Engine; performance boost; 100/100 and pixel-perfect on the Acid3 test; auto-update; inline spelling checker; Opera Mail improvements, including rich text composition and delete after X days; Widget Improvements on Linux,” revealed Adam Minchinton, Opera Mac developer.

Opera has tweaked and optimized the core of the browser, and has taken Presto up to version 2.2 from 2.1 in Kestrel. In this context, now Opera 10.0 Alpha 1 passes the Acid3 Test for web standard support to perfection, the browser maker claims. At the same time, the evolution of the engine has delivered a new level of performance, not only in terms of speed, but also in regard to how the broser handles CSS, XML printing, and RGBA and HSLA support.

“The long awaited auto-update functionality is here! That's right, Opera will now update itself as new versions are released. And for those of you who want every single snapshot release just enable the 'Download All Snapshots' setting (opera:config#AutoUpdate). Please be aware that if you do so, you will be upgrading to all snapshots - and, as you know: snapshots contain the latest changes, but may also have severe known issues, including crashes and data loss situations. In fact, they may not work at all,” Minchinton added.

Opera 10.0 Alpha 1 for Windows is available for download here (Link 1), here (Link 2), here (Link 3), here (Link 4), here (Link 5).

Opera 10.0 Alpha 1 for Linux is available for download here (Link 1), here (Link 2), here (Link 3), here (Link 4), here (Link 5), here (Link 6).

Opera 10.0 Alpha 1 for Mac OS X is available for download here (Link 1), here (Link 2), here (Link 3), here (Link 4), here (Link 5), here (Link 6).

MySQL Administrator for Windows 5.0 r10

2008-12-04T15:13:00.000+07:00

MySQL Administrator is a powerful visual administration console that enables you to easily administer your MySQL environment and gain significantly better visibility into how your databases are operating.

MySQL Administrator now integrates database management and maintenance into a seamless, single environment, with an intuitive and clear graphical user interface.

By using MySQL Administrator you will be able to:
- Achieve higher database availability through improved management
- Reduce errors through visual database administration
- Lower database administration costs through improved productivity
- Deliver a more secure environment through easier privilege management

MySQL Administrator enables developers and DBAs to easily perform all the command line operations visually including configuring servers, administering users, and dynamically monitoring database health.

Other common administrative tasks such as monitoring replication status, backup and restore, and viewing logs can also be performed through the MySQL Administrator graphical console.

User Administration in Minutes
Administering users, granting privileges and viewing user privilege information has never been easier! Now you can leverage the full power of MySQL's user management and privilege capabilities to fully protect your MySQL server host using an integrated graphical user administration console.

For example, a form-based interface provides a simple method for adding users, assigning passwords and including user profile information. Plus, assigning and revoking global, database, and table/column privileges is as easy as adding and removing privilege items from an available list. Finally, an explorer interface provides a hierarchical view allowing you to easily view user privileges by privilege type.

Single View Dynamic Health Monitoring
Dynamic health monitoring gives you an immediate view into the key indicators of the health of your MySQL environment. Dynamic graphs enable you to easily view percentage of memory usage, connection usage, hit rates, as well as the number of SQL queries on an ongoing basis, as your system runs.

The Disk Health tab gives you an overview of the amount of hard disk space, tablespace, and log files being used. You can also use the visual health monitoring feature to get a hierarchical view into status and server variables such as the number of outstanding connections, number of bytes sent and received by clients, buffer allocations size and more.

Quickly Optimize MySQL
MySQL Administrator now allows you to easily view and setup key parameters so you can quickly optimize the performance of MySQL. Using a graphical forms-based environment, you quickly fine tune general and advanced parameters. For example you can set memory usage parameters and configure server start-up parameters related to the MyISAM and InnoDB table types.

Rapid Disaster Prevention and Recovery
Now you can rapidly create consistent backups and restore data by simply visually selecting the schemas and tables you want to back/restore from your hierarchical data directory. The graphical environment gives you additional visibility into Tabletype, Rows, Data Length, and Update time.

Server Information At-a-Glance
The server information section of MySQL Administrator allows you to quickly view basic information about the server and client. This view gives you immediate visibility into items such as server status, client and server version numbers and IP address, as well as connection information.

View Replication Status
Now you can quickly set up replication to increase the robustness and speed of your MySQL environment. The replication features within MySQL Administrator allow you to easily view the network topology of your replication master and slaves. Plus, the graphical environment provides additional visibility into IP addresses and logfiles.

View Server Logs from a Centralized Administration Environment
Now you can view all the MySQL log files including error logs, binary logs, and InnoDB logs from a single, centralized administration environment so you can diagnose server problems quicker and track database changes.

Service Control
Gain complete control of service creation and overcome the time consuming task of installing and setting up services. Plus, start and stop MySQL servers and view corresponding log messages.

Browse Catalog
Browse your catalog and view corresponding tables with columns, all indices and users with privileges to access selected databases. From here you can monitor and optimize tables.

Cross Platform
MySQL Administrator will initially be available for Microsoft Windows and Linux, and be compatible with MySQL version 4.0 or later.

MySQL Administrator for Windows 5.0 r10 is available for download here (Link 1)
MySQL Administrator for Windows 5.0 r10 is available for download here (Link 2)

The Windows 7 Troubleshooting Platform

2008-12-04T03:00:00.001+07:00

The Windows 7 Troubleshooting Platform - Windows Vista could have used this level of advanced troubleshooting. Microsoft has kicked the troubleshooting capabilities of Windows to the next level with the introduction of Windows 7. And as early as Windows 7 pre-Beta Milestone 3 Build 6801, the Redmond company is offering a taste of the full capabilities of the operating system, capabilities that could have been life savers for Windows Vista users when the RTM build initially hit the shelves. According to the software giant, Windows 7 comes to the table with a comprehensive and extensible Troubleshooting Platform capable of identifying and resolving a wide array of problems on its own.

This mainly because the platform has a PowerShell-based mechanism at its core. Microsoft indicated that the platform was in fact a collection of components. The troubleshooting package, engine, and wizard all combine in order to deal with potential problems that the end users might come across.

"The troubleshooting pack is a collection of PowerShell scripts and relevant metadata. The troubleshooting engine launches a PowerShell runtime to execute a troubleshooting pack, and exposes a set of interfaces to control troubleshooting pack execution," Microsoft revealed. "The troubleshooting wizard provides a consistent experience across troubleshooting packs, communicating with the troubleshooting engine to troubleshoot and resolve problems that are specified in a troubleshooting pack."

As you can very well see from the image on the left, the Troubleshooting Platform is designed to deal with a range of issues spanning from the programs running on top of Windows 7 to those affecting devices, networking, printing, display, sound, performance and the Windows operating system itself.

"The Troubleshooting Platform seamlessly integrates with the Windows 7 PC Solution Center, enabling other applications to execute diagnostics in a similar manner as part of their PC management regimen. The Troubleshooting Platform is configurable by IT professionals through Group Policy for use within the enterprise, and a Windows Troubleshooting Toolkit that allows developers to author troubleshooting packs is also available," Microsoft added.
Source: http://akupunyasitus.blogspot.com/

Windows 7 Pre-Beta Build 6801 Leaked and Available for Download

2008-12-04T02:26:00.001+07:00

Windows 7 Pre-Beta Build 6801 Leaked and Available for Download - Via torrent websites. The past week, Microsoft delivered the first consistent taste of Windows 7, offering the pre-beta bits of the operating system at the Professional Developers Conference. On October 28, developers attending the event got their hands on a 160 GB drive pre-loaded with various goodies including Windows 7 Build 6801 in both 32-bit and 64-bit flavors. Subsequently, as it was the case with previous beta or final releases of Windows, the pre-beta bits for Windows 7 Build 6801 were leaked and made available for download via torrent websites.

Steven Sinofsky, Senior Vice President, Windows and Windows Live Engineering Group, managed to keep Windows 7 under a translucent veil throughout the development process ahead of PDC2008. However, the conference focused on Windows 7 made the successor of Windows Vista as transparent as possible, as well as “free for all” users with a BitTorrent client. All major torrent hotspots are currently offering downloads of Windows 7 pre-beta build 6801, advertised as untouched.

The pair of Windows 7 pre-beta releases on the original 160 GB drive are: Windows 7 32-bit - 6801.0.080913-2030_Client_en-us_ULTIMATE-ULTIMATE_GB1CFRE_EN_DVD.iso and Windows 7 64-bit - 6801.0.080913-2030_Client_en-us_ULTIMATE-ULTIMATE_GB1CXFRE_EN_DVD.iso. With the pre-beta bits of the next iteration of Windows available outside of Redmond, the software giant promised that the fully fledged Beta of Windows 7 would be delivered early in 2009.

“Windows 7 will offer improved navigation, a new taskbar and a streamlined UI so that common tasks done in Windows are done easier and more quickly. You will be able to share data to all your PCs and devices in your home network or at work. With Windows 7 + Windows Live, you will be able to stay connected to the people that matter to you, and with Internet Explorer 8 you will get a faster, safer, more productive Web experience,” revealed Mike Nash, Corporate Vice President, Windows Product Management.
Source: http://akupunyasitus.blogspot.com/

Tools to Automate RapidShare Downloading for Free Users With No CAPTCHA

2008-12-02T05:27:00.004+07:00

RapidShare CAPTCHA has always been hacked no matter how tough they made it. Usually whenever RapidShare updates their CAPTCHA, it only took a few days for third party download tools to auto recognize it. One of the toughest CAPTCHA was with cats and dogs in them and it took 3-4 weeks to be cracked. A few days after the cats and dogs CAPTCHA has been cracked, RapidShare installed a new CAPTCHA system called TEABAG_3D.

The TEABAG_3D is developed by OCR Research Team and they are a bunch of CAPTCHA hackers too. They claim that after defeating several CAPTCHAs, they decided to make a CAPTCHA which is hard to break. I’ve been in communication with the developers of CryptLoad and jDownloader to keep track of the progress in defeating the latest 3D CAPTCHA in RapidShare. They were in 50% progress and suddenly RapidShare decided to eliminate the captchas to simplify the use of RapidShare’s free services significantly but with a catch that the download speed limit has been limited to 500kilobits per second, that is only 62.5KBps.

1. CryptLoad
- The interface is in English and configurations is not complicated. Other than downloading from RapidShare, it can also support downloading from many other One-Click hoster such as megaupload, gigasize, depositfiles and etc. Currently CryptLoad can only run on Windows with Microsoft .NET Framework and the next major update version 2 should support Mac OS and Linux as well. Supports automatic updates.
[ Download CryptLoad ]

2. JDownloader
- This tool has not been mentioned here before but I now tell you that this is a really good downloading tool for one-click-hosters website. JDownloader is open source, platform independent and written completely in Java. It simplifies downloading files from One-Click-Hosters like Rapidshare.com or Megaupload.com - not only for users with a premium account but also for users who don’t pay. It offers downloading in multiple parallel streams, captcha recognition, automatically file extraction and much more. Of course, JDownloader is absolutely free of charge. Additionally, many “link encryption” sites are supported - so you just paste the “encrypted” links and JD does the rest. Because it is written in Java, you can run JDownloader on Windows, Mac OS and Linux. Support automatic updates. Try it and you’ll love it!
[ Download jDownloader ]

3. CandiSoft Load!
- Load! also has not been mentioned at this blog before. The interface is in German but it shouldn’t be too hard to understand as some words are pretty similar to English. You can always make use of Google Translate to help you translate from German to English. Runs on Windows and supports automatic updates. It also supports other one-click-hosters such as megaupload, netload.in, uploaded.to and etc.
[ Download CandiSoft Load! ]

4. RS Downloader
- This tool has been mentioned at this blog before and the interface is in German. It runs on Windows, supports automatic updates and can only download from RapidShare. Can also automatic decrypt and recognized encrypted rapidshare links using YouCrypt plugin.
[ Download RS Downloader ]

5. Universal Share Downloader (USDownloader)
- USDownloader is another popular and powerful one-click-hoster download manager. It supports a lot of free hosting services, including the most popular ones like RapidShare, MegaUpload or YouSendIt. You can select up to 26 types of languages for the program’s interface and it runs on Windows. When want to do an update on USDownloader, you’ll have to use the server http://usd.cap-cap.ru/ because the one in the list doesn’t work. [ Download USDownloader ]

Source: raymond.cc

Shutdown Genious 2.2.8 - Automatically Shutdown Computer

2008-12-02T04:40:00.002+07:00

Automate your PC shutdown, power off, log off, lock work station, hibernate, stand by or screen save etc. It can be started without the user having to login to the machine.

With Auto Shutdown Genius, you can automatically shutdown, power off, log off, lock workstation, hibernate, stand by or screen save your computers at schedule date and time, when the computer is idle or when excessive CPU usage.

Auto Shutdown Genius gives you different ways to schedule the shutdown events, such as daily, weekly, only once, the computer idle and CPU usage.

During the shutdown, it can clean up recycle bin, temporary files, IE cache, IE cookies, IE history and recent document list to improve system performance and protect your privacy.

The main program is a windows service. It can be started without the user having to login to the machine and it won't die after the user logs off. This feature is very useful and powerful for server manager and network administrator.

