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Tag Archives: Microsoft

Not a Fan of Windows Mobile

In which a lack of affection for Windows Mobile causes me to decide to sell my Cingular 8525.

Zero-Day Attack in Microsoft Word

Microsoft released a security advisory today for all modern versions of Microsoft Word and Microsoft Works. According to the document, a vulnerability in the popular word processing software programs is being actively exploited, and can be triggered simply by opening a carefully modified Word document.
Both the Slashdot post on the issue and the eWeek article [...]

The Trouble with OpenOffice.org

TechWorld reports that OpenOffice.org will soon be bundled with Mozilla Thunderbird and Lightning, but I think that the news that OpenOffice plans to support plugins to extends its feature set is just as important.
OpenOffice will get "Firefox-like" extension capabilities by version 2.0.4, due this month, Schulz said. The suite's existing extensions platform will get a [...]

Linux: It's the Fonts, Stupid

Robert Scoble claims that fonts are the reason why Linux has failed to make inroads in the consumer computing market. I think it is clear that other factors, including security, are more significant.

An Actual iPod Killer?

When I learned about Microsoft's plans to make a digital music player, I was generally underwhelmed. Several other companies including Toshiba, Sony, and Creative have attempted to challenge the iPod's dominance of the digital audio market with little success. But according to Engadget, Microsoft might have an incentive that could tip the scales in their [...]

Moving to Linux Permanently

On July 1, I decided that Windows was just not working for me. Yes, having a plethora of possible applications to install appealed to me, but I feel that no operating system has a monopoly of having things "just work." Here are just of a few of the annoyances I experienced while using Windows:

Installing Windows Vista Beta 2 on 256 MB

I install Windows Vista Beta 2 on a computer with a Celeron processor and 256 MB.

Apple's Boot Camp

"Dual-booting? I hate dual-booting."

Spam Worries

An anti-Microsoft spam message from Robert Soloway's SPAMIS organization suggests that the amount of email he is sending will increase.

Hotmail Tech Support Cannot Open Attachments

When I got this email, I was not sure whether I should laugh or cry:
Hello Martey,
Thank you for writing to MSN Hotmail Technical Support.
This is Nat and I will be assisting you today.
Due to safety and security reasons, we are not authorized to open any attachment. If you have received an unsolicited e-mail with the [...]

Hiding in the Windows Registry

A security problem found in the strings are handled in the Windows Registry could mean big problems for those looking to clean up after viruses and spyware.

On WordPress Security, or Where is WordPress 1.5.2.1?

Update early, update often, update visibly.

Superfetch, Prefetch, and Windows Performance

Last week, the Inquirer posted a letter in response to an article they wrote about Microsoft's claims that the next version of Windows (codenamed Longhorn, officially named Vista - at least for now) would have better performance than Windows XP. The letter, written by "snakeye" (a sketchy nickname, I know), claimed that Longhorn's (er, I [...]

Running Windows 2000 with 32 MB RAM & Lots of Viruses

OSNews points at Daniel Iversen's page, "Windows 2000 on old computers with 32MB RAM." Since Windows 2000's minimum memory requirement is 64 MB, this is impressive, but not anything amazing (like getting Windows 2000 to run on your refrigerator). I assumed that Iversen's page would contain a number of technical tweaks to make Windows run [...]

x86 OS X is not Windows

I liked this quote from a Register article about how computer manufacturer Dell would have no problems shipping the x86 version of OS X:
It does seem to be the case that Mac OS X is winning grudging respect from the PC world, primarily because of its relative freedom from malware. That's not going to change [...]

Apple & Intel: Perfect Together?

After last Friday's confirmation of earlier rumors that Apple would switch its entire Mac lineup to Intel-based processors, many of the Internet's Apple pundits seemed unable to believe the news. Some of them (including Russell Beattie and John Gruber) suggested that Apple might move to Intel-based PowerPC processors. If this was the case, the CNet [...]

SPAMIS is Spam

I received an interesting, if almost nonsensical email message, claiming to be from SPAMIS, or the Strategic Partnership Against Microsoft Illegal Spam (there is a website at spamis.cc, but it seems to be defunct; Google cache). The contents of the email consisted of various quotes from Mike Lyman, who the email describes as the "Microsoft [...]

Korean MSN Website Compromise

Via Slashdot comes a CNN article which states the South Korean MSN website (located at www.msn.co.kr) was compromised earlier this week, possibly allowing users' login information to be stolen. As with some many other Windows security problems, the culprit seems to have been an unpatched operating system:
The Korean site, unlike U.S. versions, was operated by [...]

Mac OS X 10.4.2 is coming

AppleInsider reports that Apple will release a second update to version 10.4 of Mac OS X (popularly known as "Tiger"). Tiger was released a little over a month ago.
Already sources say the current build of Mac OS X 10.4.2 includes well over two-dozen new bug fixes to Tiger, in addition to those delivered in the [...]

