Monday, April 04, 2005
It's official!
I have moved my site to greg.nokes.name, and Wordpress. So, please update your blogrolls and link lists to reflect this coolness!
Friday, April 01, 2005
Why I dislike Microsoft Products part 72
From Eweek
This is part for the course - we expect there to be serious security flaws in Microsoft products.
March 16th? That's 16 days ago? Must be a biggie!
They are investigating? What? 16 days and no patch?
Microsoft is in serious trouble. To properly secure their OS, they need to re-write it from the ground up. But they cannot take the time to do that, as there are other OS's breathing down their neck. If they took a year off, and rewrote windows they would be two years behind (they are already at least a year behind Apple and the FOSS community). So they are stuck - keep developing Longhorn - keep slashing features from it and trying to shore up the issues that they already see coming, or drop it, and re-write the whole shebang. They have already basically lost the war in the web server market - Apache rules there with an iron fist. They are taking heat on the browser side, with Firefox and Opera starting to make serious inroads. Open Office is sniffing around at their flanks. Things are starting to look grim for the Faithful in Redmond.
But, perhaps this is not as it looks at first. Taking into account that Bill said he was going to give his money away, perhaps this is just a plot. If Microsoft were to fail, he could walk away with a hefty sum of money and claim that he kept his word!
Conspiracy theory's aside, the technical challenges faced by Microsoft are immense. The choices that they are faced with are really tough - keep the old, or develop the new? My guess is that they stay the course.
A pair of newly discovered security flaws in Microsoft's Internet Explorer and Outlook programs could put millions of users at risk of code execution attacks, a private research outfit warned Thursday.
This is part for the course - we expect there to be serious security flaws in Microsoft products.
Marc Maiffret, chief hacking officer at eEye, said the flaws were rated "high-severity" because malicious hackers could run a successful exploit from anywhere on the Internet.
"These are client-side vulnerabilities that could allow attacks via a Web browser or the Outlook client. The risk of a zero-day attack is quite high," Maiffret said in an interview with eWEEK.com.
He said Microsoft was alerted to the first vulnerability March 16.
March 16th? That's 16 days ago? Must be a biggie!
A spokeswoman for the software giant confirmed that engineers at the Microsoft Security Research Center were investigating the eEye discoveries.
"At this time, Microsoft is not aware of any malicious attacks attempting to exploit the reported vulnerabilities, and there is no customer impact based on this issue," she said.
Once the investigation is done, she said Microsoft would "take the appropriate action" to protect affected users.
They are investigating? What? 16 days and no patch?
Microsoft is in serious trouble. To properly secure their OS, they need to re-write it from the ground up. But they cannot take the time to do that, as there are other OS's breathing down their neck. If they took a year off, and rewrote windows they would be two years behind (they are already at least a year behind Apple and the FOSS community). So they are stuck - keep developing Longhorn - keep slashing features from it and trying to shore up the issues that they already see coming, or drop it, and re-write the whole shebang. They have already basically lost the war in the web server market - Apache rules there with an iron fist. They are taking heat on the browser side, with Firefox and Opera starting to make serious inroads. Open Office is sniffing around at their flanks. Things are starting to look grim for the Faithful in Redmond.
But, perhaps this is not as it looks at first. Taking into account that Bill said he was going to give his money away, perhaps this is just a plot. If Microsoft were to fail, he could walk away with a hefty sum of money and claim that he kept his word!
Conspiracy theory's aside, the technical challenges faced by Microsoft are immense. The choices that they are faced with are really tough - keep the old, or develop the new? My guess is that they stay the course.
Thursday, March 31, 2005
For those that are intrested
I am working on a new blogsite. I will be cross-posting between the sites for a while to see if I like the new stuff better then the old stuff.
Geeeorge!
The cat is pissed. It seems that he was checking out my blog, and found several pictures of the idiot dog, but none of his most highness.
Soooo.
Soooo.
I rock
New domain name for this blog - greg.nokes.name! Cool - hu? If I ever decide to roll my own blogsite (which I am close to right now) that URL will stay the 'offical' one.
