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Category: Computing (Page 3 of 5)

Serious Flaw Threatens all Versions of Microsoft Windows

July 22, 2010 / / 0 Comments

A serious flaw that affects all versions of Microsoft Windows, from Windows 2000 through Windows 7 has been discovered, publicized, and already exploited by hackers. The exploit is especially dangerous because all the user has to do is open a folder containing an infected file with a .LNK extension. The exploit then runs automatically.

Malware already exists that exploits this flaw. At present this malware is programmed to seek out industrial control systems, infrastructure, SCADA systems, and so forth, but versions that spread widely are sure to come soon.

Centers that monitor the health of the Internet are raising the threat level from green to yellow.

The danger remains until Microsoft issues a fix. An additional big problem is that there are still many systems out there running Windows 2000 and Windows XP SP2 and Microsoft no longer issues patches for those operating systems.

http://www.guardian.co.uk/technology/2010/jul/22/microsoft-windows-flaw

Microsoft Bing Is Paying for Users?

July 14, 2010 / / 0 Comments

Microsoft has now taken to paying people to use their search engine? Is it that bad?

http://www.discoverbing.com/education/searchwithpurpose/?fbid=eU87ehBy_x8&wom=false

It looks a little less blatant framed as a donation but then Microsoft has always been expert at putting lipstick on a pig.

I never did understand why Microsoft would go after the web search market at all. Of all the things they could possibly have done, they chose the one area where they cannot possibly succeed. What were they thinking? I guess the corporate culture in Redmond breeds either blindness, or arrogance, or maybe both.

Look, because of my work I do hundreds of searches every day, often searching for very obscure and hard to find information. I tried Bing. It sucked. From time to time I try it again and it continues to come up less effective than Google. Google is a lean, mean, lightning-fast search engine that almost invariably gets me immediately or almost immediately to the information I seek. It has no unnecessary visual distractions or crap that slows the loading of the page. It’s fine tuned and user friendly. And now Google has added even more cool features that help me a lot such as the timeline search. Fabulous.

Microsoft’s only hope to compete with Google search was to completely clone Google search and re-invent all of the proprietary magic that makes Google what it is, which even as rich as Microsoft is, they cannot afford to do.

Instead I’ll donate three bucks to charity myself and not use Bing.

Happy 20th Anniversary to the World Wide Web

March 13, 2009 / / 3 Comments

Twenty years ago today, Tim Berners-Lee, of the CERN particle physics laboratory in Geneva, wrote a paper describing what quickly became the World Wide Web.

Back in 1989, the Web was just an idea, but it was a world-changing idea and one of the most important ideas of the 20th century.

At that time, the first browser and the first web server had yet to be created but those things came quickly. Back then, we got our news from newspapers and on TV at 6 PM. We did our research and study in libraries. We met with our friends in church or at a bar. We received and paid bills through the mail. We used to go to the bank to deposit checks and take care of business. We shopped for clothing by driving to stores and touching the products. We learned about new products through print ads, billboards, and television. We learned about different cultures and met people in distant lands by getting on an airplane and going there. We got our music by buying CDs or cassettes. The idea of an individual being able to publish his writings or photos and have them instantly visible to millions of people was inconceivable.

By 1995, things were well underway. At that time the first major search engine was created, called Alta Vista. Does anyone besides me remember Alta Vista? There was no Yahoo, no Google, no Hotmail, no online music, no multiplayer games. Web-based email was yet to be invented (by Hotmail, later bought by Microsoft). There was no YouTube because there was no digital video yet. Compressed audio (MP3) had just been developed by the Fraunhofer Institute in Germany. The first MP3 player for computers (WinAmp) came in 1998. The first portable MP3 player came in 1999.

Look at what has happened in the last 10 to 14 years. The whole world has changed for anyone who has access to the Internet.

What will the next 20 years bring?

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