More IT Information

The CEO of Microsoft, Steve Ballmer, has said that he expects companies to upgrade to Vista faster than they had with XP. He does leave out any facts or hints as to what he is possibly expecting and it sounds more like marketing bluff because of the way it was said.
Businesses are usually the most cautious when upgrading to new operating systems. This usually has to do with the amount of time and money that has to be invested. Also when companies have something that works, they are very unlikely to switch to something else unless they know without a doubt that it will work better than what they already have. One disadvantage Vista has for companies is the high hardware requirements, which translate to higher costs. Most computers inside businesses will not run Vista.
Businesses will begin using Vista most likely as they upgrade hardware. It makes sense with the hardware requirements to not worry about the new version until you have to install new hardware anyway. There's no point in throwing out a perfectly good system just because the hardware won't work with the new OS. It adds unnecessary costs for companies. Also related to this issue is the probability of needing to rewrite software. More costs, just for one operating system.
The only way business would jump on Vista quickly is if it could be proven that the high costs of implementing it could be offset by the productivity that the business will gain. With the average cost of a low level Vista compatable computer being about $1000 and the cost of Vista close to $500 if we are not talking about an upgrade, that amounts to about $1500 per computer, most companies are going to exercise extreme caution when upgrading.

Labels: microsoft, vista

Sooner or later we all encounter a crashed or bad hard drive, for those who have had a Compaq, especially during the early 90's, it may have been sooner than later. The problem in such situations is how to get the data off of the drive. The trick of freezing the drive has been mentioned several times as a way to make the drive readable in order to get data off of it, but the problem is how do you get the information off?
For Linux users, dd_rescue is an option. It will read the drive and when it encounters an error will skip to the next sector hopefully bypassing the error and getting more data. Later it is possible to read those failed sectors backwards to try to get more data from them and to use smaller block sizes, which will isolate the problem in an even smaller area. There may still be some missing data after all of this, but you will have most of it in one large file. This file can later be mounted and read onto another drive to get at least most of the data back and on another drive.
There is a very nice article describing how to use the utility as well as giving options on where to find it.

Labels: harddrive, linux, recover

Looking for something to buy that technophile in your life for Christmas? How about the gift of open source.
Make magazine has a list of open source gifts that many technical people would love along with those children who like taking things apart to learn how they work. They can put them together and make them work instead of being destructive.
One of the items in the list is a set of circuit boards and electronic parts to make different items to work with your computer.
Of course the Qtopia Greenphone is included. What can be better than a mobile phone that you can mod and add software to?
Ubuntu is included in the list too, which is expected with the amount of press that it has been receiving. I still have the opinion that it is for beginners in the Unix/Linux community and for anyone else it isn't so adequate, but I know there are those who disagree with me there. I would put any version of Linux in the list. It is a lot easier to use nowadays and it is an OS that anyone can use if they have any understanding or interest in computers.
For the person who's not so interested in computers, but likes to do work in their garage, there is the multimachine open source machining tool. For about $100 a person can build an all-in-one machine to cover all of their metal-working needs.
For those who want to link their computer and entertainment system there is the NEUROS OSD which will allow users to record video on their computer or view computer generated shows on their televisions and play MP3s on their home stereo system.
An open source wireless router and MP3 player are also included in the list.
The strangest item is a digital board for viewing brainwave activity through an EEG at home. It does come with many warnings about the possible dangers and almost takes the fun out of trying such a thing, almost.
There is also the open source home automation software for those who want to control their house from their computer. Admit it, it has crossed your mind on several occasions.
Another strange item is a fuel injection system for your car. I'm one to feel quite happy with the system that came with the car, but then again maybe with some tweaks to the system you can get even more fuel efficiency from your car, which no one would pass up with the rising costs of fuel.
And of course we can't forget the open source eye tracking hardware. Not only does it follow your eyes, but it also points a camera at where your eyes are looking. This might be more interesting for your significant other than you may realize - control those eyes.
There are many other open source items listed, but you'll have to read those for yourself. The geek in you will be very impressed.

