Archive for September, 2006
Wednesday, September 27th, 2006
Widespread exploits force out-of-cycle update
Microsoft has released a one-off update that repairs an actively exploited vulnerability in the Vector Markup Language component of Windows.
The flaw could allow an attacker to take control of a system through a specially crafted website, or by sending out spam email messages.
Microsoft originally planned to release the patch on 10 October, as part of its monthly patch release cycle. The vendor issues ‘out-of-band’ updates in rare cases if it helps to halt active attacks.
The VML vulnerability surfaced last week when a small group of websites in Russia started exploiting the unpatched vulnerability.
Read more: vnunet.com
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Wednesday, September 27th, 2006
Watch videos from Google Video right on your desktop
Google Video player features:
· Watch videos downloaded from Google Video
· Browse scenes within a video using thumbnails
· Skip to anywhere in the video, even if that portion hasn’t downloaded yet
· Sit back and watch videos in full screen mode
· Resume video downloads automatically
System Requirements:
- Windows XP or 2000
- Video card with at least 16MB of RAM
- 1GHz Pentium 3 or faster
Download: Google Video player 1.0.3.3 Beta
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Wednesday, September 27th, 2006
Starter is yet another startup manager for Microsoft Windows
As a primary purpose, Starter allows one to view and manage all the programs that are starting automatically whenever operating system is loading. It enumerates all the hidden registry entries, startup folders’ items and some of the initialization files, so that the user could choose to temporarily disable selected entries, edit them, create new, or delete them permanently.
Secondary purpose is to list all the running processes with possibility to view extended process’ information (such as used DLLs, memory usage, thread count, priorities etc.), and to terminate selected process (even a Windows NT service, having enough access rights).
Another one is Windows’ services (and drivers) manager with some advanced features.
Starter is a real Freeware and is not crippled in any way among the similar products. The user interface is pretty simple and has a lot of options that are self-explanatory.
Download: Starter 5.6.2.8
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Wednesday, September 27th, 2006
Intel has formally announced ‘Santa Rosa’, the next generation of its Centrino notebook platform, which will incorporate 802.11n Wi-Fi, ‘Robson’ NAND Flash hard drive cache and GMA X3000 integrated graphics.
It’s no surprise that Santa Rosa will feature Core 2 Duo, but this one can run on an 800MHz frontside bus. However, the bus speed can be dynamically reduced and raised according to demand to deliver power savings.
Santa Rosa’s ‘Crestline’ North Bridge chip is now formally named the 965GM. It connects to 533MHz or 667MHZ DDR 2 SDRAM and the platform’s ICH8M South Bridge. The 965GM will contain Intel’s GMA X3000 integrated graphics engine with Clear Video Technology for piping video data through the pixel shaders.
Full article: reghardware.co.uk
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Wednesday, September 27th, 2006
People using the Firefox web browser should watch out for online threats as vulnerabilities in the browser have increased in the last six months.
According to Symantec’s Internet Security Threat Report, Mozilla browsers had the most vulnerabilities, 47, compared to 38 in Microsoft Internet Explorer from January to June this year.
With vulnerabilities affecting web browsers on the rise and accounting now for 69 per cent of all vulnerabilities, security experts advise computer users make sure they always install the latest upgrades.
Full story: Web User
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Wednesday, September 27th, 2006
One of the last remaining peer-to-peer havens is fighting to stay alive.
Lime Wire, which was hit with a lawsuit in August by Warner Bros. Records, Virgin Records America, Sony BMG Music Entertainment and other music labels, filed a counterclaim in U.S. District Court in New York on Monday. The software company alleges in court filings that the record companies have engaged in unfair business practices to scare away its users.
Lime Wire develops peer-to-peer technology, which is often used by individuals to create copies of music and distribute it over the Internet. More than a dozen record companies have joined in the lawsuit against Lime Wire, alleging that its technology provides a means for copyright infringement.
In its countersuit, Lime Wire states that the record labels launched their own digital-distribution Web sites and alleges that the labels joined forces to be the sole recipients of any financial benefit.
“Their goal was simple: to destroy any online music distribution service they did not own or control, or force such services to do business with them on exclusive and/or other anticompetitive terms,” the countersuit says.
Read more: ZDNet
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Tuesday, September 26th, 2006
Nokia today unveiled a version of its N91 mobile phone fitted with an 8GB hard drive. The handset was joined by Music Edition versions of a number of other N series devices, part of Nokia’s plan to pitch the phone family as a viable alternative to Apple’s iPod.
All three Music Edition handsets - the N91, N73, N70 - all sync up with Windows Media Player and support the WMA music format. That’s undoubtedly a result of Nokia’s acquisition of digital music distributor Loudeye, which has always used Microsoft media technology.
