Archive for September, 2006

Five Reasons Zune Scares Apple

When Microsoft releases a new product, there is almost always hundreds of articles telling why it will be a hit or why it will fail, especially if they are going up against Apple. Apple practically owns the mp3 player market, and most of its fans believe Microsoft doesn’t have a chance because the iPod is so popular and is so cool. We have two in my family right now, a Nano and one of the orginal, 20 gig iPods without the color screen, dangit. But, when you take on Microsoft, you usually take on the whole outfit, with the release of the Zune, Microsoft has already announced that you will be able to buy songs through their service with Microsoft Points, which had only been usable on the Xbox live site, I believe. So you know there will be more cross promotion, and probably increased interoperability, there will probably be hooks so you can connect to Windows XP Media Center pcs to play music, and, if they are smart, free songs with everything they sell. The Zune will be able to plug into the Xbox through the USB port, a fact they will no doubt advertise on the Xbox Live site.

Mike Elgan at Computerworld says Apple is scared os the Zune and give five reasons why they should be.

1. Microsoft is hatching a consumer media “perfect storm.”
Apple fans assume iPod will face Zune in the market, mano a mano, like other media players. But that’s not the case. Zune will be supported and promoted and will leverage the collective power of Windows XP, Windows Vista, Soapbox (Microsoft’s new “YouTube killer”) and the Xbox 360.

Microsoft will make the movement of media between Windows, Soapbox and the Zune natural and seamless. The Zune interface is just like a miniature version of the Windows Media Center user interface and is very similar to some elements of Vista.

Apple fans are overconfident in the iPod because Apple once commanded 92% of music player market share, a number that has since fallen to around 70%. About 30 million people own iPods.

But Microsoft owns more than 90% of the worldwide operating systems market (compared with Apple’s roughly 5%), representing some 300 million people. The company expects to have 200 million Vista users within two years.

The Zune will plug directly into the Xbox via a standard Universal Serial Bus cable — a fact Microsoft will drill into the heads of Xbox users on the Xbox Live online gaming service. The Zune Marketplace will be integrated with, and promoted by, the Xbox Live Marketplace.

Apple faces the prospect of competing not with the Zune alone, but with a mighty Windows-Soapbox-Xbox-Zune industrial complex.

He has four more reasons in the article, available here.

Windows Vista: One More Test Release Then its a Go

From the All About Microsoft Blog, Brad Goldberg, General Manager of Microsoft?s Windows Client Business Group, says there will be one more EDW, or external developer workstation, build of Vista before the product is released to manufacturing. So, its getting closer and closer, Microsoft says it will be available to businesses in November and to everyone else in January 2007, Mary Jo Foley predicts it will be released on the 9th of November,

Anyone want to bet on the business launch date for Vista? My guess? November 9. Why? Because it?s a Thursday (traditional Microsoft product launch day) and by then, we?ll all supposedly be ?ready for a new day.? Source: All about Microsoft

Enterprise Linux: Has it Arrived?

An analyst from Gartner says that Windows will not suffer on the server side because of Linux, at least over the next five years anyway.

While Linux would account for some $12 billion in worldwide server operating system revenue in five years time, significantly up from the $8.3 billion predicted for 2006, Unix worldwide server operating system revenue was expected to come in at $15.9 billion by 2011, with Windows revenue leading the pack at $22.5 billion, Weiss said.

Security was also not much of a differentiator between Windows, Linux and Unix, Weiss said, noting that by 2011 it was unlikely that Red Hat would become the “Microsoft for Linux,” despite the extraordinary growth rate it has been experiencing.

He said Linux is going through a maturation process, in that 90% of all contributions to the kernel coming from vendors and distributors. And even though Red Hat holds a major share of the distributions, it is facing increased competition from Security was also not much of a differentiator between Windows, Linux and Unix, Weiss said, noting that by 2011 it was unlikely that Red Hat would become the “Microsoft for Linux,” despite the extraordinary growth rate it has been experiencing.

It’s a good read, click here

Worlds Largest Rear Projection TV

JVC has developed the worlds largets rear projection TV, a 110″ incher! No pricing information has been set as this is a prototype.

The screen measures 243.5 x 137 cm. The display device employed in this system is JVC’s proprietary reflective liquid crystal panel “D-ILA” that features the so-called “full HD” (1920 x 1080) resolution. The specifications of the optical system and the light source used are similar to those of 50- and 60-inch commercial products. The power consumption is 220 W.

Click here for the article and a picture of the big screen.

Spam Gets Personal

Looks like the spammers are picking up the pace, and are getting better at bypassing filters meant to block them. Experts say spammers are really close to being able to send personalized spam, using subject lines that are more likely to get users to open up the spam.

“The end game is for spammers to pull together information from the site where they harvested your address and generate highly specific subject lines using text automatically extracted from the source,” he told vnunet.com.

Such an email stands a greater chance of slipping through a single-technology filter such as the Bayesian spam filter in Mozilla’s Thunderbird email client favoured by many techies.

Earlier this month, MessageLabs warned about targeted phishing attacks using personal information harvested from social networking sites like MySpace. Source: vnunet via faill.com

If we can EVER get users to quit clicking on spam, it could possibly go away, but as long as spammers are making money, they will send it and send it and send it.