Download: Shutdown Genious 2.2.8 (link 1)

nLite 1.4.8

2008-12-02T04:35:00.001+07:00

nLite is a GUI for permanent Windows component removal by your choice. After removal there is an option to make bootable image ready for burning on cd or testing in virtual machines. So that means that with nLite you will be able to have Windows installation cd which on installation doesn't install, or even contain on cd, unwanted components.

Maybe you won't believe it at first but it's not easy to not install what you don't want when it comes to Windows. It involves many setup files to be edited carefully without interfering with basic Windows components.

Download: nLite 1.4.8

AutoCollage 2008 for Vista SP1 and XP SP3

2008-12-02T02:30:00.001+07:00

AutoCollage 2008 is a project developed by Microsoft Research Cambridge and made available for download as of September 4, 2008.

The tool is no longer just a research prototype, as it has been made available for purchase via the Microsoft Store (UK) and the Windows Marketplace (US).

At the same time, Microsoft Research Cambridge is offering end users a taste of AutoCollage 2008 via a 30-day downloadable trial version. Designed to enable end users to put together collages of digital photo collections, AutoCollage 2008 is in fact the first example of an incubation project offered to the general public by Microsoft Research Cambridge.

"The most significant feature that differentiates AutoCollage is that it offers exceptionally sophisticated blending technology for photographs, powered by state-of-the-art computer vision techniques," explained Alisson Sol, development manager at Microsoft Research Cambridge. "It’s great that we can give everyone the opportunity to play with and use this compelling technology, and we’re looking forward to seeing what collages they come up with."

According to Microsoft, AutoCollage 2008 does much more than simply blending images into a collage. The tool builds a seamless canvas using the photographs made available while avoiding duplicates and ensuring that no one image comes into focus all by itself. The Redmond company indicated that AutoCollage started along back in 2005 in Microsoft Research Cambridge, UK, in 2005, after which it was moved to the Cambridge Incubation team. Microsoft researchers from China and Redmond collaborated with the Cambridge team on the development process. AutoCollage 2008 is designed to integrate seamlessly with Windows Vista Service Pack 1 and Windows XP Service Pack 3.

Download: Microsoft Research AutoCollage 2008 1.0

SyncToy 2.0 - Free XP SP3 and Vista SP1 Synchronization Tool

2008-12-02T02:16:00.002+07:00

Microsoft has made available for download a free synchronization tool tailored to Windows Vista Service Pack 1 and to Windows XP Service Pack 3, but also to earlier versions of the two clients such as Vista RTM and XP SP2.

SyncToy 2.0 has been taken out of Beta stage, and the gold version of the code is live as of the end of the past week. Essentially a file management tool, SyncToy 2.0 is designed to permit users to "copy, move, rename, and delete" items between both folders and computers. Liam Cavanagh, senior program manager, Data Replication and Synchronization, revealed that SyncToy 2.0 has as its basis the Microsoft Sync Framework.

The Redmond company is presenting the PowerToy as the right tool to do all the heavy lifting for users when it comes to file synchronization. However, SyncToy is intended only as an enhancement of the Windows operating system and is not supported by the company. In this context, SyncToy has only been tested on a few operating systems, with the focus on Vista and XP, although it is possible that the tool will also integrate with additional platforms including Windows Home Server with Power Pack 1.

Dynamic Drive Letter Assignment, True Folder Sync, Exclusion Filtering Based on Name, Filtering Based on File Attributes, and Unattended Folder Pair Execution are just some of the new additions introduced in version 2.0. Cavanagh revealed that "based on the feedback from the SyncToy Forum and Windows XP Professional Photography web site, the following features were added to this release of SyncToy: Drive letter reassignment will now be detected and updated in the folder pair definition. Folder creates, renames and deletes are now synchronized for all SyncToy actions. File exclusion based on name with exact or fuzzy matching. The ability to exclude files based on one or more file attributes (Read-Only, System, Hidden). Addressed issues related to running scheduled folder pairs while logged off."

But at the same time, SyncToy 2.0 final will offer users the possibility to share end-point folder pairs (Folder Pairs With Shared Endpoints), improved management via the command line interface, a rearchitected synchronization engine, increased reliability, support for encrypted files and for - 64-bit Windows operating systems.

In addition, the tool offers "Sub-folder Exclusion Enhancements: Descendents created under excluded sub-folders are automatically excluded. Usability improvements for the sub-folder exclusion dialog. Folder Pair Metadata Moved: Folder pair metadata removed from MyDocuments to resolve any issues with server-based folder pair re-direction setup. Setup Improvements: Integrated setup with single self-extracting archive file and no extra downloads if you already have .NET Framework 2.0 installed. Enabled silent install for the SyncToy Installer file. And removed combine and subscribe actions," stated Cavanagh.

SyncToy is an easy to use, customizable utility that will help you move, copy, rename and delete files between computers and folders.

There are new sources of files coming from every direction: digital cameras, e-mail, cell phones, portable media players, camcorders, PDAs, and laptops. Increasingly, computer users are using different folders, drives, and even different computers (such as a laptop and a desktop) to store and retrieve files. Yet managing hundreds or thousands of files is still largely a manual operation.

Download:
SyncToy 2.0 (x32)
SyncToy 2.0 (x64)

Source: softpedia.com

Quicksys RegDefrag 2.0

2008-12-02T02:08:00.003+07:00

It's a freeware utility to defrag registry. Quicksys RegDefrag is small, clear and easy. Registry data is constantly being written to and removed during a normal Windows operation. Over time this data becomes fragmented.

What does this software do?
Quicksys RegDefrag optimizes your registry by removing gaps, fragments and wasted space in Windows registry files. The program does not modify any registry entries.

Benefits?
Of course! The defragmentation improves performance and boosts access to the registry.

System Requeriments
* - Pentium 233 MHz
* - 128 MB RAM
* - 1,6 MB of available space
* - Windows 2000/XP/2003/Vista/2008

What's new in this version?
Version 2.0
* - Improved new algorithm to defrag registry.
* - Improved HTML report with defrag information.
* - Improved alert about necessary free space to defrag registry.
* - Improved ascending sorting of column at Registry Information.
* - Improved new multi-language system with separate language files.
* - Improved perfomance in Windows x64.
* - Fixed text in Defrag Analysis. Example: changed "/REGISTRY/MACHINE" to "HKEY_LOCAL_MACHINE".
* - Fixed bug in backups. The backups files are stored at default registry folder.
* - Added new option to remove backups at Uninstall.
* - Memory usage optimizations.
* - Added new languages: Italian and Spanish.
* - GUI improvements.
* - Minor bug fixed.

Download : Regdefrag 2.0

Available Now: Elive 1.9.18

2008-11-30T03:11:00.000+07:00

Elive team proudly announced last evening yet another development release of their GNU/Linux Live CD, Elive 1.9.18, which brings a new and improved kernel, better network configurator and many other updates. "This version includes a greatly improved new kernel and a lot of upgraded packages." - said the Elive developers in the official release announcement.

As mentioned, the kernel package has been updated (to version 2.6.26.8), and includes the following improvements:

• Wireless improvements: The kernel now contains all the available wireless drivers, including ath9k from Atheros;
• Apple MacBooks improvements: With the introduction of the ath9k wireless driver, the WEP encryption bug in MacBooks has been solved.

The Net-Connector tool introduced in the 1.9.10 release has finally been finished and it is now working at full capacity. The Net-Connector will help Elive users easily configure their networks (wireless and wired).

Last but not least, the Elive team added new and useful bookmarks for the Mozilla Firefox web browser. For example, you will now find a good list with links and tutorials for The Gimp, and some bookmarks with articles about Elive and the EFL development.

Elive is an operating system created using Debian GNU/Linux as its basis. It offers a lot of eye-candy while keeping the resources consumption very low with the help of the Enlightenment window manager.

Elive Linux sports a large number of applications, ranging from office and Internet related applications, to games and entertainment. With Elive, you can watch movies, listen to your favorite songs or chat with friends. E17, the development version of the Enlightenment window manager that comes with Elive Unstable, is brought to you from CVS, and is updated on a regular basis through Elive's testing repository.

If you want to use Elive, it is recommended you use a computer with minimum 128 of RAM and a 300 MHz CPU. Remember that this is an unstable release and it should not be installed on production machines. It is intended to be used for testing purposes only! You can report bugs to Elive's Bug Tracker.
Download Elive 1.9.18 right now from Here.

Source: http://linuxarticle.blogspot.com/

Windows 7 Direct3D 11 Features

2008-11-29T05:18:00.000+07:00

Windows 7 Direct3D 11 Features - A taste of DirectX 11 is already available for download. As of November 2008, Microsoft is delivering the first taste of DirectX 11 for Windows 7 for download. A release aimed at developers, The November 2008 DirectX Software Development Kit, brings to the table the successor of Direct3D 10.1, namely Direct3D 11. In the SDK package, the Redmond company is offering a technical preview of Direct3D 11, but also the adjacent components and tools. Backwards compatible, content developed for Direct3D 11 hardware will also be compatible with earlier products supporting Direct3D 10 and 10.1 (in Vista SP1). Via the Windows 7 Developer Guide, Microsoft provides an insight into the new features made available by Direct3D 11.

“Geometry and high-order surfaces can now be tessellated to support scalable, dynamic content in patch and subdivision surface representations. To make good use of the parallel processing power available from multiple CPU cores, multithreading increases the number of potential rendering calls per frame by distributing the application, runtime, and driver calls across multiple cores. In addition, resource creation and management has been optimized for multithreaded use, enabling more efficient dynamic texture management for streaming,” Microsoft revealed.

According to the Redmond company, version 11 is designed to deliver an evolution of the functionality of the Direct3D 10 pipeline for Windows 7. In this regard, Microsoft has positioned Windows 7 to take advantage of the next generation of GPUs and multi-core processors when it comes down to the way the operating system will handle games and 3D applications. The software giant has indicated that Direct3D 11 in Windows 7 will support: Tessellation; Compute Shaders; Multithreaded Rendering; Dynamic Shader Linkage; Windows Advanced Rasterizer (WARP); Direct3D 10 and Direct3D 11 on Direct3D 9 Hardware (D3D10 Level 9); Runtime Binaries; D3DX11; Completely Updated HLSL and Direct3D Compiler; D3D11 Reference Rasterizer and D3D11 SDK Layers.

“New general-purpose compute shaders have been created for Direct3D 11. Unlike existing shaders, these are extensions to the programmable pipeline that enable your application to do more work completely on the GPU, independent of the CPU. DrawAuto, which was introduced in Direct3D 10, has been extended to interact with a compute shader. Several improvements have been made to the high-level shading language (HLSL), such as a limited form of dynamic linkage in shaders to improve specialization complexity, and object-oriented programming constructs like classes and interfaces,” the company added.

The November 2008 DirectX Software Development Kit is available for download here.
The November 2008 DirectX End-User Runtime Web Installer can be downloaded via this link.
DirectX End-User Runtimes (November 2008) is up for grabs here.
Source: http://akupunyasitus.blogspot.com/

Privacy Policy

2008-11-16T14:48:00.000+07:00

We use third-party advertising companies to serve ads when you visit our Web site. These companies may use information (not including your name, address email address or telephone number) about your visits to this and other Web sites in order to provide advertisements about goods and services of interest to you. If you would like more information about this practice and to know your choices about not having this information used by these companies, click here.

EnGarde Secure Linux Relased

2008-08-22T06:11:00.003+07:00

Guardian Angel has announced the release of EnGarde Secure Community 3.0.20. Included in this release are some feature enhancements to the EnGarde Secure Linux Installer and the SELinux policy, and also various bug fixes and updated packages.

Ever since its first release in 2001, EnGarde Secure Community has been one of the leading distributions involved in providing organizations with complete, secure Web functionality. Being one of the first security platforms developed from open source alone, this server-only OS provides services like DNS, database, e-mail and even e-commerce.

EnGarde has some very useful features, which enable you to:
-Enforce robust SELinux policies with ease;
-Build and maintain secure Web sites;
-Monitor Networks using advanced Intrusion Detection;
-Protect user with Web and e-mail content filtering;
-Control access to Internet resources.

This release fixes some of the bugs previously reported, among which:
-Installer thinks the disk is read only
-Does not install
-DCHP package fails to start after update
-Drivers for AMD 690G
-Domainkeys
-Typo in apache.pm

This release also brings several new packages such as:
-cups 1.3.7
-lockdev 1.0.1
-perl-Crypt-OpenSSL-Bignum 0.04
-perl-Crypt-OpenSSL-RSA 0.25
-perl-Crypt-OpenSSL-Random 0.04
-perl-Digest-SHA 5.47
-perl-Mail-DKIM 0.32

Also included are the latest stable versions of:
-ImageMagick 6.4.2
-MySQL 5.0.51b
-alpine 1.10
-apache 2.2.9
-bind 9.4.2-P1
-gdb 6.8
-iptables 1.4.1.1
-kernel 2.6.26
-openssh 5.0p1
-openssl 0.9.8h
-php5 5.2.6
-postfix 2.5.2
-samba 3.2.0
-sudo 1.6.9p17
-syslog-ng 2.0.9
-vim 7.1.330
-and many others

This release should be downloaded by all new users, but the machines already running EnGarde Linux Secure can upgrade via the Guardian Digital Secure Network WebTool module.
Source: http://news.softpedia.com

What’s New in Microsoft Land: 4 – 8 February, 2008

2008-02-10T13:23:00.000+07:00

The whole week was pretty slow when it came to what everybody expected to come true, Yahoo! accepting the offer that Microsoft put on its table, so everything else kind of remained in this deal’s shade. Nevertheless, the Redmond-based company managed to keep its employees focused on their tasks at hand, so Monday, Windows Vista Service Pack 1, the apple of so many engineers’ eye, was released to manufacturing alongside Windows Server 2008.