Labels: christmas, linux, os, OSS

Gateway has released a computer just in time for the holiday rush that is quite possibly the most powerful system you can buy while still being called a PC.
The system comes with a 24 inch LCD display, which is fed by two linked ATI Radeon X 1950 graphics cards. Each of the cards contains 512 MB of video memory. Even more impressive is the 3.2 GHz over-clocked Intel Core 2 extreme quad core processor. This is the first time I believe any computer came with an over-clocked processor off the shelf. To top it off the system has 4GB of RAM and 1.5 TB of hard drive space, which is accomplished with 2 750 GB hard drives using RAID.
There is of course a cost for all this power, about $5000, which isn't that much really considering the power you get. This system, aside from being a gamer's paradise, is great for people interested in video or photography editing or people doing very demanding tasks with their computer and require fast systems to deal with the amounts of data or processes.
For those with the money to spend and the extreme computer user to buy something for this Christmas, this is the perfect system.

Labels: computer, gateway

Nothing is free these days and that is certainly true of online porn.
It seems the current form of social engineering is to attract Internet Explorer users to sites offering free pornography. Currently, there is a major spam campaign against unpatched versions of Internet Explorer offering free pornography while actually providing the Psyme-DL Trojan. When users open the link, they are taken to a page that automatically installs the Trojan. Firefox users are asked to switch browsers and are unaffected as are fully patched IE users and users of IE 7.
This is just another reminder of why people should practice safe browsing habits, but despite all the warnings many users will find such an email impossible to resist and go to it anyway, which is exactly what the creators of such social engineering schemes are hoping for.

Labels: email, safety, spam, trojan

With the coming of Christmas many people may be looking for ways of decorating their house as well as for some their computers.
For those looking to decorate their house without spending an arm and a leg, there are a few websites that offer instructions on creating decorations for the cost of ink and paper.
A 3-D Christmas tree is probably one of the simplest items to make. It consists of 5 folded trees put together to make a standing tree.
A lot more complicated but very attractive, is a reindeer and sleigh, which of course are also three-dimensional.
A collection of all sorts of paper decorations including some Christmas related items can be found at www.papertoys.com.
And for children who want to write to Santa there are two possible locations both of which take children's security and privacy very seriously. Along with being able to write Santa a letter,emailsanta.com also includes a countdown timer which is counting down the time until Santa arrives at children's homes. Northpole.com includes many activities and games as well. It seems to be more geared for everyone with links for parents, teachers and kids. To make it easier for children, it automatically opens to a child-friendly page.

Labels: christmas, decorate

There are statements being made that the next version of the GNU Public license will include a clause that any company joining in a pact to not sue will carry over to everything within the GPL license.
The problem here is that Linux is leaning toward staying with the GPL version 2 license which doesn't have this protection. While Ballmer's idea that Linux is using MS code is complete rubbish and I'm certain that after some time a court would prove this, it would be nicer to eliminate the whole matter and more importantly shut Ballmer up.
I'm not a fan of the anti-DRM phrase, even though I am completely against DRMs. Open source is about freedom and preventing someone from adding a DRM is limiting their freedom, but then again the DRM is limiting the user's freedom. It's a double edged sword.
But for Linux and the whole open source community, it would be a good idea to talk it over and compromise on GPL version 3 and apply all of the software including Linux to it. It will keep Linux competitive and prevent companies like Microsoft from throwing their weight to try to destroy it.
And as for Microsoft, their current behaviour is an all time low even for them. When the competition becomes tough, rather than competing with the competition, threaten the users with false claims and bully the customers back to your company. This doesn't promote customer loyalty, but it may push more pictures of Bill Gates dressed as a NAZI to be created (which I'm of course not encouraging anyone to do).

Labels: GPL, linux, microsoft

Spamhaus has published a list of the top spammers world-wide. It make come as no shock that all of them are men. Included in this list are 4 Russians, 2 Americans, 1 Israeli, Canadian and resident of Hong Kong. Topping the list is a Ukrainian man who goes by Alex Blood along with other aliases such as Alexander Mosh, AlekseyB, Alex Polyakow. He is known for spreading child pornography through a host of botnets and is associated with a Russian spam gang known as Pavka/Artofit.
Also revealed in the report was that about 200 professional spam gangs are responsible for about 80% of the spam world-wide.
With so few groups involved, you'd think it would be easy to eliminate spam by just not selling these groups Internet access, but also revealed is a list of ISPs who are responsible for the most spam, some of which also sell these gangs services in order to gain a profit.
Verizonbusiness.com leads the list of networks delivering the most spam. Next comes serverflo.com and in descending order, sbc.com, xo.com, proxad.net, rr.com, tpnet.pl, edu.tw, hinet.net, ttnet.net.tr.
If pressure could be put on these networks to do something about spam and to not provide services to known spammers, we'd see a huge difference in the amount of spam, but these companies would see a difference in their financial outlook so they don't care about the spam so much. After all people can delete it easily enough.

