For those of you wanting more configuration options then the GUI or extensions of Firefox can provide, Mozilla have just the thing for you. Firefox tips and tricks has a ton of handy beneath the hood adjustments you can make to Firefox to tailor it’s appearance and function to suit your needs. Even if you don’t make use of any of them now, it’s definitely worth saving the link.

Happy new year everyone.

We like doing business with godaddy.com for domain names because they are cheap, efficient and easy to maintain. Their CEO, Bob Parsons, has started his own web log. Two of the things I have liked historically about his company — besides the low prices and the fact they clearly state that you own your own domain — is that he will personally respond to comments or suggestions and he isn’t afraid to say what he thinks.
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A deal that Microsoft recently won whereby the Dutch government went with an upgrade plan from Microsoft for 260,000 desktop computers valued at 210 million USD has just been dropped in its entirety. Lobbying by Open Source groups and Dutch public organisations had the desired effect and as a result Dutch MP’s demanded an explanation as to why a public bid on the project had not taken place. Several OSS companies released statements denouncing the Microsoft deal, and Michael Robertson of Linspire went so far as to reveal that a quote based on Linspire Linux would have been 150,000,000 Euro’s cheaper then Microsoft’s quote.

Read more at TheRegister. It seems that Microsoft is not having a very merry Christmas. My heart bleeds for them. 🙂

Google has made arrangements to fully scan three university libraries as part of the “googleprint” program. Works which are no longer copyrighted will be generally available. Works with current copyright will be term searchable, and will allow viewing either of select pages, or will tell where the book can be viewed or borrowed. The University of Michigan has over seven million volumes in it’s library that will be scanned over the next several years.

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Two things happened this week, neither are certain wins, but both inspire the hope that somehow the good guys will eventually win the day.
The first one is that the EU has upheld the sanctions imposed upon Microsoft in it’s most recent anti-competitive litigation. Basically Microsoft were hoping to get a stay on the sanctions until they had completed their appeal. By the time they had dragged the appeal out to 5 years or so, the sanctions would be dust in the wind and not relevant at all. This we know because that is basically what happened when Microsoft was found guilty of anti-competitive behaviour by the US DOJ. Part of that case was about Microsoft putting Netscape out of business by including IE in Windows, but by the time it had its day in court, Netscape was already gone and the damage was done and Microsoft had already won.

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MicroSoft lost another key step in the landmark anti-trust case in the European Union. This article explains that MicroSoft must immediately release a thinned down version of it’s operating system, sans the media player, and give some proprietary information to the competition. In theory this should allow the competitors to better craft software to work within the Windows framework. A complete chronology of key steps in the litigation is here.

If you are running PHPBB on your site, now would be a really good time to ensure you have the latest fully patched versions of both the forum and PHP itself. The recently released Santy worm uses Google to find and target installed copies of the PHPBB forum that are at risk of recently disclosed PHP security flaws. If you see a site with the text “NeverEverNoSanity” on it (and not much else), then the chances are good that you are looking at a site hacked by the worm. Apparently around 40,000 sites have been affected so far.

Browsing an affected site will not cause any issues as the worm only infects the servers. You can read about the worm at F-secure If the full name is anything to go by, this worm was written in Perl sad to say, however it should indicate just how versatile and powerful Perl can be in the right (or wrong as in this case) hands.

INSERT! The day after this story was written, Google has removed Santy’s ability to search for vunerable systems to infect. That does not mean you don’t have to update your systems however, because a new variant could easily appear that bypasses Googles blocking mechanism.