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Ted's Radio Weblog
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Friday, June 30, 2006 |
Ars Technica notes New e-voting study shows it's really easy to steal an election. "If you have some basic tech skills, a few readily available tools, and some hooligan friends, then you too could steal an election. Sadly, election fraud ain't that hard in the age of electronic voting."
Tell your local officials: paper ballots are still the only reliable system. With audits. And reviews. And security. Electronics are just too easy to hijack.
10:32:43 AM 
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Steven J. Vaughan-Nichols rejoices that "SCO hits iceberg," but, while I'm relieved no poor judgement was rendered, this shouldn't come as any surprise. Most people felt SCO had no basis for their lawsuit, and that the entire process was targetted as a chilling effect, deterring the more risk-averse from trying or deploying Free and Open Source Software solutions. The question I have is this: did the SCO suit have the effect that SCO (and those who funded the effort) desired?
9:29:27 AM
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Looks like it's time for the monthly Apple patch-and-reboot. Get Patching!
The 10.4.7 Update is recommended for all users and includes general operating system fixes, as well as specific fixes for the following applications and technologies. It includes fixes for:
- preventing AFP deadlocks and dropped connections
- saving Adobe and Quark documents to AFP mounted volumes
- Bluetooth file transfers, pairing and connecting to a Bluetooth mouse, and syncing to mobile phones
- audio playback in QuickTime, iTunes, Final Cut Pro, and Soundtrack applications
- ensuring icons are spaced correctly when viewed on desktop
- determining the space required to burn folders
- iChat audio and video connectivity, creating chat rooms when using AIM
- importing files into Keynote 3
- PDF workflows when using iCal and iPhoto
- reliable use of Automator actions within workflows
- importing and removing fonts in Font Book
- syncing addresses, bookmarks, calendar events and files to .Mac
- compatibility with third party applications and devices
- previous standalone security updates
For detailed information on this Update, please visit this website: http://www.info.apple.com/kbnum/n303771.
For detailed information on Security Updates, please visit this website: http://www.info.apple.com/kbnum/n61798.
6:02:52 AM
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Wednesday, June 28, 2006 |
Via OSNews, Jem Matson asks "Is Desktop Linux Distros Headed in the Wrong Direction?." "The impending release of Windows Vista with its fancy Aero Glass special effects, along with the hasty addition of the similar XGL and Compiz technologies to the latest SUSE Linux release makes me think that programmers have a warped idea of what desktop computing is about. For some reason, many GNU/Linux users are concerned about competing feature-for-feature with Vista, while Apple and Microsoft struggle to add more graphical extras to their already graphics-intensive desktop OSes. It's gotten so that you need a serious 3D video card (with proprietary drivers) and a fairly fast computer just to keep up with desktop environments. Whatever happened to being productive and having fun?"
Many of us dissed Windows XP when it shipped with the Candyland theme and the Teletubbies hill as a background. A little 3d shading and a shiny thing or two is fine, but eating up half your processing power creating a glittering frame for your black-and-white text is pretty silly.
I've recently installed the Xubuntu desktop package onto a couple of older machines running Kubuntu and I'm delighted with the snappy performance I'm getting out of 5 year-old hardware. The Xfce desktop is plain, clean simple and fast. While I'll ooh and ah as much as the next person over glassy transparent effects, they don;t do a lot for my day to day coding (in text), email (in text) and blogging (in text). Hmmm. Maybe someone should consider better looking... text.
2:03:26 PM
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Tim Berners-Lee writes "When I invented the Web, I didn't have to ask anyone's permission. Now, hundreds of millions of people are using it freely. I am worried that that is going end in the USA." Read more here.
8:16:18 AM
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Tuesday, June 27, 2006 |
A WinSCP security flaw that would allow remote command execution on Windows machines where the WinSCP program had been installed as the protocol handler for sftp:// or scp:// links has been fixed in the new version 3.8.2. All users are encourage to update.
11:54:18 AM
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Sunday, June 25, 2006 |
Slashdot post: WinFS Gets the Axe. commander salamander writes "Over at the WinFS Team Blog, Quentin Clark states that Microsoft no longer plans to ship WinFS as a standalone software component. Instead, portions of the underlying technology will be included with the next release of SQL Server (codename Katmai) and ADO.NET. Does this spell the end for the true relational storage paradigm that Microsoft has been promising since Windows 95?"