The date for the release of SP 1 was not pinned, but it is said to come somewhere in March, while Windows Server 2008 will be available to new clients as of March the first, and Microsoft Volume Licensing customers that have an active Microsoft Software Assurance coverage, or an Enterprise Agreement, will be able to download it earlier. There will be an event to mark it, part of the joint Microsoft SQL Server 2008 and Visual Studio 2008 "Heroes Happen Here" launch.

The Windows Vista Service Pack 1 was expected for over one year, ever since
the official launch of the Operating System. What was broadcasted at the time as the best Windows to come so far turned out to be a bitter disappointment to some, who saw numerous vulnerabilities shipped along with the OS. Patches and updates that came afterwards managed to smooth the transition from XP to Vista in reliability and performance, but they were never enough. The wave of complaints will finally come to en end in March… hopefully.

Meanwhile, on the Yahoo! front, Google’s David Drummond, Senior Vice President, Corporate Development and Chief Legal Officer, jumped at Microsoft’s throat, claiming that the unsolicited bid would "extend unfair practices from browsers and operating systems to the Internet."

Tuesday was the first day of the Microsoft Office Visio conference 2008, where delegates got to take a peak at the features that are to come with the next release of Visio. Add to that a keynote addressing the company’s future vision for the product, delivered by Jeff Raikes, the President of the Microsoft Business Division, and you can see why 250 seats weren’t enough.

"The fundamental premise behind Visio is that a picture is worth a thousand words. The ability to represent data in a visually-rich way really brings information to the surface in a way you just don’t get from raw data. Visio allows users to zero in on the relevant information to get the clarity they need to drive timely, informed decision-making. This is a capability that’s becoming more and more valued by organizations amid the ever-increasing volume of data they face, and we’re certainly seeing Visio’s problem-solving capabilities pretty squarely aligned with some of the biggest growth opportunities for organizations today," Richard Wolf, General Manager told Press Pass.

Apparently, the next Visio release will attend to what users have been asking for a long time, such as a new ‘fluent’ user interface, which is very important because it allows more of the product’s functionality to be exposed. It will also smoothen the learning curve for new Visio users by being able to use the ribbon (another way Wolf called the fluent user interface) just in the same manner as they would any of the Office tools.

News that Google’s CEO, Eric Schmidt, called CEO Jerry Yang in order to offer his company’s help surfaced, and Microsoft suddenly started having chills running down its spine.

The middle of the week brought the best news for small businesses and their owners, as Microsoft decided to give the world a version of Microsoft Outlook 2007, complemented with Business Contact Manager on Wednesday. "Small-business owners need effective solutions for managing their customer base. […] Currently, many small and home-based businesses keep their contacts in several different places — some in Rolodexes, some in spreadsheets. We understand the importance of good customer management and are providing simple and affordable solutions to help small businesses centralize their customer information so that keeping track of customers is more effective and less time-consuming," said Takeshi Numoto, general manager of Microsoft Office 2007 at Microsoft.

The new standalone product offers all the functionality of MS Office Outlook 2007, and thus making it easy for small businesses to track their sales and market activities ‘under one roof’. It was released due to the success that the 2007 edition had, that noted nearly 2 million registered users, taking advantage of the 28 languages the product comes in.

Google decided to stop Microsoft’s attempt to take over Yahoo! by all means, so it started lobbying at Capitol Hill, figuring that it’s payback time for the time MS told on its acquisition of DoubleClick. Important people from the Mountain View-based company have highlighted just why the deal shouldn’t go through in front of the lawmakers, leaving Microsoft’s lobbying somewhere in the shade.

Privacy and security first and foremost, cried Microsoft Corp, Google, Yahoo! and IBM on Thursday, as they all joined the OpenId Foundation. They sat at the round table and each brought forth what it had to offer, namely expertise in Internet and security technology.

The point of the Foundation is to empower users with portable Internet identities, or OpenIDs, that would let people have control over the way their personal information is to be used online, not to mention that it would simplify the management of digital identities. "With this support from these new company board members, the OpenID Foundation will be able to continue to promote and protect the technology and its community moving forward. […] The community has expanded quickly since the inception of the foundation, and these companies will help bring OpenID into the mainstream markets," said Bill Washburn, executive director of the OpenID Foundation.

Yahoo decided to level the playing field in the small businesses area, and although it did not roll out a competitor to Microsoft’s Outlook 2007 doubled with the Business Contact Manager, the Sunnyvale-based company announced that they have leveled all the fees they charged for hosting the services and for the traffic they had. To top that already marvelous piece of news, an "unlimited storage" sticker was glued on its cover and it was ready to ship and skyrocket Yahoo!’s customer base.

Jerry Yang addressed a second mail to all his employees, letting them know that no decision had been taken.

Friday, Steve Ballmer, Microsoft’s CEO, addressed Yahoo! indirectly and let the world know that the Sunnyvale-based company’s brand will remain untouched, should they decide to accept the unsolicited bid. Many casualties are to come, due to the similarities of services both Microsoft and Yahoo! offer. Count Live Search and Windows Live Messenger are casualties of the great takeover war, because if the Yahoo! brand is prominent, there’s no way they could live together. United, under one name, and that will have Yahoo! up front.

Kevin Johnson, President, Platform & Services Division, said that "A key synergy we’ve identified in this combination is really about expanded R&D capability. It doesn’t make sense to have thousands of engineers at Yahoo working on a search index, thousands of engineers at Microsoft working on the same search index. By combining, we can have one team of people across the two companies working on the search index, and then have others continue to focus on areas where we’ve defined differentiation in search. New search verticals and expanded user experience for search."

As midday approached, a new problem emerged for Microsoft: Yahoo!’s rising shares and its own declining ones made the bid look weak, compared to the possibilities of stock holders to sell on the open market. How that turns out will be an interesting story to follow.

Source: news.softpedia.com

Epilepsy - Myths and Facts

2008-01-09T01:55:00.001+07:00

Myth: People with epilepsy are "epileptics."

Fact: The word "epileptic" should not be used to descrbe someone who has epilepsy, as it defines a person by one trait or problem. A label is powerful and can create a limiting and negative stereotype. It is better to refer to someone as "a person with epilepsy" or to a group of people as "people with epilepsy."

Myth: People with epilepsy are seldom brain-damaged.

Fact: Epilepsy is a disorder of brain and nerve-cell function that may or may not be associated with damage to brain structures. Brain function can be temporarily disturbed by many things, such as extreme fatigue; the use of sleeping pills, sedatives, or general anesthesia; or high fever or serious illness. "Brain damage" implies that something is permanently wrong with the brain's structure. This kind of damage may occur with severe head injury, cerebral palsy, Cerebral palsyA condition with various combinations of impaired muscle tone and strength, coordination, and intelligence.Close or stroke, or it may occur long before birth, with malformation or infection. Injuries to the brain are the cause of seizures in some people with epilepsy, but by no means all of them.

Brain injuries range from undetectable to disabling. Although brain cells usually do not regenerate, most people can make substantial recoveries. Brain damage, like epilepsy, carries a stigma, and some people may unjustly consider brain-injured patients "incompetent."

Myth: A seizure disorder is epilepsy.

Fact: Because some people fear the word "epilepsy," they use the term "seizure disorder" in an attempt to separate themselves from any association with it. However the term seizure disorder means the same thing as epilepsy. A person has epilepsy or a seizure disorder if he or she has had two or more seizures that "come out of the blue" and are not provoked—even if the problem first develops in adulthood or is known to be caused by something like a severe head injury or a tumor.

Myth: Seizures cause brain damage.

Fact: Single tonic-clonic seizures lasting less than 5-10 minutes are not known to cause brain damage or injury. However, there is evidence that more frequent and more prolonged tonic-clonic seizures may in some patients injure the brain. Prolonged or repetitive complex partial seizures (a type of seizure that occurs in clusters without an intervening return of consciousness) also can potentially cause long-lasting impairment of brain function.

Some people have difficulty with memory and other intellectual functions after a seizure. These problems may be caused by the aftereffects of the seizure on the brain, by the effects of seizure medicines, or both. Usually, however, these problems do not mean that the brain has been damaged by the seizure. There may be a cumulative, negative effect of many tonic-clonic or complex partial seizures on brain function, but this effect appears to be rare.

Myth: People with epilepsy are usually cognitively challenged.

Fact: People with epilepsy usually are not intellectually challenged. Many people mistakenly believe that people with epilepsy are also intellectually or developmentally challenged. In the large majority of situations, this is not true. Like any other group of people, people with epilepsy have different intellectual abilities. Some are brilliant and some score below average on intelligence tests, but most are somewhere in the middle. They have normal intelligence and lead productive lives. Some people, however, may have epilepsy associated with brain injuries that may cause other neurological difficulties that affects their thinking, remembering, or other cognitive CognitivePertaining to the mental processes of perceiving, thinking, and remembering; used loosely to refer to intellectual functions as opposed to physical functions.Closeabilities. The cognitive problems may be the only problem in most people. Less frequently, some people have other developmental problems that can affect the way they function and live.

Myth: People with epilepsy are violent or crazy.

Fact: The belief that people with epilepsy are violent is an unfortunate image that is both wrong and destructive. People with epilepsy have no greater tendency toward severe irritability and aggressive behaviors than do other people.

Many features of seizures and their immediate aftereffects can be easily misunderstood as "crazy" or "violent" behavior. Unfortunately, police officers and even medical personnel may confuse seizure-related behaviors with other problems. However, these behaviors merely represent semiconscious or confused actions resulting from the seizure. During seizures, some people may not respond to questions, may speak gibberish, undress, repeat a word or phrase, crumple important papers, or may appear frightened and scream. Some are confused immediately after a seizure, and if they are restrained or prevented from moving about, they can become agitated and combative. Some people are able to respond to questions and carry on a conversation fairly well, but several hours later they cannot remember the conversation at all.

Myth: People with epilepsy are mentally ill.

Fact: Epilepsy is not the same as mental illness and in fact, the majority of people with seizures do not develop mental health problems. Yet recent research is showing that problems with mood, such as anxiety and depression, may be seen more frequently than previously thought. The causes are not always known. In some people, the cause and location of the seizures may affect certain brain areas and contribute to mood problems. In others, side effects of treatments and the challenges of living with epilepsy may affect a person's feelings and behavior. If these problems occur, a variety of treatments are available.

Myth: Epilepsy is necessarily inherited.

Fact: Most cases of epilepsy are not inherited, although some types are genetically transmitted (that is, passed on through the family). Most of these types are easily controlled with seizure medicines.

Myth: Epilepsy is a life-long disorder.

Fact: Generally, people with epilepsy have seizures and require medication for only a small portion of their lives. About 60 % of people who develop seizures have epilepsy that can be easily controlled and is likely to remit or go away. However, about 25 % may develop difficult to control seizures and likely will require lifelong treatment. More than half of childhood forms of epilepsy are outgrown by adulthood. With many forms of epilepsy in children and adults, when the person has been free of seizures for 1 to 3 years, medications can often be slowly withdrawn and discontinued under a doctor's supervision.

Myth: Epilepsy is a curse.

Fact: Epilepsy has nothing to do with curses, possession, or other supernatural processes, such as punishment for past sins. Like asthma, diabetes, and high blood pressure, epilepsy is a medical problem.

Myth: Epilepsy should be a barrier to success.

Fact: Epilepsy is perfectly compatible with a normal, happy, and full life. The person's quality of life, however, may be affected by the frequency and severity of the seizures, the effects of medications, reactions of onlookers to seizures, and other disorders that are often associated with or caused by epilepsy.

Some types of epilepsy are harder to control than others. Living successfully with epilepsy requires a positive outlook, a supportive environment, and good medical care. Coping with the reaction of other people to the disorder can be the most difficult part of living with epilepsy.

Acquiring a positive outlook may be easier said than done, especially for those who have grown up with insecurity and fear. Instilling a strong sense of self-esteem in children is important. Many children with long-term, ongoingic illnesses—not only epilepsy but also disorders such as asthma or diabetes—have low self-esteem. This may be caused in part by the reactions of others and in part by parental concern that fosters dependence and insecurity. Children develop strong self-esteem and independence through praise for their accomplishments and emphasis on their potential abilities.

Famous people with epilepsy include Julius Caesar, Socrates, Alexander the Great, Tchaikovsky, Van Gogh, Dostoyevski, Dickens, Dante, da Vinci, Mozart and Alfred Nobel.

