22 September 2006

Workaround needed for IE hole by Brian Livingston

Microsoft acknowledged this week a new weakness that allows hacked Web sites to infect PCs merely by displaying specific images in the Internet Explorer browser.

The Redmond company hasn't promised to issue a patch until the company's next regular Patch Tuesday on Oct. 10.

Until then, individual Windows users can protect themselves against the flaw by deregistering vgx.dll. This DLL file is used by IE to render images that are based on Vector Markup Language (VML).

Microsoft recommends that users click Start, Run, paste the following line into the input box, and click OK:

regsvr32 -u "%ProgramFiles%\Common Files\Microsoft Shared\VGX\vgx.dll

After Microsoft releases a patch for the problem, you can easily reregister the DLL by repeating the procedure without the -u switch:

regsvr32 "%ProgramFiles%\Common Files\Microsoft Shared\VGX\vgx.dll
Read the full story and more at Windows Secrets

27 July 2006

MS Advisory: Beware Unexpected PowerPoint Files

The company's advisory comes less than a week after virus hunters discovered that a previously undocumented flaw in Microsoft PowerPoint was being exploited to plant a keystroke logger on infected Windows systems.

Read the full story by by Ryan Naraine at EWeek.com
MS Advisory: Beware Unexpected PowerPoint Files

12 July 2006

Berkeley Sea Scouts case appealed to U.S. Supreme Court

The Pacific Legal Foundation announced Tuesday that it will ask the U.S. Supreme Court to reverse a decision by the California Supreme Court that affirmed the city of Berkeley's right to deny the Berkeley Sea Scouts free berthing privileges at its marina.
Read the full story by by Martin Snapp of the CONTRA COSTA TIMES in the Mercury News

11 July 2006

US CERT Alert

http://www.us-cert.gov/cas/alerts/SA06-192A.html>

And the dance continues.

20 June 2006

Google's not-so-very-secret weapon

THE DALLES, Oregon On the banks of the windswept Columbia River, Google is working on a secret weapon in its quest to dominate the next generation of Internet computing. But it is hard to keep a secret when it is as big as two football fields, with twin cooling towers protruding four stories into the sky.

Read the full story by John Markoff and Saul Hansell The New York Times
Published: June 13, 2006

03 June 2006

King Arthur's Scottish Camelot


A number of authors down through the ages have suggested that Arthur - this most English of heroes - was in fact from Scotland, a story if true that would stand history on its head.
Read the full article by DIANE MACLEAN



21 May 2006

NAV and NIS Update

There was just a large update to Norton, both Anti-Virus and Internet Security. It is one of those "special" updates that doesn't work automagically. For Norton users, simply open the program and run "Live Update." You will have to restart your computer when the installation is complete.

I have no idea what it is for, just that it is rather large.

Let's be careful out there...

15 May 2006

Scan This Book!

May 14, 2006 New York Times

By KEVIN KELLY

Despite the opposition of publishers and their lawyers, the world's texts are being electronically copied, digitized, searched and linked.

This is an excellent ten page article.
The first half is very familiar, but the opinions and conclusions in the last half are fascinating.

18 April 2006

Firefox Add Ons

From: ERIC FERGUSON III by way of the Internet (original author unknown, but I will gladly give credit if you contact me)