Yet another disappointment. The best lesson to walk away with is that you can never count on commercial software that hasn't shipped yet. There are a vast array of shipping file systems you can consider. If you have a need for a relational database interface to a file system, you could look at Gnome Virtual File System, the Be File System (written by two guys in 1996 over 10 months), Apple's Hierarchical File System Plus (1998) -- interestingly, the file system of the iPod. For a deep backgrounder, Wikipedia has an interesting and heavily annotated article on File Systems.
It also points to another advantage of Open Source and the principle of "ship early, ship often." If an Open Source project wasn't going the way you wanted, you can fork the code and create a new project following your directions (with proper attention to the original licenses involved, of course). You might search SourceForge.net for "database file system" and see if there's anything of interest. Seems like plenty of neat stuff.
A corollary of the first lesson is to never depend on roadmaps. Dates slip, market demand shifts, plans change. As the Register points out in "MS poised to switch Windows file systems with Blackcomb," the best laid plans of mice and men oft go awry.
8:49:31 AM
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Saturday, June 24, 2006 |
OSNews report 'The Misconception Macs Are Too Expensive'. "When one takes the seamless integration, stability, ease of use, quality engineering, the TCO, and the ability to boot Windows, one can easily conclude that a Mac is not necessarily a more expensive proposition. The argument that Mac's are too expensive no longer applies. Although you can spend between $600 and several thousand for a Mac, stay within your means and purchase a system that meets your computing demands."
A friend at a recent LUG meeting observed that, even if this is true, he's been listening to this so long from Mac advocates, even when it was a far more tenuous position, that he's tired of hearing it and he's not inclined to believe it, even though he suspects it's a lot truer now than it ever was.
I just know the laptop I really want will cost $4000. It has cost that much for over a decade, and it still does.
10:36:19 AM
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Friday, June 23, 2006 |
eWeek reports: Highly Critical RealVNC Flaw Fixed "A "highly critical" flaw in RealVNC's virtual network computing software could allow malicious hackers to access a remote system without a password, according to a published advisory."
It's last month's news, but I didn't notice it when it went by. An associate told me of witnessing a machine being taken over by it. If you have RealVNC up and running as a server, make sure to update from the older 4.1.1 or earlier to the new 4.1.2 patched version
10:07:28 AM
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Wednesday, June 21, 2006 |
I never fail to pick up at least one great tip or idea from every meeting I attend, and the Upper Valley Computer Industry Association was no exception. This tip: CMS Matrix, a site comparing the features of a huge number of competing content management systems out there. Like that other Matrix, the problem with Open Source is ... choice. Not too many choices, but many. This site helps narrow it down.
Accompanying me on the trip: an audiocast of Doc Searls' wrap-up at the Syndicate 05 conference. Good stuff!
7:52:33 PM
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Tuesday, June 20, 2006 |
On his blog, Jon reports on a disturbing idea: that a producer of copyright content could demand you take down links pointing to their content. This is not duplication (strictly speaking, the "copy" part of copyright), just a link in the form of an RSS feed. There's no easy answer here. WBEZ and This American Life want you to download their MP3s, but from their site where they can nag you with NPR pledges (have your sent in that check yet?) and a chance to buy a TAL T-shirt of coffee mug. Fair enough. "Deep linking" is a discredited concept that your license to use a site (embodied in their Terms of Service or Copyright notice) could limit your use of their site. Is this infringement on fair use, or a legitimate restriction for folks producing media?
I like and support This American Life and NPR. I also see Jon is providing them a service by publishing a notification mechanism that new content is available for download. Does Jon cross a line by including links to that content in an enclosure tag? I don't think so. While he's not actually copying the content, he's redirecting the original source from the WBEZ web site to the consumer's aggregator without them "benefitting" from the commercial advertising on the site. Are users "stealing" the content by failing to read the ads? Not. Are listeners benefitting from the downloaded enclosures? Yes. Is WBEZ losing revenue? Maybe.
