Archive | Microsoft

Shutdown & Restart Shortcuts

By Ted Roche on March 21, 2008 in Linux, Microsoft, Technology

A handy utility for an oddball situation: Shutdown & Restart Shortcuts for Windows XP. I have a WinXP Pro machine I’m running remotely via rdesktop/tsclient from my Linux laptop, but I run it as a user with reduced rights, not having administrator rights, as a wise security measure. However, once in a blue moon I need to reboot the machine. The trick: using the “RootShell” link I created a few months ago, making a shell with the Administrator’s context and then execute ‘shutdown’ from there. Shutdown’s syntax should be familiar to any UNIX user, other than the shouted CAPS:

SHUTDOWN -R -T 5

will reboot the machine.

State of the Computer Book Market, Part 4 – The Languages – OReilly Radar

By Ted Roche on March 17, 2008 in CSS, FoxPro, JavaScript, LAMP, Microsoft, Perl, PHP, PostgreSQL, Python, Ruby, Technology, Web Development

Over at O’Reilly, Mike Hendrickson posts State of the Computer Book Market, Part 4 – The Languages – OReilly Radar. Bear in mind in the world of lies, damned lies and statistics, these are statistics. Like measurements of job posting vs. languages, or web pages vs. languages, these aren’t an indication of what languages are in use out there, or what languages are suitable for use. This is just a measurement of what book titles sold the most, grouped roughly by language. If the best book on your favorite language is years old, it’s probably shown as small here. If a bunch of crappy books got published on the language-of-the-week, and the authors and publishers did a good job of getting a buzz going, it’s probably scoring high. Don’t use this to decide whether to use vi or emacs, tabs or spaces.

But it’s interesting data.

Security firm cracks encryption for Microsoft’s wireless keyboards – heise Security

By Ted Roche on December 9, 2007 in Microsoft, Security, Technology

Ouch! Encrypted communications between your computer and peripherals have to be impractically difficult to crack. The encryption scheme described in “Security firm cracks encryption for Microsoft’s wireless keyboards – heise Security” is beyond pathetic. I hope other manufacturers have more reasonable encryption schemes. In the mean time, don’t type anything on a Microsoft wireless keyboard you wouldn’t want to see published like, say, your bank account password. Disgraceful!

Link via Schneier on Security

When is a document not a document?

By Ted Roche on October 23, 2007 in Microsoft, Security, Technology

When is a document not a document? Perhaps when it contains executable code. Executable code can do bad things to your computer if it has the security permissions to do so or if it exploits flaws in the way the document readers execute the code. A Word document with AutoRun macros is an executable program in the form of document. A web page containing Javascript (or JScript or VBScript or Java or Flash) is an executable. Without limiting what functionality these executables can access, an action as simple as opening a document or navigate to a web site can open your machine to exploitation.

The latest instance of this is a flaw in Adobe Reader for Windows that allows a specially crafted PDF file to exploit your machine via the mailto protocol link. The SANS Internet Storm Center documents that the PDF mailto exploit documents in the wild, that is, it’s possible for you to catch this nasty bug off a web page or via the mail.

If you’re running Windows and have Adobe Reader installed, make sure you are running the latest version (links are in the article above). And don’t open any files from untrusted sources. And don’t trust any source.

FoxPro Advisor, RIP

By Ted Roche on October 14, 2007 in FoxPro, Technology

From the Advisor website:

This information is for you, if you are a current subscriber to any of these Advisor magazines, journals or guides: Microsoft Access, Microsoft Office, Microsoft Visual FoxPro, Microsoft Visual Studio, Microsoft SharePoint, Microsoft Professional Development, Microsoft Visual Basic .NET, IBM Lotus Software, IBM WebSphere Software, IBM Workplace Software, Novell GroupWise, Business Collaboration, Corporate Compliance, E-Discovery, Law Technology… Your subscription has been upgraded to DataBased Advisor, giving you more than 10,000 articles, tips and downloads — at no charge.

And another kicker:

Even though a new subscription to DataBased Advisor carries a much higher price tag, you are getting it at no extra charge for the duration of your current subscription.

Looks like new subscriptions are $277 a year. Good luck to John and Jeannie on this new venture!

Clippy on a rampage: exploit code appears for Microsoft Agent bug

By Ted Roche on September 13, 2007 in Home Page, Microsoft, Security

September 13, 2007 Computerworld —Exploit code appears for Microsoft Agent bug “It took less than 24 hours for attackers to crank out proof-of-concept code targeting the one critical vulnerability disclosed — and patched — Tuesday morning by Microsoft, security researchers warned.” Ouch. A Day One exploit. Hopefully, Microsoft’s distribution of their updated Agent patches via Windows Update will be speedier than the bad guy’s spreading of their exploit.

September 2007 Microsoft patches on their way…

By Ted Roche on September 12, 2007 in Home Page, Microsoft, Security

The SANS Internet Storm Center presents an overview of the September 2007 Microsoft patches and their status: several “remote code exploit” issues with Office, Messenger, the Crystal Reports bundled in Visual Studio and the Microsoft Services for UNIX. Exploits are in the wild for some of these, so plan on patching soon!

A List Apart: Articles: Suckerfish Dropdowns

By Ted Roche on September 11, 2007 in CSS, Microsoft, Technology

In the great “Suckerfish Dropdowns” article on A List Apart, authors Patrick Griffiths and Dan Webb observe “The more you use and develop with browsers such as Mozilla the more you realize how pathetic Internet Explorer can be when it comes to web standards. ” Amen, brother!

I, Cringely . The Pulpit . The Puppet Master | PBS

By Ted Roche on September 7, 2007 in Apple Macintosh OS X, Microsoft, Technology

I, Cringely . The Pulpit . The Puppet Master | PBS blogs, “Steve [Jobs] has a love-hate relationship with, well, everyone.” Interesting anecdotes from talking with Bill Gates and Steve Jobs.

James Fallows (July 24, 2007) – Biting the bullet on Windows Vista: back to XP (Technology)

By Ted Roche on August 22, 2007 in Microsoft, Technology

James Fallow is more formal about it, writing in the Atlantic. James Fallows (July 24, 2007) – Biting the bullet on Windows Vista: back to XP (Technology)

“The other bad call came late last year, when I said that users should wait to buy new computers until the new version of Windows, Vista, was available — and that “of course” they should buy Vista-equipped machines once they could. That was wrong. I apologize.”

Thanks to Ernie for the link!

Older posts Newer posts

Navigation