Bob Ruple points out the blog glossary on http://www.samizdata.net/blog/glossary.html
Archive | July, 2003
Microsoft issues security warnings…
MS03-29, MS03-30 and MS03-31 puts Microsoft one ahead of the rate of one per week for the year.
MS03-29 lists a “Moderate” problem with a normally un-exposed function that could lead to a denial of service attack on Windows NT 4.0 Server only. Read more at http://www.microsoft.com/technet/security/bulletin/ms03-029.asp
MS03-30 deals with a buffer overrun which could allow a malicious user to run code of their choice on your machine, from a malformed MIDI file, web page or HTML e-mail. Rated as “Critical” for all to patch. Read details at http://www.microsoft.com/technet/security/bulletin/MS03-030.asp.
Finally, MS03-31, described as an “Important” cumulative patch for SQL Server, also patches three new vulnerabilities for SQL Server 7.0, SQL Server 2000, as well as MSDE 1.0 and 2000. While the patches seem to indicate that an attacker must have local logon access to execute these exploits, it’s not clear if another executable the victim could be tricked into running might be able to exploit these. http://www.microsoft.com/technet/security/bulletin/MS03-031.asp has details.
As always, there is the danger with patching your system that the patch process could go wrong, crippling your machine, or that the patch might not work properly on your particular configuration, or that the patch fails to fix the problem. Use care in evaluating whether these patches are appropriate for you, and take precautions (backups, images or restore points) to minimize the effect of a patch gone bad.
Be careful out there.
Off to BAFUG
The Boston Area Foxpro User Group meets tonight, with me hosting an open-mike Q&A and brief review of DevCon from 6 PM to 7 PM, and Jack Brosch doing the main presentation, a demonstration of Web Services in Visual FoxPro, using the Google API. Should be a good show, open to the public. Click on the link above for more information and directions.
New print server
Installed an IOGear GPSU01 print server, a cute little thing with power supply brick, Ethernet and USB printer connection, not three inches on a side. Successfully installed and configured it on two W2K boxes pretty quickly. WinXP took a bit more work, as I had to drop the native firewall (one W2K box had ZoneAlarmPro, and was cooperative about the setup) in order to broadcast and locate the server’s IP address, but raising the firewall after that didn’t prevent printing. Hope to take on one of the Linux boxes tomorrow, as the device supports IPP and LPR.
Retired the old print server, Antigone, who’d served long and well. Originally my hotshot consultant laptop when I joined Blackstone, a 486/100 beauty with 24 Mb RAM and 500 Mb hard drive. Win95 was still perky on it’s 640×480 screen, but something went wrong recently, and network access to the shared printer queue wouldn’t work. A short bit of troubleshooting made it clear a $60 print server was cheaper than continued work on the old dear. Off to the Elysian Fields with her.
David Weinberger on NPR All Things Considered on Wikis
Very cool! Wikis get 3 minutes of fame on NPR. “All Things Considered on wikis. NPR’s All Things Considered ran a commentary of mine last night on wikis and social software. You can hear it by going here to launch the Real or Windows Media Player. Or, you can try clicking here to play it in the Real client….” from Joho the Blog
Trustworthy UI….
Perhaps I’m just reading this wrong, but does this dialog tell me that if I’ve set my security settings HIGH, the only way I can open a document from an author with working macros is to trust EVERYTHING that author writes? Isn’t that backwards? 
RSS squabbling and the new Echo/Atom format
Updated my blogroll at right, too… John Robb is Back On the Web. John Robb’s weblog has returned with a different URL and host. He asks us all to link to him, so… [Dan Gillmor’s eJournal]
RSS squabbling and the new Echo/Atom format
If you follow any of the folks in my blogroll, you’ve probably seen debate about a new format being pushed to replace RSS, ultimately. Here’s a little background that seems to be more impartial than most of what I’ve read. Oh, and skip to the bottom to catch a bit of news, even if you can’t finish the articleUpdate: Debate flares over Weblog standards. Despite technical battles, Weblogs prepare to alter the collaboration and content management space [InfoWorld: Top News]
Keep patching…
Microsoft warns of critical Windows flaw. The software giant issues a patch for a security hole that could allow an attacker to take control of computers running any version of Windows except for Windows ME. [CNET News.com]
Torvalds: No worries from SCO
In this interview, Linux Torvalds says linux has no worries in the SCO-IBM legal dispute. Link from SlashDot