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Byte: Six Ways To Protect Your Wireless Network
Byte has a great article on Six Ways To Protect Your Wireless Network. “It doesn't take a whole lot of work — or any extra money — to make your network secure. Follow these steps, and you'll go a long way to keeping your network, PCs, and data safe.”
Mighty Mouse, now available without a tail
Computerworld Breaking News reports Apple cuts the cord on the Mighty Mouse. “Just days after online reports pointed to a new Bluetooth-enabled wireless mouse from Apple Computer, the company today unveiled the device. It sells for $69.”
Nice looking mouse.
The Ajaxifiation Of Yahoo
Jeremy Zawodny blogs about “The Ajaxifiation Of Yahoo” and points to the YUI Library, a promising AJAX library, licensed under the BSD library, free in cost and licensing. I've been looking forward to testing out an AJAX library, and this looks like a well-documented one to try out.
Python Special Interest Group: July 27th, Cole Tuininga on Myghty
On the Python-Talk mailing list, Bill Sconce of the GNHLUG PySIG announces the July meeting:
“The next meeting of the New Hampshire PySIG will be one week from
tonight — the 27th of July, 7:00 PM at the usual fine place, the
Amoskeag Business Incubator.”
“Our topics will be everything that's fair game to Python, including
a report by Bill on the Northeast Linux Symposium, where Python RULED,
and a remarkable development sprint by Jeff Elkner's students.”
“Our featured speaker will be Cole Tuininga, a founding member of PySIG, who knows a lot about “other languages” as well as Python, and who will tell us about Myghty.”
SuSE Linux Enterprise Desktop (SLED) 10 released
Ars Technica reports SUSE Linux Enterprise 10 Released. “Utah software vendor Novell has officially released much-anticipated SUSE Linux Enterprise 10. By segphault@sbcglobal.net (Ryan Paul).”
SuSE is one distribution I have yet to get around to testing. I've got a number of machines running in the office and at client sites using RedHat and related Fedora or CentOS distributions. I've been enjoying Ubuntu on several laptops as a small and relatively efficient distribution (especially with the xfce-based desktop Xubuntu), but there's a lot of positive comments on SuSE and I'm going to give it a try.
MerriLUG, 20 July, SELinux
The Nashua Linux User Group meets this Tursday, and will feature a great presentation on SELinux. Hope to see you there!
MerriLUG announcement follows:
- Who : Daniel J Walsh, Lead SELinux Engineer, Redhat
- What : SELinux for Dummies
- Where: Martha's Exchange
- Day : Thur 20 July
- Time : 6:00 PM for grub, 7:30 PM for workshop
:: Overview
Dan starts with an overview of SELinux: How is it different? Who should use it? What are the benefits for home users, small businesses, and non-server installations? Is installation and maintenance comparable with regular Linux distributions?
After establishing the application scope and benefits, Dan will cover the utilities, commands, administration, and general use of SELinux. You will learn how to use it, not just turn it off!
Driving directions:
http://wiki.gnhlug.org/twiki2/bin/view/Www/PlaceMarthasExchange
Web site disasters made easy…
InfoWorld: Application development relays a delightful tale of classic bungling in replacing an app in no need of replacement: Web site disasters made easy. “In 1997, I was working in the IT department at a midsize consumer products company in the San Francisco Bay Area. My job was mainly to keep the network up; the company had no Web presence. But as our competitors ate more and more of our lunch, it gradually dawned on management that we ought to be selling online. So I built a LAMP (Linux, Apache, and Perl/Python/PHP) sales portal that handled online ordering and a corporate Web site. It generated revenue from the outset.”
I think most software developers have seen similar tales. This one's told well.
Macintosh web browsers compared
Macintalk is running an interesting story comparing the four popular browsers on the Mac: Safari, FireFox, OmniWeb and Camino. The results surprised me.
PowerPoint Zero-Day Vulnerability in the Wild
Slashdot post PowerPoint ZeroDay Vulnerability Exploited. “whitehatlurker writes to mention a WashingtonPost.com article about another unpatched flaw with Microsoft Office. The bug, part of the PowerPoint software, has already been used in the wild, and may be connected to an industrial espionage case.”
1. Never EVER open an untrusted document, whether it is Word or PowerPoint or a PDF or a video.
2. There are no trusted documents.
What #2 means is that you should always confirm that, whenever a document arrives appearing to be from a friend or a co-worker, it really is from them. Most of the time, you've had a conversation in advance. Social engineering works by making you think that a document is part of a normal exchange. If Bob in accounting send a message with some non-descript “check this out” message and an attachment that appears to be a spreadsheet, it's worth taking a couple seconds to verify it's really from him. Malware steals other people's email addressbooks, so the mail could appear quite legitimate.