Tech News Blog
2.11.05
Editors Note: My teaching schedule and staff meetings dictate an abbreviated version of the Multiple Platforms’ Tech News on Fridays. Here in blog-like fashion are the important tech news items of the day; look for the Apple and PC Tip of the Day and the ‘What Is’ items to return on Monday. Have a great weekend and don’t forget to listen to Leo Laporte, The Tech Guy on KFI. Leo answers questions on all things digital from 11am to 2pm on the weekends.

Symantec Has Security Issues
MacFixIt reports that a serious security flaw exists in Symantec’s security programs and the issues affect Multiple Platforms users. Mac and PC owners should visit MacFixIt to learn more about this problem.

Microsoft’s AntiSpyware Flaw
PC World has more details on the flaw in Microsoft’s AntiSpyware program. Sophos disclosed the problem on Thursday and the target of this crack is your banking information.

Advice for Companies Contemplating Switching to Firefox
A recent study detailed in PC World suggests that companies should carefully research their options before switching to an alternative browser.

More on Mac Update
We reminded you to disconnect your Firewire devices before installing Apple’s latest update, 10.3.8 but Apple didn’t (with one exception). MacFixIt has details and suggestions for dealing with this update from Apple.

Tech News Blog
2.10.05
Apple Release Update
Apple has released a new update; 10.3.8 and they remind users to disconnect third-party FireWire hard drives before installing the update. You should also repair Disk Permissions before and after installing any update, and most Mac experts recommend waiting five to seven business days before installing any new update; let the early adopters discover if there are any serious conflicts. MacFixIt has early reports from those that have installed the update and the most common observation is an increase in the G5s’ fan activity.

Problems With Virtual PC for Mac Post-Update
MacFixIt is also reporting that Mac users of Virtual PC are having connectivity issues after installing the critical updates released by Microsoft. Read more on this issue by surfing to
MacFixIt and learn about a work-around using Terminal.

Symantec Has Security Hole
It seems that even purchasing third-party protection will not relieve us from the worries of crackers (listen to the topic of Wednesday’s podcast for more on this issue, click on the logo below); CNET is reporting that many of Symantec applications are venerable to crackers unless they download and install the latest patch issued by the company. Products affected include Norton SystemWorks 2004 and Symantec Mail Security for Exchange.

Proof For the Above
More bad news from CNET and heading straight for Windows users; Bankash-A is a new Trojan coded to attack Windows AntiSpyware. The Sophos expert interviewed by CNET speculates that this is the first attempt to disable the application, but will by no means be the last; and just when you thought we were getting close to home. Buckle-up, hold-on, and keep your computer and security systems updated.

Please Check Out The Podcast
Have you heard any of the Multiple Platforms podcasts yet? Listen to the latest edition of Life In A Multiple Platforms World by clicking on the logo below. Thanks for listening!



Open Source Updates
Secunia released these updates for open source users: Debian (1, 2) and Gentoo.

Apple Tip of the Day: Repair Disk Permissions
Before and after you install an update MacFixIt and many others recommend that you first Repair Disk Permissions. Open your application folder and then double click on Disk Utilities application found in the Utilities file. Next, select the drive that you want to repair (Your HD) and select Repair Permissions. This one of the first ‘fixes’ suggested when you call Apple for support.

PC Tip of the Day: Learn About the Updates Released
If you are a Windows user, then you need to learn more about the recent updates and one of the best sources is often from the horses … well, ah, mouth (I’m trying to keep this a family friendly site). To find out about the various security fixes visit Microsoft’s security site; we will try to provide more in the coming days. I made some preliminary notes on the security issues during Microsoft’s webcast and those are contained within the show notes from yesterday’s podcast.

What is Bandwidth?
Microsoft provides this explanation for bandwidth, “bandwidth n. 1. The difference between the highest and lowest frequencies that an analog communications system can pass as measured in Hertz (Hz) or cycles per second. For example, a telephone accommodates a bandwidth of 3000 Hz: the difference between the lowest (300 Hz) and highest (3300 Hz) frequencies it can carry. 2. The data transfer capacity, or speed of transmission, of a digital communications system as measured in bits per second (bps).”

Tech News Blog
2.9.05
Sixteen Issues Tackled by Microsoft Patch
According to PC World, Tuesday’s patch from Microsoft for February was the largest security fix since October 2003. Eight of the problems fixed are critical and the fixes include patches Internet Explorer, Windows Service Pack 2, and for a PNG (see below for definition) issue with MSN Messenger. Now that these vulnerabilities have been revealed look for an increase in attacks from crackers that have become adept at waiting for Microsoft to release these security patches and then using the information to hack PCs that have not installed the recent update.

Antivirus Firm Purchased by Microsoft
CNET reports that Microsoft will purchase the security firm Sybari, the third security related acquisition by MS in the past eighteen months. Most industry watchers expected Microsoft to make just such a move in a effort to package a product to battle the ever-increasing attacks on Windows based PCs. One would hope that MS would offer the antivirus application free, as they have thus far with their spyware software, but time and the greed factor will tell.

MSN Messenger Problems Repaired
The outage that hit MSN Messenger users worldwide is over according to a story published by CNET. The problems were repaired as of late Tuesday, and you should have normal service after the issue at a data center was corrected.

