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MySQL Launches MySQL Network

By on February 16, 2005 in Home Page

Latest Updates from MySQL AB, the PR department for MySQL AB via RSS announces: MySQL Launches ‘MySQL Network’ for Corporate Enterprises Looking to Fast-Track Open Source Database Deployment. Boston, LinuxWorld Conference & Expo — “MySQL AB, developer of the world’s most popular open source database, today launched a new way for corporate enterprises to acquire, deploy and support MySQL for their business-critical applications.
The new ‘MySQL Network’ offering is specifically designed for large IT departments looking to leverage the cost and performance benefits of MySQL — while addressing key business requirements for implementing open source software.”

Anyone up for a game of Buzzterm Bingo? Sheesh.

O’Reilly’s MAKE magazine, Dan Bricklin, and Linux innovation

By on February 13, 2005 in Home Page

Dan Bricklin’s Log says Get Make Magazine. “I started to read MAKE I got goose bumps. There’s real hope for the next generation.”

I have fond memories of building stuff with my Dad – crystal radio sets, adding a vernier dial to a shortwave set, building a couple of electronic sets, learning how gears and cams and pieces make ratchets and convert rotary power to linear and so forth. MAKE magazine seems to continue the tradition of taking things apart and (we hope) putting them back together, perhaps a little differently, perhaps a little better.

At my recent presentation to the Dartmouth-Lake Sunapee Linux User Group, I showed off the LinkSys WRT54G. As soon as we were done, I offered to pop the cover off my router so we could look inside. I was immediately surrounded. My fellow LUGgers could immediately identify the serial port solder pads on the circuit board, identify the RAM, EEPROM, radio transceiver, and so forth. I asked who was confortable using a soldering iron and better than half the hands went up. As the evening wore on, there was discussion of leasing a T-1 and turning yourself into the local community wireless ISP – several members had done that – and the 3 dB attentuation per meter of leaves when trying to reach more distant sites, how to get broadband to remote rural locations, and experiences with different DSL providers.

Innovation lives.

Microsoft MSN chat exploitable without the latest patches, code in the wild

By on February 12, 2005 in Home Page

InfoWorld: Top News reports “Microsoft warns customers about exploits for new flaws. BOSTON – Microsoftæwarned customers about computer code that exploits holes in the company’s software and blamed security researchers for publishing proof of concept code to trigger the vulnerabilities, which was then turned into working attacks.”

This isn’t about shooting the messengers. It’s common practice to notify vendors of a flaw when you find them and give a reasonable grace period before publicly releasing sufficient information to exploit the flaw, to give the vendor, Open Source or Closed, a chance to distribute a patch. In this case, the patches are already out there, as I blogged on Wednesday. It just takes a while for a few million people to patch. Most of us like to wait to hear if others discover problems with the patches.

However, it was Microsoft that publicized the vulnerabilities, and you can bet that others had already duplicated the exploits, based on the description Microsoft provided, as well as the binary patches that pointed to the affected code.

This still points back to Microsoft. Downloading and displaying a graphic should not allow remote code to be executed under any circumstances. A deep problem with the Microsoft operating system security model is exploited once again.

Ed Foster’s Gripe2Ed notes VFP 9 EULA

By on February 11, 2005 in Home Page

Garrett Fitzgerald’s Blog notes “VFP EULA makes Gripe2Ed. Ed Foster thinks that VFP is a “very worthy write-in candidate” for the position of “worst EULA“.

Well, they say any PR is good PR.

We hold these truths to be self-evident…

By on February 10, 2005 in Home Page

Dan Gillmor on Grassroots Journalism, Etc. point to A Continuing Stain on America’s Honor. Bob Herbert (NY Times): Stories From the Inside. The Bush administration has turned Guantanamo into a place that is devoid of due process and the rule of law. It’s a place where human beings can be imprisoned for life without being charged or tried, without ever seeing a lawyer, and without having their cases reviewed by a court. Congress and the courts should be uprooting this evil practice, but freedom and justice in the United States are on a post-9/11 downhill slide.

Students: what’s so important about free speech, anyway?

By on February 10, 2005 in Home Page

Alex Feldstein notes Morons in the News: Students Ignorant of First Amendment. Another  story on a subject that never ceases to amaze.

High school students don’t see the trouble with government censorship of news and unpopular ideas…

Half of high school students thought that the government
should be able to censor the news. Only 83% of students
thought people have a right to express unpopular opinions. 75%
thought that flag burning was illegal, and about half thought
that the government could regulate what it thought was
indecent content on the Internet.

Let’s remember these immortal words:

“Rarely is the question asked: Is our children learning?”
G.W. Bush, Florence, S.C., Jan. 11, 2000

Truly disturbing trends.

Peterborough MonadLUG meeting cancelled

By on February 10, 2005 in Home Page

The National Weather Service maintains a great set of RSS feeds so that you can get any alerts, warnings or advisories in your RSS aggregator. I’ve been watching the incoming snow storm for two days. Just in case you were thinking of visiting the Monadnock group because of the posting I put up here earlier this week:

“Due to the winter storm about to hit our area and some forecasts showing a worst case of up to 20 inches of snow by tomorrow, this month’s Monadnock Linux User Group meeting will be cancelled.”

“We will resume the normal meeting schedule next month, second Thursday of the month. More announcements will follow as we get closer to that date. ”

Guy Pardoe
MonadLUG Coordinator

MonadLUG’s meeting announcement mailing list is having a few problems at the moment, but consider signing up in a few weeks to stay abreast of their activities.

Jeff Gannon, who are you?

By on February 9, 2005 in Home Page

Laura and I heard about this on Emily Rooney’s “Beat the Press” edition of Greater Boston last Friday, but the implications are deeply disturbing. Some man, using a pseudonym, was not only posing as a journalist with approval of the White House but (follow the links) was likely not the person he was claiming to be. What is going on in the White House?

Dan Gillmor on Grassroots Journalism, Etc. reports:

‘Reporter’ Gannon is Gone. The “Jeff Gannon” saga took an ugly turn. Gannon, you may recall, was the White House “reporter” of questionable bona fides — apparently a Republican operative whose main role was to ask friendly questions of the president and his spokespeople, a countervailing force to what the Bush administration plainly believes is an overwhelmingly liberal White House press corps. (That view of the suck-up brigade is laughable, in my view, given the half-baked, credulous coverage the administration has enjoyed.)

“Various bloggers have been investigating Gannon, and one of them turned up some news that led him to silence himself.”

“Timothy Karr has some details. See also Daniel Conover’s analysis, in which he notes: “It must be clear now that blogs and websites are providing the bulk of significant real-time reporting on MSM matters. Those of us who work in the MSM and care about these issues turn to these “non-official” sources to get the scoop on our industry, and I don’t expect that to change any time soon.”

“Fair enough. But this episode should give people a queasy feeling. The scandal is the administration’s contempt for the public, and the lack of journalistic credibility this person demonstrated, not whatever he was doing on the side.”

MSM = Mainstream Media, for those not up on the latest TLA — Ted

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