Category: Computing Software

So, my copy of Macromedia Studio 8 shipped to me yesterday:

Actually, I’m pretty impressed so far.

I guess it’s worth a try to download Google Earth and see the hurricane pics?

Wired: On the Internet, Nobody Knows You’re a Bot

In the booming world of online poker, anyone can win. Especially with an autoplaying robot ace in the hole. Are you in, human?

(oh yeah, I’m back…)

I will grant that Picasa is a very nice image indexing/categorizing program. It even does some mild form of editing. It’s particularly good at organizing pictures for folks that have a hard time keeping these things straight. So, I installed the first version and upgraded to the second version. Some say that it is a pretty blatant rip off of Apple’s iPhoto software but, this was something that was pretty badly needed on the Windows platform.

While I had a mild interest in it, mostly in case someone asked me a question about it, I would be able to help. Once I was familliar enough with it, I uninstalled it. However, after the uninstall, it left behind 543 different instances of “picasa.ini” all over my computer. Now, it was a relatively simple matter to delete these from my computer but, I really shouldn’t have to. That’s just sloppy programming, in my opinion.

Then I got to looking around google for them, there’s a whole lot of them on open webservers. In fact, if you click on some of those results and backspace over the “picasa.ini” you’ll find quite a few pictures out there, browse to your hearts content. If you’re bored enough.

Microsoft IM release almost here. Code named Istanbul. I’ve been keeping my ears to the ground over this one since Jan. It’s Microsoft’s latest attempt at instant messaging and what they call “real-time communications.” What is promised is Outlook sync, a interface with desktop/cell phones and PBX systems, and presence detection. Which all sounds like stuff I’ve been working on for 4 years. The only problem that I can see is that it is all focused functions within Live Communications Server 2005, which is understandable from their prospective… but, still it forces us to proprietary stuff and suffer more and more license fees. I’d like to see how this will to support customers that are not Win32 users, if that’s even the focus and function.

Regardless of all of this, it’s highly doubtful that it will integrate or, communicate with other IM platforms and it’s even more doubtful that office workers will abandon AIM/Y! that they’ve been using for 10 years on the sly. Around 1998, I stopped trying to block usage and just let them go with it. It’s the way the work world communicates and I don’t see it ever going away.

It reminds me of a story that I heard years ago from a beloved university professor of mine. Apparently, a small, private college was able to build many new facilities and renovate many existing ones. The president of the university decided to not install sidewalks during the construction phase and allowed students to migrate from building to building for several months. When the paths most obvious and direct began to emerge in the new grass, he then installed the walkways. Effective letting people determine the best course to get from one place to another. I don’t even know if that story is true or, at what university it took place. But, the lesson in this “parable” is clear. No matter how hard you try to hammer people into going the way you think is best, they will find their own pathways and use them despite you. Somewhere in the middle of those two extremes lies the common ground. More and more layers of software and policy will never change that.

CliffsNotes (online view only) are now free.

Microsoft has decided to integrate with the other IM companies, Yahoo and AOL and has decided to standardize and center on some pretty non-standardized software, Microsoft’s Live Communications Server…

Some of us opened Firefox today to find that there was an update from .90 to .91.

Some of us updated it.

The update notification didn’t go away. There’s a big red box in the lower right corner of your browser telling you to update your browser. This is for two reasons. 1). The update notification is turned on. 2). The code is lying about being version .90 so as not to break your extensions.

You can fix this rather easily by following these steps:

1). Type “about:config” into the location bar
2). Type “update” in the filter dialog
3). Find “update.app.updatesAvailable”
4). Set the value from “true” to “false.”
5). Restart your browser

You may have to reset this for future updates of Firefox but, for the time being it will get rid of that huge red box shouting at you.

Click the icon for a screenshot for your viewing pleasure:

W32/Sasser A-B out and raising alarm in the media again. Microsoft has a patch (great) and there are several removal tools (Sophos, Norton, F-Prot). As usual, it’s not a bad idea to go to Windows Update and submit on bended knee. Or, if wary of the “patches” that come from Microsoft, there are manual removal instructions available.

Slashdotters are twittering about a BBC article that says there are an average of 28 spyware programs on people’s PC’s. One commenter sums up the whole thing by saying: “…ten million sysadmins and deskside support people all saying “NO SHIT, SHERLOCK!” in unison.” I’d have to say the same thing myself. Of all of the support people, computer consultants, and power users I know, spyware removal now takes up at least 1/2 their time.

Spyware has gotten to the point that it affects nearly everyone I know. For the last 3 years, I’ve had to run Adaware or, Spybot Search and Destroy at least once weekly. Viruses are actually barely a problem for me anymore. My counterparts are reporting the same thing. Oh, there’s stray e-mail viri in the wild yes but, nothing in comparison to spyware.