Mac Mini Morphs After Mod
Accelerate Your Mac.com has a link to a Mac mini mod that morphs the Apple computer into a PC box with 500GB of hard drive capacity. Check out the item and the link by visiting Accelerate You Mac.com/.

More Mods: Create RAID With iPod Shuffle
How do geeks use their iPod Shuffle? Some of them talk their friends into lending them their iPod Shuffles to create a RAID array using four of the Shuffles connected to a USB hub. Read more about this and learn why you would do this by surfing to Wright This Way. I found this item while visiting MacSlash, check out their web site here.

Open Source Updates
Secunia released these security updates for open source users: Mandrake (1, 2), Debian (1, 2), Fedora (1, 2), and Gentoo (1, 2).

Apple Tip of the Day: Drag and Drop Printing
I have used this tip for several months and it is a handy time-saver; just add your printer’s icon to the desktop by creating a desktop printer, then drag and drop a file to it to begin printing. For the instructions on how to visit Apple Pro Tip of the Week web site.

PC Tip of the Day: Update AVG
Time again to update your AVG antivirus definitions. You can just start the application and it will automatically update, or you can visit Version Tracker to manually download the update. If you want to add Microsoft’s new spyware application, visit the Microsoft web site.

What is PNG?
According to Wikipedia PNG is, “PNG (Portable Network Graphics), sometimes pronounced as "ping", is a relatively new bitmap image format that is becoming popular on the World Wide Web and elsewhere. PNG was largely developed to deal with some of the shortcomings of the GIF format and allows storage of images with greater color depth and other important information.

PNG is supported by the libpng reference library, a platform independent library that contains C functions for handling PNG images.”

Tech News Blog
2.7.05
Secunia Reports Flaw in Most Browsers
Secunia issued a ‘moderately critical’ security warning for the following browsers: Firefox (0.x and 1.x), Mozilla 1.7.x/, Konqueror 3.x/, OmniWeb 5.x/, Opera 7.x/, and Safari 1.x/. Secunia recommends: “Don’t follow links from untrusted sources; Manually type the URL in the address bar.” See the tip of the day below for methods you can use to check the validity of a web sites URL.

Pepsi Peek Can Yield Perk
The joint promotional effort by Pepsi and Apple that rewards lucky Pepsi drinkers with a free download from the Apple iTunes Music store has the same issue as last year, you can see if the soft-drink is a winner before opening the bottle. According to MacMerc, the same folks that revealed the flaw last year, with a tilt and sharp-eye eager wannabe winners can spot the prize. To learn the dirty details, visit the original post by MacMerc.

Missing Mail Messages Miff .Mac Members
MacFixIt reports that .Mac email messages are arriving sans the body of the message. Apparently, the problems started to surface last Wednesday, and there is some speculation that the glitch is related to filtering applied by Apple. Apple has yet to issue a response to this annoyance.

Super Ads or Super Duds?
CNET has a wrap-up of the Super Bowl ads, a part of the festivities that have taken-on a life of its’ own. My favorite was the ad featuring MC Hammer that poked fun of the rise and fall of his financial fortune. Locally, the Go Daddy Software commercial was not well received, unless you count confusion as a good reception. The best part about this years broadcast may have been the game itself, followed closely by Paul McCartney’s half-time performance; he still sounds great after all these years and no lip-syncing from Sir Paul!

Fix The Window Day
Tuesday will be the day Microsoft starts to fix Windows in a big way with a patch that could contain up to 13 fixes for flaws that exist in various MS products. According to a report published by PC World, the patch will be one of the largest issued by the company in recent months. The patches will also address issues in Office, Visual Studio, Windows, Windows Media Player, and MSN Messenger. Microsoft will have a webcast regarding the patches on Wednesday, and I will report more on this issue after viewing the question and answer session.

FreeBSD How-To
The Linux Gazette has a how-to article on installing FreeBSD and according to the author, the task is a ‘piece of cake’ when you get the hang of it (yes, there is a typo in the story so I only used a portion of the sentence).

Open Source Update
Secunia released the following open source updates: Debian (1, 2, 3), Fedora, Gentoo, Linux Kernel, and SuSE.

Multiple Platforms Tip of the Day: Confirm URL
If you are using Firefox or Mozilla, you can download and install plug-ins that allows you to verify the URL of the web site you are visiting. To find the appropriate plug-in for your browser you can visit the Mozilla web site. Users of Safari and OmniWeb can add a bookmark to the toolbar to check a web site’s URL. Save any web site to the Bookmark Bar; then choose Bookmarks from the toolbar and select Show All Book Marks. Next click on the site you just added and choose Edit Address; paste in the following without the quotation marks “javascript:x=escape(getSelection());if(!x)%7Bvoid(x=prompt('What%20should%20I%20look%20up?',''))%7D;window.location='http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Special:Search?search='+x+'&go=Go'”. Now, rename the bookmark ‘Check URL’ and then you can return to your browser. Now when you visit a web site you can click on the Check URL bookmark and a window verifying the address will float onto your screen. This doesn’t work for Opera (at least on my free version) nor will it work with Internet Explorer.

What is ASC II?
According to Wikipedia, “ASCII (American Standard Code for Information Interchange), generally pronounced ass-key, is a character set and a character encoding based on the Roman alphabet as used in modern English and other Western European languages. It is most commonly used by computers and other communication equipment to represent text and by control devices that work with text.”