Preview: Microsoft's Windows Longhorn: "Disclaimer: This is a preview based on a very early release of Microsoft's next-generation operating system. It lacks the modern user interface elements that will be in the final version. Given that the code is far from final and may contain many debug elements, the system's performance will likely improve in subsequent releases. Any statements we make about perceived performance may not apply to the final version, and any feature discussed here may also change before Longhorn's final release in 2006. "

Longhorn is the codename for the next-generation version of Microsoft's flagship Windows operating system. It's also the company's most ambitious project since the first Windows NT release. An impressive array of new technologies will be built into the new OS -- a few of which were included in the pre-release version we checked out.

Due to its ambitious nature, Longhorn has had its release pushed out to sometime in 2006. Because of this, Microsoft has committed to a second service pack release for Windows XP, which may add a few Longhorn elements – particularly in the realm of security.

Some of the key features of Longhorn include:


Improved security -- through it's NGSCB initiative

WinFS, a new file system based around relational database technology (NTFS will still be available)

New user interface technologies based on DirectX rather than the aging GDI interface. Every window in the release version will be a 32-bit, z-buffered, 3D surface.

A new presentation and UI design subsystem, codenamed "Avalon," based around XAML (Extensible Application Markup Language).

A new communications architecture, codenamed "Indigo," that's an enhanced and integrated version of Microsoft's .NET framework.

http://www.extremetech.com/print_article/0,3998,a=111043,00.asp

Panther Patches Mac OS X Security Holes: "Security researchers have identified three new vulnerabilities in Apple Computer Inc.'s Mac OS X, one of which may allow attackers to execute some arbitrary commands as a root user under some circumstances. "

The flaws affect all versions of the operating system through 10.2 and are fixed in release 10.3, also known as Panther, according to Apple.

The first vulnerability is a buffer overrun that allows an attacker to crash the OS X kernel simply by entering a command line argument of a specific length. Once the attack is executed, the machine crashes immediately, without generating any log files or error messages, according to an advisory on the issue released Tuesday by @stake Inc., based in Cambridge, Mass., which discovered both weaknesses. The crashed machine will reboot eventually.…

However, an attacker can also use this vulnerability to get the machine to return small amounts of its memory to him. Researchers at @stake said it appears the only thing being returned to the attacker is memory addresses, which aren't normally considered to be sensitive information.

Although they were unable to use this flaw to run code on vulnerable machines, the @stake researchers said that it may be possible, given that the weakness lies in the OS X kernel itself.

The second new problem involves the way that the OS handles core files, which are a snapshot of the system's state when a machine crashes. When core files are enabled in OS X, processes owned by root will write a core file to the /cores directory. These files are owned by the root process, which would have read-only access to them. The attacker can also read the contents of the core files created by the root process.

But, because the directory is writable and the names of the files in it are predictable, an attacker could create symbolic links to these files and point them to files elsewhere on the system. In this way, he could essentially overwrite any of the core files. To do this, the attacker would need interactive shell access to the machine, @stake said.…

The third vulnerability involves the fact that OS X allows many applications to be installed with insecure file permissions. This can result in many of the files and directories in these applications being globally writable, @stake said.

Although Apple has provided fixes for these flaws in Panther, the latest version of OS X, it has declined to create any patches for users who plan to stick with earlier versions. Panther has only been available since Oct. 24 and costs $129 for a single-user upgrade. The lack of a fix for existing, still-supported versions of OS X has been a topic of much conversation on security mailing lists this week.…

http://www.eweek.com/article2/0,4149,1365177,00.asp

Good Information Architecture Increases Online Sales:
Imagine you’re downtown and you want to buy a Kraftwerk CD.

You visit Tower Records, go to the Electronic section, find category K, locate Kraftwerk, and select their Tour De France CD. Great! You’re off to the checkout and…

Hang on. Where’s the checkout?

They’ve moved it to the second floor. When you get there, you hand over you credit card. Big mistake. You should have registered downstairs first.

You head back down to the basement. Do you have two copies of your ID? No. “But it’s only a $9.99 CD!” you argue. The store stands firm. Wonderful music though it is, you’re soon off to a store that’s more conducive to purchasing.