Labels: ISP, spam

Those using Linux, especially the command line, have I'm sure all experienced that sinking feeling after having typed rm . Recently a possible method of getting those files back has been described.
The command lsof can help you find the data inside of /proc which can be copied back. This does rely on the file currently being currently opened. If any application or process that is using the file stops, the file is lost. If the file is being used though, from the command line you can type:
lsof | grep
This will give you data about the file. The most important is the second column which is the process id of the process using the file and the fourth column which is the file descriptor. Once you have that information type:
cp /proc//fd/
This will rescue the file with very little difficulty. Unfortunately this is only good for the times when the file is still opened.

Labels: linux, os, recover

# posted by N_Lien @ 22:04 0 comments

We have yet another example of why people should not give information about themselves on the Internet. This time it's not teenagers or children though, but middle-aged men.
Two men were insulting each other in a chat room dedicated to discussing Islam when finally one threatened to find the location of the other and beat him. Fortunately he didn't get the chance, but unfortunately this was because the threatened man decided to attack first with a friend.
Had this man been a little more careful about not revealing his location, he wouldn't have been attacked. I don't know exactly how much information he had said about himself, but the attackers were able to go directly to his house.
This is a good example to teach us all that it's not just children who have to worry. Anything can happen to anyone. All of us should be careful on the Internet.

Labels: internet, safety

Google has added another innovation to Google Earth.
Now users are able to view maps dating back to the 17th century. These maps can be overlaid on modern satellite images. This is a wonderful feature for students learning history and can be useful in a classroom setting as well as for those interested in history. Also it can be used to research an area to find what a piece of land or area was in the past.

Labels: earth, education, Google

In Vista RC2 they have fixed the issue that allows for pagefile attacks, but with the way they implemented the fix, it will cause more difficulty than good. Their method has been to block raw disk access from usermode software, which prevents any third-party applications such as un-deleters and disk editors from functioning. For complete information on the issue, please visit the invisiblethings blog.
It seems that as of late, Microsoft has been obtaining their security by locking out legitimate companies from creating software to run on Vista. With this new policy, I think I preferred the not so secure Windows with a very good firewall and anti-virus. This seems more like tyranny than it does security.

Labels: microsoft, os, vista

For those who like to read, there is a few sites out there offering free ebooks. These are not the ebooks one finds of unknown authors, but rather the popular authors who's books have recently been released from copyright protection.
One such site, Planet PDF, offers about 70 books from various artists including, Charles Dickens, Hans Christian Anderson, Fyodor Dostoevsky, Leo Tolstoy and H. G. Wells to name a few. As the site's name implies all of these books can be found in pdf format. Along with the titles and author, the first paragraph of the book is displayed to help viewers search for an interesting book.
Another site featuring many different authors and even more books, The Online Books Page, allows viewers to search through a large catalogue of different books which can be found in HTML and text format mostly. The HTML format may not be as easy to work with as it requires that you save the complete directory of pages if you want to view it offline, but for those willing to make the effort, or to simply read it online, this can provide a lot of interesting books.
A third location with an impressive author list featuring, from what I have seen, most if not all of the works of various authors, The Literature Network, features all of it's books in HTML format. This again makes for a little extra work saving it for offline reading, but their extensive list makes the site definitely worth a visit.