What WBEZ should be doing is asking Jon to show them how to set up an RSS feed on their site, so that they can include their enclosures and add enticements to visit the sites ("Enter our contests! Win a T-shirt! Read about TAR history! Visit our archives!") in the feed as well. WBEZ: Join the audiocasting revolution. It's the new radio. Add a plug to your audio to send you money, sure. Get yourself listed everywhere. Listeners time-shifting and place-shifting and device-shifting your show means more listeners. Don't cut yourself off from the audience.
Aggregation and linkage is the point of the web. Don't fight it.
11:35:30 AM
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Scripting News points out "Jon Udell picks "user generated content" as the most offensive buzzword." There are only two industries that refer to the their customers as "users" and we don't want to be emulating the other one.
Doc Searls has pointed out the oxymoron "consumer-generated content" as pretty dumb, too. Despite what Big Media wants you to think, generating sound, video and text makes you a producer, not a consumer. Doc has been on a tear lately about the terrible business model Big Media (and the Internet Provider - Telephone - Cable Oligopoly) is trying to shove down everyone's throat: Big Media produces, end-user-consumers feed from the trough, large pipes down, tiny upload capabilities in an unbalanced asymmetry. That's not the world, it's the world as Big Media wants it. That's not the internet, that's television, that's broadcast, that's last century.
8:29:54 AM
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Monday, June 19, 2006 |
eWEEK.com Messaging and Collaboration reports Microsoft Posts Excel 'Zero-Day' Flaw Workarounds. "Redmond's security response center is recommending that businesses block Excel spreadsheet attachments at the e-mail gateway to avoid targeted zero-day attacks."
FoxPro developers recall that Microsoft Outlook security patches block attached Visual FoxPro programs because "they could contain malicious code" -- provided the recipient downloads the code to disk, runs Visual FoxPro to compile the program file and then runs the resultant file. Outlook, however, will allow through Excel or Word documents containing malicious code with no objection.
People need to get over the binary view of "documents" versus "executables." Web "pages" contain executable Javascript, ActiveX controls, Java and more. PDF files can run code - they are made out of Postscript, a programming language. HTML Help files include executable features. Screensavers are programs, not pictures. Some people like to send around "slideshows" of pictures, oftentimes a PPS (PowerPointShow) file that could run VBA scripts.
1. Don't open attachments from untrusted sources.
2. There are no trusted sources.
10:48:13 PM
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Sunday, June 18, 2006 |
Over at ongoing, Tim Bray asks Time to Switch? and cites Mark "Diving into" Pilgrim's recent series of blogs where Mark has chosen to walk away from decades of Apple development and move to an Open Source platform. Full disclosure: Tim works for Sun MicroSystems but his voice is his own, as is Mark's, who's an IBM employee, and I own both a ThinkPad and an iMac, invest in all of these companies, and am divided if my next laptop should be a ThinkPad or MacBookPro. If you're considering replacing your current machine, there's lots of food for thought in these articles even if you aren't considering an Apple machine. Some of the most insightful comments were in Marks second post where he expresses legitimate concerns about being able to access documents over a long period of time, when the hardware is long gone, the DRM may not be supported, the applications that wrote the original data are nowhere to be found. Long Now Thinking is worth considering.
Tim's post follows:
Early this month, Mark Pilgrim made waves when he went shopping for a new Mac, but decided not to buy one, and, in When the bough breaks, wrote at length about switching to Ubuntu. I’ve been thinking about this a lot recently, and now John Gruber’s written And Oranges, a fine excursus on Mark’s piece. I’m pondering the switch away myself, too, and maybe sharing my thoughts will be helpful. [Update: Lots of feedback on the state of the Ubuntu art.] [Update: More from Mark. I feel sick, physically nauseated, that Apple has hidden my email—the record of my life—away in a proprietary undocumented format. I’ve had this happen once before (the culprit was Eudora); fool me twice, shame on me. Hear a funny sound? That’s a camel’s back, breaking.] ...
10:20:23 AM
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OSNews posts Apple Hypocrisy: "MacBook NOT a Laptop". "Many people who have called Apple to complain about excessive heat coming from their newly purchased computers have been told that the MacBook and the MacBook Pro are in fact Notebook computers and not Laptop computers. This article details why they are totally full of it." Well, details is a bit generous. Rants is more like it. Apple pictures people with MacBooks on their laps. But reports seem to indicate the MacBooks are too hot to leave there for long. That's not a good thing.
