Saturday, December 31, 2005

Security Now! Notes for Episode #20

Security Now! Notes for Episode #20
A serious new remotely exploitable vulnerability has been discovered in Microsoft Windows' image processing code.
UNTIL THIS IS REPAIRED BY MICROSOFT, ANY ATTEMPT
TO DISPLAY A MALICIOUS IMAGE IN WINDOWS COULD
INSTALL MALICIOUS SOFTWARE INTO THE COMPUTER.

This is a so-called "0-day vulnerability" because exploits for the vulnerability appeared before any updates or patches were available.
All versions of Windows from Windows 98 through ME, NT, 2000, XP, and 2003 are known to be vulnerable, and a large and rapidly growing number of malicious exploits (57 at last count) are already circulating in the wild. They are being actively used to install malware and Trojans into user's machines. Viruses and worms are expected to appear shortly.
Although NOT a complete solution, Microsoft has recommended temporarily disabling the automatic display of some images by the operating system and web browser. This can be done, as detailed below, by "unregistering" the "SHIMGVW.DLL" Windows DLL. THIS IS NOT A COMPLETE SOLUTION, but it significantly lowers the risk from this vulnerability from web surfing.
Do not open any "WMF" — Windows Metafiles — you receive by eMail, and reports are that other file types may also be dangerous.
Anti-virus companies have responded to this, so update your anti-virus signature files for updated protection.

You should IMMEDIATELY disable Windows' use of this
vulnerable DLL until patches from Microsoft are available.

Friday, December 30, 2005

Wired 14.01: How Click Fraud Could Swallow the Internet

Wired 14.01: How Click Fraud Could Swallow the Internet

Looks like growing your warm market and belly-to-belly networking needs to be the backbone of all marketing as a backup to PPC marketing for the foreseeable future.

Sky High - The Official DVD Website

Sky High - The Official DVD Website
I am so glad that I got this DVD for Christmas.
I know Disney doesn't need any promotion from me, but I find it interesting that the movie industry still goes by box office returns on films like this when families with kids like us hardly every think about going to the movie theaters any more. It is too dangerous, we'd have to be superheros to be impervious to the crime surrounding our local theaters.
The only film we went to as a family this year was Narnia and it was during the middle of the day on a work day so that we didn't have to face the crime.
Why am I glad that we got this DVD? I find it interesting that we didn't even know it was at the theaters. We saw the ads on Disney TV stations and my kids really wanted it. The reason we are glad we got it: my kids have watched it an average of 3 times a day.
Thanks Disney for making a solid movie that didn't challenge our beliefs and our straight sexuality. We are fundamental Christians and it is growing harder and harder to find movies from any studio to say that about especially Disney.

Wednesday, December 28, 2005

2006 Google Prediction

I believe that the rise of community bookmarking sites like delicious and digg and wink and .... ad nauseum, Google will implement a social bookmarking capability to their search engine which will allow for even more focused advertising as well as keep google fans from using agregated search or meta search engines. Google will have to evolve into a meta search engine. They will and they'll keep it clean and as transparent as they have until now.

With Google's warchest of IPO funds going to two guy garage start-ups, I am certain that they will buy up at least one of these social sites owned by two entrepreneurs in shorts in their garage and not some fully dressed corporation with VC money already.

I love how Google operates.

Friday, December 23, 2005

Eric's Space

I just stumbled across the MSN version of Yahoo's 360. I keeps everything in one place with your profile, blog, photos, lists, and music.

It will be interesting to see how this changes or doesn't with the increased output from Windows Live Beta.

Windows Live
spaces.msn.com
Eric's Space

Security Now!

If you use a computer on wi-fi at home or anywhere, you NEED to listen to this podcast.
Security Now! Episode 19: OpenVPN

Monday, December 19, 2005

Eric's Space

I just stumbled across the MSN version of Yahoo's 360. I keeps everything in one place with your profile, blog, photos, lists, and music.
It will be interesting to see how this changes or doesn't with the increased output from Windows Live Beta.

Thursday, December 15, 2005

About Gmail

New Gmail improvements: "Contact groups" and "Vacation Autoresponder" added to the wonderful tools on GMAIL.

Monday, December 12, 2005

Friday, December 09, 2005

this WEEK in TECH


Radio Leo
To the left you can see how I have added Radio Leo (Leo Laporte's list of all of his podcasts, otherwise known as TWIT extensions) to my CLIPs in GMAIL.

Google is really getting valuable.

About Gmail

About Gmail: "What's new on Gmail?"

Gmail added the RSS feeds like Google Personal. Now you really can get it all in one place with GMAIL. What's next? Office tools?

Tuesday, December 06, 2005

What? Flock?

Listening to one of Radio Leo's latest Extensions - Inside the Net - I learned about www.flock.com which is a new social relational web browser. So, like the bleeding edge guy that I am, I am posting from it right now.

But, that's not it! Today only, (or not) I am running flock on www.codeweavers.com's crossover office professional windows emulation layer on my Mandriva Limited 2005 box. This more than likely is a first for this fledgeling browser.

So, do I recommend it? Not yet. It has many bugs and even the top dogs don't recommend it except to bleeding edgers like me. But, don't worry. I will test it for you and be able to tell you why you too should use flock.

Until then, see you next time here on the same bat channel.

eliica.com?-??????????????-

The first real electric car that might make it over here to America
Eight wheels?