News

Microsoft Working On XP For OLPC

Microsoft’s software engineers are “working hard” on a slimmed-down version of Windows XP for the One Laptop Per Child project, but company officials say there is still much work to be done. James Utzschneider, GM of Marketing and Communications of Microsoft’s Unlimited Potential Group, says in his blog that contrary to earlier media reports that XP doesn’t yet run on the OLPC, but adds that his team has been working on the operating system since the beginning of the year.

TG Daily

Here is an idea, just slap on Windows Vista Home Basic and you’re pretty much covered. Besides, Vista Basic is a glorified version of XP anyways so it shouldn’t be that difficult. Also, theres not much to slim down in Vista basic. The only reason I can think of for them not using Home Basic is that, it’s TOO stripped down and instead, they would have to ADD things to it.

Man on cell phone killed by train

A pedestrian apparently absorbed in a cell phone call was struck and killed by an Amtrak train in San Leandro today after he walked around a lowered crossing gate and onto the tracks, authorities said. The victim, a man who was not immediately identified, was struck at 12:30 p.m. by a northbound Capitol Corridor train at the Alvarado Street crossing, about 8 miles south of the Oakland station, Amtrak spokeswoman Vernae Graham said.
Man talking on cell phone killed by train in San Leandro

Hmm. Since this happened in the States, there is a high probability that some sort of lawsuit may come out of this. On the other hand, how in the world does a cell phone conversation become so engrossing that you can’t hear the train horn going off? The man actually walked around the lowered gate. At that point, you have to think the guy knew a train was coming or else the gate wouldn’t of been lowered?

What do you guys think? Legitimate or suicide?

Whats Up With Migratr

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Alex has written a post detailing what’s been going on in terms of development for his nifty online photo migration tool – Migratr.

For 1.0 I’d REALLY like to have Webshots and Zooomr supported. Both are, however, being unusually silent regarding API keys. This is especially frustrating from Zooomr, as they posted to the dev group a month ago saying they were going to start handing out API keys, I put in a request, and STILL haven’t heard from them.

Migratr has evolved far beyond its original incarnation as a Flickr > Zooomr migration utility, but until I have Zooomr added to my roster, I won’t be able to consider Migratr a full 1.0 release.

Migratr is an awesome piece of software that lets you backup and migrate your online photos from one service to another, as long as support for that service is built into Migratr. If you want to read a detailed review of this software check out ( Migratr – Backup And Migrate Your Online Photos ) In fact, I used this program 15 minutes ago to download all of the photos I have hosted on my Flickr account.

2008 Top Ten Security Threats Maybe

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Websense has released a list of what they think will be the top ten security threats of 2008. This is a list of predictions so take them with a grain of salt.

1. Olympics – new cyber attacks, phishing and fraud
Event-based attacks and scams are popular, and with the whole world watching, the 2008 Olympics may fuel a surge in cyberattacks. As the Olympic torch burns, Websense researchers predict the possibility of large scale denial-of-service (DoS) attacks on Beijing Olympic-related sites as political statements and fraud attempts through email and the Web surrounding the Olympics. Additionally, Websense predicts compromises of popular Olympic news or other sports sites -attacks designed to install malicious code on end-users’ machines and steal personal or confidential business information.

2. Malicious SPAM invades blogs, search engines, forums and Web sites
Websense predicts that hackers will increasingly use Web spam to post URLs to malicious sites within forums, blogs, in the commentary or “talk-back” sections of news sites and on compromised Web sites. This activity not only drives traffic to the infected Web sites but also assists in the purveyor’s site sitting higher on search engine rankings, increasing the risk that users will visit the site.

3. Attackers use Web’s ‘weakest links’ to launch attacks
The Web is an entanglement of links and content. The advent of Web 2.0 additions such as Google Adsense, mash-ups, widgets, and social networks along with the massive amounts of Web advertisements linked to Web pages have increased the likelihood of ‘weak links’-or Web sites and content that are vulnerable to compromises. Websense predicts that attackers will increasingly exploit the weakest links within the Web infrastructure in order to target the greatest number of Internet users. Most vulnerable to these attacks are search engines and large user networks such as MySpace, Facebook or other social networking sites.