9:28:24 AM
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Friday, June 16, 2006 |
Vulnerability found in Microsoft Excel. (InfoWorld) - "A new vulnerability has been found in Microsoft's Excel spreadsheet program, just a few days after the company fixed problems with several of its applications in its monthly patch distribution."
"One customer reported an attack using the vulnerability, which comes from an e-mail with a malicious Excel document attached, wrote Mike Reavey, Microsoft Security Program Manager, on the company's security blog."
1. Do not open attachments from untrusted sources.
2. There are no trusted sources.
2:16:14 PM
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I recently mentioned that Chris Schmidt was going to give a brief talk at O'Reilly's Where 2.0 conference. He was a featured character in the Wired News article on the conference, too. Congrats, Chris!
1:29:16 PM
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Brian Livingston minces no words in his weekly Windows Secrets newsletter lead article, "Genuine Advantage is Microsoft spyware ." He goes on to say: No PC-using company that values security and reliability can allow a program like WGA to send data to a distant server, download additional software, morph its behavior, or remotely change the functionality of Windows (as I describe below). I don't believe individuals should put up with this, either."
This isn't a frothing-at-the-mouth, I-hate-Bill, Anything-But-Microsoft lunatic writing these words, rather it's someone who makes his living supporting Microsoft software.
10:59:34 AM
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Thursday, June 15, 2006 |
Microsoft shipped its monthly security updates, and these are not superficial patches, but deep fixes, likely with ramifications for everyone using these products. Anticipate serious perturbations to your systems if you are depending on the behavior of these applications as part of your customer solutions. Microsoft ships patched code it classifies as "Critical" for:
MS06-021 - Cumulative Security Update for Internet Explorer (916281): this is supposed to include patches addressing the ActiveX behaviors in the Eolas suit. This is a good time to abandon ActiveX controls and IE if you are still supporting them.
MS06-022 - Vulnerability in ART Image Rendering Could Allow Remote Code Execution (918439)
MS06-023 - Vulnerability in Microsoft JScript Could Allow Remote Code Execution (917344): JScript? Are they still making that?
MS06-024 - Vulnerability in Windows Media Player Could Allow Remote Code Execution (917734)
MS06-025 - Vulnerability in Routing and Remote Access Could Allow Remote Code Execution (911280)
MS06-026 - Vulnerability in Graphics Rendering Engine Could Allow Remote Code Execution (918547)
MS06-027 - Vulnerability in Microsoft Word Could Allow Remote Code Execution (917336)
MS06-028 - Vulnerability in Microsoft PowerPoint Could Allow Remote Code Execution (916768)
"Important," perhaps less critical patches include:
MS06-029 - Vulnerability in Microsoft Exchange Server Running Outlook Web Access Could Allow Script Injection (912442)
MS06-030 - Vulnerability in Server Message Block Could Allow Elevation of Privilege (914389)
MS06-032 - Vulnerability in TCP/IP Could Allow Remote Code Execution (917953)
One "Moderate" patch rounds out the bunch:
MS06-031 - Vulnerability in RPC Mutual Authentication Could Allow Spoofing (917736
In addition, MS06-011 Permissive Windows Services DACLs Could Allow Elevation of Privilege (914798) has been re-released as version 2.0 with new patching information.
It's the 24th week of the year, and Microsoft is up to 31 patches.
9:35:18 AM
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Wednesday, June 14, 2006 |
I'll be speaking on a panel next week at the Upper Valley Computer Industry Association. The panel is entitled "FOSS: Are there options for your business? How can the use of FOSS software supercharge your enterprise" and will be moderated by Bill McGonigle. Here's the blurb:
"Please join a panel of local Free/Open Source Software (FOSS) experts for a discussion of what's new in the field. Each panelist will briefly describe how he uses FOSS software to supercharge his enterprise. After that, the panel will discuss a series of issues that are frequently asked about Free/Open Source Software, and will help the audience understand these questions:
- What is Free/Open Source Software?
- Why would I want to use Free/Open Source Software?
- How can I improve my profits by using Free/Open Source Software?
- What's changed in the past few years?
"The panel will then switch to a Q&A session, answering questions and engaging discussion with the audience members."
