In the struggle between fairuse4wm and Microsoft DRM, it appears that fairuse4wm is out on top again. Just to sum up – the last few weeks saw a release of fairuse4wm that stripped DRM from Microsoft DRM protected media files, then MS fixed their DRM to break fairuse4wm and now fairuse4wm has released a NEW version that breaks Microsoft’s fix and strips DRM from Microsoft DRM protected media files…. DRM software arms race, kind of fun to watch.
Category: Software
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FreeDos 1.0 released
After 12 years of effort FreeDos has reached the milestone 1.0 released. It can be found here. I’ve really found freedos to be quite usable for quite some time as a drop in replacement of MS Dos environments. I’m struggling to remember any dos-based prorams that it wouldn’t run well. *(Possibly some games?)
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Mozilla Firefox and Thunderbird 1.5.0.7 approaching
Mozilla is soliciting people to test the candidates for version 1.5.0.7 of both Firefox and Thunderbird, so that sounds as though release is VERY close for that version. It sounds as though there are security issues addressed. (September 7 is the tentative release date… according to this page.)
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Linspire’s Click n run is now free
First, Linspire released the freely available “freespire” release of their operating system (based on debian linux). Now, users will no longer have to pay an annual subscription for the click n run service. That’s now available for free as well. There is a writeup here. Previously the annual subscription fees were $20/$50 per year depending on service level. This does not mean all software through cnr is free, there is commercial software available there for a fee. I know that not long ago there was some talk about opening up cnr (click n run) to other distributions, possibly starting with debian based distros such as ubuntu.
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Sun java update process vulnerable
The Java Runtime Environment from Sun has a vulnerability that’s due in large part to a poor approach to updating it. IF you have not uninstalled previous versions of the JRE on your PC, they are likely still there EVEN after an update AND to make things even worse, a specially designed website could specifiy the version of the JRE to use in dealing with java components on the page. Sun’s advisory here on the issue. The story is from the SecurityFix and I’m bothered by the same point that get’s Brian about this update….
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Helixplayer to include Windows media file viewer
WMV and WMA file formats (Windows Media Video and Windows Media Audio) have been one of those sore spots for desktop linux. Yes, I KNOW mplayer and other players can handle them. (If the codecs are installed.) (and wine can run media player) But, there have been licensing issues there. The fact is, distributions that are strict about their “open source only” policy have a situation where those formats don’t work out of the box. That appears as though it will change soon as Real Networks includes open source codecs for those formats in it’s Helixplayer. DRM (Digital Rights Management) will not be supported in the helixplayer project.
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KDE 3.5.4 on SuSE 10.1 VMware image
It was just announced that there is a VMWare image available for download that includes SuSE 10.1 with KDE 3.5.4 installed and it’s also been updated to the most current releases of the other desktop software available for kde from opensuse. VMplayer (at least) is required, which is a free download from VMWare. VMPLayer can really be a useful way to test out a system before commiting to install it on a machine.
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Wget user agent avoidance
I use wget a LOT. Many times in working with a website I’ve got a ssh console opened to the site and if there’s a plugin that I’d like to download it doesn’t make sense to download and then upload, I want to just download it directly from xyz.com webserver to the website where it will be installed. However, many times people have set up rules to block wget downloads. Yes, I know people use wget to suck down entire websites, it uses up bandwidth, etc. etc. Well. Wget is capable of sending a different user-agent.
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Lenovo to preload Suse linux on thinkpads
The Channelinsider is reporting that Lenovo will be the first tier one OEM to preinstall a linux distribution on generally available PC’s. For years, you either had to order large volume, or find a smaller name system builder to get linux preinstalled. Now, Lenovo will start offerning Novell’s Suse Linux on their Thinkpad T60p mobile workstation.
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More reason to be cautious with Firefox plugins
Again…. this article referring to an exploit related to the cross platform plugin capability in firefox, is a GOOD reminder to be cautious when looking at potential plugins to install for mozilla firefox. In fact, the advice is usually do NOT install software (including plugins) from untrusted sources. By all means, please investigate any piece of software before downloading and installing. (And please don’t take just the software makers word for it…. ie. “my toolbar is really cool and makes firefox work better” does not equal something you can now trust and install.)