Technorati Tags: Health,Psychology

source: epilepsy.com

Spyware History and Description

2007-12-30T01:27:00.000+07:00

The first known use of the expression “spyware” occurred on October 17th, 1994 in a post that joked about Microsoft's business model. Spyware later came to allude to snoop equipment such as diminutive cameras. In early 2000, the man who started Zone Labs used the term in a press release for a new product. Since then, the computer-community has used the term in its current definition.

Spyware often comes wrapped-in with shareware or other software, and with music CDs. The user installs a program, for example, a file-trading utility or music program. The installer also installs the spyware. Even though the acceptable software itself may not do harm, the wrapped-in spyware does. Occasionally, spyware authors will pay shareware creators to wrap-in spyware with their software. An example is the Gator spyware distributed by Claria. There are instances when spyware authors will repackage desirable free software with destructive installers that add spyware.

Another way of propagating spyware is by tricking users. A program will manipulate a security feature that is supposed to prevent harmful installations. Internet Explorer is designed to stop websites from starting an unwanted download. Alternately, a user action must normally trigger a download (like clicking on a link). Nevertheless, links can prove misleading. For example, a pop-up may look like a normal Windows dialog box. The box contains wording like "Do you want to improve your Internet experience?" with links that look like real buttons reading No and Yes. It doesn’t matter which button the user selects, a malicious download will start, installing the spyware on the user's computer. Newer versions of Internet Explorer offer better security against this tactic.

Many unscrupulous spyware creators infect a computer by going after security weaknesses in the Web browser or in other applications on the targeted computer. When the user arrives at a Web site controlled by the spyware creator, the site includes code that forces the download and installation of spyware or infiltrates the browser. This kind of spyware creator will have broad knowledge of commercial-quality firewall and anti-virus programming. This is commonly known as a “drive-by download”. It leaves the user an unfortunate onlooker to the intrusion. Conventional "browser attacks" target security weaknesses in Microsoft Java Runtime and Internet Explorer.

Another problem in the case of some kinds of spyware programs is that they will replace the banner ads on visited web sites. Spyware that acts like a Browser Helper or web proxy can replace a site's own advertisements with advertisements that benefit the spyware author. This can seriously affect the revenue stream of advertising funded web sites.

There have been instances when a worm or virus has delivered a cargo of spyware. For example, some attackers used the W32.Spybot.Worm to set up spyware that caused pornographic ads to pop up on the screens of an infected system. By re-routing traffic to commercial sites that are set up to funnel funds to the spyware creators, they can profit even by such obviously illegal actions.

Technorati Tags: Spyware,Computer,Software,Histories

Safe Sex VS Safer Sex

2007-12-30T00:02:00.000+07:00

For a time, the use of condoms and other contraceptives was often referred to as "safe sex". It was thought that, as long as you used condoms along with another method of birth control, you were virtually immune from sexually transmitted diseases (STDs) and pregnancy. Nowadays, the only type of safe sex is no sex at all.

What is Safe Sex?

When people speak of "safe sex" today, they are referring to abstinence. Abstaining from sex and sexual play is the only sure method to avoid catching an STD and to prevent an unplanned pregnancy. Although it may not prevent a pregnancy, having sex within a committed, monogamous, long-term relationship with someone who has tested free of any STDs is also generally considered to be safe sex.

So why isn’t using condoms along with other forms of birth control known as "safe sex" anymore but as "safer sex" instead? Because contraceptives can fail, resulting in pregnancy, and condoms cannot provide protection against all forms of STDs. However, condoms are still the only and best protection we have against most STDs. Therefore, it is important to use them every time you have sex.

What’s the Big Deal About STDs Anyway?

While some sexually transmitted diseases, like chlamydia, can be cured, others cannot. HIV is one of the most serious STDs out there and women are one of the fastest growing groups being infected. Moreover, according to UNICEF, half of all new HIV cases worldwide occur in people between the ages of 15 and 24. So if you’re young and sexually active, you’re automatically at a higher risk of being infected with HIV. Although it can be managed through medication, the HIV virus does eventually develop into AIDS leading to death. Other incurable STDs include human papillomavirus (HPV), which is the cause of genital warts and can lead to cervical cancer and even death,hepatitis B and herpes.

Sexually transmitted diseases are dangerous for anyone but they can have especially severe consequences in women. Many STDs can seriously damage your reproductive organs causing you to be infertile. Some, like HPV, have been linked to an increased risk of cervical cancer, a type of cancer that men do not need to worry about. Additionally, if you have an STD while you are pregnant, it is possible to pass the infection on to your baby causing her to become sick or possibly even die.

If you are sexually active, it is imperative that you use condoms each and every time you have sex even though they cannot protect you from every STD. Latex or polyurethane condoms are the most effective at protecting against STDs. However, they cannot provide protection against infections that are transmitted through skin-to-skin contact. Additionally, condoms can break or fall off during sex, putting you at risk of catching an STD. While it was once thought that condoms treated with spermicide helped to kill off STD infections and viruses, current research suggests that spermicides have no such effect. In fact, using spermicides multiple times throughout the day has actually been shown to increase your risk of STDs because the chemicals can irritate your vaginal lining thereby making it easier for an infection to get into your system.

Talking with Your Partner

When you are considering becoming sexually active with someone, talk to them about their sexual history. Remember, when you have sex with someone, you are having sex with every person they have ever had sex with. It is a good idea for both of you to go get tested for STDs so that you can be sure you are both free of any infections. However, some STDs can take as long as six months before they begin to affect you. If your partner has had sex with someone else in the last six months, it is a good idea to either put off having sex or use condoms until he can be retested.

If your partner refuses to get tested or has no desire to talk about his sexual history, you may want to reconsider your choice to have intercourse with him. Never feel guilty for asking about his sexual past. Your health, as well as his, is on the line and you both have a right to know what you’re getting into. Never allow yourself to be pressured, coerced or bullied into a sexual relationship. Do not hesitate to say no. If a your partner forces you to have sex after you’ve said no, that is rape and should be reported to the authorities.

Signs of an STD
If you notice any of the following symptoms, make an appointment with your doctor or gynecologist right away to be tested for STDs:

* Vaginal itching
* Burning sensation when you urinate
* Unusual vaginal discharge
* Blisters around the genital area
* General pain in the pelvic area

Technorati Tags: Health,Sex

Source: epigee.org

The History of Credit Cards

2007-12-26T23:17:00.000+07:00

Credit Cards Replacing Paper Money
A credit card is a small piece of rectangular plastic that is no thicker than a sheet of paper, though it cannot be folded. Initially credit cards were metal tokens in the shape of coins, then they changed to metal plates to celluloid then fiber and now plastic with perhaps a photo of the holder and a magnetic strip on the reverse containing security information such as a personal identification number enabling the card to be used at money dispensing machines (ATM’s) and merchant establishments.

What is meant by ‘Credit’?
Credit is the system of buying some produce or service without having to pay for it at the time of the transaction. The payment is made at a pre-determined later date with the addition of a fee to the bill amount. This is like loaning someone money to buy something without actually giving them the cash but instead giving them the product they want to buy. So, the system of credit is not new to humanity in fact, it is as old as civilization itself or perhaps even older. The entrepreneurs of the inhuman kind have been proclaimed responsible for identifying human needs and wants as a rollicking business, and so they invented the credit card system. Though, disputed by many, The Diners Club is credited to be the ones to invent the credit card in 1950.

When Were Credit Cards Invented?
In contradiction to the theory that ‘The Diners Club’ started the credit card system, the Encyclopedia Britannica records the origin of credit cards www.onlinecreditcardsinfo.com in the United States as far back as the 1920’s. During this time firms such as oil companies and hotel chains started issuing credit cards to their regular and valued customers who were free to use their services and pay them at a later date. These cards were only useful for purchasing goods and services from the companies and establishments that issued the card. However, references to credit cards have been found as early as 1890 in Europe. It was only in the late 1930’s that companies started accepting each other’s credit cards and this is when things began to get complicated for accountants.

Computers Promoted The Use Of Credit Cards
In the beginning there were no computers to record the credit card transactions and the process of verifying the credit balance of the card was done manually through a regularly updated credit card directory, much like a telephone directory. This system was time consuming and tedious and provided many loop holes for credit card fraud. Today, with computerization, the use of a credit card is instantaneous. All one needs to do is to ‘swipe’ the card through a slot machine and the amount entered. If there is adequate balance in the account of the holder the transaction is completed and the customer billed a month later. Usually credit cards allow for a 50 day credit free period. If the outstanding bill is paid during this time the customer does not have to pay any interest on the transactions, else there is a whopping 2.9% charge per month on the bill amount.

Who Issues Credit Cards?
Banks and financial institutions are the main issuers and promoters of credit cards. The invention of the first bank-issued credit card is credited to John Biggins of the Flatbush National Bank of Brooklyn in New York. This was the year 1946 and Biggins did not know at the time that he had hit upon an idea that would take the world of credit by storm in times to come. From this first credit card called “Charge-It” many cards have flooded the market such as the all famous “American Express” credit card and the Diners credit card. The Bank of America issued the BankAmericard in 1958. This card is now known as the “VISA” card. Around the same time the popular MasterCard came into being. These are the two prevailing cards being used today. The era of plastic money had begun.

Technorati Tags: histories

Internet vs Intranet

2007-12-22T14:12:00.000+07:00

Many companies have adopted Internet protocols for their local-area networks; these `Internist' may or may not connect to the Internet. By restricting Intranet access to company personnel only, some of risks described below are decreased. You must keep in mind, however, that threats exist inside the company as well as outside; and normal computer security procedure and personnel screening are still necessary.

Word-wide access vs propiertary information. Unless your company is running a completely closed network, you must assume that anything published on the Web can and will be accessible to the world. The UNIX operating system that controls most network servers is insecure by design, and recent attempts to overlay protection have been only partially successful. Password and user authorisation schemes in Web pages stop the casual Web surfer, but they will not stop the CGI scripts and other programs that search the Internet for specific kinds of information. A recent trend toward dynamic Web pages (created only when the user passes the authorisation routine) provides some relief. In general, if your information is business sensitive, don't make it accessible on the Internet.

Many companies use `firewalls' to protect their internal networks from unwanted external penetration. The firewall is a piece of software that intercepts all incoming and possibly outgoing transmissions. It accepts or rejects the transmission based on an approved list of Internet services. Many firewalls are programmed to allow all e-mail traffic through, but to reject FTP and Telnet requests. In effect, the company picks and chooses which Internet services to allow based on its business needs and risk tolerance. Like any piece of network software, a firewall can be defeated by clever hackers.

Security of transmitted responses. The growth of electronic commerce on the Internet has created a profusion of line catalogues, some allowing you to complete an electronic order form. When the form is transmitted back to the vendor, the data is not encrypted or protected to ensure provacy. Since the information may be transmitted through many network nodes, there is always the chance that it will be intercepted by an unintended receiver.

Recent attempts to add encryption to the Internet have suffered from technical failure (as in the case of public key encryption schemes) and government resistance. such resistance is exemplified by the demand for a `Clipper' chip that allows law enforcement eavesdropping and export ban on the privately developed `Pretty Good Protection' encryption scheme (which was good enough to defeat government attempts to crack it!).

With a few identification numbers, an individual can tap into extensive marketing databases and learn about someone else's financial and personal history. if they also have a credit card number, they can transact business in someone else's name and disappear. until encryption becomes the rule, it is inadvisable to ask for credit card numbers, social security numbers, and other personal information from your Web page. In addition to being a courtesy to your audience, it also protects your company from losses due to fraudulent electronic transactions and potential third-party liability for such disclosures.

Help systems vs. HTML. The simplicity, flexibility, and universality of HTML make it a strong candidate for use in building computer-based training (CBT) and help systems. HTML competes with existing authoring packages and help-file creation software, offering lower cost and potentially wider distribution while sacrificing some advanced features and the familiar `look and feel' of existing help systems. Companies that use the Internet or other wide-area networks to maintain communication among geographically diverse offices and companies that don't have an existing investment in other help systems or CBT technology may find the use of HTML and the Web particularly attractive.

Technorati Tags: internet

Microsoft: IE6 vs. IE7 vs. IE7 in Vista

2007-12-22T14:01:00.000+07:00

As in the case of the inhouse competition between Windows XP and Windows Vista, due to its prolonged support strategy, Microsoft is also one of its most fierce and stubborn competitors on the browser market.

The XP vs. Vista race translates here into the face-off between Internet Explorer 6 and Internet Explorer 7. IE6 has become inherently associated with Windows XP SP2, while IE7 is delivered for XP SP2, Windows Server 2003 and Windows Vista. There was a time when Microsoft referred to the IE7 component on Vista together with a "+" label, but the practice has been dropped.

IE7 was introduced in October 2006 for XP SP2 and in November, 2006 and January, 2007 with Windows Vista. Without a doubt, Internet Explorer 7 is, by all means, a superior product to its predecessor, starting with the graphical user interface and ending up with the security mitigations built into the pr

oduct. And Microsoft has went ahead and compared the number of fixed vulnerabilities in IE6, IE7 and IE7 in Vista, for the first year on the market.

