Category: NewsFeed

Posted on

Mozilla, Inc.

So the Mozilla Foundation passes control of development over to a for-profit subsidiary, citing financial and tax reasons. Sounds a bit odd. I work for a non-profit and we would never turn development over to a for-profit, at least not directly. We would setup a for-profit subsidiary and license it the code to exploit commercially outside of the range of our non-profit charter. I’m thinking these boys either got bad advice or they aren’t explaining it very well. Either way, we’ll certainly be hearing more about this.

InformationWeek > Open Source, Mozilla > Mozilla Creates For-Profit Unit, But Insists It’s Not ‘Selling Out’ > August 3, 2005
“The Mozilla Foundation on Wednesday launched a for-profit subsidiary that will take over the development of the popular Firefox web browser and Thunderbird email client, but assured its supporters in the open-source development community that it wasn’t “selling out.”“

Posted on

Compromise Windows With USB Device

Of interest to teknoids, especially with more and more schools handing out USB keys like candy.

USB Devices Can Crack Windows
“Vulnerabilities in USB drivers for Windows could allow an attacker to take control of locked workstations using a specially programmed Universal Serial Bus device, according to an executive from SPI Dynamics, which discovered the security hole.“

Posted on

Yahoo! Snaps Up Konfabulator

Good move for Yahoo! as it gives them direct access to the desktop on windows and Mac platforms. Expect a lot of little Yahoo!Widgets in the near future.

Macworld: News: Yahoo! acquires Konfabulator
“Yahoo! Inc. on Monday will announce the acquisition of Konfabulator, a Macintosh and Windows application that allows users to run mini files known as Widgets on their desktop — the same model used by Apple for its Dashboard application. Yahoo! company executives said they would also be giving Konfabulator away for free, completely doing away with the US$19.95 currently charged for the product.“

Posted on

Longhorn Becomes Windows Vista

Slashdot | Longhorn’s Offical Name is Windows Vista
“The folks at Redmond have long pointed to the user interface of the next generation Windows release as one of its major selling points. Now, it appears Microsoft has chosen an official name for Longhorn with just that in mind. Enter: Windows Vista. Microsoft is expected to make an official announcement early Friday morning.” From the article: “Microsoft has also registered domains to go along with the newly christened Windows, including windowsvista.com. The domains were registered in late March, indicating the company made the decision even before WinHEC gave developers their first taste of Longhorn in over a year.“

Posted on

RSS Is Bigger Than Blogs

The Future of RSS is Not in Blogs
“Even now, businesses that were initially reluctantly evaluating RSS are beginning to realize the power and benefit of the RSS information avenue. The inherent capacity for consumers to select the content they wish to receive will be the driving mechanism for keeping advertisements to a minimum and content quality consistent. “

This is quite true. It has been apparent to me for quite some time that RSS goes way beyond simply delivering news headlines. Podcasting is certainly evidenc of that, as is the recent Longhorn RSS lovefest from MSFT. The power of RSS lies in its simplicity. It is a simple XML spec that allows the easy and fast dissemination of information. Really Simple, Sure.

Posted on

Running MS Exchange 5.5 Inside a Linux VM

Resuscitating Microsoft Exchange 5.5 with Linux – OSNews.com
“What we will be doing is running NT4/Exchange inside the Linux OS via a virtual machine, VMWare is the vm recommend for its ease of use and stability. We will use a more secure MTA, such as Postfix and we will receive mail via an Imap server, such as Cyrus. Exchange 5.5 will not connect to the Internet at all, and all mail will be filtered through the more secure systems before Exchange has to deal with it. We can even have Exchange 5.5 forgo all mail handling, and only perform address book and calendar sharing.“

Article provides a quick, non-detailed howto on getting Exchange 5.5 running on VMWare using Linux as the host OS. This provides a good way to secure Exchange from the outside world and is less disruptive to end users. It is interesting to note that VMWare can be used to run virtually any MSFT apps on a Linux host in a more secure environment.