Read more: reghardware.co.uk
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Tuesday, September 26th, 2006
Microsoft may offer an Internet Explorer security update before its next official Patch Tuesday.
The update is being designed to fix a serious flaw in the way the widely used Web browser handles certain graphics files. The flaw, first reported last week, is increasingly being used in attacks on IE users, security experts warned Monday.
“We have been working nonstop on an update,” a Microsoft representative wrote on a corporate blog Friday. The patch is being tested now, and if it is done before Microsoft’s next scheduled patch release day on Oct. 10, the company will release it, the representative wrote.
Attacks that exploit the flaw have been broadening and now also use e-mail as a way to lure people to malicious Web sites, security company Websense said Monday. “We are starting to see mass mailing lures for Web sites that are hosting…exploit code,” Websense said.
In one example, cybercrooks have adapted a scam that uses e-cards to also take advantage of this latest IE flaw. The scam involves e-mail messages that at first glance appear to be greeting cards, but clicking on the link to view the card sends the target to a malicious Web site that tries to silently install keystroke-logging software.
The vulnerability lies in a Windows component called “vgx.dll.” This component is meant to support Vector Markup Language documents in the operating system. VML is used for high-quality vector graphics on the Web.
Read more: CNET News.com
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Monday, September 25th, 2006
Intel’s planning its own version of “Quadrophenia” for this week’s Intel Developer Forum, except without The Who or any tough, young mods facing off against angry rockers.
Instead of a rock opera, Intel will shed more light on its plans for quad-core processors, company representatives and analysts said. It has already revealed the code names for the server and desktop versions of those chips: Clovertown and Kentsfield. Those models will be constructed by combining Intel’s two newest dual-core processors in those categories in a multichip package.
Attendees are also expected to hear more details about Santa Rosa, an updated version of Intel’s Centrino package of chips for notebook PCs, scheduled to arrive around March of next year. And the chipmaker’s server division will also likely have a few things to talk about, including the Common System Interface architecture that Intel expects to debut in 2008, and possible plans to let future server processors link directly to third-party co-processors.
Intel holds its developer forums twice a year to educate the hardware developer community on its latest technologies and plans for the future. The chipmaker’s CEO, Paul Otellini, is set to deliver the opening keynote address on Tuesday. Other executives, such as labs chief Justin Rattner and server guru Pat Gelsinger, are scheduled to address the crowd of developers, partners and media.
Full article: ZDNet
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Monday, September 25th, 2006
High-definition output as standard
Sony has announced that the 20GB hard disk drive for the PlayStation 3 will include HDMI output as standard.
The PS3 will use version 1.3 of the high definition multimedia interface, which includes support for Deep Colour.
“Since Sony Computer Entertainment Inc first announced product specifications of PS3 at the Electronic Entertainment Expo in May 2005, demand for enjoying full HD quality image and realistic digital sound through HDMI has grown tremendously,” said a statement by Sony.
“Given the sharp increase in availability of flat displays supporting HDMI in the market, Sony has decided to equip HDMI as standard on all PS3 systems.”
On its release in Japan the hard disk will cost 49,980Yen (?Ǭ£226).
Read more: vnunet.com
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Monday, September 25th, 2006
Folder Size helps you figure out where all that hard drive space has gone on your computer.
Visually displays the size of each folder in the form of a bar graph… double click a folder bar and it will drill down and show sizes of folders within… handy utility to have… give it a try
No installation needed, just unzip and run
Download: Folder Size 1.4 Windows 2000/XP
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Monday, September 25th, 2006
A group of security professionals has created a third-party fix for a recently discovered Internet Explorer flaw that’s increasingly being used in cyber attacks.
The group, which called itself the Zeroday Emergency Response Team, or ZERT, created the patch so IE users can protect themselves while Microsoft works on an official fix.
“Certain members of the group feel that the risk associated with this vulnerability is so great that they can’t wait for a patch. Some users might agree with that and apply this patch,” ZERT spokesman Randy Abrams said on Friday. Abrams is director of technical education at security company ESET and volunteers with ZERT.
The flaw lies in the way IE 6 handles certain graphics. Malicious software can be loaded, unbeknownst to the user, onto a vulnerable Windows PC when the user clicks on a malicious link on a Web site or an e-mail message. Word of the vulnerability came early last week, when the weakness already was being exploited in cyber attacks.
Attacks had ramped up significantly late last week, according to Ken Dunham, director of the rapid response team at VeriSign’s iDefense. In many cases, the attacks installed spyware, adware and remote control software on victims’ PCs.
In at least one case, cyber criminals broke into a Web hosting company and redirected 500 Internet domains to point to a malicious site that exploited this latest flaw, Dunham said. “So you’re just surfing the Web, and all of a sudden, you are redirected to a malicious Web site,” he said.
