Tag: microsoft

Categories
Apple Mozilla

WPF/E in Firefox

Mike Harsh discusses a bit about WPF/E as a cross platform solution, and includes a Firefox extension, leaving me to believe another Firefox extension from Microsoft is in the works (first being Microsoft Genuine Advantage). Mac support too.

For those wondering what WPF/E is, I’d recommend reading this and of course a wikipedia entry.

I do wonder if yet another framework to fragment the computing world is needed. Especially with things like SVG, Canvas and the Web Applications 1.0 Specification aka (X)HTML5, among existing technologies already in motion. But that’s another discussion.

Categories
Security Software

Backdoor? “Over My Dead Body”

Niels Ferguson of the Security Integrety Team had this to say about the idea of a backdoor being implemented in Windows Vista’s new Bitlocker security system:

Over my dead body.

Well, maybe not literally—I’m not ready to be a martyr quite yet—but certainly not in any product I work on. And I’m not alone in that sentiment. The official line from high up is that we do not create back doors. And in the unlikely situation that we are forced to by law we’ll either announce it publicly or withdraw the entire feature. Back doors are simply not acceptable. Besides, they wouldn’t find anybody on this team willing to implement and test the back door.

Very good to hear. If there is anything of the sort in Vista, it’s only a matter of hours before someone (bad cop, someone on vista team) leaks enough info for hackers to figure stuff out. That changes the product from a “security” product to an “obscurity” product.

Security is important in computing. “Backdoor” is just a public relations spin on “security hole”. Nothing less.

Categories
Security Software

Norton AntiVirus doesn’t like Windows Defender

I upgraded from MS AntiSpyware to Windows Defender. Seems Norton AntiVirus doesn’t exactly like it. In Norton’s Log Viewer are a ton of the following:

Event Details:
Time: 2/22/2006 8:02:17 PM
Actor: C:\Program Files\Windows Defender\MsMpEng.exe (PID=464)
Target: C:\Program Files\Common Files\Symantec Shared\ccLgView.exe
Action: Unauthorized access
Reaction: Unauthorized access stopped

www.symantec.com

Not nearly as bad as Kaspersky zapping Microsoft AntiVirus. Hopefully Symantec or Microsoft will get to it soon. Nothing about that in the release notes.

Other than that, no opinion formed quite yet.. It has a “new engine” supposedly. Not sure if it will prove any better or worse. I guess time will tell. Doesn’t seem to give as many alerts to the user as the old version did. Personally I liked them, let me know what’s going on. Perhaps I’ll revisit and review it a bit at a later date.

Categories
Hardware Software

Vista Requirements

According to this article about Windows Vista Requirements:

Other requirements included a SATA or 7200 rpm EIDE hard drive. For Vista on notebooks, Microsoft recommended the Acer Ferrari 3400, the Acer Ferrari 4000, the HP Pavillion zd8230, the IBM Thinkpad T43 and the Toshiba Tecra M4.

emphasis mine

Sweet! If IBM/Lenovo will adjust their BIOS so there’s no more error when using a standard Hitachi or Seagate 7200 RPM drive, this sucker will be ready to go.

Very cool, this is a rather decent system. I like hearing that it’s anticipated to work well with Vista. That means I can keep it around for a while, and still be modern.

Categories
Security Software Tech (General)

Patch for WMF Exploit is out

It’s officially been released. Anyone running Windows should run Windows Update, or download the patch now. CNet has more info on the topic.

Do not wait. Install, and reboot.

Categories
In The News Mozilla

The end of Internet Explorer 5 for Mac

Microsoft Says:

In June 2003, the Microsoft Macintosh Business Unit announced that Internet Explorer for Mac would undergo no further development, and support would cease in 2005. In accordance with published support lifecycle policies, Microsoft will end support for Internet Explorer for Mac on December 31st, 2005, and will provide no further security or performance updates.

Additionally, as of January 31st, 2006, Internet Explorer for the Mac will no longer be available for download from Mactopia. It is recommended that Macintosh users migrate to more recent web browsing technologies such as Apple’s Safari.

We all knew that was coming, they haven’t updated the thing in ages… I wonder why they didn’t mention Firefox or Camino (which is sometimes unfortunately forgotten with all the Firefox marketing). It seems a lot of Mac users still use IE on the Mac, despite it’s age. Simply because they think it’s the same as IE for windows (when in fact they don’t share any more than the name). Hopefully they will begin to migrate to something more modern. IE5/Mac had some advanced rendering for the time, but by today’s standards, it doesn’t do much.

[Via Slashdot]

Categories
Hardware Software

Microsoft’s Hibernation Bug

This bug annoys me to no end. There are quite a few of us out there who need more than 1GB of RAM to get by these days, especially those on a laptop (trying to minimize use of that paging file because it’s on a 5400RPM Hard Drive). Officially it diagnoses the cause as:

This problem occurs because the Windows kernel power manager cannot obtain the memory resources that are required to prepare the computer to hibernate.

It seems to be something related to memory fragmentation, as many people have noted. I really hope Microsoft doesn’t wait until SP3 to release a hotfix for this. There’s more discussion of this problem here.

Oh come on Microsoft. Get us a decent patch. I really don’t want to be using something that you consider so experimental you won’t even post on your website. Especially when one of the files involved is Ntoskrnl.exe. Please take care of us. Us large memory users are Power Users, and do represent a fair amount of your business (especially since many Power Users work in corporate IT departments). Keep us happy.

Categories
Mozilla

Microsoft Genuine Advantage for Firefox

As reported by Neowin.net, Microsoft now supports Windows Genuine Advantage for Firefox. You can check this by visiting this page and getting the plugin. This will make it easier to download from Microsoft’s site. Microsoft earlier in the year fixed another issue blocking some Firefox users. It’s great to see them taking steps to fix the web. The majority of reports on their domains are now aesthetic, and of course windows update.

The plugin installed is:

Windows Genuine Advantage validation plug-in
    File name: npLegitCheckPlugin.dll
    Version: 1.4.0389.0
    MIME Type : application/WGA-plugin

Update: More info can be found on the IEBlog.

Categories
Software

Mounting ISO Files on Windows

Believe it or not, Microsoft does have a tool for mounting iso files on Windows (similar to Apple’s ability to do so with Disk Images). No need to burn the iso to access the file. The download is here. Note the UI is ugly and somewhat undocumented, but it’s not to hard to figure out. Open the program, load the driver, then mount your image file. It’s unsupported, but it works. Hope this helps others wondering how to do this. No need to buy anything fancy.

Categories
Open Source Software

Microsoft Office

Anyone else thing Microsoft Office is way overpriced? Take a look at your options. $149 is Academic (you’d think for that money, you get Professional on an Academic license, but your wrong). The cheapest upgrade is $239.

Wouldn’t mind upgrading to have XML support, but is there anyone who can justify those prices?

Microsoft should be ashamed at their pricing. Thankfully there is OpenOffice.