Practical Technology

for practical people.

June 3, 2010
by sjvn01
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Linux Evolves: Tablets, Smartphones, and TVs

Linux rules supercomputers. It’s vitally important to servers. And, Linux is making gains on the desktop. Where Linux is really going to shine in the next twelve months though is in devices: tablets, smartphones, and TVs.

For example, more than a dozen Apple iPad-like tablets made their first appearance at the Computex computer show in Taipei, Taiwan. The vast majority of these devices run Android Linux or other embedded Linuxes such as the latest MeeGo embedded Linux.

I have every expectation that Apple’s iPad is going to stay on top. It’s a great design, and, except for its failure to support Flash thanks to Apple’s fight with Adobe, it works well. But, iPads are expensive and they don’t support Flash. That gives the coming flood of low-priced Linux-powered tablets more than enough room to win in the market.

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June 2, 2010
by sjvn01
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Making the latest Facebook Safe

May 31st was supposed to be Quit Facebook Day. With only 0.005 percent of Facebook’s 500 million users electing to quit, I think we can safely call it a flop.

It’s not that people aren’t ticked off at Facebook; it’s just that they’re not mad enough to actually walk away from it. In part, that may be because there really isn’t a new alternative social network for people to move to. I also think, it’s in part, because people never take security seriously until it blows up in their faces.

After all, if you can’t talk your company into updating from XP SP2 to the far safer SP3, why should Joe and Joanie Facebook be any different?

Still, while Facebook still hasn’t done the one simple thing that’s needed to make Facebook far more private and secure than it is now-lock down your sharing options from the start-they have made it easier to protect your privacy.

To get at the new privacy controls now, click your way over to Facebook’s Privacy Tab. Your first stop here is Basic Directory Information.

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June 1, 2010
by sjvn01
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‘Good-Bye Windows, Hello Linux, Mac’ says Google

As everyone knows by now who follows technology news, the Financial Times reported that Google “is phasing out the internal use of Microsoft’s ubiquitous Windows operating system because of security concerns.” Some doubt this story, because they say that’s its vague about sources. Well, I asked, and the story is ‘mostly’ right. Google is switching away from Windows to Linux and Macs, but it’s not just because security.

I e-mailed Google and, according to a Google official, while “We’re always working to improve the efficiency of our business, but we don’t comment on specific operational matters.” That’s not much of a statement, but did you notice the key word there? It’s ‘efficiency.’

I then got on the phone, IM and e-mail with my friends at Google and they told me off-the-record pretty much what the Google employees told the Financial Times that “Many people have been moved away from [Windows] PCs, mostly towards Mac OS, following the China hacking attacks.” But, following that efficiency word around, I was also told that Linux was far cheaper than Windows and that many Google users preferred it, in any case, to Windows. While many others found Macs to just be more useful than Windows PCs.

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June 1, 2010
by sjvn01
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RIP PC

On May 26, Apple’s market capitalization stood at $223 billion. That took it, for the first time, higher than Microsoft, which had a market cap of $219.3 billion. Apple, not Microsoft, not Google, was at the top of the technology business mountain. And that marked the end of an era: The PC is no longer the center of the computing universe.

The PC: August 12, 1981 — May 26, 2010. RIP.

The powerhouse of the computing revolution was born when IBM released the first IBM PC in August 1981. It died when Apple took the market lead from Microsoft.

Yes, of course, there were PCs before the IBM PC. I used Zilog Z-80-based microcomputers running CP/M back in the late ’70s. But it was the IBM PC that moved PCs from things that only computer fans would use to essential parts of most business offices.

And there will still be PCs years from now. You might scoff at my proclamation about the PC’s demise, but the fact that Windows-based PCs still outsell Macs by a ratio of about 24 to 1 — PC sales of 65 million vs. 3.1 million Macs in the latest quarter — is really quite irrelevant. This isn’t a matter of Macs finally outselling Windows or Linux-based PCs. That’s never going to happen.

What has happened, though, is that Apple has earned its billions and the respect of stock-buyers by switching its focus from desktop and laptops to tablets and mobile devices.

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June 1, 2010
by sjvn01
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Big botnets and how to stop them

There are hundreds of botnets, ad hoc networks of Windows PCs that are infected with one or more programs to let them do the bidding of their controllers, some are far more trouble than others. While you can’t afford to ignore any botnet threat, here are some of the worst of the worst.

“When it comes to Botnets, size does matter,” said Scott Emo, head of endpoint solutions at Check Point, a network security company. That’s because “the larger the botnet network, the more “robot soldiers” the botnet operator has to do damage.”

You shouldn’t get too wrapped up though in who’s the baddest of the bad. Richard Wang, the manager for anti-virus company SophosLabs US commented that, Sophos “tracks botnet activity based on spam that we see, sites that malware calls back to for updates and instructions, and known malware repositories. However, we do not track individual botnets as such.”

Wang continued, “Take for example the Zeus (aka Zbot) botnets. While many report that Zeus is a significant threat, they fail to explain that it is not a single botnet. Instead it is a toolkit allowing individual criminals to set up similar but separate botnets of their own. Concern about the top 5 botnets is like worrying only about crime caused by the FBI’s most wanted. While they are undoubtedly serious, the chances are that if you are attacked it will be by some much smaller fry.”

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June 1, 2010
by sjvn01
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The botnet business

Look around you. If you’re in an office or coffee shop where people are using Windows, chances are someone’s PC is now, or recently has been, part of a botnet.

How does it feel to be part of organized crime? What? You think organized crime is something that happens on the U.S./Mexican border or in television series like The Sopranos? Nonsense. It could be happening right now on your computer with a botnet and you might never be the wiser.

Think you’ve got good security? Well, maybe you do. But can you say the same for your colleagues and friends? Probably not. According to RSA, EMC’s Security Division, even at Fortune 500 companies 88% of them had systems that had been accessed by infected machines and 60 percent of them had experienced stolen email account information.

And who runs those botnets, these collection of Windows PCs linked together for nefarious purposes? Some teen-aged geek with no social life and a high-speed Internet connection? That is such a 1990s view. No, today, as Matt Watchinski, the senior director of the Vulnerability Research Team for network security provider Sourcefire, said, “Cybercrime is a big business and anyone interested in making money illegally can run them, no matter what your skill level is.”

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