Tag Archive
2.7 8.10 9.04 9.10 100th acquisition advertising amd aol apache apple assp ati beta black hole blog browser bug building business caching callback CAN-SPAM can spam act centos chrome clamwin code collider comments compression computer css datacenter delayed development digg documentation earth Edward W. Felten email encryption encyclopedia of life enery eu exploit family fatherhood fedora firefox first plugin folding@home free freeware game Gaming gaming_rig gimp google guides hardware header history home house HPN-SSH HTC icann IE image improvement Infoworld intel Internet ipv6 IT jail kubuntu ldap Leap Day lhc Linux locked files mac mail_server malware me memory microsoft misc money mouse moved Mozilla msdn mysql network solutions nvidia oem open-source os paint_shop_pro patch pc pentium phising phone php plugin post post-revision protocol ram RC record release review rollover safari samba scammers science SCP screenshots script script kiddies security SEO Series server service pack society software son Sony SP3 spam species squirellmail SSH storage stupidity styling sun svn tape tech Techozoic theme threaded tip tips ubuntu Unix update utility video card virtualization vista vlite vmware vsphere web weird WHS windows windows 7 wordpress work worm wsus XP xray
Vista’s Service Pack 2 Beta Released
Microsoft’s newest band aid … er service pack for Vista has been released for beta testing for Technet subscribers and will be released for public testing December 4th. It looks like this is more of a release rollup and a fix what we broke earlier service pack.
“more traditional release rolling up improvements delivered to users via Windows Update and via our hardware and software partners, while also addressing feedback from our customers,”
- Microsoft
Source: PCMag
Save XP Petition
For those that don’t know Microsoft plans to stop sales of Windows XP, and force everyone into using Vista. Infoworld has a petition for those that don’t want this fate for XP. Apparently this is also the opinion of atleast 75,000 other people as well.
While I’m all for Linux and Open Source software, XP is still a good product that doesn’t deserve to die just yet. I can’t believe I just said that. Compared to the bloat of Vista XP feels downright good. It’s like that friend that really goofy and awkward yet you still hang around with them anyway.
Cut Vista down to size
A nice little free utility came to my attention recently, called vLite. Although I have virtually no experience with Vista nor do I want any, this little tool seems to cut out some of the excess that Microsoft insists on installing by default. Taking the installation down from the standard 15 GB, to just 1.4 GB. It can also integrate hot fixes and other patches, then make the whole thing into a burnable ISO making it useful on more than one front.
There is also a version for XP called nLite.
Windows XP Service Pack 3
It seems that with XP’s newest service pack won’t only be a bug fix/patch release but will actually help performance. Using an Office benchmarking tool the Devil Mountain Software group have shown the new Service Pack to have as much as a 10% boost over Service Pack 2 and over twice as fast of the same test under Vista. One more reason to stick with trusty old XP a little longer. Just goes to prove that Vista’s biggest competitor is XP itself.
Source: TechSpot
Vista’s UAC Defeated
Vista’s UAC (User Account Control) which Microsoft said would the bread and butter of their new security features can easily be rendered useless. Pcworld has this article(printable version) that has more information.
The rundown is that a seedy malware writer can do some crafty scripting and add a dll file to the hard drive, then when the malware attempts to run Vista will run the UAC and change warning dialog to a dialog which signifies that this is part of the operating system itself and inherently safe. By this time the user is already accustom to clicking confirm and automatically clicks and poof magically infected system.
Microsoft responded with this “They did not see it as an issue,”. Therefore nothing is being done about this.