Labels: books, education, internet

According to a study sponsored by IBM, Linux has won in the server world.
The study claims that 83% of companies have expectations of using Linux next year to support workloads, while only 23% are planning on using Windows.
More information can be read here.
It is really not much of a surprise to see Linux winning the server battle. Originally Unix was the OS of choice for servers, then businesses started trying Windows for it's ease-of-use and new ideas, but now they are going back towards a Unix-type system for power and stability and the easiest option is Linux.
We still don't see a large growth in the market for households for a few reasons, Linux isn't preinstalled on many name brand computers and many people are afraid to try a brand they have never heard of, most people do not want to setup an OS, many people never change the OS that came with their computer, they use Windows at work and school and people are afraid of Linux because they think it is difficult.
If we see a shift in the computers used in the office to a Linux platform, we will begin to see a shift in home computer users as well. This will be the turning point for Linux in homes.

Labels: linux, os, server

Maybe it was not intentional, but Jim Allchin of Microsoft seems to have challenged virus writers and security professionals to disprove his claims that Vista is very difficult for a virus to move from one Vista machine to another.
He stated in a telephone interview how his son is using Vista with parental controls and Address Space Layout Randomization (ASLR) and he is completely confident in his son's safety as well as the computer's improbably of getting a virus without having any anti-virus software on the computer.
This is completely against what every security and IT professional will tell you. No computer should be run without some anti-virus. The operating system is not even running in the 'wild' yet, until that happens the security is not truly put to the test. The true stability is unknown. The only thing that is know is that in a controlled environment it is fairly safe from attack.
With comments like this from Microsoft, it is even more likely that a virus or other exploit will be created sooner and will be able to pass between computers with no difficulty. It probably won't be for malicious purposes. It will just be for the challenge and to prove that it can be done. I do repeat though, just because one person is overly confident and foolish enough to run a computer connected to the Internet with no real security, do not follow suit. Run anti-virus software, a firewall, and adware protection at the very least.

Labels: microsoft, os, vista

Skype has just released a completely new version to Beta with some very nice features.
I won't say that they are all completely new, but they are completely new for VOIP. Skypecasts and Public Chats are one new feature. With Skypecasts up to 100 people can join a mentored discussion about a topic. While similar, Public Chats run constantly and allow people to talk about anything they choose. Those who host the chat are allowed to moderate it or let it drift freely to any topics.
Quite probably the most interesting feature is the ability to call any telephone number from the Internet just by clicking on it. Of course the requirement for this is that you must have SkypeOut. This can reduce the problem of having to write a number down before calling and the reduce the possibility of getting a wrong number.
Other features include an improved user interface, but that would be expected as every version so far has made improvements to the interface and of course they have also added many innovations.

Labels: call, skype, skypecasts

Windows 2000, XP, Server 2003 (including SP1) may be vulnerable to a zero-day vulnerability in the XMLHTML 4.0 ActiveX Control.
Currently attacks have been found using all versions of Internet Explorer (IE) to run code remotely. Banner Advertisements and methods of distributing web content can be dangerous according to Microsoft.
Microsoft has advised users set the registry's kill bit for the ActiveX control or setup IE to provide a prompt before running any ActiveX Control.
More information including suggested workarounds from Microsoft can be found in Microsoft's security advisory.

Labels: IE, microsoft, vulnerability, windows

For those who haven't looked at a Mac in a while, Leopard may be a surprise.
Looking at the desktop it looks like a cross between the KDE and Gnome desktops with some features of each. From Gnome it includes something similar to the menu bar (usually) across the top of the desktop. From KDE it includes the quick launch and taskbar across the bottom of the desktop.
From most *nix desktops, it includes the ability to have multiple desktops, but it improves on this by allowing multiple desktops to be displayed at the same time. This does greatly reduce the size of the applications on the desktops, but it does help if you are working on two applications at the same time. Many MS Windows users may say that this is no different than having two windows open side-by-side, but there is a big difference when you can have all your applications organized on different desktops. It makes for a lot cleaner workspace and improves productivity when you just change desktops and can go back with everything being in exactly the same place. With the Mac's added feature of being able to bring multiple desktops up at the same time, it adds more usability for when you need to do too many things in too many desktops for other methods to be useful.
Leopard features other applications as well, such as a backup application automatically backs up the computer without any user involvement, but I will let those who are interested look at them on their own. The desktop is the most interesting and useful aspect of the system, while the rest is just added bonuses. with an unfriendly desktop it doesn't really matter what applications are running on the system, it is still difficult to use.