Attacks that exploited the flaw via e-mail likely would surface soon, he added.
Full article: ZDNet Australia
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Sunday, September 24th, 2006
ABC [ Yet Another Bittorrent Client ] is an improved client for the Bittorrent peer-to-peer file distribution solution. ABC is based on BitTornado which extended from from Original Bittorrent Core System , coded by Bram Cohen.
Download: ABC 3.1 Windows, Linux
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Sunday, September 24th, 2006
Talk is a chat program which allows the user to login and chat to people from where they are in the world.
Download: Talk 1.8
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Saturday, September 23rd, 2006
BitTorrent cofounder Ashwin Navin believes that DRM is not the answer to legal online video services despite his company’s getting ready to launch its own DRM-based movie service in the near future. In an interview with IDG News Service, Navin said that he believes the only reason DRM is so widespread is that the industry is immature and doesn’t know how else to protect their profit margins.
Navin says that DRMed files are bad for both consumers and the content providers because “typically a DRM ties a user to one hardware platform,” citing iTunes for not allowing consumers to transfer purchases between platforms or hardware environments. TV and movie content providers don’t really want to limit users so strictly, he believes, because they want their content to be consumed by as many people on as many platforms as possible.
Full story: Ars Technica
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Saturday, September 23rd, 2006
Users will be able to upgrade between versions simply by purchasing a new product key
Microsoft has confirmed that all versions of Vista will be shipped on a single DVD, in a feature called Windows Anytime Upgrade.
According to a spokesperson for the company, “The idea is to provide customers with the most convenient user experience possible by enabling them to more easily and directly upgrade to a higher edition of Windows Vista from within their current edition”.
Users would only be installing the version of the operating system that they had purchased, as the product key would be version-specific. Versions range from Starter to Ultimate editions.
Read more: ZDNet UK
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Saturday, September 23rd, 2006
Foxit Reader for U3 is extremely small, fast and easy-to-use. With the new version for U3, you can walk to any PC and open a PDF file without worrying about whether the huge Adobe Reader is installed. The PDF file itself can reside either on the PC or on the U3 drive. And Foxit Reader for U3 launches within seconds, so you don’t have to wait for an annoying “Welcome” splash window to disappear. Then you can start enjoying the following functions for free:
- View or print PDF document
- Fill out PDF forms and save them
- View PDF as text
- Download free critical add-ons, such as UI language package, JPEG2000/JBIG decoder, Eastern Asian language package, JavaScript support, etc.
Foxit Reader for U3 itself is free. And the add-ons mentioned above are also free. However there is a non-free add-on called Pro Pack which unlocks functions to save annotation, save a PDF document as a text file, copy text from text viewer. Without Pro Pack, you are still able to annotate a PDF document and print it out. However when you save the annotated document, it will be stamped with an evaluation mark on the top-right corner of the annotated pages.
Download: Foxit Reader 2.0 for U30
Posted in PDF Tools, Portable Apps | No Comments »
Friday, September 22nd, 2006
Microsoft is considering releasing free, web-based versions of Word and Excel.
While details of launch date and full list of programs are still to be announced, the move will prove to be a very strong rival to web-based word processing and spreadsheet programs launched by Google and others.
Microsoft said it will probably fund the programs through advertising, and it is likely that the online versions will lack many of the features the full versions have.
Read more: Web User
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Friday, September 22nd, 2006
Patchy Apple…
A trio of security flaws in Apple software that runs wireless-networking hardware could allow Macs to be hijacked over wi-fi, Apple said on Thursday.
The Mac maker released security updates to repair the problems, which together affect the AirPort wireless driver in Mac OS X 10 Panther version 10.3.9 and Mac OS X Tiger 10.4.7, according to Apple’s security alert. Both Intel-based and Power PC-based versions of the Mac operating system are affected, on regular computers as well as on servers, it said.
Apple said in the alert describing one of the flaws: “Attackers on the wireless network may cause arbitrary code execution.” “Arbitrary code execution” means the intruder can commandeer the system. The other two flaws allow the same type of compromise but can also cause system crashes or, in one case, privilege escalation, it added.
There are no known exploits for the vulnerabilities addressed by the update, Apple said. This means Mac users should not be under immediate threat of attack.
Apple’s security patches come a month after security researchers at SecureWorks demonstrated at the Black Hat security confab how an attacker could gain complete control over a laptop by sending malformed network traffic to a vulnerable computer. They showed a video of a successful attack on an Apple MacBook.
The researchers used a third-party wireless card in the MacBook for their demonstration but said the AirPort wireless technology built into the laptop was also vulnerable, creating controversy in the Apple community.
Full story: silicon.com
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