Final Customer Notification: End of Windows XP SP1 Support

Microsoft has given final customer notification that Windows XP SP1 and SP1a support ends on October 10, 2006. To check what version you are running, right click my computer, click on properties and check to see if Service Pack 1 shows under system.

IE7 Update Could Adversely Affect Many Websites

In July, Microsoft announced that it will update Windows XP SP2 users automatically using Windows auto updates, in the past Microsoft has phased them in slowly, this one will be done practically overnight. Now, I’ve heard mostly good things about IE7, I still have not tried it myself, I know, I know, what kind of geek am I, I will probably wait until it upgrades everyone and see what happens. But, when that happens, online merchants will see the biggest part of their userbase changing browsers, and they will be answering the phones a LOT more than they do now, until users get used to using IE7.

“I applaud what Microsoft’s done with IE 7, and the browser works very well,” said Richard Litofsky of Rockville, Md.-based cyScape. “But even the best software needs time to work out things once it’s in the wild.”

The automatic updating of most browsers — Internet Explorer controls 83 percent of the world’s browser market according to the most recent data from Net Applications — will stress Web sites’ help desks like nothing before, Litofsky claimed.

“Virtually overnight all these sites are going to be running a whole new platform.” Source: Techweb

If you have trouble when you are updated to IE7, you can use this tool, User Agent String Utility version 2, to make the website think your browser is IE6, as you could have rendering problems if the website does not know what browser you are using.

Two new and one updated advisory from Microsoft

Microsoft post two new advisories and updated one today, Microsoft Security Advisory (926043) Vulnerability in Windows Shell Could Allow Remote Code Execution, Microsoft Security Advisory (925984) Vulnerability in PowerPoint Could Allow Remote Code Execution and updated this one, Microsoft Security Advisory (925444) Vulnerability in the Microsoft DirectAnimation Path ActiveX Control Could Allow Remote Code Execution.

This week we?ve seen both proof of concept code posted for a Windows Shell vulnerability. We have also seen limited exploits of a previously publicly disclosed vulnerability in DirectAnimation as well as limited exploits of a PowerPoint vulnerability. Source: Microsoft Security Response Center blog

MediaSmart High-Definition LCD TV includes Wireless

The new SLC3760N 37 inch MediaSmart high-definition LCD TV from HP is coming equipped with wireless connections, 802.11 a/b/g wifi and it comes with ethernet connections. The only bad thing is the wireless is not a router, it’s just a wireless radio, so you will still need your wireless router to allow the TV access to pre-recorded content. It can access music, pictures, and video on computer hard drives via the wireless connection or the ethernet connection.

The MediaSmart is also a full-fledged HDTV boasting a resolution of 1366 by 768 capable of displaying hi-def programming in luscious 720p. You also get a remote and built-in HDTV tuner. Even more appealing, according to HP, the TV will natively support DivX movies along with a long line of other widely-used video file formats.

Slated to hit store shelves and online retailers immediately, expect the SLC3760N 37 inch MediaSmart High-Definition LCD TV to list for $2,199, HP said. Source: Yahoo

Sounds good, need to see the picture though.

New PowerPoint Vulnerabilty Being Exploited

I bet Microsoft just wishes that September would hurry up and end, it certainly has been a month full of vulnerabilities and exploits, the newest one affects Microsoft’s PowerPoint, or more specifically Microsoft PowerPoint 2000, Microsoft PowerPoint 2002, Microsoft Office PowerPoint 2003, Microsoft PowerPoint 2004 for Mac, and Microsoft PowerPoint v. X for Mac.

In order for the attack to work, the user must open a malicious PowerPoint file, either through email or somehow given to them by the attacker. The only workarounds currently are to use PowerPoint viewer 2003 to open and view files, as the viewer does not contain the vulnerable code, and of course, do not open any PowerPoint files from untrusted sources. From Microsoft,

• An attacker who successfully exploited this vulnerability could gain the same user rights as the local user. Users whose accounts are configured to have fewer user rights on the system could be less affected than users who operate with administrative user rights.

• In a Web-based attack scenario, an attacker would have to host a Web site that contains a PowerPoint file that is used to attempt to exploit this vulnerability. In addition, compromised Web sites and Web sites that accept or host user-provided content could contain specially crafted content that could exploit this vulnerability. An attacker would have no way to force users to visit a malicious Web site. Instead, an attacker would have to persuade them to visit the Web site, typically by getting them to click a link that takes them to the attacker’s site.
• The vulnerability cannot be exploited automatically through e-mail. For an attack to be successful a user must open an attachment that is sent in an e-mail message.
• Users who have installed and are using the Office Document Open Confirmation Tool for Office 2000 will be prompted with Open, Save, or Cancel before opening a document.

From vnunet,

“Hackers are showing increasing ingenuity in their attempts to break into innocent users’ computers, and are always on the hunt for exploitable bugs in commonly used programs,” said Cluley.

“PowerPoint is the standard business tool for presentations, underlining that all computer users need to show great caution when handling unsolicited email attachments.”

As always, lets be careful out there.