This scenario may be a little far-flung, but if you’ve ever shopped online, you’ve probably had a similar experience at some point. You wanted to buy something, were ready to use your credit card… but the process was so excruciating that you gave up.…

http://www.sitepoint.com/print/1235

World Domination for Small Web Businesses: "Most Web designers define their target market as either:

1. 'Small to mid-sized businesses'

Or:

2. 'People who can be reached through word of mouth from clients and colleagues'

"

Both these “target markets” cost Web designers revenue, time and money. This article explains why. Then, it shows how to focus on a specific target market to increase revenue, cut marketing costs, and make business development easier and more effective.…

http://www.sitepoint.com/print/1238

"About Us" -- Presenting Information About an Organization on Its Website (Jakob Nielsen's Alertbox):
Summary:
Study participants searched websites for background information ranging from company history to management biographies and contact details. Their success rate was 70%, leaving much room for usability improvements in the 'About Us' designs. "

Representing a company or organization on the Internet is one of a website's most important jobs. Explaining the company's purpose and what it stands for provides essential support for any of the site's other goals. Unfortunately, most websites do a poor job on this explanation.

It is fairly common for sites to have an About Us section, and in fact I recommend having a homepage link that's explicitly called either About or About Us. This link need not be the most prominent on the homepage, but it should be present and easily visible. In our study, users had trouble locating company information when the link had a nonstandard name, like Info Center, or when it was placed near graphical elements that looked like advertisements and thus were ignored.…

http://www.useit.com/alertbox/20031027.html

OJR article: The E-mail Paradox: Bane and Boon for Journalists' Productivity: "Close your eyes and imagine a world without e-mail. No more SoBig viruses, no more spam, no more forwarded jokes. Gosh, what would you do with all that free time? Maybe you'd be more productive. That's the thinking behind the internal office e-mail ban at British mobile phone company, Phones4u.

That's all well and good, but for journalists, an e-mail ban is like going back to the Stone Age. Media folks depend on e-mail for news tips, feedback from readers and discussion lists. Journalists are the power users of e-mail and the Web, so that leaves them with a paradox: The constant barrage of e-mail does as much harm as good."

http://www.ojr.org/ojr/glaser/1067022673.php

Political Animation on the Web: "Mark Fiore creates a single editorial cartoon a week, yet he's among the hardest-working artists in the profession. That's because Fiore does political animation -- a compelling mix of words, pictures, motion, voices, sound effects, and music.

A prime example is last month's animation marking the second anniversary of 9/11. As a piano plays mournfully in the background, title cards announce: 'Two years after more than 3,000 innocent people were killed, we present ... A Nation Remembers.' Then Fiore shows scenes of Ground Zero workers 'who were told by the EPA the air was safe'; the 19 hijackers, 'none of whom were from Iraq'; and New York City firehouses, 'six of which have been closed due to budget cuts.' Meanwhile, a cartoon version of President Bush frantically advises viewers not to remember all that. But Bush does want people to remember things like his wearing of a flight suit this spring. 'That was sure cool,' intones the president, as voiced by Fiore. 'I'll never forget that day!'"

Fiore, whose clients include newspaper Web sites, spends more than 35 hours on each 45-to-60-second animation. Part of the process is familiar to any print editorial cartoonist -- a position Fiore once held as a freelancer and San Jose (Calif.) Mercury News staffer. Fiore checks out the news, comes up with an idea, and does research before writing and sketching a storyboard showing various scenes.

Then, Fiore does anywhere from 10 to 30 drawings the old-fashioned way -- ink on paper. "That's really important to my work," he told E&P Online. "I want to have a line so it doesn't look too 'computery.' My goal is to bring my style from the print world to animation." He also letters some of the text by hand.

http://www.editorandpublisher.com/editorandpublisher/features_columns/article_display.jsp?vnu_content_id=2013532

W3C Seeks Re-examination of Eolas Browser Patent: "The World Wide Web Consortium is seeking a reexamination of a Web browser patent that it says threatens to undermine the smooth operation of the Web."

