Post Coincides With Internet Explorer 7’s Launch

Alright. The world is ending. I’m tired of giving my blog the silent treatment. And Internet Explorer 7 is expected to be pushed out to all Windows Update and Microsoft Update subscribers tonight.

Can I just say that IE 7 was kind of a bear to deal with when blogging because of the safety features? Oh well. I’ve committed now. I’ll continue to show Lebenzeichen.

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AWW! Crapola. IE 7 doesn’t come with tonight’s smorgasbord. Rather it’s coming later in October. or something.

 

Surf Anonymously With Torpark

I’ve been playing around with Tor and Vidalia for a while now. Tor is a tool for hiding browsing information and Vidalia is the management tool for the “onion skin” routers that one bounces through when using Tor.

The Tor/Vidalia and, now, Torpark, remind me a little bit of TriangleBoy, which was a tool developed in the to anonymously surf the web. TriangleBoy was developed with money from the NSA.

Anyway, Torpark is really cool in that it is less of a hassle than Tor/Vidalia bundle. I will give a more thorough review later, but for now there seems to be a few sites that have picked up on its release.

 

Microsoft Demos XBox 360 HD DVD

Work is done. Time to relax with a cold beer and a movie.

Microsoft demonstrated its new HD DVD player for the XBox 360. They showed off some of the GUI and even gave a price range…somewhere under $500.

 

What’s New in Hacker Publications?

2600‘s summer 2006 edition contains these highlights:

1. An interesting article on account security on T-mobile and Cingular phones;
2. Ways to get downloads from Warner Brothers Records, legally;
3. Facebook hacking;
4. How to get around GPOs on Windows machines;
5. How to bypass the program security (i.e., MCX) in Mac OS X.

 

Wireless Insecurity Effects Macs, Too.

At Black Hat 2006, David Maynor and John Ellch showed off wireless hacking of a MacBook. Windows and Linux also show vulnerabilities, of course, but attacking a Mac was just too tempting, apparently.

There’s a video of the demo on the washingtonpost.com site. And a follow up post.

 

Microsoft Vista Releases Build 5472

Received this two days ago from Microsoft:
“We are pleased to announce that build 5472 of Windows Vista is available for your testing!  This build contains numerous fixes since build 5456 and demonstrates significant progress on customer feedback since Beta 2.  Most notably a new Nvidia driver has fixed many reported issues and recent changes should provide improved Windows Media Center performance.  You should be aware though that this is an interim build and while significant testing is always done, it has not undergone the rigorous testing that Beta 2 did.  We believe that most people will find this build improved but as with any interim you may encounter issues we do not yet know about.  Please move up to this build from any previous build and tell us about any problems you encounter.”

What we ask that you do with this build:

Upgrade Beta 2 – Beta 2 to RC1 will be a supported scenario.  We need your help finding bugs we need to fix that may impact our TAP customers that have deployed Beta 2 and the Preview Program users who may upgrade.  We do not ask, nor do we recommend, that you upgrade any other build besides Vista Beta 2 or Windows XP to this build.”

 

Wow!!! Halo Zero

Ok. I’m a bit of a geek. I admit to having played Halo and Halo II. I’ve not made it all the way through yet, although I intend to get through Halo II this weekend, after a 6 month hiatus.

I just found Halo Zero which is a fan’s game. It’s kind of like Halo meets Pitfall.

It’s a neat concept. For PCs only.

 

Thank God for Europe! Europe Continues To Save IT

Ireland saved Western Civilization and Europe is saving Information Technology. In another move to strengthen development and support for open standards, about two weeks ago a european government, the Belgian, decided to use only open formats for exchanging documents. The OpenDocument Format (def.) has been accepted in draft form by the International Standards Organization.

Microsoft’s alternative proposal to ODF, Open XML, is built into Office 2007 (see overview). Open XML sounds smarter because it suggests the use of those XML technologies that are so flexible. But, do a little digging and you’ll quickly learn that ODF also is XML-based. Those marketers at Microsoft are smart, aren’t they?

Needless to say, Microsoft was rather upset when ODF was accepted as a standard before its own alternative. (see Why ODF won.) And now, the software giant is supporting ODF in the next generation of office.

But, to my point. Do you think I’m kidding about Europe saving IT? Look, the European Union has been willing to address on Microsoft’s anti-competitive actions by requiring them to debundle their Windows Media Player from the operating system. The EU has closely monitored Microsoft’s approach to Internet Explorer and other things as well.