4. Number of compromised Web sites will surpass number of created malicious sites
The Web as an attack vector has been steadily increasing for the last five years and now attackers are using compromised sites as their launching platforms-even more than their own created sites. Compromising sites-particularly, sites well-visited by end-users, such as the Dolphin Stadium attack that occurred a few days prior to the 2007 Super Bowl XLI in Miami., provides attackers with built-in Web traffic and minimizes the need for lures through email, instant messaging or Web posts.

5. Cross-platform Web attacks – Mac, iPhone popularity spurs increase
With the brand popularity and growing use of iPhones and Macintosh computers, Websense researchers predict attackers will increasingly launch cross-platform Web attacks that detect the operating system in use and serve up code specifically targeting that operating system instead of attacks based on just the Web browser. Operating systems that are targeted now include Mac OSX, iPhone, and Windows.

6. Rise in targeted Web 2.0 special interest attacks-hackers targeting specific groups of people based on interests and profile
Web 2.0 has spawned a proliferation of Web users that visit chat rooms, social networking sites, and special interest Web sites such as travel sites, automotive, and more. These sites provide attackers with potential victims that fall within a certain age group, wealth bracket, or people with particular purchasing habits. In 2008, Websense researchers predict targeted attacks will rise toward specific social networking or special interest sites that have a higher probability of delivering a payoff.

7. Morphing JavaScript to evade anti-virus scanners
Hackers are upping the ante with evasion techniques that use poly-morphic JavaScript (Polyscript) – which means that a uniquely-coded Web page is served up for each visit by a user to a malicious Web site. By changing the code every visit, signature-based security scanning technologies have difficulty detecting Web pages as malicious and hackers can extend the length of time their malicious site evades detection.

8. Data concealment methods increase in sophistication
Websense predicts an increased use of crypto-virology and sophistication in data concealment including the use of stenography, embedding data within standard protocols, and potentially within media files. Toolkits widely available on the Web will be used to embed proprietary information and steal data.

9. Global law enforcement will crack down on key hacker groups and individuals
In 2007, large-scale Internet-based attacks garnered the attention of law enforcement officials around the world. Websense anticipates that through the global cooperation of enforcement agencies, in 2008 the biggest crackdown and arrests of key members of a hacker group will occur.

10. Vishing and voice spam will combine and increase
The vast cell phone user population has grown into a lucrative market to exploit with spamming and “vishing” for financial gain. To date, researchers have seen an increased number of vishing attacks but not a lot of spam-or pro-active automated calling. In 2008 Websense predicts that “vishing”, or the practice of using social engineering and Voice over IP (VoIP) to gain personal and financial information and voice spam will combine and increase-users will receive automated voice calls on LAN lines with voice spam to lure them to input their credentials through the telephone.

Out of this list, 2, 3, 4, and 6 peaked my interest. Number 2 is actually a given. It doesn’t take a genius to figure that one out. Number 3 though is interesting if you think about the implications of a possible attack against MySpace or Facebook. I can only imagine what sort of payoff a hacker would receive if they managed to attack something like Facebook. I mean, imagine what kind of data the hacker would retrieve if they managed to grab a database off of one of the Facebook servers. I think that information would be quite valuable to someone.

Number 4 is also interesting in that, botnets normally rely on turning your individual PC into a zombie to do their bidding. But what if the hackers actually used something like a web botnet. This botnet would consist of web servers across the world which serve some of the most popular web pages on the net. Imagine what kind of problem we would be dealing with if a slew of stealth applications that were laying dormant on web servers were to wake up all at once and infected your machine because you loaded a web page from that server. Suddenly, the odds would tip in favor of the botnet authors and the web would be in deep crap.

In the end, looks like hackers will keep evolving their techniques and we will have to hope that the good guys (white hats) are keeping pace. Should be another interesting year for security.

Interview With Steven Hodson Of WinExtra.com

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This week, I had the pleasure of conducting an interview with Steven Hodson, author of the WinExtra.com blog. WinExtra is one of those blogs that I continuously find myself reading within my feedreader. Although Steve is a cranky old man, he makes a ton of valid points that I think a lot of bloggers would steer away from posting. I want to thank Steve for taking the opportunity to answer these questions and I hope you guys enjoy the interview.

Jeff: Steve. Tell us a little bit about yourself and why you chose the name, WinExtra for your blog.