Good Flash Movie
Check This out...
It's simple lessons like this that we need to learn. Often when I am wrapped up in my life and my problems, I am like Leo - not wanting to help, not thinking before acting. By training myself to be mindful, I can learn to float above the feelings that are generated in daily life. I still experience them, I still feel them, but they no longer dictate my actions. I am not ruled by my gut, but rather by my reason. I react not out of momentary passion, but out of thoughtfulness.
-Tsyko
It's simple lessons like this that we need to learn. Often when I am wrapped up in my life and my problems, I am like Leo - not wanting to help, not thinking before acting. By training myself to be mindful, I can learn to float above the feelings that are generated in daily life. I still experience them, I still feel them, but they no longer dictate my actions. I am not ruled by my gut, but rather by my reason. I react not out of momentary passion, but out of thoughtfulness.
-Tsyko
Spamroll?
Is that like a hamroll?
No - silly - it's a blog dedicated to news about Spam, Spyware and other nastys that infect those poor sods that run Microsoft Products.
(grin)
No - silly - it's a blog dedicated to news about Spam, Spyware and other nastys that infect those poor sods that run Microsoft Products.
(grin)
Go Go Gadget-Tax!
In an very good peice on Taxes, George F. Will says
This is something that I have been railing about for years now. I think this is a great idea! The more money you put into consumer's hands, the more they are going to spend. Or, more importantly, save. A stronger savings will allow more Venture Capital to fund more of what the US is so good at - ideas.
Hat Tip Dave
The power to tax involves, as Chief Justice John Marshall said, the power to destroy. So does the power of tax reform, which is one reason why Rep. John Linder, a Georgia Republican, has a 133-page bill to replace 55,000 pages of tax rules.
His bill would abolish the IRS and the many billions of tax forms it sends out and receives. He would erase the federal income tax system -- personal and corporate income taxes, the regressive payroll tax and self-employment tax, capital gains, gift and estate taxes, the alternative minimum tax and the earned income tax credit -- and replace all that with a 23 percent national sales tax on personal consumption...
..Today the percentage of taxpayers who rely on professional tax preparers is at an all-time high. The 67 percent of tax filers who do not itemize may think they avoid compliance costs, which include nagging uncertainty about whether one has properly complied with a tax code about the meaning of which experts differ. But everyone pays the cost of the tax system's vast drag on the economy.
Linder says Americans spend 7 billion hours a year filling out IRS forms and at least that much calculating the tax implications of business decisions. Economic growth suffers because corporate boards waste huge amounts of time on such calculations rather than making economically rational allocations of resources...
...Corporations do not pay payroll and income taxes and compliance costs, they collect them from consumers through prices. So the 23 percent consumption tax would allow taxpayers to stop paying the huge embedded cost of corporate taxation.
Linder says the director of the Congressional Budget Office told him it costs individuals and businesses about $500 billion to remit $2 trillion to Washington. And studies show that it costs the average small business $724 to collect and remit $100...
...Furthermore, by ending payroll and corporate taxes, America would become the only nation selling goods with no tax component -- such as Europe's value added tax -- in their prices. With no taxes on capital and labor, multinationals would, Linder thinks, stampede to locate here, which would be an incentive for other nations to emulate America. "This," Linder says, "would unleash freedom around the globe."
Critics argue that ending the income tax, with its deductibility of charitable contributions, would depress giving. Piffle, Linder says. In 1980, when the top personal income tax rate was 70 percent, a huge incentive for giving, individual charitable contributions were $40.7 billion. In 1986 the top rate was reduced to 28 percent and by 1988 charitable giving was $86.7 billion. The lesson, says Linder, is that we give more money when we have more money.
This is something that I have been railing about for years now. I think this is a great idea! The more money you put into consumer's hands, the more they are going to spend. Or, more importantly, save. A stronger savings will allow more Venture Capital to fund more of what the US is so good at - ideas.
Hat Tip Dave
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