"Microsoft shipped Internet Explorer 6 SP2 in August 2004 and in the three years since then has fixed a total of 79 vulnerabilities – 50 High / 24 Medium / 5 Low – or an average of about 2.1 per month. Microsoft shipped Internet Explorer 7 in October 2006 for Windows XP SP2 and in November 2006 as part of Windows Vista. In the nearly one year since release, Microsoft has fixed a total of 17 vulnerabilities in IE7 – 14 High / 3 Medium – or an average of about 1.4 per month. Only 14 of the vulnerabilities have affected the Vista release, so that rate is slightly lower," revealed Jeff Jones, Strategy Director in the Microsoft Security Technology Unit.

Just take a look at the adjacent image in order to make an idea of the sheer volume of security flaws impacting the three versions of the browser. From Jones' IE vulnerability counting game it is clear that IE7 in Vista, and IE7 for that matter, is an apex of security for the Internet Explorer line-up of products. "The data indicates that the latest version of Internet Explorer has improved security in terms of fewer vulnerabilities than previous releases, with the Vista version being a bit better than the XP SP2 version," Jones added.

Technorati Tags: Windows Vista,Internet,Microsoft

source: news.softpedia.com

The History Of Computer Viruses

2007-12-18T05:27:00.002+07:00

A Bit of Archeology
There are lots and lots of opinions on the date of birth of the first computer virus. I know for sure just that there were no viruses on the Babbidge machine, but the Univac 1108 and IBM 360/370 already had them ("Pervading Animal" and "Christmas tree"). Therefore the first virus was born in the very beginning of 1970s or even in the end of 1960s, although nobody was calling it a virus then. And with that consider the topic of the extinct fossil species closed.

Journey's Start
Let's talk of the latest history: "Brain", "Vienna", "Cascade", etc. Those who started using IBM PCs as far as in mid-80s might still remember the total epidemic of these viruses in 1987-1989. Letters were dropping from displays, crowds of users rushing towards monitor service people (unlike of these days, when hard disk drives die from old age but yet some unknown modern viruses are to blame). Their computers started playing a hymn called "Yankee Doodle", but by then people were already clever, and nobody tried to fix their speakers - very soon it became clear that this problem wasn't with the hardware, it was a virus, and not even a single one, more like a dozen.

And so viruses started infecting files. The "Brain" virus and bouncing ball of the "Ping-pong" virus marked the victory of viruses over the boot sector. IBM PC users of course didn't like all that at all. And so there appeared antidotes. Which was the first? I don't know, there were many of them. Only few of them are still alive, and all of these anti-viruses did grow from single project up to the major software companies playing big roles on the software market.

There is also an notable difference in conquering different countries by viruses. The first vastly spread virus in the West was a bootable one called "Brain", the "Vienna" and "Cascade" file viruses appeared later. Unlike that in East Europe and Russia file viruses came first followed by bootable ones a year later.
Time went on, viruses multiplied. They all were all alike in a sense, tried to get to RAM, stuck to files and sectors, periodically killing files, diskettes and hard disks. One of the first "revelations" was the "Frodo.4096" virus, which is far as I know was the first invisible virus (Stealth). This virus intercepted INT 21h, and during DOS calls to the infected files it changed the information so that the file appeared to the user uninfected. But this was just an overhead over MS-DOS. In less than a year electronic bugs attacked the DOS kernel ("Beast.512" Stealth virus). The idea of in visibility continued to bear its fruits: in summer of 1991 there was a plague of "Dir_II". "Yeah!", said everyone who dug into it.

But it was pretty easy to fight the Stealth ones: once you clean RAM, you may stop worrying and just search for the beast and cure it to your hearts content. Other, self encrypting viruses, sometimes appearing in software collections, were more troublesome. This is because to identify and delete them it was necessary to write special subroutines, debug them. But then nobody paid attention to it, until ... Until the new generation of viruses came, those called polymorphic viruses. These viruses use another approach to invisibility: they encrypt themselves (in most cases), and to decrypt themselves later they use commands which may and may not be repeated in different infected files.

Polymorphism - Viral Mutation
The first polymorphic virus called "Chameleon" became known in the early '90s, but the problem with polymorphic viruses became really serious only a year after that, in April 1991, with the worldwide epidemic of the polymorphic virus "Tequila" (as far as I know Russia was untouched by the epidemic; the first epidemic in Russia, caused by a polymorphic virus, happened as late as in 1994, in three years, the virus was called "Phantom1").

The idea of self encrypting polymorphic viruses gained popularity and brought to life generators of polymorphic code - in early 1992 the famous "Dedicated" virus appears, based on the first known polymorphic generator MtE and the first in a series of MtE-viruses; shortly after that there appears the polymorphic generator itself. It is essentially an object module (OBJ file), and now to get a polymorphic mutant virus from a conventional non-encrypting virus it is sufficient to simply link their object modules together - the polymorphic OBJ file and the virus OBJ file. Now to create a real polymorphic virus one doesn't have to dwell on the code of his own encryptor/decryptor. He may now connect the polymorphic generator to his virus and call it from the code of the virus when desired.
Luckily the first MtE-virus wasn't spread and did not cause epidemics. In their turn the anti-virus developers had sometime in store to prepare for the new attack.

In just a year production of polymorphic viruses becomes a "trade", followed by their "avalanche" in 1993. Among the viruses coming to my collection the volume of polymorphic viruses increases. It seems that one of the main directions in this uneasy job of creating new viruses becomes creation and debugging of polymorphic mechanism, the authors of viruses compete not in creating the toughest virus but the toughest polymorphic mechanism instead.

This is a partial list of the viruses that can be called 100 percent polymorphic (late 1993):
Bootache, CivilWar (four versions), Crusher, Dudley, Fly, Freddy, Ginger, Grog, Haifa, Moctezuma (two versions), MVF, Necros, Nukehard, PcFly (three versions), Predator, Satanbug, Sandra, Shoker, Todor, Tremor, Trigger, Uruguay (eight versions).

These viruses require special methods of detection, including emulation of the viruses executable code, mathematical algorithms of restoring parts of the code and data in virus etc. Ten more new viruses may be considered non-100 percent polymorphic (that is they do encrypt themselves but in decryption routine there always exist some nonchanging bytes):
Basilisk, Daemaen, Invisible (two versions), Mirea (several versions), Rasek (three versions), Sarov, Scoundrel, Seat, Silly, Simulation.

However to detect them and to restore the infected objects code decrypting is still required, because the length of nonchanging code in the decryption routine of those viruses is too small.

Polymorphic generators are also being developed together with polymorphic viruses. Several new ones appear utilizing more complex methods of generating polymorphic code. They become widely spread over the bulletin board systems as archives containing object modules, documentation and examples of use. By the end of 1993 there are seven known generators of polymorphic code.
They are:
MTE 0.90 (Mutation Engine),
TPE (Trident Polymorphic Engine), four versions
NED (Nuke Encryption Device),
DAME (Dark Angel's Multiple Encryptor)
Since then every year brought several new polymorphic generators, so there is little sense in publishing the entire lists.

Automating Production and Viral Construction Sets
Laziness is the moving force of progress (to construct the wheel because that's too lazy to carry mammoths to the cave). This traditional wisdom needs no comments. But only in the middle of 1992 progress in the form of automating production touched the world of viruses. On the fifth of July 1992 the first viral code construction set for IBM PC compatibles called VCL (Virus Creation Laboratory) version 1.00 is declared for production and shipping.

This set allows to generate well commented source texts of viruses in the form or assembly language texts, object modules and infected files themselves. VCL uses standard windowed interface. With the help of a menu system one can choose virus type, objects to infect (COM or/and EXE), presence or absence of self encryption, measures of protection from debugging, inside text strings, optional 10 additional effects etc. Viruses can use standard method of infecting a file by adding their body to the end of file, or replace files with their body destroying the original content of a file, or become companion viruses.

And then it became much easier to do wrong: if you want somebody to have some computer trouble just run VCL and within 10 to 15 minutes you have 30-40 different viruses you may then run on computers of your enemies. A virus to every computer!
The further the better. On the 27th of July the first version of PS-MPC (Phalcon/Skism Mass-Produced Code Generator). This set does not have windowed interface, it uses configuration file to generate viral source code. This file contains description of the virus: the type of infected files (COM or EXE); resident capabilities (unlike VCL, PS-MPC can also produce resident viruses); method of installing the resident copy of the virus; self encryption capabilities; the ability to infect COMMAND.COM and lots of other useful information.

Another construction set G2 (Phalcon/Skism's G2 0.70 beta) has been created. It supported PS-MPC configuration files, however allowing much more options when coding the same functions.

The version of G2 I have is dated the first of January 1993. Apparently the authors of G2 spent the New Year's Eve in front of their computers. They'd better have some champagne instead, this wouldn't hurt anyway.
So in what way did the virus construction sets influence electronic wildlife? In my virus collection there are:

* several hundreds of VCL and G2 based viruses;
* over a thousand PS-MPC based viruses.

So we have another tendency in development of computer viruses: the increasing number of "construction set" viruses; more unconcealably lazy people join the ranks of virus makers, downgrading a respectable and creative profession of creating viruses to a mundane rough trade.

Outside DOS
The year 1992 brought more than polymorphic viruses and virus construction sets. The end of the year saw the first virus for Windows, which thus opened a new page in the history of virus making. Being small (less than 1K in size) and absolutely harmless this non resident virus quite proficiently infected executables of new Windows format (NewEXE); a window into the world of Windows was opened with its appearance on the scene.

After some time there appeared viruses for OS/2, and January 1996 brought the first Windows95 virus. Presently not a single week goes by without new viruses infecting non-DOS systems; possibly the problem of non-DOS viruses will soon become more important than the problem of DOS viruses. Most likely the process of changing priorities will resemble the process of DOS dying and new operating systems gaining strength together with their specific programs. As soon as all the existing software for DOS will be replaced by their Windows, Windows95 and OS/2 analogues, the problem of DOS viruses becomes nonexistent and purely theoretical for computer society.

The first attempt to create a virus working in 386 protected mode was also made in 1993. It was a boot virus "PMBS" named after a text string in its body. After boot up from infected drive this virus switched to protected mode, made itself supervisor and then loaded DOS in virtual window mode V86. Luckily this virus was born dead - its second generation refused to propagate due to several errors in the code. Besides that the infected system "hanged" if some of the programs tried to reach outside the V86 mode, for example to determine the presence of extended memory.

This unsuccessful attempt to create supervisor virus remained the only one up to spring of 1997, when one Moscow prodigy released "PM.Wanderer" - a quite successful implementation of a protected mode virus.

It is unclear now whether those supervisor viruses might present a real problem for users and anti-virus program developers in the future. Most likely not because such viruses must "go to sleep" while new operating systems (Windows 3.xx, Windows95/NT, OS/2) are up and running, allowing for easy detection and killing of the virus. But a full-scale stealth supervisor virus may mean a lot of trouble for "pure" DOS users, because it is absolutely impossible to detect such a stealth virus under pure DOS.

Macro Virus Epidemics
August 1995. All the progressive humanity, The Microsoft and Bill Gates personally celebrate the release of a new operating system Windows95. With all that noise the message about a new virus using basically new methods of infection came virtually unnoticed. The virus infected Microsoft Word documents.

Frankly it wasn't the first virus infecting Word documents. Earlier before anti-virus companies had the first experimental example of a virus on their hands, which copied itself from one document to another. However nobody paid serious attention to that not quite successful experiment. As a result virtually all the anti-virus companies appeared not ready to what came next - macro virus epidemics - and started to work out quick but inadequate steps in order to put an end to it. For example several companies almost simultaneously released documents- anti-viruses, acting along about the same lines as did the virus, but destroying it instead of propagation.

By the way it became necessary to correct anti-virus literature in a hurry because earlier the question, "Is it possible to infect a computer by simply reading a file" had been answered by a definite "No way!" with lengthy proofs of that.

As for the virus which by that time got its name, "Concept", continued its ride of victory over the planet. Having most probably been released in some division of Microsoft "Concept" ran over thousands if not millions of computers in no time it all. It's not unusual, because text exchange in the format of Microsoft Word became in fact one of the industry standards, and to get infected by the virus it is sufficient just to open the infected document, then all the documents edited by infected copy of Word became infected too. As a result having received an infected file over the Internet and opened it, the unsuspecting user became "infection peddler", and if his correspondence was made with the help of MS Word, it also became infected! Therefore the possibility of infecting MS Word multiplied by the speed of Internet became one of the most serious problems in all the history of existence of computer viruses.

In less than a year, sometime in summer of 1996, there appeared the "Laroux" virus, infecting Microsoft Excel spreadsheets. As it had been with "Concept", these new virus was discovered almost simultaneously in several companies.
The same 1996 witnessed the first macro virus construction sets, then in the beginning of 1997 came the first polymorphic macro viruses for MS Word and the first viruses for Microsoft Office97. The number of various macro viruses also increased steadily reaching several hundreds by the summer of 1997.
Macro viruses, which have opened a new page in August 1995, using all the experience in virus making accumulated for almost 10 years of continuous work and enhancements, actually do present the biggest problem for modern virology.

Chronology of Events
It's time to give a more detailed description of events. Let's start from the very beginning.

Late 1960s - early 1970s
Periodically on the mainframes at that period of time there appeared programs called "the rabbit". These programs cloned themselves, occupied system resources, thus lowering the productivity of the system. Most probably "rabbits" did not copy themselves from system to system and were strictly local phenomena - mistakes or pranks by system programmers servicing these computers. The first incident which may be well called an epidemic of "a computer virus", happened on the Univax 1108 system. The virus called "Pervading Animal" merged itself to the end of executable files - virtually did the same thing as thousands of modern viruses do.