The other panelists include:
- David Clifton, Systems Administrator, Fluent Inc, Lebanon, NH
- Scott Helper, Web Developer
- Jonathan Linowes, Principal, ParkerHill Technology, Lyman, NH
- Ted Roche, Technical Lead, Ted Roche & Associates, LLC, Contoocook, NH
- Todd Underwood, Chief Operations and Security Officer, Renesys, Hanover, NH
The meeting will be on Wednesday, June 21, 2006, 7:30am - 10:00am, at The Fireside Inn. Admission costs $45, which includes breakfast. Details at http://www.uvcia.org -- hope to see you there!
6:49:20 PM
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Monday, June 12, 2006 |
Over at Microsoft Watch from Mary Jo Foley lists The Top Ten TechEd Hot Buttons. "Microsoft's annual gathering for IT pros and developers kicks off on June 11. Here is our list of the most significant of the unveilings and announcements [^] everything from a first test build of the new mobile SQL Server, to a new beta of WinFS -- that we're expecting at this week's show."
10:00:44 AM
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Sunday, June 11, 2006 |
Over at Scripting News, Dave Winer confirms Scoble moves. "Chris Pirillo says it's "100 percent true" that Scoble is leaving Microsoft and joining Podtech." ... Dave goes on to say,"I didn't like how Microsoft was changing our relationship, and I told him so, really clearly. You can only be at such a large company for so long before it changes you... A person like Scoble can have enormous influence just by adopting some very simple ideas. It's the ideas that have power. But Microsoft hasn't let the changes waft over them. They still think in old terms. I'm glad to see my old friend didn't go down with the ship."
Agreed.
1:01:22 PM
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Friday, June 9, 2006 |
Ed Leafe posts: "I've just posted a new screencast. This one is different than the others, in that its intent is not to show you what you can do with Dabo. Instead, it shows a little bit of what goes into Dabo classes, and perhaps might help people get familiar with how our stuff works. For those who are new to Python, too, it may also show some elements of Python with which they may not be familiar. At worst, it's me rambling on for 13 minutes or so. ;-)"
http://leafe.com/screencasts/addproperty.html
"A member of the dabo-users list asked how to force the case of characters in a textbox, and while it was certainly possible by coding, I thought that such things should be built-in to the text controls. The screencast is sort of looking over my shoulder as I add that feature to the Dabo base class textbox."
3:51:28 PM
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I've been involved for a couple of years in developing Linux-Apache-MySQL-PHP/Perl/Python apps for various clients. During most of that time, I've used in-house Linux servers for prototype, development and testing, and Linux servers deployed at the client site or a hosting provider for production work. Recently, I wanted to spin off a second copy of an application on a local Windows laptop to test some radical changes while the rest of the development team continued to work away on the dev server. Ideally, I wanted to install the entire LAMP set on my local workstation without a lot of work, configuration, downloads, HowTos, and so forth. XAMPP offers free, prepackaged installation modules for Linux, Windows, OS X and Solaris, bundled with a dozen handy utilities like PEAR and phpMyAdmin. Installation was a click, click, click, done! process. Reading a few READMEs got a few non-standard settings like enabling InnoDB data storage. Slick!
If you need a quickly set up XAMPP stack, you'll want to check this out.
11:50:39 AM
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Tim Lind put on a great presentation of TrixBox 1.0 (the renamed and renumbered successor to Asterisk@Home 2.8) to ten attendees at tonights MonadLUG meeting. Tim brought nearly the entire system from his Computerborough offices: a salvaged PIII-700, a Digium card card with two daughterboards: FXS and FXO (I'm pretty sure it was this one), a couple of cordless phones, an IP phone, and his laptop, and showed us the entire setup. Tim uses the machine to take incoming POTS calls and route it through a digital attendant to one of several phones, ring groups or voice mail boxes. Day and nighttime setups have different rules. In addition, he can route to his cell phone, process faxes, send voicemail messages via email, and a mind-boggling combination of the above and more. With graphs. Wow! Very impressive presentation. Asterisk could be a great solution for nearly any size business, and an inexpensive way to bring a PBX to the small business world.
Next month, July 13th Charlie Farinella will show us how he works with the 'screen' command - a utility for supporting multiple remote terminal sessions on a single connection. Sessions started within a screen session can be backgrounded, suspended, and recovered after a disconnection.
