Slashdot has an interesting story up about the background of the selection of Windows Defender. It seems that an Australian software developer had a product called Windows Defender which protected Windows users from malicious websites. Well a short while back he got a call from lawyers associated with Microsoft about trademark infringement over the use of Windows. As part of the deal he would quit using that name and turn over all rights to that name to Microsoft.
Tag: Windows
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Windows cleanmgr takes too long at compress old files
Here’s a quick fix for Windows 2000 and XP when using cleanmgr to clean out temporary files. I’ve run across many systems that it just freezes (or takes way too long) calculating space saved by compressing old files, or hangs just saying “compress old files”. Well, here’s one way to skip that step.
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Microsoft November 2005 patch day
That most wonderful day of the month has come when we get an idea of what vulnerabilities we may see exploited…. Seriously, if you run Windows, go to windowsupdate.microsoft.com or ensure you have automatic updates if at all possible. This months most critical update relates to a vulnerability in the way windows renders (draws) images. It appears that an attacker could design a web page with images in such a way as to run arbitrary (anything they want) code (programs) on the victims computer, alter or view data, or simply control the machine (creating/removing user accounts, etc.)
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Mandriva Linux 2006 review
There is a Mandriva Linux 2006 review up at mandrake.tips.4.free.fr, which includes a nice primer on “Background: Linux software repositories and software installation”…
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Apple picking up windows converts from the iPod
If AppleInsider is right, Apple has won around 1 million converts from Windows based pc’s to Apple’s platform in the past year. In part the transition is credited to the success of the ipod, although the prevalence of viruses and other malware on the windows platform is another motivating factor.
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Open Source Clipart Library
I’m putting this under software for Windows and Linux, because this is something I’ve been asked about several times. What kind of clipart comes with OpenOffice.org or with Koffice. There are some samples usually, but clipart is one of those areas that has traditionally been hard to come by for free online. (Yes you could buy a collection of clipart.) Well, The open Clip art Library is filling that gap.
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Windows patch week
It looks as though we can expect one critical update to Windows this week on the monthly patch cycle from Microsoft.
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Linux network worm…
There is a linux network worm (virus) in the wild, which I’ve mentioned already in an earlier post. I did want to take a few moments to highlight this and dispell a few myths. (This is the first linux virus I recall seeing over at SARC in the last couple years….) Myth #1) linux doesn’t get viruses…. bull, this current worm is proof. Myth #2) if linux had bigger market share there would be tons of linux viruses – Maybe, but remember that much of the internet’s backbone runs on linux (all the machines at my providers webhosting company and indeed MANY others)
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OpenOffice.org 2
Of course, I alluded to it in my Mandriva 2006 article, OpenOffice.Org 2.0 has officially escaped (been released). Bringing a nice shiny new gui for a database (BASE) a bit quicker load times, lot’s of other improvements.
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Zotob may affect XP Service pack 1 systems
There’s an eweek article indicating the zotob family of worms could affect Windows XP SP1 systems as well as the Windows 2000 systems that are currently affected. Since the original outbreak it’s been reported that there were certain circumstances that an XP system could be compromised, this seems to back that up.