The first half of 1970s
"The Creeper" virus created under the Tenex operating system used global computer networks to spread itself. The virus was capable of entering a network by itself by modem and transfer a copy of itself to remote system. "The Reeper" anti-virus program was created to fight this virus, it was the first known anti-virus program.

Early 1980s
Computers become more and more popular. An increasing number of program appears written not by software companies but by private persons, moreover, these programs may be freely distributed and exchanged through general access servers - BBS. As a result there appears a huge number of miscellaneous "Trojan horses", programs, doing some kind of harm to the system when started.

1981
"Elk Cloner" bootable virus epidemics started on Apple II computers. The virus attached itself to the boot sector of diskettes to which there were calls. It showed itself in many ways - turned over the display, made text displays blink and showed various messages.

1986
The first IBM PC virus "Brain" pandemic began. This virus infecting 360 KB diskettes became spread over the world almost momentarily. The secret of a "success" like this late probably in total unpreparedness of computer society to such a phenomenon as computer virus.

The virus was created in Pakistan by brothers Basit and Amjad Farooq Alvi. They left a text message inside the virus with their name, address and telephone number. According to the authors of the virus they were software vendors, and would like to know the extent of piracy in their country. Unfortunately their experiment left the borders of Pakistan.
It is also interesting that the "Brain" virus was the first stealth virus, too - if there was an attempt to read the infected sector, the virus substituted it with a clean original one.

Also in 1986 a programmer named Ralph Burger found out that a program can create copies of itself by adding its code to DOS executables. His first virus called "VirDem" was the demonstration of such a capability. This virus was announced in December 1986 at an underground computer forum, which consisted of hackers, specializing at that time on cracking VAX/VMS systems (Chaos Computer Club in Hamburg).

1987
"Vienna" virus appears. Ralph Burger, whom we already now, gets a copy of this virus, disassembles it, and publishes the result in his book "Computer Viruses: a High-tech Disease". Burger's book made the idea of writing viruses popular, explained how to do it, and therefore stimulated creating up hundreds and in thousands of computer viruses, in which some of the ideas from his book were implemented.

Some more IBM PC viruses are being written independently in the same year. They are: "Lehigh", infecting the COMMAND.COM file only; "Suriv-1" a.k.a. "April1st", infecting COM files; "Suriv-2", infecting (for the first time ever) EXE files; and "Suriv-3", infecting both COM and EXE files. There also appear several boot viruses ("Yale" in USA, "Stoned" in New Zealand, "PingPong" in Italy), and the first self encrypting file virus "Cascade".
Non-IBM computers are also not forgotten: several viruses for Apple Macintosh, Commodore Amiga and Atari ST have been detected.

In December of 1987 there was the first total epidemics of a network virus called "Christmas Tree", written in REXX language and spreading itself under the VM/CMS operating environments. On the ninth of December this virus was introduced into the Bitnet network in one of West German universities, then via gateway it got into the European Academic Research Network (EARN) and then into the IBM Vnet. In four days (Dec. 13) the virus paralyzed the network, which was overflowing with copies of it (see the desk clerk example several pages earlier). On start-up the virus output an image of the Christmas tree and then sent copies of itself to all the network users whose addresses were in the corresponding system files NAMES and NETLOG.

1988
On Friday the 13 1988 several companies and universities in many countries of the world "got acquainted" with the "Jerusalem" virus. On that day the virus was destroying files which were attempted to be run. Probably this is one of the first MS-DOS viruses which caused a real pandemic, there were news about infected computers from Europe, America and the Middle East. Incidentally the virus got its name after one of the places it stroke - the Jerusalem University.

"Jerusalem" together with several other viruses ("Cascade", "Stoned", "Vienna") infected thousands of computers still being unnoticed - anti-virus programs were not as common then as they are now, many users and even professionals did not believe in the existence of computer viruses. It is notable that in the same year the legendary computer guru Peter Norton announced that computer viruses did not exist. He declared them to be a myth of the same kind as alligators in New York sewers. Nevertheless this delusion did not prevent Symantec from starting its own anti-virus project Norton Anti-virus after some time.

Notoriously false messages about new computer viruses started to appear, causing panic among the computer users. One of the first virus hoaxes of this kind belongs to a Mike RoChenle (pronounced very much like "Microchannel"), who uploaded a lot of messages to the BBS systems, describing the supposed virus copying itself from one BBS to another via modem using speed 2400 baud for that. Funny as it may seem many users gave up 2000 baud standard of that time and lowered the speed of their modems to 1200 baud. Similar hoaxes appeared even now. The most famous of them so far are GoodTimes and Aol4Free.

November 1988: a total epidemic of a network virus of Morris (a.k.a. Internet Worm). This virus infected more than 6000 computer systems in USA (including NASA research Institute) and practically paralyzed their work. Because of erratic code of the virus it sent unlimited copies of itself to other network computers, like the "Christmas Tree" worm virus, and for that reason completely paralyzed all the network resources. Total losses caused by the Morris virus were estimated at 96 millions of dollars.
This virus used errors in operating systems Unix for VAX and Sun Microsystems to propagate. Besides the errors in Unix the virus utilized several more original ideas, for example picking up user passwords. A more detailed story of this virus and the corresponding incidents may be found in a rather detailed and interesting articles.

December 1988: the season of worm viruses continues this time in DECNet. Worm virus called HI.COM output and image of spruce and informed users that they should "stop computing and have a good time at home!!!"
There also appeared new anti-virus programs for example, Doctors Solomon's Anti-virus Toolkit, being one of the most powerful anti-virus software presently.

1989
New viruses "Datacrime", "FuManchu" appear, as do the whole families like "Vacsina" and "Yankee". The first one acted extremely dangerously - from October 13th to December 31st it formatted hard disks. This virus "broke free" and caused total hysteria in the mass media in Holland and Great Britain.

September 1989: 1 more anti-virus program begins shipping - IBM Anti-virus.

October 1989: one more epidemic in DECNet, this time it was worm virus called "WANK Worm".

December 1989: an incident with a "Trojan horse" called "AIDS". 20,000 copies were shipped on diskettes marked as "AIDS Information Diskette Version 2.0". After 90 boot-ups the "Trojan" program encrypted all the filenames on the disk, making them invisible (setting a "hidden" attribute) and left only one file readable - bill for $189 payable to the address P.O. Box 7, Panama. The author of this program was apprehended and sent to jail.

One should note that in 1989 there began total epidemics of computer viruses in Russia, caused by the same "Cascade", "Jerusalem" and "Vienna", which besieged the computers of Russian users. Luckily Russian programmers pretty quickly discovered the principles of their work, and virtually immediately there appeared several domestic anti-viruses, and AVP (named "-V") those time, was one of them.

My first acquaintance with viruses (this was the "Cascade" virus) replaced in the world 1989 when I found virus on my office computer. This particular fact influenced my decision to change careers and create anti-virus programs. In a month the second incident ("Vacsina" virus) was closed with a help of the first version of my anti-virus "-V" (minus-virus), several years later renamed to AVP - AntiViral Toolkit Pro. By the end of 1989 several dozens of viruses herded on Russian lands. They were in order of appearance: two versions of "Cascade", several "Vacsina" and "Yankee" viruses, "Jerusalem", "Vienna", "Eddie", "PingPong".

1990
This year brought several notable events. The first one was the appearance of the first polymorphic viruses "Chameleon" (a.k.a. "V2P1", "V2P2", and "V2P6"). Until then the anti-virus programs used "masks" - fragments of virus code - to look for viruses. After "Chameleon"'s appearance anti-virus program developers had to look for different methods of virus detection.

The second event was the appearance of Bulgarian "virus production factory": enormous amounts of new viruses were created in Bulgaria. Disease wears the entire families of viruses "Murphy", "Nomenclatura", "Beast" (or "512", "Number-of-Beast"), the modifications of the "Eddie" virus etc. A certain Dark Avenger became extremely active, making several new viruses a year, utilizing fundamentally new algorithms of infecting and covering of the tracks in the system. It was also in Bulgaria that the first BBS opens, dedicated to exchange of virus code and information for virus makers.

In July 1990 there was an incident with "PC Today" computer magazine (Great Britain). It contained a floppy disk infected with "DiskKiller" virus. More than 50,000 copies were sold.

In the second half of 1990 there appeared two Stealth monsters - "Frodo" and "Whale". Both viruses utilized extremely complicated stealth algorithms; on top of that the 9KB "Whale" used several levels of encrypting and anti-debugging techniques.

1991
Computer virus population grows continuously, reaching several hundreds now. Anti-viruses also show increasing activity: two software monsters at once (Symantec and Central Point) issue their own anti-virus programs - Norton Anti-virus and Central Point Anti-virus. They are followed by less known anti-viruses from Xtree and Fifth Generation.

In April a full-scale epidemic broke out, caused by file and boot polymorphic virus called "Tequila", and in September the same kind of story happened with "Amoeba" virus.

Summer of 1991: "Dir_II" epidemic. It was a link virus using fundamentally new methods of infecting files.

1992
Non-IBM PC and non-MS-DOS viruses are virtually forgotten: "holes" in global access network are closed, errors corrected, and network worm viruses lost the ability to spread themselves. File-, boot- and file-boot viruses for the most widely spread operating system (MS-DOS) on the most popular computer model (IBM PC) are becoming more and more important. The number of viruses increases in geometrical to progression; various virus incidents happen almost every day. Miscellaneous anti-virus programs are being developed, dozens of books and several periodic magazines on anti-viruses are being printed. A few things stand out:

Early 1992: the first polymorphic generator MtE, serving as a base for several polymorphic viruses which follow almost immediately. Mte was also the prototype for a few forthcoming polymorphic generators.

March 1992: "Michelangelo" virus epidemics (a.k.a. "March6") and the following hysteria took place. Probably this is the first known case when anti-virus companies made fuss about this virus not to protect users from any kind of danger, but attract attention to their product, that is to create profits. One American anti-virus company actually announced that on the 6th of March the information on over five million computers will be destroyed. As a result of the fuss after that the profits of different anti-virus companies jumped several times; in reality only about 10,000 computers suffered from that virus.

July 1992: The first virus construction sets were made, VCL and PS-MPC. They made large flow of new viruses even larger. They also stimulated virus makers to create other, more powerful, construction sets, as it was done by MtE in its area.

Late 1992: The first Windows virus appears, infecting this OS's executables, and starts a new page in virus making.

1993
Virus makers are starting to do some serious damage: besides hundreds of mundane viruses which are no different than their counterparts, besides the whole polymorphic generators and construction sets, besides new electronic editions of virus makers there appear more and more viruses, using highly unusual ways of infecting files, introducing themselves into the system etc. The main examples are:

"PMBS", wording in Intel 80386 protected mode.
"Strange" (or "Hmm") - a "masterpiece" of Stealth technology, however fulfilled on the level of hardware interrupts INT 0Dh and INT 76h.
"Shadowgard" and "Carbunkle", which widened debt range of algorithms of companion viruses.
"Emmie", "Metallica", "Bomber", "Uruguay" and "Cruncher" - the use of fundamentally new techniques of "hiding" of its own code inside the infected files.
In spring of 1993 Microsoft made its own anti-virus MSAV, based on CPAV by Central Point.

1994
The problem of CD viruses is getting more important. Having quickly gained popularity CD disks became one of the main means of spreading viruses. There are several simultaneous cases when a virus got to the master disk when preparing the batch CDs. As a result of that a fairly large number (tens of thousands) of infected CDs hit the market. Of course they cannot be cured, they just have to be destroyed.

Early in the year in Great Britain there popped out two extremely complicated polymorphic viruses, "SMEG.Pathogen" and "SMEG.Queeg" (even now not all the anti-virus programs are able to give 100% correct detection of these viruses). Their author placed infected files to a BBS, causing real panic and fear of epidemics in mass media.

Another wave of panic was created by a message about a supposed virus called "GoodTimes", spreading via the Internet and infecting a computer when receiving E-mail. No such virus really existed, but after some time there appeared a usual DOS virus containing text string "Good Times". It was called "GT-Spoof".

Law enforcement increases its activities: in Summer of 1994 the author of SMEG was "sorted out" and arrested. Approximately at the same time also in Great Britain there was arrested an entire group of virus makers, who called themselves ARCV (Association for Really Cruel Viruses). Some time later one more author of viruses was arrested in Norway.

There appear some new unusual enough viruses:
January 1994: "Shifter" - the first virus infecting object modules (OBJ files). "Phantom1" - the cause of the first epidemic of polymorphic virus in Moscow.

April 1994: "SrcVir" -- the virus family infecting program source code (C and Pascal).

June 1994: "OneHalf" - one of the most popular viruses in Russia so far starts a total epidemics.

September 1994: "3APA3A" - a boot-file virus epidemic. This virus uses a highly unusual way of incorporating into MS-DOS. No anti-virus was ready to meet such kind of a monster.