On August 10, Mark and Tim from Computerborough will return again and show us around SugarCRM.
Thanks to Tim for a great presentation, Guy for MC'ing the meeting, and Ken for the facilities!
9:22:24 AM
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House Rejects Net Neutrality Rules. The US House of Representatives definitively rejected the concept of Net neutrality on Thursday, dealing a bitter blow to Internet companies like Amazon.com, eBay and Google that had engaged in a last-minute lobbying campaign to support it. By a 269-152 vote that fell largely along party lines, the House Republican leadership mustered enough votes to reject a Democrat-backed amendment that would have enshrined stiff Net neutrality regulations into federal law and prevented broadband providers from treating some Internet sites differently from others. [OSNews]
9:14:55 AM
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Doc Searls points to the Google open letter on Net Neutrality. Innovation on the internet by small and medium businesses needs a level playing field, not tilted by Big Media and Bigger Telecom to their business model alone. ISPs should get their fair fee for providing bandwidth, but they need to be neutral players in what we do with our wires. If I want to saturate the wire with an encrypted tunnel on port 12345 from here to my client in Walla Walla, provided I am within my TOS and AUP, providers need to stay out of the way. We need net neutrality to ensure that. Get involved!
8:53:16 AM
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Thursday, June 8, 2006 |
OSNews posts Microsoft Plans Better Disclosures of Tool. "Microsoft acknowledged Wednesday that it needs to better inform users that its tool for determining whether a computer is running a pirated copy of Windows also quietly checks in daily with the software maker." Ya think?
The article goes on to quote: "It's kind of a safety switch," said David Lazar, who directs the Windows Genuine Advantage program."
Is this Trustworthy Computing?
10:34:42 PM
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Slashdot post: Lenovo Backtracks on Linux Support Statement. After a report that the company would not install or support the Linux operating system on any of its PCs, morcego writes "Looks like Lenovo decided Linux is a good idea after all. From the article: 'Lenovo executives Monday backtracked from remarks last week that the company would not support Linux on its PCs, saying it would continue to pre-load Linux onto ThinkPads on a custom-order basis for customers who purchase licenses on their own. In addition, they said, the Raleigh, N.C.-based company was working behind the scenes to boost its Linux support in conjunction with the expected July release of the next version of Novell's SUSE Linux Enterprise Desktop.'" Cool!
11:02:32 AM
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Wednesday, June 7, 2006 |
OSNews points to Netcraft: Microsoft Continues to Chip Away at Apache's Lead. "Microsoft continues to gain share in the web server market, chipping away at Apache's commanding lead. The number of hostnames on Windows servers grew by 4.5 million, giving Microsoft 29.7% market share, a gain of 4.25% for the month. Apache had a decline of 429K hostnames, and loses 3.5% to 61.25%. Apache's lead over Microsoft, which stood at 48.2% in March, has been narrowed to 31.5%, a shift of 16.7% in just three months."
Wow! That's a phenomenally large shift in a short time period. Looking at the historical graph, the speed of changing is unprecedented. Even with the large shift of parked domains, there's something interesting going on. Did Windows Server 2003 R2 deliver some new compelling feature that caused several large hosting providers to shift over? Did they get a killer pricing deal?
9:53:30 PM
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Microsoft Watch from Mary Jo Foley reports Another Windows Vista Bites the Dust. "Microsoft has cut PC-to-PC synchronization from Vista. Vista Beta 2, which is slated to go to as many as two million testers, does not include the P2P synchronization technology. Quality is the reason for the latest cut, Microsoft officials said."
Meanwhile, Computerworld Breaking News reports Microsoft to tweak key Vista security feature. "Microsoft will change a key security feature in the Windows Vista User Account Control to make it less cumbersome for users."
Amazingly, this will appear in "Release Candidate 1" which has slipped to August 25th. I'm astounded that they could get to this level with features as clumsy as this.
9:01:29 PM
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Tuesday, June 6, 2006 |
SANS Internet Storm Center logs a chilling tale of a new piece of maliciousness out there infecting Windows, not yet detected by any virus detectors: A malware jungle, (Tue, Jun 6th). "Detection We got an interesting piece of malware from one of our readers, Robert. Robert detected one ..."
