Archive for the “Latest News” CategoryAnyone who has had to administer a network of users, hardware, and software knows the headache it can become. If your infrastructure, and the administration of that infrastructure, isn’t set up well, you can be in for a nightmare. Well, I came across SpiceWorks network management tool probably six months ago and have […] Popularity: 3% [?]
It’s 3AM and your child is screaming like a rabid hyena. It’s awful to see your child in that type of condition. And what’s even worse is trying to take their temperature. My kids would scream bloody murder if I even tried to put a thermometer in their mouth, let alone in the errr, other place. Exergen has a nice thermometer that allows you to
Popularity: 3% [?]
Popularity: 4% [?] One of the biggest complaints of the iPhone is that you’re locked into the AT&T network. Well, that’s behind the original cost, the rebate, the battery life, and the supplemental iRack. In any case, some resourceful folks figured out how to unlock the iPhone to free the tethers from AT&T. Well, that and AT&T’s massive encyclopedic phone bills. But users decried having to use some sloppy, non-GUI iPhone unlocks. Of course, you knew it was only time before folks made a GUI utility to complete the unlocking - and make it super easy. You just have to launch AnySim from Springboard. Enjoy. Oh, by the way, Apple has a revenue sharing deal with AT&T and Apple doesn’t look too kindly on unlocks. If you want to try another app, try the iUnlock. And look at the iPhone Unlock iUnlock Tutorial. Popularity: 3% [?]
Do you hate fumbling around for keys to get into the house? If you’re bringing in groceries, or carrying kids in tow, it can be a nuisance to find that key. And what about locking the kids in the house - or your kids locking themselves in the house? Wouldn’t it be great to have your key literally “on you” at all times? BioLokR aims to do that by incorporating a biometric fingerprint into the outside deadbolt housing. And it doesn’t look corporate either. The stylish picture above is actually a set by Kwikset - another biometric doorknob supplier. See below for address. Here are the descriptions and specs (for BioLokr): Description:
Specifications:
A company called Kwikset also has a biometric deadbolt series, which is pictured above. The unit can store up to 50 fingerprint signatures. It takes a sub dermal reading, so cuts will not affect its ability to read the fingerprint. The unit also stores the fingerprint signatures in non-volatile flash memory. So, you don’t have to re-input fingerprints if the batteries run out. Cost is the hindering factor, with most units in the $250 range. Sponsored By: Cheap Laptops UK Buy cheap laptops, PDAs and notebook computers from ACER, Sony, HP in the UK Popularity: 3% [?]
Okie dokie, let’s get to the stuff. Mac has a nice little utility called Proximity. Proximity “monitors the proximity of your mobile phone or other bluetooth device and executes custom AppleScripts when the device goes out of range or comes into range of your computer.” Well, that sounds like it could do exactly what we’re looking for. Now, all we need is the help of a scripting guru. Step in Jesse David Hollington of the Technocrat to give us a hand for the Mac Bluetooth Proximity Detect. Jesse set out to have Proximity do the following tasks: When the Bluetooth Device enters range:
When the Bluetooth Device leaves range:
Great work Jesse! Nicholas Barwig has put together a very nice Windows Proximity equivalent. Nicholas says, “This application can use any bluetooth device to lock and unlock you’re windows computer(s) based on the proximity of the device. If the device is within range, your desktop will unlock. Once out of range it becomes secured without any interaction from you!” And here we have the linux Proximity equivalent. “Here’s the idea: I have a bluetooth phone. When I walk away from my computer, I want the screen to lock. When I come back, I want the screen to unlock. Sound simple? Well, it is! First, you need to get bluetooth working and you need to be able to connect to your phone.” And, just for kicks and giggles, Nerd Vittles gives us a very cool Asterisk PBX iPhone system Proximity Detection Perfection, that gives you the ability to “stroll out of your home or office and have your telephone calls follow you on your cellphone automatically… without touching anything. And, when you return, the home or office phones start ringing again just as if you never left. Won’t your boss or spouse be thrilled? What makes all of this possible, of course, is Bluetooth which happens to be running on your TrixBox/Asterisk server and on your brand new iPhone.” Popularity: 3% [?] Maybe you have never heard of virtualization. If you haven’t, you will. Okay, maybe that’s an overstatement to the average PC user. If you don’t hear about it, you will probably end up using a virtualized computer or server. You may not know it’s virtualized, but you will most likely end up using one. Virtualization can be difficult to understand at first. Let’s try to explain it a bit. Let’s take a typical server. When I say server here I am referring to server hardware and server software running on it. In the traditional scenario, you have a one to one relationshi between hardware and software. For example, you buy some nice Xeon processor server hardware and you put, oh, let’s say, Windows 2003 server on it. You have to monkey around with drivers and hardware compatibility, etc. Now, let’s say that you wanted to virtualize. With virtualization, you could run multiple virtual servers on that one physical server hardware. They would all run in their own virtualized space through a virtualization layer. This allows you to do some pretty amazing things. Now you can administer virtualized servers like you would other objects. You can drag and drop them. You can move them to different physical servers with different hardware without ill affects. In any case, that’s a non-technical view, but a pretty good starting point. Most people got to VMWare, as they are the defacto leader in virtualization. At least, that’s the word on the street. I’ve worked with the software and it’s pretty nice. But there are also some open source linux options out there and I wanted to highlight a few. Open VZ is “an Operating System-level server virtualization solution, built on Linux. OpenVZ creates isolated, secure virtual environments — VEs (otherwise known as virtual private servers, or VPSs) on a single physical