Robby Pedrica's Tech Blog

Author: Robby Pedrica

  • IE fix

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    Robby Pedrica
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    Microsoft yesterday release updates for a no. of zero-day vulnerabilities in Internet Explorer versions excluding IE8Beta2 – this one is still forthcoming. Considering this is only the 2nd out of sequence update in 18 months, you’ll have some idea of how serious it is. Please make sure you have auto updates switched on and have…

  • The Slackware 12.2 interview

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    Slackware, in my mind, has never been a Linux distribution for novices who aren’t interested in learning about the whole Linux ecosystem. Note that’s not a criticism, just a comment. And in that comment lies the issue with a lot of the Slackware articles that have appeared over the years. Many of them appear to…

  • More on the IE exploit

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    Microsoft says Internet Explorer 5.01, 6 and 8 (beta) are also potentially susceptible to the zero-day exploit, published recently. Until now it had been assumed that only Internet Explorer 7 contained the vulnerability. Microsoft recommends that Data Execution Prevention (DEP) and memory protection be enabled in Internet Explorer 7 (Tools/Internet Options/Advanced/Enable memory protection…), but this…

  • MS SQL vuln and Microsoft patch madness

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    Yet another zero-day vulnerability has been found in a Microsoft product, the 3rd this week. The MS SQL issue relates to a remote code execution bug in a stored procedure. All you can do is a. make sure there is no external access to your SQL servers using authentication or b. take them offline –…

  • FSF files suit against Cisco

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    The Free Software Foundation has filed a law suit against Cisco for alleged breaches of copyright in, specifically, many Linksys products ( WRT-series comes to mind as having OSS software ).  Apparently the 2 have been in discussions since 2003 but it appears that Cisco have gone into dormant mode as there are still apparently…

  • Formula 1

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    The most interesting news to come out of the F1 paddock for years is the departure of Honda from Formula 1. To say this puts a damper on things is putting it mildly and it’s possible there could be more departures.  This leaves Barrichelo and Button without drives for next season if a buyer for…

  • VMWare and virtualisation

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    It seems to me that there is still a large amount of confusion concerning virtualisation in general and VMware specifically. The problem stems from the fact that most users of virtualisation don’t understand the real benefits ( and pitfalls ) of this interesting technology – I’ll attempt to provide some insight here. Benefits Make better…

  • Balistic Bayliss goes out in style

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    Troy Bayliss took both heats of yesterday’s end of year meeting to cap a great career in bike racing. Leading from the front in both heats, no one came close to his pace except for Haga who retired with a mech gremlin in the first race and jump started the second. You could see the…

  • MotoGP Malaysia

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    Robby Pedrica
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    125cc saw Talmasci take his first win of the season and Simoncelli clinched the 250CC World Championship with one more round to go. The heat played a prominent role as the air temp was around 38 deg C for both these races and Simoncelli looked completely done in at the end of the race. In…

  • OOXML Documentation available online now

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    at the Boycott Novell forum and that’s causing a bit of an uproar in the ISO community. Even though their own processes indicate the docs were supposed to be made publicly available 30 days after the standard was sealed. It’s now a couple of months after the fact and we’re all still waiting so why…

  • WSBK 2008 – Troy Bayliss 3 times a champion

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    Robby Pedrica
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    Haga unusually rode a very good SuperPole to be no. 1 on the grid for the 1st race and went on to win – that’s 3 on the trot now. But the big story of race 1 was Troy Bayliss’ clinching of the 2008 championship with a 3rd place in that race, and that on…

  • Flash webcam hijacker!

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    Robby Pedrica
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    The security issues just keep on rolling in – the latest is a flash vulnerability that allows an attacker to gain control of webcams and microphones. Rated ‘critical’ by Adobe, the bug affects all browsers using the flash plugin or player – a patch isn’t yet available although there is a workaround of some kind.…

  • MotoGP Aussie-style

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    Casey Stoner put the last 2 rounds behind him and took the Aussie race by the horns – after starting from pole, he lead all the way to the chequered flag. Rossi has a bad fall in qualifying leading to whiplash and a 12th place on the starting grid, but he didn’t let that get…

  • ISO issues generate more discent

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    13 members of the Norwegian standards body, Standards Norway, have left the organisation citing  issues relating to the OOXML standards process debacle. Reasons are as follows: * The administration of Standard Norway trust 37 identical letters from Microsoft partners more than their own technical committee. * The process within Standard Norway has been unpredictable and…

  • MotoGP and WSBK

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    Rossi’s win at Motegi has won him the 2008 MGP title, his 6th in 8 years. This is probably his best having been out of it for the last 2 years. Stoner, being first out of the blocks, tried his best to stay at the front of the pack but Rossi came past 3/4 way…