Steve: Myself – well I’ve been involved with computers and technology for jeez it has to be going on to pretty well close to 15 or 20 years now. when I first started serious computer type work Windows was nothing more than a stub used by programs like PageMaker and Corel both of which I used to create a small downtown magazine. From that point I got involved with programming with Clarion for DOS as my first language and then progressed (or some would say digressed :) ) to Visual Basic.

During this time I also got involved in running a BBS (Bulletin Board Service) as part of FidoNET. My first and longest used BBS software package was called Maximus and that was all configured with Notepad .. there were no such things as graphical interfaces then unless you counted ASCII color codes :)

As for WinExtra. It first started out as a set of NNTP newsgroups that was originally intended as a backup in case the newsgroup I hung out in at the time got pulled by it’s temperamental host. Which in the end it did and I saw WinExtra slowly grow into a very tight knit community which is what you see even today in our forums. The blog part of it came afterwards as I really wanted to have a platform where I could express my own opinions without alienating so to speak the newsgroups which by this time had for various reasons been moved to web forums software.

The name WinExtra came out of the fact that pretty well everyone in our fledgling community were Windows users and I wanted to be able to add something extra in the way of a helpful community.

Jeff: What is your definition of a blog?

Steve: Wow .. hmm … the term blog has changed so much over its relatively short life span. In the beginning it was just a way for folks to have a place to bitch about their lives and the things going on in it. Then is was discovered to be a great way to quickly share news and ideas but for me blogging is a way to be a part of a larger conversation; whether it be the post itself which maybe was prompted by another post or from the comments that go along with a post. I am a strong believer that the comments can be just as important as the post they are a part of and that a blog that doesn’t allow comments isn’t a blog. In those cases it is no different than some soapbox in the town square with people walking by either ignoring what is being said or just shaking their heads as they walk by.

Blogs are an incredible way for us to learn but learning is a two way street which is why comments are important as they add to the learning experience. by shutting them off all you are doing is preaching.

Jeff: Why did you decide to use WordPress versus the other Blogging platforms that are available?

Steve: I looked at several others and for awhile when I was running my own server I was using dasBlog; which is an excellent ASP.NET based blogging package. But when I was forced to shut down my server due to finacial reasons I had to find something that could run on a Linux system as that was the cheapest hosting I could afford at the time. So I looked at MoveableType, WordPress and a couple of others. WordPress won out for two main reasons – ease of setup and the incredible themeing and plugin support system out there for it.

Jeff: Do you make a sizable income or any income at all from blogging? If so, is this income generated by ads?

Steve: The truth of the matter is I only just recieved my first AdSense check two months ago and that was after 11 months of blogging. I have tried many of the other types of ad networks out there but unless you are getting 1,000’s of page views a day you can forget making a living at it in the beginning.

I don’t agree with doing pay for post type stuff so I don’t see any income for that type of work. I’m not saying that it isn’t a viable way to make money – it just isn’t something I am comfortable with.

The one thing that I will say regarding making an income from blogging is this – if you are expecting to make a good living from blogging within the first year you can forget it. The only people who can do this are people who already have a name recognition factor walking into the blogging world. The rest of us – well it is going to take working at it day in and day out .. it will take time and a lot of work in order to build up enough of a reputation so that advertising can bring you in a viable income and the sooner you can lessen any reliance on AdSense by selling ad spots yourself the better off you will be.

Jeff: Do you believe as a blogger, that other bloggers can make money via their blog while still maintaining an avaenue of trust with their readers?

Steve: It depends entirely on how they are making that money .. but in general I believe so. However the true judges of trust factor will be the readers themselves and to a lesser degree the other bloggers within your area of blogging.

Jeff: What do you think is the best part of blogging?

Steve: The learning and sharing. It’s a simple as that.

Jeff: Who do you think is crankier? Yourself or tech pundit, John C. Dvorak?

Steve: John who??? :)

Jeff: For those that don’t know, could you tell us what this term “A-List” represents in the blogosphere?

Steve: The A-List first originated as a term for the top 100 bloggers as listed by Technorati. while Technorati has slowly been falling out of favor the term A-List still hangs in there as a way to identify the so-called blogging elite and the mover/shakers of the tech blogosphere.

Jeff: I see you use FeedDemon, as do I. Why do you use FeedDemon as your preferred RSS reader over something like Google Reader?