But, if spyware is so malicious, why aren’t the software “powers that be” doing something about it. Well, that’s a very slippery slope. The function of spyware and viruses may actually be about the same. They both infect a PC without the users consent. They propagate themselves from machine to machine. They both report back data about the user and the PC to the authors. The major difference is that spyware is commerce and viruses are terrorism, at least as it is currently believed. Both Norton Anti-virus and McAffee both advertise that they remove spyware but, do they remove their own trojans that merrily report information about you back to them?

The MyDoom virus is spreading and the press is positively incontenent with excitement breathlessly calling it “the largest virus infection ever!” Regardless of the panting super-hype, it’s another Outlook vulnerable attachment type of virus. Naturally, like the others, infecting you grabbing your address book and spreading it to your hapless friends. So far, I’ve successfully blocked 11,221 of them from the various servers I admin and I didn’t block every singe instance.

So, granted it’s not a small event but, there is a fix available from just about every anti-virus company… (Symantec Version – F-Secure version). Get the fix, update your virus softwares definitions and get back to work.

On a side-note… the virus was primarily engineered to take a swipe at SCO for their draconian licensing tactics of late. Whom in typical fashion are offering a 250k reward for the arrest of the author…

SecurityFocus VIRUS News: New Internet virus spreading fast

The “Bagle” or “Beagle” worm arrives in an e-mail with the subject “hi” and the word “test” in the message body. If the accompanying attachment is executed, the worm is unleashed and tries to send itself to all e-mails listed in the user’s address book. Sometimes the attachment is designed to look like a Microsoft calculator, said David Perry, spokesman for antivirus software firm Trend Micro Inc. The virus only affects machines running Microsoft Windows operating systems.

Outlook users beware, again… They predict this one to hit hard.

Slashdot is reporting that the AbiWord’s paypal fund was robbed of $600.00. It doesn’t mention how it was done but, it seems to be that someone used their paypal account to pay for a digital camera. They’ve not been able to get any help or satisfaction from Paypal. It seems that they are not the only ones that are not completely satisfied customers of Paypal: paypalsucks.com and paypalwarning.com.

I guess that prompts me to ask a logical question: Why didn’t you set up your own merchant account to begin with? I realize that to open a business bank account costs money but, those can be had for about $10.00 per month. A merchants account can be applied for and had from between $15.00 and $30.00 a month. For a large-scale, high visibility project such as this, I would see no other way. Paypal is convenient and all but, personally… I’d rather manage my own transactions as well as having more flexibility to accept donations. For non-profit software organizations such as this, I can see why they wouldn’t want to go to the trouble. But, if a 200 person church can see the benefit of a merchants account. I would imagine that a group with 20-50,000 users (all potential customers), should see the same benefit?

Abiword is an elegant and capable, open-sourced competitor to Microsoft Office. We’ve talked frequently about Abiword here and we’ve recommended it more than once.

For those that will need it here is the W32.Bugbear@mm temoval tool from Symantec.

Bugbear has been getting some press as the newest Outlook virus making the rounds. This thing disables firewall software, such as Zone Alarm, opens a port, and basically sets up your machine for DDoS attacks.

Network admins: Watch for strange behavior from printers (multiple networked printers spewing garbage). I believe that it tries to open port 137.

E-mail users: Again, I encourage you to look to alternatives to Outlook. Even Outlook Express is less vulnerable than full Outlook. Do check some of the alternatives that are available such as:

Eudora – http://www.Eudora.com
Opera Mail – http://www.opera.com
Mozilla – http://www.mozilla.org
Netscape – http://www.netscape.com
Pegasus Mail – http://www.pmail.com
… and more. Good luck.

I keep getting a HTTP 500 – Internal server erroron one of my servers here at paxtonland labs. HTTP 500 – Internal server error from IIS 4/5.0, is one of the most widespread, yet ill-documented problems a webmaster can face.

Once, after exhausting every single possible fix, I had to actually resort to formating the hard drive of a web server that I was working on. No warnings, no explaination as for a cause, nothing changed in the server configurations… just one day, bang: “HTTP 500 – Internal server error”

And my difficult journey began.

I try to avoid cliche analogies but, can you imagine if you had to fix your car by employing the measures and techniques that you often have to resort to fix MS products? If your spark plug wires were deterriorating and begin to malfunction, then you would literally have to rewire the entire electical system of the vehicle. If a belt became worn, then every single component that the belt interacted with would also have to be replaced along with the belt. Too complicated? How about this: If your muffler fell off of your car, you’d replace the entire drive train of the vehicle.

What’s even more interesting to think about is this: If MS used the same techniques a mechanic would use to would fix your car, then when an important system driver became corrupt or, overwritten with an outdated version, it would automatically restore it from a stored backup, without bothering you with errors. You know, like a part on the shelf? Broken part, replace it. Simple.