In 1994 (Spring) one of the anti-virus leaders of that time - Central Point - ceased to exist, acquired by Symantec, which by that time managed to "swallow" several minor companies, working on anti- viruses - Peter Norton Computing, Cetus International and Fifth Generation Systems.

1995
Nothing in particular among DOS viruses happens, although there appear several complicated enough monster viruses like "NightFall", "Nostardamus", "Nutcracker", also some funny viruses like "bisexual" virus "RMNS" and BAT virus "Winstart". The "ByWay" and "DieHard2" viruses become widespread, with news about infected computers coming from all over the world.

February 1995: an incident with Microsoft: Windows95 demos disks are infected by "Form". Copies of these disks were sent to beta testers by Microsoft; one of the testers was not that lazy and tested the disks for viruses.

Spring 1995: two anti-virus companies - ESaSS (ThunderBYTE anti-virus) and Norman Data Defense (Norman Virus Control) announce their alliance. These companies, each making powerful enough anti- viruses, joined efforts and started working on a joint anti-virus system.

August 1995: one of the turning points in the history of viruses and anti-viruses: there has actually appeared the first "alive" virus for Microsoft Word ("Concept"). In some month the virus "tripped around the world", pesting the computers of the MS Word users and becoming a firm No. 1 in statistic research held by various computer titles.

1996
January 1996: two notable events - the appearance of the first Windows95 virus ("Win95.Boza") and the epidemics of the extremely complicated polymorphic virus "Zhengxi" in St. Petersburg (Russia).

March 1996: the first Windows 3.x virus epidemic. The name of the virus is "Win.Tentacle". This virus infected a computer network a hospital and in several other institutions in France. This event is especially interesting because this was the FIRST Windows virus on a spree. Before that time (as far as I know) all the Windows viruses had been living only in collections and electronic magazines of virus makers, only boot viruses, DOS viruses and macro viruses were known to ride free.

June 1996: "OS2.AEP" - the first virus for OS/2, correctly infecting EXE files of this operating system. Earlier under OS/2 there existed only the viruses writing themselves instead of file, destroying it or acting as companions.

July 1996: "Laroux" - the first virus for Microsoft Excel caught live (originally at the same time in two oil making companies in Alaska and in southern African Republic). The idea of "Laroux", like that of Microsoft Word viruses, was based on the presence of so-called macros (or Basic programs) in the files. Such programs can be included into both electronic spreadsheets of Microsoft Excel and Microsoft Word documents. As it turned out the Basic language built into Microsoft Excel also allows to create viruses.

December 1996: "Win95.Punch" - the first "memory resident" virus for Windows95. It stays in the Windows memory as a VxD driver, hooks file access and infects Windows EXE files that are opened.

In general the year 1996 is the start of widespread virus intervention into the Windows32 operating system (Windows95 and WindowsNT) and into the Microfoft Office applications. During this and the next year several dozens of Windows viruses and several hunsdreds of macro viruses appeared. Many of them used new technologies and methods of infection, including stealth and polymorphic abilities. That was the next round of virus evolution. During two years they repeated the way of improving similar to DOS viruses. Step by step they started to use the same features that DOS viruses did 10 years beforehand, but on next technological level.

1997
February 1997: "Linux.Bliss" - the first virus for Linux (a Unix clone). This way viruses occupied one more "biological" niche.

February-April 1997: macro viruses migrated to Office97. The first of them turned out to be only "converted" to the format macro viruses for Microsoft Word 6/7, but also virtually immediately there appeared viruses aimed at Office97 documents exclusively.

March 1997: "ShareFun" - macro-virus hitting Microsoft Word 6/7. It uses is not only standard features of Microsoft Word to propagate but also sends copies of itself via MS-Mail.

April 1997: "Homer" - the first network worm virus, using File Transfer Protocol (FTP) for propagation.

June 1997: There appears the first self encrypting virus for Windows95. This virus of Russian origin has been sent to several BBS is in Moscow which caused an epidemic.

November 1997: The "Esperanto" virus. This is the first virus that intends to infect not only DOS and Windows32 executable files, but also spreads into the Mac OS (Macintosh). Fortunately, the virus is not able to spread cross the platforms because of bugs.

December 1997: new virus type, the so-called "mIRC Worms", came into being. The most popular Windows Internet Relay Chat (IRC) utility known as mIRC proved to be "hole" allowing virus scripts to transmit themselves along the IRC-channels. The next IRC version blocked the hole and the mIRC Worms vanished.

The KAMI ltd. anti-virus department has braked away from the mother company constituting the independent one what, certainly, is considered the main event of 1997. Currently the company known as Kaspersky Labs and proved to be a recognized leader of the anti-virus industry. Since 1994 the AntiViral Toolkit Pro (AVP) anti-virus scanner, main product of the company, constantly shows high results while being tested by various test laboratories of all world. Creation of an independent company gave the chance to the at first small group of developers to gain the lead on the domestic market and prominence on the world one. For short run versions for practically all popular platforms were developed and released, the new anti-virus solutions offered, the international distribution and the product support networks created.

October 1997: the agreement on licensing of AVP technologies use in F-Secure Anti-Virus (FSAV) was signed. The F-Secure Anti-Virus (FSAV) package was the DataFellows (Finland) new anti-virus product. Before DataFellows was known as the F-PROT anti-virus package manufacturer.

1997 was also the year of several scandals between the anti-virus main manufacturers in US and Europe. At the year beginning McAfee has announced that its experts have detected a "feature" in the antivirus programs of Dr.Solomon, one of its main competitors. The McAfee testimony stated that if the Dr.Solomon's antivirus while scanning detects several virus-types the program switches to the advanced scanning mode. What means that while scanning some uninfected computer the Dr.Solomon's anti-virus operates in the usual mode and switches to the advanced mode - "cheat mode" according to McAfee - enabling the application to detect the invisible for the usual mode viruses while testing virus collections. Consequently the Dr.Solomon's anti-virus shows both good speed while scanning uninfected disks and good virus detection ability while scanning virus collections.
A bit later Dr.Solomon stroked back accusing McAfee of the incorrect advertising campaign. The claims were raised to the text - "The Number One Choice Worldwide. No Wonder The Doctor's Left Town". At the same time McAfee was in the court together with Trend Micro, another antivirus software manufacturer, concerning the Internet and e-mail data scanning technology patent violation. Symantec also turned out to be involved in the cause and accused McAfee of using the Symantec codes in the McAfee products. And etc.

The year completion by one more noteworthy event related to McAfee-name was marked - McAfee Associates and Network General have declared consolidation into the new born Network Associates company and positioning of their services not only on the anti-virus protection software market, but also on the markets of computer safety universal systems, encryption and network administration. From this the virus and anti-virus history point McAfee would correspond to NAI.

1998
The virus attack on MS Windows, MS Office and the network applications does not weaken. There arose new viruses employing still more complex strokes while infecting computers and advanced methods of network-to-computer penetration. Besides numerous the so-called Trojans, stealing Internet access passwords, and several kinds of the latent administration utilities came into the computer world. Several incidents with the infected CDs were revealed - Some computer media publishers distributed CIH and Marburg (the Windows viruses) through CDs attached to the covers of their issues, with infected.

The year beginning: Epidemic of the "Win32.HLLP.DeTroie" virus family, not just infecting Windows32 executed files but also capable to transmit to the "owner" the information on the computer that was infected, shocked the computer world. As the viruses used specific libraries attached only to the French version of Windows, the epidemic has affected just the French speaking countries.

February 1998: One more virus type infecting the Excel tables "Excel4.Paix" (aka "Formula.Paix) was detected. This type of a macro virus while rooting into the Excel tables does not employ the usual for the kind of viruses macro area but formulas that proved to be capable of the self-reproduction code accommodation.

February - March 1998: "Win95.HPS" and "Win95.Marburg" - the first polymorphous Windows32-viruses were detected and furthermore they were "in-the-wild". The anti-virus programs developers had nothing to do but rush to adjust the polymorphous viruses detecting technique, designed so far just for DOS-viruses, to the new conditions.

March 1998: "AccessiV" - the first Microsoft Access virus was born. There was no any boom about that (as it was with "Word.Concept" and "Excel.Laroux" viruses) as the computer society already got used to that the MS Office applications go down thick and fast.

March 1998: The "Cross" macro-virus, the first virus infecting two different MS Office applications - Access and Word, is detected. Hereupon several more viruses transferring their codes from one MS Office application to the other have emerged.

May 1998 - The "RedTeam" virus infects Windows EXE-files and dispatches the infected files through Eudora e-mail.

June 1998 - The "Win95.CIH" virus epidemic at the beginning was mass, then became global and then turned to a kind of computer holocaust - quantity of messages on computer networks and home personal computers infection came to the value of hundreds if not thousands pierces. The epidemic beginning was registered in Taiwan where some unknown hacker mailed the infected files to local Internet conferences. Therefrom virus has made the way to USA where through the staff oversight infected at once several popular Web servers that started to distribute infected game programs. Most likely these infected files on game servers brought about this computer holocaust that dominated the computer world all the year. According to the "popularity" ratings the virus pushed "Word.CAP" and "Excel.Laroux" to second cabin. One should also pay attention to the virus dangerous manifestation - depending on the current date the virus erased Flash BIOS what in some conditions could kill motherboard.

August 1998: Nascence of the sensational "BackOrifice" ("Backdoor.BO") - utility of latent (hacker's) management of remote computers and networks. After "BackOrifice" some other similar programs - "NetBus", "Phase" and other - came into being.
Also in August the first virus infecting the Java executed files - "Java.StangeBrew" - was born. The virus was not any danger to the Internet users as there was no way to employ critical for the virus replication functions on any remote computer. However it revealed that even the Web servers browsers could be attacked by viruses.

November 1998: "VBScript.Rabbit" - The Internet expansion of computer parasites proceeded by three viruses infecting VisualBasic scripts (VBS files), which being actively used in Web pages development. As the logical consequence of VBScript-viruses the full value HTML-virus ("HTML.Internal") was born to life. Virus-writers obviously turned their efforts to the network applications and to the creation of full value Network Worm-Virus that could employ the MS Windows and Office options, infect remote computers and Web-servers or/and could aggressively replicate itself through e-mail.

The anti-virus manufacturers world was also considerably rearranged. In May 1998 Symantec and IBM announced the union of their forces on the anti-virus market. The collective product would be under the Norton Anti-Virus trade mark distributed and the IBM Anti-Virus (IBMAV) program is liquidated. Response of the main competitors, Dr.Solomon and NAI (former McAfee), followed immediately. They issued the press-releases offering the IBM product users to promotionally replace the dead anti-virus with their own products.

Less then one month later Dr.Solomon "committed suicide". The company was bought by NAI (former McAfee) for 640 millions US dollars through an equity swap. The event shocked the anti-virus world - the conflict between two anti-virus giants was completed with a simple bargain that killed one of the most notable and technologically strong anti-virus software manufacturers.

What Will be Tomorrow?
What can be expected from computer underground in subsequent years? Most probably the main problems will remain the following:

1) polymorphic DOS viruses, with additional problems of polymorphism in macro viruses and viruses for Windows and maybe OS/2;
2) macro viruses with new and improved ways of infecting and covering tracks of their code in the system;
3) network viruses, using network protocols and commands for spreading.

The type 3) is now only in the earliest state of developments - viruses make their first faint attempts to spread their code by themselves via Microsoft Mail and using FTP, but the best is yet to come.

There may appear other problems who which might bring a lot of trouble to users and enough extra work to the developers of anti-virus programs. However I look to the future optimistically: every problem in the history of the development of viruses has been more or less successfully solved.

Future problems, which are now just ideas in the sick minds of virus makers, will most probably be solved in the same way!

Source: virus-scan-software.com

Technorati Tags: histories

How to Build Your Own SSD or RAID Array with just Four Compact Flash Memory Cards

2007-12-18T05:05:00.000+07:00

Solid-state drives (or SSDs) are becoming increasingly popular nowadays, due to the fact that they provide relatively high storage capacities, as well as a very high degree of reliability and shock-resistance, especially for mobile or portable applications. However, said storage solutions are generally quite expensive (after all, they're the latest innovations in the field of storage) and this is the reason why the people over at Addonics came up with a PCI adapter that can add as many as four Compact Flash (CF) cards to any system with RAID redundancy support,
allowing for the development of a low-priced, yet very effective SSD device.

The Addonics Quad CF PCI adapter (part number AD4CFPRJ) is the company's latest solution for creating a low cost large capacity SSD (solid state drive). The adapter fits into any PCI slot, either standard height or low profile and allows as many as four Compact Flash media of any capacity to be used like an ordinary hard drive.

Moreover, the adapter includes built-in firmware, which allows the four CF cards to be configured as one large volume, four individual drives, or configured for redundancy with support for RAID 0 (Striped), RAID 1 (Mirrored) and RAID 10 (Mirrored Striped). With the increased capacity and lowering costs of flash media, replacing the hard drive with CF as a boot drive is now a viable alternative because CF offers lower power consumption and no moving parts. Moreover, the device supports not only CF Type I, but also the Type II and MicroDrive formats.

Furthermore, the adapter supports UDMA, DMA and PIO hard drive modes and is compatible with the most popular operating systems on the market, including here DOS, Windows 98/ME, NT 4.0, 2000, XP, Vista and Linux kernel 2.4+ .