Labels: desktop, Mac, os

Most people on the Internet have heard of spyware, but there still are many who consider it as something that only happens to others. Of course, this is where they are wrong and the effects of this are great. Spyware is known for causing many problems and doing many things including stealing people's identity, causing a computer to function as a spam relay, displaying pop-up ads, and slowing the system so much that it's difficult to use.
There are two types of spyware, one is very harmful and includes Trojans and keyloggers designed to steal information while the other is happy to just redirect users to other content and monitor their Internet activity. While this second type is not stealing personal information, it is still harmful for your computer as it will slow it down. This may not be much for one piece of "adware", but usually it is never just one piece and you will notice a difference.
Surfing habits of users have been seen as a cause of more or less spyware with children's sites giving the most adware and gaming sites containing spyware and adware. Online shopping is the safest and usually doesn't add any malicious software to a system.
More information including how to protect and prevent spyware from stay on your system can be found here.

Labels: adware, internet, safety, spyware, trojan

The German version of Wikipedia has had a page describing the Blaster worm updated to contain a description of a new version of the worm and a link to the fix. Unfortunately the page is fake and the fix is actually a different piece of malicious software. After this page was created, spam emails were sent linking people to this page and encouraging them to fix their computers.
Fortunately, Wikipedia was able to quickly notice the problem and remove the page. Unfortunately though, the page was still in an archived version of the site and was still being used.
It is said that Wikipedia has currently removed all versions of the page though.
A more complete story can be found here.
The lesson in this story is that while sites like Wikipedia are very powerful, viewers still need to be cautious when viewing them. When dealing with virus information and patches, trust antivirus companies over these types of sites. They are less likely to lead to anything malicious.

Labels: internet, wikipedia, worm

For those who worry about forgetting their passwords, there is a way from inside Windows XP to change the password.
A video showing exactly how it is done can be found here.
According to the video a person can enter the command prompt and type net followed by the user name they want to change the password on and an asterisk (*). The system then asks for the new password and a confirmation but never asks for the previous password.
The video showed it being done while on that user's account. I am curious if it would work on an account that is not currently logged in. If that is the case, this is a very large security risk for anyone running XP. If it requires the account to be the one you are currently using, it give added reason for logging out when you are away from your computer and poses a security risk still.

Labels: microsoft, windows, xp

.Net developers have an alternative from IBM. Lotus Expeditor software tools was created to allow developers create Web 2.0 based applications. Mainsoft is also teaming up with IBM to make it easier for developers to migrate from Microsoft Visual Basic.Net to Java 2 Enterprise Edition (J2EE) and open standards.
Lotus Expeditor will allow developers to combine existing components to create new client applications. It also allows for a migration from Visual Basic to Java and as well will work with Lotus Mobile Connect software which is expected to be released later this year.
While this may not be a solution for every development team, having more options is not bad.

Labels: IBM, java, Lotus, microsoft, programming, VB

For people who want to ensure that their network is secure and free from any unwanted guests, nmap is a very powerful tool for doing so. It can be found here. The program is available for Linux, Unix, and the other Nixes as well as Windows and Mac. Instructions are available on how to install the program. Which can be compiled from source, or installed from an executable for Windows and RPM for Linux.
I will only go into the service very basically because of it's complexity and power, but for those who want to learn more, a lot of information can be found in the reference guide
Among other things nmap can be used to find hosts on a network, services offered by those hosts, the operating systems (and OS version) they are running, and types of filters and firewalls being used. For general home use this can be used for people with wireless connections to check that no one is leeching off your connection. Also it is good for checking for malicious software by scanning ports to see which services are being run and which ports are open. From those results a person can search for malicious software that uses those ports and try to close them.
For the first option of checking for unwanted guests, a user could type:
nmap 192.168.0.*
This is assuming that your local network uses that IP range. This will also give you open ports on the systems listed.
If we change the command slightly to:
nmap -p- 192.168.0.*
it will scan every port on every computer on our network. This will take a rather long time, especially depending on the number of computers within this network. The only advantage of this is it will find any unexpected open ports which may be trying to hide from standard scans.
If we instead type:
nmap -A 192.168.0.*
it will give us a lot more information on the computers and services that are found. The results include the version of the services that are running along with the operating system and details.
These commands are a good place to start when reviewing your network and for most users probably will provide all the information that they could want.

Labels: linux, networking, nmap, os