Steve: I actually have two favorite readers. FeedDemon is my main one but it is followed closely by one called FeedGhost. As for my preference of using a stand-alone reader over something like Google Reader it boils down to a couple of things. Besides the fact that I just don’t like Google Reader; and I have tried it a couple of times, I also am not comfortable with any third party knowing what my reading habits are or being able to use my reading habit as part of any database used to feed their advertsing money machine.

Jeff: How do you feel about RSS and what sort of impact has this technology had on the blogosphere in general?

Steve: RSS; or even XML, has had an incredible impact on our ability to share information in a true cross platform manner and I don’t think this is just regulated to blogging. I think we have only begun to scratch the surface of what things like RSS is going to bring to the technological table.

Jeff: You’ve been blogging for quite some time and as I see it, you have a good following of loyal readers. Based on your experiences and your knowledge, if you were to take a TOP-DOWN perspective on where blogging is heading, what would it be?

Steve: I think we are going through a shake up of the blogging world as we speak. It may only be the beginning but it is a shakeup all the same. We are seeing the creation of new media (blogging) conglomerates that are growing to equal many of the old media corporations. This part is were we will probably see the most changes whether it be through mergers of competeing blog networks or the purchasing of smaller popular blogs. Secondly we will see successfull independant blogs that are able to financially support the owner of the “brand” – which is really what will set the successful independent apart – they will be the ones who have understood the whole concept of becoming a brand of which the blog is a part of. And lastly we will always have those who blog for nothing more than the pleasure of blogging – this is what I would call the foundation of our blogosphere because without those who write for the passion of writing the rest of us wouldn’t be here.

Once again Steve, thanks for taking the time out of your day to answer these questions. I ended up learning a thing or two and I bet the readers of this blog will have done so as well. If you haven’t already, please visit http://www.winextra.com and make sure you add it to your feed reader. You’ll be glad you did.

New Month New Poll

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Last months poll asked the question,  Which OS Do You Use? As I figured, Microsoft leads the way with 38 votes with Apple making a close second at 18, then some form of Linux at 13 with Other coming in at 3 votes. The results don’t surprise me. What might be interesting to find out is how many of those who chose Microsoft are using Vista or XP. Thank you for taking the time to vote in last month’s poll, not it’s time for another.

Keeping with the holiday spirit, this months poll question is, Do You Celebrate Christmas?  I do, but not everyone does.

Mozilla Takes A Page Out Of MS Book

FireFox LogoIt wasn’t too long ago that FireFox 2.0.0.10 was released to the public. Now, just a few short days later, Mozilla releases 2.0.0.11 to what can only be described as (A Patch To Fix A Patch) I’ve spent some time browsing around to try and figure out what it is they changed and I simply can’t find it.

What’s New in Firefox 2.0.0.11

Release Date: November 30, 2007
Stability Update: This release corrects a problem that was found in the previous release, Firefox 2.0.0.10.
Does anybody know what caused 2.0.0.10 to be replaced by 2.0.0.11? You start doing things like this, and people begin to lose faith in your product real fast.

Flickr Will Award The Gifter

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Great news for those thinking of giving the gift of a Flickr Pro account to someone this year. Flickr has announced that they will be awarding the gift giver.

For each year of pro you buy between now and January 31, 2008, you’ll receive 3 months of pro for yourself. As an example, if you bought 4 pro gifts, you’d get a year of pro for yourself! How’s that for a stocking stuffer?

Not a bad deal if I must say so myself. Will you be purchasing a pro account for someone this year?

History Of LoLCats Maybe

Pwned Before Time

This episode of BoingBoing TV talks about the history involved with the site, LoLrCats. Or at least, thats what I thought it was going to talk about. In all honesty, I think this is more of a spoof video than of actual fact but it’s hard to tell. As a commenter mentioned on the BoingBoing site, one of the comic strips shows one of the cats actually saying the word “PWNED“. However, after closer inspection, it appears as though the cat is walking past a Pawn shop and since the comic routinely left out vowels from words, Pwned was most likely substituted for Pawned.

It’s also interesting to note that this comic may have been well ahead of its time. This comic series is most likely the inspiration behind the current naming conventions of Web 2.0 based companies. Seeing the word PWNED used before it’s time is CLASSIC! And by the way, I still think LOLCats is as stupid now as it was when it launched.