Free Money from Microsoft

…if, of course, you live in California. eWeek reports on the upcoming deadline for filing claims for compensation in a class action suit against Microsoft. The compensation includes purchases of both Office and Windows, or of computers with such software preinstalled. The purchases had to have been made between between February 1995 and December 2001, [...]

Switching Back to Windows

It is neither a matter of hatred for Linux, nor of any particular affection for Windows. It is (unfortunately) simpler to use Windows. While I could spend the time figuring about how to fix external displays (which flicker on and off about three times a second under my current xorg.conf), wireless (which works, but must [...]

Thoughtful IE Questions

From Microsoft's Internet Explorer FAQ:
Q. Does Internet Explorer 6 Service Pack 1 (SP1) include Internet Explorer?
A. Yes. Internet Explorer 6 SP1 is the most recent update to the Internet Explorer technology, and it includes a full installation of Internet Explorer 6. The service pack is the latest update to the Internet Explorer technologies representing general improvements to [...]

OpenOffice Integration

The lack of new posts is a result of work that was supposed to be finished this week. About two weeks from now, I am supposed to do a presentation at school for my job. I was supposed to submit a draft this week, but it is still not finished. Since I had received a [...]

Installing TrueType Fonts on Linux

The "corefonts" package makes installing Windows fonts like Verdana on Linux systems easy. However, the corefonts ebuild does not include Tahoma, the font used in Windows XP buttons, menus, and dialogs. As a result, I decided to install them manually.
The fonts will not be recognized unless special files exist in the directory. To make these [...]

Goodbye Windows, Hello Linux

Since both my old computer (a HP Pavilion 522n) and my new laptop (Dell Inspiron 9100) have 60 gigabyte hard drives, I decided to simply copy everything over on the old computer to a folder in my home directory. As I watched hundreds of Windows DLLs scroll by that I would most likely never need [...]

China, Land of Orweillian SMS

This BBC News article reports that text messages in China may start to be automatically monitored, allowing the government to discover dissent more easily.
Venus Info Tech Ltd said in a press release that its surveillance system worked by filtering algorithms based on key words and combinations of key words.
Certain key words could trigger an automatic [...]

Hate to Say I Told You So

What You Should Know About Download.Ject

Friends Don't Let Friends Use IE

Wesner Moise, a former Microsoft employee, writes about how his computer contracted a Trojan Horse, as a result of using Internet Explorer. Frankly, I was not surprised until I read the last paragraph:
I can't believe that it was this easy to become infected; I also couldn't believe that Internet Explorer could be so flawed as [...]

Full Disclosure

Robert Scoble complains about a lack of media disclosure in an informIT article by Nigel McFarlane that is highly critical of Internet Explorer. Scoble says:
Imagine for a moment that I wrote an article praising Longhorn in PC Magazine. Wouldn't you want to know that I'm a "professional commentator" on the topic and that I'm seen [...]

Is Dual-Booting Worth It?

I dual-boot. My 60 gigabyte hard drive is split into five partitions:

a NTFS partition, for Windows XP
an ext3 partition for Gentoo Linux
a swap partition to improve performance in Linux
two FAT32 partitions for sharing documents and multimedia between the two operating systems

As the above list shows, the structure of my hard drive would be a lot [...]

Windows Interoperability

From Scoble comes screenshots from Longhorn showing some cool features, including integration with hardware-based auxillary displays, similar to those that have appeared on cell phones in recent years, and improved support for contacts, including the potential to have a "communications history."

Bill Gates Must Die

This is a long entry, involving all of the nine circles of Windows Hell (DLL hell, Activation Hell, Windows Update Hell, File Associations Hell, etc.), so bear with me.
I received the USB Cuecat that I bought on eBay in the mail last Friday afternoon. Even though the Cuecat uses USB, it still functions in [...]

Plaxo … and Free Software

From the Scobleizer comes a link to Plaxo, which makes a plugin for Outlook and Outlook Express that allows for automatic updating of contact information. Seems nice, but no extensions for Mozilla Mail or Thunderbird yet. Still, any company that has a blog (and it's a real blog, with Movable Type! No Trackback, [...]

Inappropriate Symbols

According to this press release, someone at Microsoft made a major error:
Microsoft has learned of a mistake in the Bookshelf Symbol 7 font included in the Microsoft Office System client applications. Due to an unintentional oversight, we failed to identify, prior to the release, the presence of two swastikas within the font.

Geekier Than Thou

Perhaps I am still bitter about that Super Bowl commercial, or my bias against people from North Carolina was particularly virulent today. Either way, I found it necessary to respond to this post on the "importance" of Apple.

Predicting 2004

Robert Cringely has posted his predictions for the world of technology in 2004. As always, he has interesting things to say. Whether or not they will happen, of course, is another story; Cringely is visionary, but he is too optimistic sometimes. Anyway, read on for my take on the individual predictions:

iLawsuits

I think that lawsuits would not necessarily be a bad thing. While Apple computers and iPods do look nice, I am tired of the company is being portrayed as some kind of heroic foil to that other computer company. Apple is not really that much better of a company; they just have good [...]