Computer Tips -Tech Info

Author: Avery

  • Microsoft working to ensure Windows Validation works with Firefox

    I’ve got to say, I’m impressed that this is happening. From the IEblog…

    The core of my team’s job is to make IE7 and Windows Vista so compelling so that people choose our products. The people who work on Windows want you to have a good experience, whether you use IE or not – for example, Windows Media Player has a Firefox plugin. I also recently got a chance to play with a new Firefox plugin that simplifies and improves the Windows validation process on that browser – since, as I said to Scoble a long time ago, it would be arrogant for the people working on a product not to use other products in that category.

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  • Cogent cut takes down major internet backbone

    Cogent has suffered a major outage of one of their main internet backbone connections. It appears that this link is having a big affect on the “internet health”. Comcast seems to be relatively hard hit with connectivity issues from this. It appears that the Northeast US and Southeast may have sporadic outages depending on the ISP. I’ve had a few peculiar net experiences this morning, but I’m not sure if this connectivity problem is what I’ve seen.

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  • 64 bit chips will soon be required for Microsoft Software

    CNet is reporting that Microsoft will require 64bit processor for upcoming server applications and Operating Systems. Amonge these, Exchange 12, Longhorn Server R2 and a small business version of Longhorn Server will ONLY be available for x86 64-bit processors. (Longhorn Server R2 is expected ~2009, although Exchange 12 is expected late next year (late 2006).

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  • Google Print is renamed Google Book Search

    Google has renamed Google Print to Google Book Search today. It appears that among other things, the name was a bit misleading for some. (Some apparently were excited that “Google Print would help them print out their documents, or web pages they visit — which of course it won’t. ” Their other reason is due to the “evolution” of the product. Their goal of course, is to allow searches within the full text of books.

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  • The best way to get rid of the Sony DRM rootkit

    The SecurityFix has a great how to article for the general public on the best way to remove the Sony DRM rootkit that’s been big news the last two weeks in tech circles. First, DON’T use Sony’s removal software as that introduces more security problems. Hopefully Sony will get together a removal for THAT eventually. Right now though, Microsoft has updated it’s malicious software removal tool to remove the Sony rootkit. This link is to Windows Live Safety Center, which will give a page with, among other things, a button that says “Full Service Scan” in the lower right hand corner.

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  • Spammers/ phishers looking to get past “turin test” images

    A lot of web sites these days use “turin tests” to keep from having automated bots sign up for mail or other services. (Or post entries to a forum or something.) For those that don’t know, a turin test is a test designed to filter machines from people. I doubt I’m the only one that has occasionaly found one of those squiggly letter/number images to be so distorted that I’ve failed the test… Anyway, it seems that there is a new trend in phishing/spamming emails. From incidents.org they’re seeing some mass mailing attempts that seem to be aimed at getting people to identify “Captcha” graphics for them. (A captcha is basically the random number image used in many online turin tests.)

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  • Beware web links from untrusted sources

    There are flaws in Opera and Internet Explorer which could allow URL’s in the address bar to be obfuscated. One of the safest approaches is to be wary of web links from unknown or untrusted sources. To quote….

    Claudio “Sverx” has discovered a weakness in Opera and Internet Explorer, which can be exploited by malicious people to trick users into visiting a malicious website by obfuscating URLs displayed in the status bar. The problem is that the browser fails to show the correct URL in the status bar if an image control with a “title” attribute has been enclosed in a hyperlink and uses a form to specify the destination URL. This may cause a user to follow a link to a seemingly trusted website when in fact the browser opens a malicious website.

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  • More google news sitemaps….

    What are they trying to prove??? Okay, Google Analytics rolled out (slowly) earlier this week and is just now catching up on reporting data. It looked like one of the rockiest initial Google releases to date. This morning came the news of Google Base a way to submit and search, well, sets of information that you’d commonly see in a database. NOW, this afternoon I read that Google Sitemaps has added statistics and tracking information….

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  • Google Analytics under the microscope

    I’ve spent some time this evening looking at Google Analytics. (Now the data is being collected.) And I’ve got to say I’m impressed with the scope of what I’m seeing. First, since last night, more stats have been collected, there seem to be some missing from today yet (maybe ~12 hours behind at the moment). When I signed up, I went ahead and created profiles for 4 websites that I run to have some different things to look at. I’ve spent about 30-45 minutes looking through the stats for just one of those.

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