The patent is at the heart of a legal wrangle between Eolas Technologies Inc., which holds a license to it from the University of California, and Microsoft Corp. Microsoft in August lost a $521 million patent-infringement jury verdict in the case and since has announced changes to its Internet Explorer browser that it says sidesteps the patent's method for embedding and invoking interactive applications such as plug-ins and applets from Web browsers.

On Tuesday, W3C Director Tim Berners-Lee sent a letter to the United States Patent and Trademark Office formally requesting a reexamination of the patent, U.S. Patent No. 5,838,906. The Web standards group claims that the patent is invalid because "prior art" (a legal term in patent law referring to whether an invention existed prior to the filing of a patent) was not considered at the time the patent was granted in 1998 or during the trial.

"A patent whose validity is demonstrably in doubt ought not be allowed to undo years of work that have gone into building the Web," Berners-Lee wrote in his letter to James E. Rogan, undersecretary of commerce for intellectual property in the patent office

In a separate filing with the patent office, the W3C last week outlined examples of prior art, including two publications from a Hewlett Packard Laboratories researcher, Dave Raggett, about a proposed HTML+ specification that it says were published a year before the patent filing.

The W3C claims that the publications describe the EMBED tag in HTML+ in an identical way to the EMBED tag in the patent.…

http://www.eweek.com/article2/0,4149,1366698,00.asp

Sliding Doors of CSS, Part II: A List Apart : Sliding Doors of CSS (Part I) introduced a new technique for creating visually stunning interface elements with simple, text-based, semantic markup. In Part II, we’ll push the technique even further. If you haven’t read Part I yet, you should read it now.

Here, we’ll cover a new scenario where no tab is highlighted, combine Sliding Doors with a single-image rollover, provide a fix for the clickable region in IE/Win, and suggest an alternate method of targeting tabs. We’ll skip a basic recap of the technique (see Part I for this) in favor of jumping right back in where we left off.…

http://www.alistapart.com/articles/slidingdoors2/

: In the last month the music-downloading landscape online has shifted once more with these five major events, not all of them good:

¶Apple Computer made its iTunes player and music store available to PC users.

¶A legal version of Napster emerged.

¶A new download store called Audio Lunchbox announced that it would open on Halloween.

¶Musicmatch added an online store to its music player.

¶EMusic added restrictive rules to its music subscription service.

In a striking lack of originality, every new service above is in some way a designer imposter of iTunes, which sells songs for 99 cents each and albums for $9.99.

The war for a legitimate digital-music store began in 1995, when a New York company called Sonicnet started offering singles for download. The artists were allowed to set the prices of their songs and to keep all the money from the download. Of course, in those olden times, a download could take anywhere from five minutes to five hours, and the sound quality was described by the company itself as "better than an AM radio in a '72 Nova."

Clearly, Sonicnet's music store was more of a me-first venture than a moneymaker, but the message was clear: the Internet was a place for artists to control and directly profit from their music. But in most online services today that dream has been lost, with the services functioning as online arms of the record companies while the artists receive pennies (or fractions of pennies) for each download.

The second dream from the golden age of music downloading was summarized in a catchphrase: All you can eat. The future of the business was in allowing fans access to all the music they wanted for a monthly fee. So far, only the free unauthorized services have accomplished this, chiefly ones that are now defunct, like Napster and Audiogalaxy. The reason the authorized downloading services haven't accomplished this goal is not because the technology or will is lacking, but because full cooperation from record labels and publishers has not been forthcoming. They fear they would become obsolete.

Thus the authorized services online today are all compromises. The service perceived as the greatest success is the iTunes Music Store, originally a feature of the Macintosh computer. The service is based more on the retail model than the cable television one. Its charges of 99 cents to download a song and $9.99 to download an album are not much cheaper than buying the CD at a discount retailer. Within four days after iTunes began offering a PC version of its technology this month, one million PC users had downloaded the software, Apple reports.

With the success of the iTunes Music Store, other services are rushing to copy it. By and large, they are not succeeding, because what works about the iTunes Music Store is not necessarily its pricing system but its ease of use, its lack of restrictions on downloaded music, its design and its integration of Apple's iTunes media player and iPod portable digital music player.