Allow Right-Click 0.3 - Defeats web sites' right-click prevention scripts.
Always Remember Password 0.3 - Makes the browser ignore web site requests to not remember passwords.
BBCode 0.4.1.3 - Adds Formating (BBCode/HTML/XHTML/etc.) to the context menu for Blogs and forums like Mozillazine (PHPBB and others).
CuteMenus - Crystal SVG 0.9.9.64 - Adds icons to all menus items.
DictionarySearch 1.5 - Looks up selected word in an online dictionary
Disable Targets For Downloads 1.0.1 - Prevents download links opening a blank window.
Download Embedded 0.2 - Downloads all embedded objects on a webpage.
Download Embedded 0.1 - Downloads all embedded objects on a webpage.
DownThemAll! 0.9.8.7 - The mass downloader for Firefox.
Duplicate Tab 0.7 - Allows you to duplicate a tab, or to merge the windows.
Fasterfox 1.0.3 - Performance and network tweaks for Firefox.
FireFoxMenuButtons 1.1.2 - Adds 30 Buttons (duplicating of menu strings) from Firefox Menu on the Toolbar
Forecastfox 0.8.5 - Get international weather forecasts and display it in any toolbar or statusbar with this highly customizable extension.
Gmail Notifier 0.5.5 - A notifier for Gmail accounts.
Google Images Re-Linker 0.3 - Jumps directly to the full-size image on images.google.com.
Google Pagerank Status 0.9.5 - Display the google pagerank in your browser's status bar.
GooglePreview 1.2.1 - Inserts web site previews in google and yahoo search results.
IE Tab 1.0.7 - Open IE-only pages in "embedded IE" !!!
IE View 1.2.7 - Open pages in IE via Firefox menus
Image Zoom 0.2.3 - Adds zoom functionality for images
ListZilla 0.7 - Outputs an alphabetical list of extensions to a text, vB code, or HTML file.
Location Navigator 0.6 - An extension that lets you increment/decrement
Menu Editor 1.2 - Customize application menus
Minimize to Tray 0.0.1.2005091606+ - Minimizes Mozilla windows into the system tray
Open link in... 1.4 - Adds more tab/window opening options to the context menu for links and images.
OpenDownload 0.2.3 - Allows you to open any file from the internet into the OS assigned program.
Paste Quote 0.3.1 - Lets you paste text as forum quotations from the context menu.
Plain Text Links 0.2 - Treat selected plain text urls as links, right click to open
Popup ALT Attribute 1.3.2005092701 - Popups alternate texts of images or others like NetscapeCommunicator(Navigator) 4.x, and show long descriptions in the multi-row tooltip.
Popup Count 0.3.1 - Counts the number of blocked popups.
Redirect Remover 1.1 - Removes redirects from links
ReloadEvery 1.5 - Reloads webpages every so many seconds or minutes
RiteOfTongue 0.3.2 - Right-click on typed text to get alternate spellings powered by Yahoo! Search.
Save Image in Folder 0.7.3 - Easily save images in personally customized folders.
Save Link in Folder 0.9.3 - Easily save links in personally customized folders.
Screen grab! 0.7 - Takes a screen shot using Java.
SearchPluginHacks 0.1.3 - Allows uninstalling search plugins - just right click on a search plugin and choose 'Delete'
SEOpen 0.6.1 - Provides some basic tools to help with search engine optimization.
Show Failed URL 0.1.4 - Displays failed URLs in the Location Bar when XUL error pages are enabled.
Show Old Extensions 0.1.7 - Display pre-0.9 extensions in the manager.
SiteAdvisor Firefox Extension 19.0 - A SiteAdvisor Firefox Extension for safe searching
Slim Extension List 0.3.1 - Makes items in extension list shorter, so you can see more at once. Also, sorts them by name.
SmoothWheel 0.44.7.20050605 - Scrolls the document smoothly when scrolling the mouse wheel
SpellBound 0.7.3 - Adds spell checker support to web forms and extensions.
Stop-or-Reload Button 0.2 - Turns the stop and reload buttons into a single one. When you can stop, you have a Stop button, otherwise you have a Reload button. (Like in Safari)
SwiftTabs 0.3.2.4 - You can move to the next tab or the previous tab and close the current tab with a key.
TabSwitcher 1.1 - TabSwitcher allows you to switch between tabs with customized shortcuts. Defaults are Ctrl+Left/Right.
Translate 0.6.0.8 - Translate web pages and/or selected text to different languages
Tweak Network 1.1 - Tweak network settings.
WellRounded 0.43 - Provides rounded URL and search bars.
Whois Lookup 0.1 - Displays whois data for the current url in a new tab


ERIC

11 April 2006

03 February 2006

Scientists Mess with the Speed of Light

Scientists have recently succeeded in doing all sorts of fancy things with light, including slowing it down and even stopping it all together.


Read the full story by Ker Than at LiveScience.com

15 January 2006

What Are Aerosols?

"Aerosols tend to cause cooling of the Earth's surface by reflecting the Sun's light back into space"

Read the full article by Mary Hardin and Ralph Kahn at Earth Observatory's Library.

Plants revealed as methane source

"Scientists in Germany have discovered that ordinary plants produce significant amounts of methane, a powerful greenhouse gas which helps trap the sun's energy in the atmosphere."

Read the full story by Tim Hirsch at: BBC NEWS

10 January 2006

The Bureaucrat in Your Shower by Jeffrey Tucker

The Department of Energy may soon be paying a visit to a certain shower-head manufacturer in Arizona. The company is Zoe Industries Manufacturing. It runs Showerbuddy.com, a popular site that sells amazing equipment for bathrooms.

Consumers love the company but one man doesn't."

Read the full story by Jeffrey Tucker at Mises Institute