SANS Internet Storm Center is reporting Deja Vu – worm attacks Windows and Windows Mobile powered devices, (Sat, Apr 8th). Symantec has issued information on MSIL.Letum …(more)…
Just a reminder: [1] Do not open attachments from a source you do not trust. [2] Do not trust any source without some confirmation.
Slashdot: Bruce Perens on the Status of Open Source. Lars Lehtonen writes to tell us that Bruce Perens has posted the text of his LinuxWorld press conference. In his talk he takes a look at many of the hot topics surrounding the open source community including ODF, NTP vs RIM, and GPLv3.” Very interesting. I’m not sure I follow the Abramoff-Delay-Gates-ODF scheme, but Peren’s covers a lot of interesting legal ground.
The surprise earlier this week was the Boot Camp software to dual boot Intel Mac machines into Windows XP. I knew there were already hacks out there to do it, but didn’t expect official support. But Apple and Microsoft seem to be behind it. The problem with dual-boot (or treble-boot: my ThinkPad offers WinXP, Kubuntu {dapper drake rocks!} and CentOS) is that it seems you’re never in the OS you want to be. Need to switch to Kubuntu to print some labels in gLabels? Shut down Windows (3 minutes), boot Kubuntu (2 minutes), load the labels and print. The next thing you need to do? Probably in one of the other OSes. The right answer is to run all of the OSes as Virtual Machines – all running and idling, or able to start and stop as needed without losing the already booted OS. VMWare is one of several companies doing this.
Linux also has a real contender in Xen, a native virtualization engine.
At LinuxWorld Boston this week, I visited the very low-key Apple booth and heard that something similar is on its way for the Mac: Parallels for Mac OS X is in beta and will allow simultaneous VMs running Windows, Linux, BSD, Solaris or other OSes run on top of the host OS on the Intel Macs. That’s the ticket! Toggling between the OSes sounds like the right solution. Looking forward to seeing these products mature.
Slashdot: Ambidextrous Linux/Windows Virus. Lam1969 writes “Kaspersky Labs has reported a new proof-of-concept virus that can infect both Windows and Linux systems. It’s called Virus.Linux.Bi.a/Virus.Win32.Bi.a and affects ELF binaries and .exe’s from windows. SANS has a brief item on the cross-platform virus as well, but no information about a patch or signature yet.”
Computerworld News reports Microsoft set to patch IE, Windows, Office. “Microsoft is set to release five security patches for its products Tuesday, including an Internet Explorer fix that will address a bug that hackers have been exploiting over the past two weeks.”
Gee, is it that time again already?
Apple announces “More and more people are buying and loving Macs. To make this choice simply irresistible, Apple will include technology in the next major release of Mac OS X, Leopard, that lets you install and run the Windows XP operating system on your Mac. Called Boot Camp (for now), you can download a public beta today.”
Stunning. I didn’t see this one coming at all.
Computerworld News notes Firefox finally breaks 10% barrier, says tracking firm. “The open-source Firefox Web browser finally gained enough users in March to grab 10% of the browser market, according to Net Applications.” Cool! Is this the first browser to have a two-digit share against IE since the decline of Netscape?
From Garrett Fitzgerald’s Blog: “VMWars. Microsoft announces that it will give away Virtual Server. VMWare’s response? Not only are they giving away VMWare Player and VMWare Server Beta free, but they just opened up the specs for their Virtual Machine Disk format. *rubs hands gleefully* Ooh, this is gonna be good… hope VMWare’s smarter than Netscape was. 🙂 (Thanks to the /. folks for the pointer.)”
Over at Linux Watch: “One of the ironies of Microsoft’s PR move (giving away Virtual
Server) is that it really makes no sense to run a virtual machine on
top of Windows. Windows, as the forthcoming bloatware called Vista
shows to an extreme, takes up a lot of resource. As David Berlind
points out on his ZDNet blog, “One of the great advantages of Linux is
how, when you’re setting up a system, you can strip all of the bloat
except for only those components that you need to support whatever you
plan to run on the box.”
Looking forward to meeting the Xen folks at their booth at LinuxWorld this week!
Slashdot post: Apple Begins Fixing MacBook Pro Issues. Hack Jandy writes “For those of you who bought one of the first generation Macbook Pros, a new replacement may be in your future. Flickering LCDs, overheating and intermittent WiFi connections are all common place for many of these first generation machines, but apparently Apple is fixing the problem. The article claims ‘According to Apple, it has begun replacing the mainboard inside its MacBook Pros with a new revision. It calls the updated product “revision D,” which is identifiable by product serial number.’ If you have a reservation at an Apple Store, they may even replace your MBP with a new one.”
Good for Apple! Shipping innovative hardware is risky business – hardware in the field will always show problems that don’t come up in testing. Apple (and Dell and Toshiba and everyone else) has had their fair share of leaking capacitors, overheating power supplies and faulty LCD panels. Good to see they are aggressively rewarding the early adoptors with support!
OSNews post: MacOS 10.4.6 Released. “The 10.4.6 Update is recommended for all users and includes general operating system fixes, as well as specific fixes for the following applications and technologies: login and authentication in a variety of network environments; file access and byte range locking with AFP file sharing; network access when using proxy server automatic configuration files; searching iWork ’06 and Microsoft Office documents with Spotlight; creating Automator workflows for iPhoto 6; synchronizing contacts and calendars to .Mac and mobile phones; and much more.” There’s a delta update for 10.4.5, and a combo update for 10.4.0-10.4.5. Easiest method is to just use Software Update.”