11:07:53 PM
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Monday, June 5, 2006 |
The next meeting of the Monadnock Linux User Group (MonadLUG) will be this Thursday, June 8th, 7:00pm, at the SAU 1 Superintendent's Office behind South Meadow School in Peterborough. For directions and other information, visit http://wiki.gnhlug.org/twiki2/bin/view/Www/MonadLUG
Tim Lind presents on Asterisk - the Open Source PBX!
Asterisk is a complete PBX in software. It runs on Linux, BSD and MacOSX and provides all of the features you would expect from a PBX and more. Asterisk does voice over IP in many protocols, and can interoperate with almost all standards-based telephony equipment using relatively inexpensive hardware.
9:32:26 AM
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Over on Scripting News, Dave Winer points to a Jon Udell blog entry, "Earth to Google PR," with an incredibly bad dialog with Google. This is not how you deal with your customers, your early adopters nor the media. Google's been Dilbertized. Hope it's just a Memorial Day hangover and not a permanent condition.
9:22:34 AM
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Slashdot post: Lenovo To Shun Linux. dominique_cimafranca writes "CRN reports that Lenovo will not install or support the Linux operating system on any of its PCs."
That's a disappointment. However, I never looked to IBM for support of the various RedHat, Fedora and Ubuntu installations I've installed on the laptop. Sites like Linux-laptop.net are great for getting the various non-standard laptop devices working. And if I was searching for a pre-installed version, I'd likely go to Emperor Linux for a fully-installed and -configured machine.
Even though I've beat the daylights out of it, my ThinkPad A31p has been a great laptop. Laura swears by the TrackPoint navigation and after fumbling with it for the first few weeks, I don't notice I'm using it any more, either. Lenovo still seems to be making the ThinkPad line with the red TrackPoint navigator, but we'll have to snap one up quick if they decide to discontinue them. Sadly, it doesn't appear that anyone else offers them.
It's getting to be time for me to start thinking about a new laptop, as the ThinkPad will be celebrating it's 4th birthday this summer. I've managed to flash-fry the wireless mini-PCI card, shear off one of the lid hinge screws, overheat it with a second 7200 rpm drive, short out the USB ports and just recently lost the backlight. Like the one-eyed, three-legged dog joke, I think I'll nickname it "Lucky."
So, the next machine? I'm shopping...
7:51:47 AM
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Sunday, June 4, 2006 |
The other thing bothering me about the Microsoft-Adobe thing: Microsoft took on the DOJ and in losing, won. Microsoft is taking on the EU and daring them to the brink of Microsoft's oblivion. Microsoft settled with Burst.com. Microsoft settled with Novell. Microsoft settled with WordPerfect. Microsoft settled with Stacker. How is Microsoft is unwilling to wrestle with Adobe? Not because they were certainly. That hasn't been a problem for them in the past. No, there's something else going on. I wonder what.
5:01:27 PM
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Ethan Zuckerman blogs "It's cute. It's orange. It's got bunny ears. An update on the One Laptop Per Child project." They are cute. The OLPC project intends to sell these in lots of millions to third-world countries and school systems. They intend for these to be owned by school children and distinctly colored to disuade commercial trade in them.
This will be quite the challenge. These aren't laptops as we use them, but internet appliances. I could envision lots of uses for them.
10:51:47 AM
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InfoWorld: Top News posts Microsoft to pull PDF, XPS support from Office 2007. "Microsoft Corp. has decided to delete from its next version of Office an automatic way to save documents in PDF (Portable Document Format) after Adobe Systems Inc. threatened to take legal action."
How strange. There must be more to this. PDF output is included with Apple's OS X. OpenOffice.org has the option to save files as PDF on Linux, OS X, Windows and everywhere else it runs. PDF output is free for anyone willing to dig around for it, from the free Ghostscript to PDFCreator.
Either Microsoft was infringing on Adobe's extensions to the basic PDF, or something else was in play here. I'm looking forward to some followup article that might shed more light here.
Another day, another Microsoft announcement of a dropped feature. Boy, the company is building an impossibly difficult hurdle to shipping new products.
9:39:14 AM
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Thursday, June 1, 2006 |
Need to delete a shortcut off your desktop using Microsoft Vista! It's easy and simple and improved! Just follow these Seven Simple Steps to delete a shortcut. Amazing!
9:05:42 AM
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