server enabling better server utilization and ensuring that applications do not conflict. Each VE performs and executes exactly like a stand-alone server; VEs can be rebooted independently and have root access, users, IP addresses, memory, processes, files, applications, system libraries and configuration files.” This software is brought to you by SWSoft - the makers of Plesk control panel and Virtuozzo. Another such project is VirtualBox. VirtualBox ” is a family of powerful x86 virtualization products for enterprise as well as home use. Not only is VirtualBox an extremely feature rich, high performance product for enterprise customers, it is also the only professional solution that is freely available as Open Source Software under the terms of the GNU General Public License (GPL)… Presently, VirtualBox runs on Windows, Linux and Macintosh hosts and supports a large number of guest operating systems including but not limited to Windows (NT 4.0, 2000, XP, Server 2003, Vista), DOS/Windows 3.x, Linux (2.4 and 2.6), and OpenBSD.” And Convirt is a project that was “concieved with the goal of tackling the administrative and infrastructure management challenges that adoption of virtualization platforms presents to the traditional datacenter. The XenMan administrative console is project ConVirt’s first release. XenMan is an intuitive, graphical management tool aimed at operational lifecycle management for the Xen virtualization platform. XenMan is built on the firm design philosophy that ease-of-use and sophistication can, and should, co-exist in a single management tool. So, XenMan should hopefully prove valuable to both seasoned Xen Administrators as well as those just seeking an introduction to Xen Virtualization” I’m sure there are others - pipe in if you know of a good one. **Update KVM is the Kernel Virtual Machine open source initiative from and Israeli based startup called Qumranet. KVM is “a full virtualization solution for Linux on x86 hardware containing virtualization extensions (Intel VT or AMD-V). It consists of a loadable kernel module, kvm.ko, that provides the core virtualization infrastructure and a processor specific module, kvm-intel.ko or kvm-amd.ko. KVM also requires a modified QEMU although work is underway to get the required changes upstream. Using KVM, one can run multiple virtual machines running unmodified Linux or Windows images. Each virtual machine has private virtualized hardware: a network card, disk, graphics adapter, etc. The kernel component of KVM is included in mainline Linux, as of 2.6.20.” Popularity: 3% [?]
Core Security Technologies had this to say about what the exploit involves:
The vulnerable versions include:
AOL had this to say about the issue: AOL has become aware of security vulnerabilities in several AIM instant messaging clients. Successful exploitation of these vulnerabilities could allow an attacker to execute arbitrary commands on a user’s workstation. AOL has deployed host side filtering on the AIM servers to block this potentially malicious content from being sent to AIM clients. Solutions Other workarounds (un-official) To enable Local Machine Zone Lockdown for your AIM client, go to the following registry key: Add a REG_DWORD value to this key named as the AIM client application (for example, aim.exe) and set it to 1. Any other setting for this value will disable Local Machine Zone Lockdown for the application. For further details about how to configure this feature read Microsoft’s Internet Explorer Local Machine Zone Lockdown recommendation at http://technet.microsoft.com/en-us/library/bb457150.aspx#EHAA Source: Core Security Technologies Popularity: 3% [?]
MagicJack is a new startup that is taking aim at the likes of Vonage and Skype. MagicJack is a true plug and play USB device that allows you to make free calls to the US and Canada. Reading users’ reviews you would think it is the best thing since sliced bread. And they may be right. The fact that you can simply plug the device into your computer and be up and running with a few minutes is a really nice feature. And what about that price? $39 for the first year and $20 for the second. Woot. Of course, there are lots of questions for users who covet every feature. First, MagicJack is adding area codes as I write this. But they are adding ones all the time, so if yours isn’t listed yet, it probably will be soon. Next, call quality seems to be very good. Many people are reporting excellent quality and in areas that they VOIP typically suffers. If you are an overseas business traveler, you will love this thing. You can call back home anywhere you get internet. Save some dough man. But, you can’t use your current number - yet. That feature may come soon. But, coupled with Google’s Grand Central, you can do what you want. You also get free voice mail, call waiting, and 3 way calling. They also tout a follow-me service but I haven’t seen anything on it. Maybe it’s under development. I may have to get one to try it. Let us know if you are using it. Popularity: 3% [?]
Client account information such as “UserIDs, personal identification numbers and passwords” were not breached. They were stored in a different database. However, “email addresses, names, addresses and phone numbers” were stolen and are being used maliciously. Now, having said that, TD Ameritrade spokespeople also said, “more sensitive information like account numbers, date of birth and Social Security Numbers is stored in this database, there is no evidence that it was taken.” That is obviously disconcerting. But I was also delighted to read that upon seeing that information, TD Ameritrade hired an outside ID Theft specialty firm called ID Analytics. After a thorough investigation, ID Analytics issued this statement:
TD Ameritrade is retain ID Analytics to provide ongoing monitoring of client accounts. However, TD Ameritrade did not release information as to how client data was stolen in the first place. All we get is that someone had placed “unauthorized code” into their system. So, it could have been an inside job or the result of some security hole. In any case, it seems that TD Ameritrade has taken the right steps here. As far as we can tell so far, they have informed clients, identified the breach, brought in the right help, and remediated the problem. If that’s the case, I tip my hat to them. Many other companies do very poorly in this situation. Popularity: 3% [?] |
|
Powered by WordPress, Mandigo theme by tom.
Entries (RSS)
and Comments (RSS).
