In an apparent effort to compete against both Linux and pirate copies of their own software, Microsoft has created and released a “Windows XP starter edition” of windows.
Ironically in an effort to remove features that XP home and Pro take for granted, they have also removed many of the features that make the Linux competition particularly attractive.

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There has been an open source anti virus application for UNIX/Linux systems for sometime now, and I’ve been hoping that they would release a version for Windows for almost as long. It turns out that they have released a Windows version and I just didn’t know about it.

Before I go any further, I should explain that the reason that there was a UNIX/Linux version was not because either of those operating systems has a virus problem, in fact quite the opposite. Pretty much every installation of Clamav (the anti virus app in question) I’ve seen has been to enable Linux file or mail servers to protect Windows client machines, not to protect themselves.

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The latest Bagle virus, the 43rd in the series has hit the street, and has apparently been flourishing.

The virus arrives in an email with a blank email subject and contains a zip file in which is a html file that when opened will use a flaw in Internet Explorer to automatically install its trojan payload. In an unusual twist (for Bagle at least) the trojan then downloads the actual virus code from remote servers before installing it. The virus then starts the usual process of spamming itself to every email it can find on the infected PC. It also attempts to shut-down your anti-virus application.

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Windows XP service pack two has been released to manufacturing.

This is good news, because Microsoft have bitten the bullet and adopted security strategies that they should have adopted years ago. However, SP2 is going to cause problems, it will break applications and may interfere with applications that require unfettered Internet access.

My suggestion is that, if you already have a decent firewall and don’t use Internet Explorer for web browsing or Outlook/Outlook express for email, that you hold off installing SP2 for a couple of weeks. Wait for a while and see what gets messed up for other people before trying it yourself. In two weeks time or so, do a google search for something like “XP SP2 software break” and see what applications people are having problems with before deploying it yourself.

INSERT: even IBM have decided to hold off deploying SP2 until they know exactly what the effect will be. A wise decision.

Regards

Franki

This is hardly news to anyone, but SPAM makes up about 65% of all email now, and has done for the last couple of months.

None of the laws outlawing SPAM have made much of a difference it seems. Part of my morning routine is to delete the 300 odd SPAM mails that Thunderbird (the email client I use) and Spamassassin (the anti-spam tool my mail servers use) detected. During the day, I usually get another couple of hundred SPAM as well.

Anyway, Brightmail have some statistics that reflect current SPAM levels, and it certainly doesn’t hold much hope for e-mail remaining a worthwhile communication medium. It really is like finding a shady, mostly illegal ad channel on cable and being forced to endure it for half an hour every morning. If it wasn’t for tools like Spamassassin and Thunderbirds SPAM detection abilities, I’d have long since removed all my hair by the fistful and relegated e-mail to a daily insight into the Internet’s lowest common denominator.

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Tivo to Go won approval today by the FCC. It will allow you to send a recorded TiVo show to your laptop and take it with you.

The NFL is concerned it will be used to bypass blackout restrictions on games. Of course, anyone who really wanted to do that could probably figure out a way to rebroadcast the signal anyway. It ain’t all that tough these days.

I have a DVD RAM machine that I like a lot. It allows me to record and watch the same thing at the same time, and unlike TiVo, it doesn’t require a monthly subscription. What it lacks however, is the ability to record automatically like TiVo. But it does have portability. I can take the disk elsewhere and play it in another machine.

It’s been said before, and it’ll be said again. The patent system is hopelessly broken and desperately needs fixing.

Apple has just had to pay off a company called E-Date Corp for their iTunes music service because E-Date Corp registered a patent about downloading commercial digital content over wired or wireless networks. How dumb or un-knowledgeable must the patent administrators have been to allow that patent to stand? Did anybody at the patent office that was versed in such things even look at this? Or was it rubber stamped by some computer illiterate lackey who just wanted to go to lunch?

What this patent means is that any mobile phone, PC, PDA, Laptop, MP3 player or other such devices that can be used for downloading of authorised, commercial content, is a potential target of this patent. There is no technology behind this patent that I can see, it seems they simply came up with the idea that people might one day want to download authorised content off the net and decided to patent it. And the authorities just let them.

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