The United States? Nada, except for that highly-publicized monopoly trial during during which Bill Gates sat on the stand and gave his testimony regarding browser bundling in the operating systems. [Ok. There were findings of fact and there was a remedy imposed. But, these were overturned by the DC Court of Appeals. And, then, the Bush Administration decided (9/6/01) tp pursue a lesser penalty.]

Not being able to rein in Mr. Softee, as Microsoft is called on Wall Street due to its ticker symbol (MSFT), or any other software giant, isn’t just the fault of Republicans. The blame falls much more broadly upon the system and those who believe that the free market is always the answer. Why can’t people learn?

Think about the historical battles to break up Standard Oil. Oil was king then, as it is now, and, at its height, John D. Rockefeller’s Standard Oil owned the upstream and the downstream. Unsurprisingly, competition was squeezed, and, often, stamped out. Hard.

Software now is nearly as important as oil. We don’t run transportation on it, but most cars wouldn’t run without software. And there isn’t an industry in the world that isn’t touched by software in some way or another. (Okay, perhaps bartering bat guano hasn’t changed much since the advent of software.)

For the success and even existence of complex software, which requires lengthy and expensive development process, support for the end product has to be present. (Actually, there’s an analog to this situation in the entertainment industry.*) Governments have an interest in keeping documentation in an open format.

And, governments have an interest in fostering competitive marketplaces. Admittedly, governments that are not host to a monopolistic company may be more interested in maintaining competitiveness in that marketplace than the country that is host. But fair competition, and decent money, serve to spark innovation, hard-work, creativity and a Gemeinschaft culture [that has nothing to do with smoking or lack thereof].

In America, there is typically better money to be made for start-up firms than in most european countries. But an open and fair marketplace that allows for that money to be made, is very critical to the success of any company.

Contrary to its oft-stated credo, the United States government hasn’t been exactly the biggest proponent of an open and fair marketplace in software development. (And here’s Ralph Nader saying as much.) And, as a result, other countries, municipalities, and states have had to pick up the slack. For example, look at just the Linux initiatives in the Netherlands, Switzerland, Munich, Finland, Linux in Spain, and Italian Linux Day. And, returning to ODF, Massachussetts has required ODF.  (btw, John Carroll doesn’t think this is a good idea.)

*With Hollywood (and Bollywood?) sucking up all the entertainment air in a country, local talent (e.g., actors, screenwriters, authors, etc.,) can lose the support needed to develop the skills and experience that are required to succeed.

 

Firefox Usage Reaches 20 Percent in Europe

The International Herald Tribune has an article about the popularity of Firefox in Europe. The numbers are encouraging for Firefox supporters.

 

Tackling a Hard Disk Failure

My home computer lost its second drive the other day. Over the past few weeks, the drive had been disappearing intermittently. Occasionally, I could get to get, but more and more upon clicking on the drive, an error message appeared saying the drive was “inaccessible. The parameter is incorrect.” When, the drive stopped appearing as a listed drive under My Computer, I knew my procrastination had run out of rope.
I attached and reattached the cables to the drive, but to no avail. I took the drive out and put it in an enclosure. Nothing.

Next, I put the drive back in the computer and brought up the device manager. I scanned for changes in the Device Manager. The computer slowed down, but, after a while, the Western Digital Caviar 80GB showed up.

Now, when I clicked on the drive, the computer slowed greatly and then the drive appeared as unformatted, although with its partitions intact. (A look at Disk Management confirmed this.)

Essentially, anything I did to access the drive, either through the Windows GUI or the command line, brought the computer to such a slowdown that all the programs were “Not Responding.”

I tried  a program called Test Disk that claims it can restore access to the drive. With Test Disk, I could see some of the data, but I could not copy it.

I then tried the tools on Ultimate Boot CD. And I tried booting with Damn Small Linux in order to access the drive. Neither provided any access.

Then, I got a copy of SpinRite.  SpinRite is a data recovery and drive maintenance program written by Steve Gibson. It essentially goes to the bit level and reads and writes data to the drive in order to take care of errors at the physical level. It has a DOS interface and often times you can watch some of your data going by as the program scans your disk.

I’d like to say SpinRite worked wonders, but it didn’t. On my 80GB dirve, SpinRite ran for about a week. (Yes, a week.) When the program takes this long, or predicts it will take this long, typically, according to experienced users, you are out of luck.

When SpinRite was done, I rebooted my machine and the drive did not show up. Again, I scanned for changes in the Device Manager. When the drive showed up, it behaved similarly to before. I was frustrated and ready to throw in the towel.

But, when I tried to access the drive in the command line, I was able to see the data and copy it over to a fresh drive, using the xcopy command. SpinRite worked thankfully, but I would only recommend it for experienced users.