According to the Symantec Security Response Blog, a new trojan called Trojan.Eskiuel is going around infiltrating SQL servers and causing havoc:
This time we have found a new SQL threat: Trojan.Eskiuel. The main functionality of this threat is to scan the Internet to find machines with poorly configured SQL servers (i.e. with weak or non-existing passwords), gain access to them, and use their stored procedures in order to download new malware from a remote host.
Check your servers...
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The Software Freedom Day is coming up this weekend, on Saturday the 20th of September. SFD is an annual and international event, with around 500 teams in 90 countries organising local events. The biggest one in New Zealand will be in Wellington, but ... (more in the full post)
Read MoreCurrently at $2.70 these are a bargain!
Once all the idiots have sold out the better things will be for Telecom. Telecom is not the company it was 4 years ago. It is a lean mean telco run by a very smart CEO that will continute to dominate the NZ landscape for many many many years to come.
Lets hope the investors bailing out at present are the idiots who only invested in the company for their dividend - greedy people who were only ever in it for a quick return. Those same people who pushed for Telecom to make big profits and caused the problems that are now the stumbling block the company is having to deal with.
Those buying shares now are the smart ones who realise that a bargain they are getting...
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| James Hippolite, Senior .NET Developer | Martin Harris, .NET Developer |
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| Megha Barpande, .NET Developer | Gary Saunders, Lead Developer |
Read MoreSeriously, either get some nuts or give up singing!
Bob Rock has gone, now you need to get Lars to stop doing you in the bum!
Great album until you sing! (and who wrote the pathetic lyrics? you're not 20 anymore, tosser)
Death Magnetic... Don't get it now!
Album review.?: waste-of-money out of 5
Read MoreUnfortunately, the LHC has had further delays which could cause for a longer wait to get it up and running.
This is definitely disappointing to a lot of us who were eagerly waiting to see what the results would be.
Whilst the LHC may send particles around at nearly the speed of light, unfortunately the repair crew can't work anywhere near as fast.
The LHC Webpage has some more great information, (click the image below or follow THIS link - no its not the joke page)
Read MoreMy poor technician must have freaked out earlier today when his boss (me) suddenly burst into fits of hysterical laughter and couldn't stop giggling for at least 5 minutes.
The thing that provoked such mirth was a couple of lines from the Microsoft Help section. It read like a cross between Monty Pythons Cheese Skit and a programmers joke. The lines in question are bolded below.
SUMMARYTheAs a programmer I know that poor programming practice* leading to buggy functionality is often passed off on the poor unsuspecting customer as a 'feature' or an implementation 'by design'. For Microsoft to state that the ability to put the Internet Explorer icon on the desktop or Start Menu is not an issue and is by design is ludicrous. Further more for Service Pack Three to REMOVE the icon from the Start Menu or Desktop or even worse, to change the functionality of the icon to bring up Internet Properties instead of starting IE is doubly idiotic.
Internet Explorer icon might be missing after either you upgrade the
Internet Explorer version to 7, or installed through Windows updates.CAUSEThis
Back to the top
is not an issue and is by design. Unlike the previous versions of
Internet Explorer, the option to enable to Internet Explorer icon on
the Windows Desktop is not available. The behavior of Internet Explorer
7, which is bundled with Windows Vista is also the same.
[ BTW - HERE IS THE FIX FOR THIS ] -> http://support.microsoft.com/kb/555849
Some claim it is part of Microsoft's anti-trust agreement responsibilities to have the icon removed and to also remove the ability to put the icon on the desktop as part of the display properties. Personally I think that is bollocks too. How long ago were the anti-trust hearings? Years. To take this long is a mockery of anti-trust, if indeed that was the causative action.
Secondly - with the advent of service pack three, Microsoft's IE components and Internet Explorer security properties are more tightly integrated with the system than ever. As an example, to Install Mozilla Firefox version 3 requires IE 7, or at least some of its components to be present. Why? Because without them some of the dialog boxes and under laying componentry is not present causing the failure of Mozilla 3 during installation.
Further more Mozilla Firefox Three is now so affected by the internet settings in XP that in order to tighten IE 7 to stop downloading and running active X ( and other executable code ) in the Internet Zone also disables downloads in Mozilla Firefox Three (Ref 1). It is now impossible to cripple IE's active X vulnerability completely without also crippling Mozilla's ability to download programmes. While some of these problems stem from Mozilla developers tying Firefox into the Internet Security Panel (Ref 2), the rest also points to Microsoft's embedding of IE in the operating system. Again, try removing IE7 and watch how fast Mozilla Firefox, and presumably other applications, fail.
