One of the big stories out today… Google has released an “early beta” version of Picasa for linux. I first saw the news from the ZDNet Googling Google blog. There are deb, rpm and bin downloads available. The Official Google blog gives a few more details, for instance… this “magic” is made possible by a “carefully tested version of wine”. Also, they solicit feedback in the Google Labs Picasa for Linux group. I think this is very good news for linux users.
Category: Software
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Mozilla Firefox 1.0x series end of life….
The Mozilla Firefox 1.0.x series will no longer be supported with security updates. IF you use Firefox as your web browser, make sure you’re using the current version in the 1.5 series (currently 1.5.0.3). You can find what your current version is by going to Help, “About Mozilla Firefox”. The 1.5 series automatically downloads and installs updates and periodically checks for updates for the installed extensions.
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Microsoft Vista hardware requirements…
Microsoft has started releasing details of the hardware requirements for the upcoming release of Vista. It appears there are two categories of requirements. One is a bare minimum for vista, the other is a minimum for Vista Premium. They’re calling the specs Vista Capable and Premium Ready…
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RealVNC 4.1.1 and prior exploits on the loose
As reported over the last several days, there is a critical problem with RealVNC 4.1.1, there is NOW an exploit in the wild for RealVNC 4.1.1, that SANS is looking for more information on. There are updates from RealVNC for all affected product lines. Other VNC implementations have not been reported to be affected. Only (as far as I know), RealVNC 4.1.1 on Windows (prior versions may be, but the initial report didn’t indicate 4.1.0 to be vulnerable.) Don’t take the last sentence to give an excuse NOT to check, check if you have updates for your vnc product.
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Open Source Java and Linux distros redistributing java
For years, the call has been to open source Java…. it appears that day is, well… coming. Not at hand yet, but for startersJava can now be bundled with Linux distributions…. and is looking for advice on how to get from where they are to open source Java. So it sounds like they’re enlisting advice from developers on this and the day will at least be coming that Java will be open source.
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Clamav and Firefox updates
In the last couple days there have been new security releases of both clamantivirus (0.88.2 is now the current) and Mozilla-Firefox (1.0.3 is the current release over there). If you use either of these programs you should be looking to update. I’ve been busy looking at getting src.rpm’s recompiled here for various Mandr-ake/iva’s and if time allows I’ll even upload the latest. It sure feels like firefox has been getting rebuilt about every week or two lately though.
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Clamav 0.88.1 for Mandrake 10.0
Since, I’ve still got a few older Mandrake 10 installs that I’m maintaining as mailservers, there aren’t supported security fixes for various things anymore… Friday there was news of a new clamantivirus to fix some security flaws with 0.88, new version is 0.88.1 I’ve taken the cooker srpm and recompiled for 10.0, so… for my convenience (and that of anyone with an older Mandrake box…) the links will be below.
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WordPress trackback problem FINALLY SOLVED….
For around 3-4 months now I’ve had a REALLY annoying problem with the wordpress install on this site. Trackbacks suddenly stopped working. Somewhere around my 800th post or so while the WMF vulnerability was circulating (between Christmas and New Years) and I was typing furiously – poof…. suddenly trackbacks stopped going out. (Incoming trackbacks seemed to work just fine…) What’s had me stumped for so long is that I host 2 (now three) other sites off the same domain and I haven’t had a problem with ANY of those sending pingbacks or trackbacks.
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Evolution email error MAIL FROM command failed: Unknown
Some time back, I was teetering on the brink…. I’ve used Evolution as my linux mail client for ages (since I switched), because it had the calender integrated etc… However, Kontact has REALLY looked nice for some time, but I didn’t have time to mess with changing. Then one day, I was trying to send a message with Evolution and got a pop up box saying…….. “error while performing operation”, and “MAIL FROM command failed: Unknown” huh???
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IE exploit unofficial patches
While we wait for Microsoft to release a patch for the MOST recent Internet Explorer vulnerability….. it looks as though MS is “planning” to release a patch on their routine patch day of April 11th. (However they could always change their mind…) As before though there are some 3rd party patches. I’ve got to say I’m slightly uncomfortable with the prospect of a third party patch when there are workarounds (use another browser, disable active scripting….) However, for some those aren’t enough options. I know of two unofficial patches.