Oracle WebLogic Server Apache Connector Remote Code Execution

Oracle WebLogic Server (formerly known as BEA WebLogic Server) is vulnerable to a buffer overflow, which would cause a denial of service and potentially remote code execution. Read More

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I wrote some time ago that open source should be the default decision for any IT manager, director and even individual. Proprietary software - due to its many disadvantages - should only be considered under exceptional circumstances and with a very g... (more in the full post)

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Microsoft treats us today to some new and improved (TM) licensing: Apparently, it is now allowed to move some server installations around a data center. Mind you, it was also technically possible before (because that's what you can do with collection... (more in the full post)

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These are some pictures I took from the show floor just after the Yahoo! TV Widgets announcement during the Intel Developer Forum San Francisco 2008:



And below a zoom in the Yahoo! TV Widgets area:



And more pictures of different TV Widgets:







This box is based on the new Intel Media Processor CE 3100, pairing an Intel Pentium M processor core at 800MHz and 256K L2 Cache, with multi-stream high-definition video decoding and processing hardware, including support for MPEG-2, H.264 and VC-1 with HDMI 1.3a output, and featuring advanced 4-field per pixel motion-adaptive de-interlacing and 9-tap, 128-phase, independent horizontal and vertical scalers.

It also adds a 3-channel 800 MHz DDR2 memory controller supporting tiled memory mapping and channel interleaving, dedicated multi-channel dual audio DSPs with support for 7.1 surround sound implementing advanced audio codecs, including support for Blu-ray requirements.

The media processor also features a 2-D/3-D Intel Graphics Media Accelerator 500 supporting multi-threaded dual universal scalable shader architecture for pixel/vertex processing, accelerated BLTs/Alpha BLTs, programmable anti-aliasing and compliance with industry-standard APIs: OpenGL ES 1.1, Open GL ES 2.0 and Open VG 1.0.

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Over this weekend I have had a chance to properly try out MythTV with Freeview so here is an update on where I am at for now.

Firstly I did a major hardware swap, moving my Antec PSU, 3800 and Nvidia 8600GT to my main box in return for a cheap X-Power PSU and 5200 X2. The X2 provides more grunt for software decoding H.264, enough to work in Windows but not myth as will be seen.

So with Mythubuntu 8.04.1 + latest upgrades, including from Paul Kendall's repository, I monitered the CPU usage over SSH whilst testing out the channels. I got around 40%-70% CPU overall, obviously the SD channels where lighter on the CPU than HD with TV3 causing the max load.

However despite not maxing out the CPU TV3 was unwatchable, freezing for half a second every 1-2 secs. This is a problem a few others with similar CPU's on the mythnz mailing list have and the solution is changing the 'skiploopfilter' settings, I think forcing myth to drop frames rather than lag. However what is required to make this change is beyond my current Linux/GNU abilities so I am putting this project aside for the moment. What also contributed to that decision is reports from others about frequent frontend crashes, something I don't want on a HTPC that gets regular use.

So now I am re-installing Mediaportal (the change in graphics cards did something weird to the Windows install) and will work on getting Mythbuntu installed onto my old IDE drive so I can have my USB drive back.

When I am prepared to figure out rebuilding patches etc, or Paul sets up a GUI to make these changes (as he indicated he may) I will revisit this. Until, MP it is. It may not be perfectly stable, or make every recording I schedule (NCIS 2 weeks ago came back with just the xml file, no .ts at all!), but the codecs work better for obvious reasons.

I am glad just to have something that works, support is very limited for these MPEG 4 codecs and will be for a while yet.

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Got a letter today from Vodafone:



I'm in Howick, so I'm thinking that us Howick exchange Vodafone customers are being migrated from the 29th of September (quite a long way for me - gosh, sending out a letter a month in advance)

Particularly happy about the $20 credit for doing nothing (other than suffer through a few hours - hopefully in the early hours in the morning).


The letter also hints:

You can even look forward to making voice calls over the internet soon too.

... that could mean that VoIP or Naked DSL could be introduced probably by the end of year - I hope.


All I need to do now is wait for that inevitable confirmation email...

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