As this blog entry isn't a rant about MS or how IE is such a PITA I wont go into detail about the fact that if you start IE7, after it has upgraded itself, you have no ability to set the default page until you stop pushing cancel and start answering the damn questions about security and settings you
Did I mention that trying to tell IE7 to push off and not bother me with Live Search (AKA dead useless) as I am already using Lycos, or google, or yahoo or wiki or ....bugger!!!!! There is now only live seach - and if I click on - "Go make another search engine the default" - Mozilla pops up as the default browser so I have to enable IE7 as the default browser to get rid of live search tool bar and then re-enable Mozilla as the default browser.
No IE7 tie in to the operating system - hah - my left testicale is less tied in to me than IE is to Microsofts OS.
1 - http://voices.washingtonpost.com/securityfix/2008/07/firefox_3_follows_ie7s_securit_1.html
2 - http://kb.mozillazine.org/Unable_to_save_or_download_files#Reset_system_Internet_security_settings_-_Windows
* DISCLAIMER - Not my programming practices - other peoples. I just had to explain or fix up their bollocks - honest injun - it wasn't me.
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Read MoreOver the last 2 or so years I have witnessed the slow demise of yet another format that saw Microsoft no doubt spend millions on developing. Windows Media Video (WMV) has been a relatively safe format to deliver video content to users as it offered good compression along with pretty much guaranteed compatibilty. Doing post production myself I often have to email a quick proof and would generally use WMV. It worked. It Played - as long as the person recieving it had a PC.
Yet Redmond, with it's infinite wisdom, decided to kill Mac support in early 2006 and then leave it to a 3rd party to continue offering playback support, via Flip4Mac. No DRM support but 99% of WMV content plays. It does the job. Of course the irony is it now plays in Quicktime, and not the ugly Windows Media Player for Mac.
Here's a post from a zdnet blog post on the discontiunueing of WMPlayer for OS-X:
....the decision to halt work on Windows Media Player for the Mac was a matter of prioritizing for Microsoft's Windows Media unit."It's basically a business decision for Microsoft," Anderson said. "Like any other company, we have business priorities. Our focus really is in delivering the best experience to Windows customers."
Sure. You want to keep it real. Microsoft has an operating system and want it to be a feature to support playback of your awesome video format. Everyone else can go screw themselves.
But seriously, do they really think a format they hope would displace the original AVI container format (and possibly Quicktime), can really win if it doesn't work everywhere. I'd argue making sure it's as ubiquitous as it can be is one of the main selling points. That means it must be platform agnostic. It's worked for PDF, MP3 - it could have worked for WMV.
A clipping of Microsofts Windows Media page in 2002
Via iTunes on Windows, Apple has managed to slip Quicktime on nearly every windows computer - and via that promoted (for better or for worse) it's other Windows applicaitions. Microsoft could have had this same 'in' on Mac's and Linux machines but for sake of "delivering the best experience for Windows Customers" it doesn't.
Of course hindsight is a great thing, and even in 2006 I don't think we could gaurantee that DiVX/XViD/MPEG4 would become the default format of video distribution on the internet and the widespread adoption of Bittorent for media sharing. Heck - we could be downloading files with the RV/RMVB extension now instead - or even *gasp* WMV - but we don't - it's all AVI. Fine AVI a orginally a Microsoft format but I don't think you could say its in anyway controlled or even promoted by Redmond.
But this isn't the only format that Microsoft is killing by it's pigheadedness - lets not forget MODI - Microsoft Office Document Imaging - MODI was introduced and installed by default in Office 2003 but was dropped by Office 2007 - it was a format that could have competed with the functionality of PDF but because Microsoft kept the format proprietry and only offered supported for it within that install it never went anywhere. The legacy of MODI is still around - anyone upgrading to 2007 or still just using Office 2003 will find an extra printer installed - a printer they neither really chose to install, explained to what it did and I gaurantee will ever use. The technology did eventually end up becaming part of Metro and then finally XPS, which on top of being a file distribution format is the foundation of Vista's printing subsystem.
This is of course a direct copy of OS-X's Postscript based printing subsystem - which is also the basis of PDF. Postscript & PDF are the industry standard for printing - on all platforms. Because of this ubiqutousness, one things for sure - XPS will never truely offset PDFs domince. Everyone can open files in the PDF format. The same can't be said for XPS - as of writing, and 2 years since it's launch, I could only spot 1 application that lets you view/edit XPS on a Mac and is a bargin at $US99 (not) and no support at all for Linux. Not a good way to get people onboard you're awesome new format MS.
Microsoft is the king of failed formats.
P.S. One last bitch -
Of course with the eventual failure of MODI/XPS, it would be good to see implementing system wide PDF support in Vista. I doubt that will ever happen though. Instead every man and his dog will continue to have to go off to Adobe.com and download Acrobat reader - giving another company an 'in' to the Microsoft system. I'm not condoning anti competitive behaviour, more that if Microsoft had much interest in improving the end user experience and if everyone has to install PDF support - then shouldn't it be on the list of needed features in Windows 7?
Read MoreIn my previous post you can see a short video with my Zero G flight experience. I have now uploaded some of the pictures to my Flickr Zero G set:
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