The Addonics Quad CF PCI adapter - main components Enlarge picture Quite surprisingly, the Addonics Quad CF PCI adapter retails for just around 50 US dollars (obviously, no memory cards included), which makes it quite an affordable solution for most DIY computer enthusiasts out there, who will be able to build their own SSDs or RAID arrays for some pretty affordable prices.

Source : softpedia.com

Technorati Tags: Tips

Windows XP SP3 Twice as Fast as Windows Vista – Leaves Vista SP1 in the Dust

2007-12-18T05:01:00.001+07:00

Forget about Windows Vista. And forget about Windows Vista SP1. Microsoft's latest Windows client has been quite sluggish to begin with. This in both consumer adoption and in terms of the performance it delivers.

As the operating system was crawling along, while performing the most common of tasks, even "speed bumps" seemed an integer part of the road's landscape. Right, that was uncalled for... But still, even on its best day, Vista is slow, and the first service pack for the operating system will change nothing in this aspect. Windows XP SP3 simply flies in comparison to Vista, SP1 or no SP1.

Benchmark testing delivered by the researchers at Devil Mountain Software, a software-developmentcompany based in Florida, revealed that Windows XP SP3 is twice as fast as Windows Vista, with or without SP1 installed. The company threw the two operating systems one against the other on the following configuration: Dell XPS M1710, 2GHz Core 2 Duo CPU, 1GB of RAM and nVidia GeForce Go 7900GS video. While Vista SP1 delivered minor and disappointing growth in performance, XP SP3 faired quite well. "Windows XP Service Pack 3 (v.3244) delivers a measurable performance boost to this aging desktop OS. Testing with OfficeBench showed an ~10% performance boost vs. the same configuration running under Windows XP w/Service Pack 2. XP SP3 is shaping-up to be a "must have" update for the majority of users who are still running Redmond's not-so-latest and greatest desktop OS. Of course, none of this bodes well for Vista, which is now more than 2x slower than the most current builds of its older sibling", revealed a member of Devil Mountain Sofware.

Windows XP SP3 finished the OfficeBench test in approximately 35 seconds, XP SP2 went over 40 seconds with Vista RTM and Vista SP1 both exceeding 80 seconds. The company then added another GB of RAM. Moreover, they also tested Vista in tandem with Office 2007 instead of Office 2003. But while Vista dropped under the 80 seconds milestone it still doesn't even come close to the performance of XP. Commenting the benchmarking Microsoft explained that both Vista SP1 and XP SP3 are still under development and as such, not delivering a complete experience. Vista SP1 is currently planned for the first quarter of next year, while XP has been announced by mid 2008.

"By providing Vista (SP1) with an additional 1GB of RAM (that's a total of 2GB for those of you keeping score) we managed to achieve a "whopping" 4% improvement in OfficeBench throughput. Moving from Office 2007 to Office 2003 definitely improved Vista's showing. Instead of being over 2x slower than XP on the same OfficeBench workload, Vista is now "only" 1.8x slower", the Devil Mountain Software added.

source: news.softpedia.com

Technorati Tags: Microsoft,Windows

Google to Give Developers Access to Trends API

2007-12-18T04:40:00.001+07:00

Google will eventually give programmers access to an API for its Trends analysis tool.

Google will eventually provide an open application programming interface for its Trends analysis tool, allowing users to embed the tool in their applications, or download data from the application for personal use, a company official said.

Marissa Mayer, vice president of search products and user experience at Google, would not provide timelines for when the search vendor might open up the API for Trends, which tallies Google Web searches for the terms users enter relative to the total number of searches done on Google.

However, she noted the company's fondness for APIs, as well as Trends users' requests to be able to put data culled from Trends in a spreadsheet and have the ability to manipulate it. For example, users might be able to create a spreadsheet comparing Trends data from present and previous years.

"While I can't [give] particular dates for such a launch, I do believe that we will be making an API available so you can take the Trends product and embed it and use the data," Mayer said during a Web cast tutorial on the application Dec. 4.

Were Google to open up Trends and allows users to download data, marketers could customize their own Trends analyses to detect new patterns, ideally to better target users with products and services.

Google launched Trends in May 2006, and Mayer said Google uses it to improve its search quality.

Trends presents users a search volume graph on a linear scale on top of a news-reference-volume graph displaying the number of times topics appeared in Google News stories.

Trends also includes a feature called Hot Trends that lets users check the most searched terms for a that day. Clicking on a link in Hot Trends yields a number of nuggets of info, including when the search results for that term peaked and where, as well as news articles and blog posts about the topic.

Users can also compare query volumes, and do cross-discipline analyses, by typing in multiple terms in the search trends box. Trends will conduct analyses only as far back as January 2004.

source: eweek.com

Technorati Tags: Google,Programming,Software

Check Out the Official Release Notes for Windows XP Service Pack 3

2007-12-18T04:35:00.002+07:00

Mind blowing! Simply mind blowing! Shocking! And last, but definitely not least, a true revelation. Microsoft has published the official release notes for Windows XP Service Pack 3, and, boy, are you in for a treat! I bet you didn't see this coming in the least.

At this point in time, there are but scarce details available on the third and final service pack for XP. The Redmond company has postponed its release several times, taking it from 2006 as far back as the first half of 2008. The abstract launch dated sometime by mid 2008 is the sole aspect of XP SP3 that has officially been confirmed. But this is all about to change... Or is it?

Just take a look at the official release notes for XP SP3, while, of course, keeping in mind that "this article discusses a beta release of a Microsoft product. The information in this article is provided as-is and is subject to change without notice," as the company has put it. And, of course, that by this point you have visited the link to the release notes for XP SP3 and have been disappointed by the extended level of transparency that Microsoft has offered on this service pack for XP.

"No formal product support is available from Microsoft for this beta product. For information about how to obtain support for a beta release, see the documentation that is included with the beta product files, or check the Web location where you downloaded the release," Microsoft added. "No formal product support is available from Microsoft for this beta product. For information about how to obtain support for a beta release, see the documentation that is included with the beta product files, or check the Web location where you downloaded the release."

And the Redmond company even manages to finish at an apex of user frustration, by revealing that "release notes are not available for the Windows XP SP3 beta release." Windows XP SP3 RC has been made available to all MSDN and TechNet subscribers on December 3.

source: news.softpedia.com

Technorati Tags: microsoft,windows

Does Microsoft Actually Want Windows Vista SP1 to Be Pirated?

2007-12-18T04:19:00.002+07:00

Windows Vista Service Pack 1 is currently in its final stages of development in Redmond Utero, and heading for the first release candidate stage.

Microsoft has even managed to promise that the general public would be able to get a taste of the service pack ahead of the first quarter of 2008, pointing to mid of December 2007, as the date of availability for a public build of Vista SP1 RC. At the same time, the Redmond company began discussing the modifications that the service pack would introduce in the activation infrastructure of the operating system. In this sense, Microsoft mentioned that it was evolving its anti-piracy strategy, in order to meet the ongoing threat posed by the phenomenon.

Vista was made available in November 2006 and in January 2007, first to business customers and subsequently to the general public, bringing with it a new level of anti-piracy mitigations, such as Activation 2.0 and the Reduced Functionality Mode. Now, after a year since the operating system has been released to manufacturing, and just two months short of the celebration of the first month on the shelves, Microsoft claims that the piracy rate for Vista is half that of Windows XP. And at the same time, the Redmond company is making the illogical move of disabling Reduced Functionality Mode starting with the first service pack for the platform.

"We want to ensure that through this program, we maintain a great customer experience, and to do so, we will go after pirates and counterfeit software in a way that minimizes any disruption to our genuine customers. We are committed to transparently communicate how the program operates so that our customers and all interested parties clearly understand what’s happening and why. We understand the importance of protecting user privacy and conduct the program in accordance with a clear privacy policy. We are committed to delivering WGA with accuracy by making it a priority in identifying counterfeit software and striving to meet the high standards customers and partners expect of Microsoft," revealed Mike Sievert, Corporate Vice President, Windows Product Marketing.

Pirated copies of Windows Vista Service Pack 1, detected as non-genuine after failing the Windows Genuine Advantage validation, will deliver the same behavior as pirated copies of Windows XP. Namely, the users will be served "clear and recurring notices", informing them of the fact that Vista SP1 is non-genuine, but without any loss of access to features or of the functionality of the operating system. Net Applications credits Vista with over 9% of the operating system market, while Microsoft is boasting about having shipped in excess of 88 million copies of the platform to its channel partner. But, how desperate can Microsoft be to grow Vista's market share, if it will let its antipiracy guard down? And while we are on the same note... How can the Redmond company call the moving back to the "relaxed" antipiracy model of Windows XP, from that more strict in Vista, an evolution?

"Finally, we are committed to providing great customer service and support. For those systems identified as non-genuine, we will provide resources to help individuals acquire genuine Windows Vista. These principles will continue to serve as the bar we measure ourselves against in evaluating our anti-piracy efforts and how these efforts evolve over time to meet the continued threat of piracy," Sievert added.

Source: news.softpedia.com

Technorati Tags: Microsoft,Windows Vista

Linux's History

2007-12-11T11:47:00.000+07:00

Linux has a rich history. It is essential to understand Linux's history in order to understand the philosophy behind Linux's programming. This guide hopes to cover what Linux is really about, show you its history, why it was formed, and a brief description of its capabilities and how it operates.

What is Linux?

Linux is a freely distributed operating system that behaves like the Unix operating system. Linux was designed specifically for the PC platform and takes advantage of its design to give users comparable performance to high-end UNIX workstations. Many big-name companies have joined the Linux bandwagon such as IBM and Compaq, offering systems pre-installed with Linux. Also, many companies have started Linux packages, such as Red Hat, Corel, and Samba. However, they can only charge for services and documentation packaged with the Linux software. More and more businesses are using Linux as an efficient and more economical way to run their networks.

Linux is a complete multitasking, multi-user operating system that behaves like UNIX in terms of kernel behavior and peripheral support. Linux has all the features of UNIX and boasts of its open source code and mainly free utilities.

The Linux kernel was originally developed for the Intel 80386, which was developed with multitasking as one of its features. The kernel is the lowest-level core factor of the operating system. The kernel is the code that controls the interface between user programs and hardware devices, the scheduling of processes to achieve multitasking, and many other aspects of the system. The Linux kernel is a monolithic kernel; all the device drivers are part of the kernel proper. Despite the fact that most of Intel's CPUs are used with single-tasking MS-DOS, Linux makes good use of the advanced multitasking features built into the CPU's instruction set. Linux supports demand paging, which means that only the sections of a program that are necessary are read into RAM. Linux also offers support for copy-on-write, a process that if more than one copy of a particular application is loaded, all tasks can share the same memory. When large memory requirements are needed and only small amounts of physical RAM are available, Linux has another feature called swap space. Swap space allows pages of memory to be written to a reserved area of a disk and treated as an extension of physical memory. By moving pages between the swap space and RAM, Linux can, in effect, act as if it had much more physical RAM than it does, with the cost of some speed due to the hard drive's slower access. Linux also supports diverse file systems, as well as those compatible with DOS and OS/2. Linux's file system, ext2fs, is intended for best possible use of the disk.

The History of Linux

Linux is a freely distributable version of UNIX. UNIX is one of the most popular operating systems for networking worldwide because of its large support base and distribution. Linus Torvalds, who was then a student at the University of Helsinki in Finland, developed Linux in 1991. It was released for free on the Internet and generated the largest software-development phenomena of all time. Because of GNU software (GNU being an acronym for Gnu's Not UNIX) created by the Free Software Foundation, Linux has many utilities to offer. The Free Software Foundation offers royalty-free software to programmers and developers. From the very beginning, Linux has been entwined with GNU software. From 1991, Linux quickly developed on hackers' web pages as the alternative to Windows and the more expensive UNIX systems. When Red Hat released its commercial version of Linux packaged with tech support and documentation, the floodgates broke and the majority of the public became aware of Linux and its capabilities. Now more and more new users are willing to try Linux on their personal PCs and business users are willing to use Linux to run their networks. Linux has become the latest phenomenon to hit the PC software market.

Linux is a unique operating system in that it is an active participant in the Open Source Software movement. Linux is legally covered by the GNU General Public License, also known as GPL. Open Source software is free but is not in the public domain. It is not shareware either. GPL allows people to take free software and distribute their own versions of the software. However, the vendors who sell free software cannot restrict the rights of users who purchase the software. In other words, users who buy GPL software can make copies of it and distribute it free of charge or for a fee. Also, distributors of GPL software must make it clear that the software is covered by the GPL and must provide the complete source code for the software at no cost. Linux embodies the Open Source model. Open source applies to software for which the source code is freely available for anyone to download, alter, and redistribute. Linux is the perfect operating system for hackers because they can freely download newer versions of the Linux kernel or other Linux utilities of the Internet and instantly change its source code to fix any software bugs found. That way, bugs can be fixed in a matter of hours as opposed to days and weeks. Beta testers and code debuggers are unorganized and spread throughout the world, but surprisingly, they have managed to quickly debug Linux software efficiently and cooperate online through the use of the Internet.

Source: library.thinkquest.org

Technorati Tags: Histories,Linux