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Archive for September, 2006

A Microsoft sponsored study by 3Sharp has found that the IE7 Anti-Phishing toolbar is the best blocker of all those nasty phishing sites you keep hearing about, well 100 of them anyway. You can read the full story below.

MS Anti-phishing tool wins MS Bakeoff

Multiple news tabs open in one Internet Explorer 7 browser window

The Microsoft Internet Explorer Weblog

Is just 100 sites a sufficient test of any piece of software in a time where 100+ variants of malware appear each day, including these badly behaved sites? I dont think so. I wonder how much Bill and Co shelled out for the self publicity.

Apparently they also found that Site Advisor from McAfee also kinda sucks, and here was I pondering giving it a go! McAfee claim the result is unfair as they dont claim it covers anti-phishing. I say if not why not folks! I guess it’s just given away as a teaser for the full security suite, ya know anti-virus, anti-spyware, the works. I wonder how that would perform in the same study,mmmm !

Come on McAfee, you can do better than those dismal results and give a little more. Oh and talk to the Spyware Doctor folks about how they pull off their scanning at such speeds, your engine sucks IMHO.

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There was a time when some of us involved in working as Level 2 Product Specialists for the Aptiva PC support desk (Colin, Claude, Ciaran, Ger, Ian, anyone out there, anyone?)got a telling off if we so much as read the Unofficial Aptiva Forum or the pages it spawned at the time. Now IBM is embracing the blog for everything it is and actually actively encouraging employees to blog their merry little hearts out , aint that sweet!For any ex-employees like myself who may want to catch up, or for the general public looking for some light-hearted expert opinions on everything from architecture to Web 2.0, there’s something for all so have a gander! I recommend checking out Andy Piper’s excellent page “The Lost Outpost”

IBM Bloggers Listing

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Blogged with Flock

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It’s amazing the extent some will go with their comment moderation on their blog. About 10 days ago I posted a thank you on the Flock blog to say well done to all the guys for getting the memory leak that had annoyed so many users fixed and out in a reasonable length of time. Nothing major, just a few lines thanking Mike Dosik and all the team for their hard work on it.  I checked the page and it had appeared ok alongside 1 other.

A couple of days later I signed up on the Flockstar roll call invitation page and filled in the info on my blog post links regarding Flock. Well now, some of these postings were related to testing after my install of the version with the memory leak (0.7.4.1), and although not scathing they were expressing a “keen interest” in getting a build drop with the fix.

Wouldn’t ya know it, those in the newly opened Canadian Flock office (I know this from my counter stats) must have read said postings and decided that they didnt want me as a Flock star and removed my comment from the maintenance release (0.7.5.1) announcement posting. What a bunch of tossers, they actually removed a thank you comment so nobody would see the link back to my blog.

Let’s just leave it at this, I’m gonna test Windows Live Writer cos I’ve been reading good things about it the last couple of days , and since I can post directly to Blogger from it maybe Flock can just Flock off my PC!

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Blogged with Flock

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Of all the places to pick to open his mouth, Bob Gleichauf, CTO of Cisco’s Security Group has chosen a Gartner Security summit to say he is scared of the changes that Windows Vista will bring. What a bunch of scaremongering crap from someone who really should know better.

Vista will bring many innovations to the user desktop like TPM and Bitlocker, the combination of which has the entire security world cringing as it’s arrival in the hands of the everyday user draws near. Mr. Gleichauf has spoken about the level of complexity that new Vista security measures brings, argues that there are 2 sides to the technology and expects to see the mostly bad in problematic early Vista implementations.

“Parts of Vista scare me,” Gleichauf said at the Gartner Security Summit here on Monday. “Anything with that level of systems complexity will have new threats, as well as bringing new solutions.”
Gleichauf told CNET News.com’s sister site ZDNet UK that Cisco views the Microsoft operating system update, set for broad release in January, as a bearer of possible solutions to security problems, but also as a potential trigger of security issues.”Vista will solve a lot of problems. But for every action, there’s a reaction and unforeseen side-effects and mutations. Networks can become more brittle unintentionally,” Gleichauf said.

Wake up Bob !! There’s been a good and bad side to every technology breakthrough you or I could think of for the past 2 centuries, and advances like TPM and BitLocker will probably suffer the same fate sooner rather than later as they are hacked, cracked and generally abused. There’s always that one guy who puts the good tool to bad use. But, rest assured, the truely great will push ever onwards and continue to innovate. There lies the challenge for all in this industry…incubate, make it great, then innovate!

As a major MS partner, this commentary is disappointing coming from a senior Cisco exec who should be passionate about the advances Microsoft have brought to the operating system, and be talking up the possibilities, evangelising every solution that could sit around a more secure MS operating system on Cisco secured networks, the perfect software/hardware partnership.
So quit the scare tactics and attempts to sell more boxes Bob and let’s hear something valuable next time.

Cisco Exec – Windows Vista is Scary!

Microsoft should be very proud of what they’ve achieved in advancing the OS with Vista to date. If nothing else it’s shown real initiative and imagination and a hunger and determination to lead that has been missing for a while.

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Blogged with Flock

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I do! I’ve many fond memories of working at IBM and many a funny story, but none include the spontaneous combustion of laptop batteries causing bomb scares. I wonder what Chris, C.J, Big Mike and all who were Level 2 ThinkPad Product Specialists in my time would make of this story. Wherever you guys are, I hope this brings a smile.

ThinkPad explodes at LAX, ignites Bomb Scare

In a time when you’re not even allowed to say the word “bomb” in anairport (hey, it’s for good reason), it’s got to be like, reallyfreaking embarrassing to have to run up the jetway at full speed,shoving other passengers out of the way as your flaming laptop explodeson the ground.

Are Lithium Ion batteries becoming unsafe? Is it time to find an alternative, or is manufacturing in this area just going downhill? Let me know what you think!

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Blogged with Flock

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