Nonetheless, that hasn't stopped the competition. There's Buymusic, an online song store that has little going for it, and Musicmatch, which has integrated an Apple-like store into its music jukebox. And the newest service, Audio Lunchbox, tries to squeeze into a gap by offering music for Mac and PC users that the iTunes Music Store does not: chiefly songs from artists on independent record labels.

Perhaps the greatest competition for iTunes on the PC is the new and very legal Napster 2.0. The service combines the song-selling of iTunes (even the prices are the same) with a semblance of the community feel of the original Napster. Users willing to pay $9.99 a month for a subscription get extra features, such as being able to listen to the playlists of other members, access to message boards and a personal mailbox and the ability to download as many songs as they want onto their PC (but with a catch: they still have to buy the song if they want to take it off their home computer and put it on, say, a portable digital music player).

But iPod owners won't be flocking to Napster because its songs are encoded as Windows Media files, which are not compatible with the iPod. Samsung, however, has created a digital music player specifically designed to be used with Napster 2.0.

If it sounds as if it's a mess out there in the online retail world, it is, and ultimately only a few services will flourish.

Online Music Business, Neither Quick Nor Sure

The Ten Most Abused Words in Tech
This is not a Letterman-style Top Ten list. This topic deserves more serious attention than a mildly humorous rundown.…

Most of the guilt for these abuses lies squarely on marketers. These are the people whose very livelihoods depend on the ability to "create unmet needs." If that phrase doesn't make you shudder, then you're probably in marketing or PR. It's not that I consider the profession an evil one, but the need to communicate complex technologies has often forced some marketing and public relations people to come up with new and exciting ways to abuse the English language.

In response, I've compiled a list of the ten most abused words in the tech industry. This list, by the way, is in no particular order -- though I find the first two or three particularly egregious.

Experience

The most obvious misuse of this word is the way Microsoft overuses it, but they are by no means the only abuser. We hear about the "Windows experience," the "gaming experience," and, by God, the "driver installation experience." Life is full of experiences, so I'm unclear as to what's really special about the "living room experience." I experience my living room every day and no TV or computer exists in it. It's to the point now that when I hear the word "experience" used in a product pitch or presentation, I feel vaguely nauseous. Whatever's being pitched to me at that point had better be damned good to overcome my queasiness.

Seamless

I get particularly annoyed with a sentence like, "This should be a seamless experience." Even my Gore-Tex parka isn't seamless -- although I did once have a pair of hiking boots with only one seam. I know what's trying to be communicated here, but the term has become so overused that it's meaningless.…

http://www.extremetech.com/print_article/0,3998,a=110431,00.asp

Search Inside the Book
How It Works
A significant extension of our groundbreaking Look Inside the Book feature, Search Inside the Book allows you to search millions of pages to find exactly the book you want to buy. Now instead of just displaying books whose title, author, or publisher-provided keywords that match your search terms, your search results will surface titles based on every word inside the book. Using Search Inside the Book is as simple as running an Amazon.com search. For example:

1. Let's say that you're interested in finding books about "rocket experiments." Just as you do today, type "rocket experiments" into our search box and click the GO! button. You'll get a list of the books that contain that term in the author's name, the book's title, or in the book's text. Books participating in our Search Inside the Book feature with "rocket experiments" in their text will show an excerpt with your search term highlighted. To see all references to "rocket experiments" within a particular book, click the "See more references to 'rocket experiments' in this book" link.

2. This link will take you to an index page for the book you selected, where you will see excerpts from all the pages where "rocket experiments" appears. This is a great way to quickly and easily browse sections of the book that are relevant to your search. If you want to see a specific page from the book in its entirety, simply click on the link to that page.

3. At this point, one of two things will happen. If you are a registered, recognized Amazon.com customer, you will go directly to the page you selected. If you are not a recognized customer, we will ask you to sign in or create an Amazon.com account (if you're not already a customer). Once you have signed in or set up an account with us, we'll take you directly to the page you selected. Once there, you'll see that "rocket experiments" is highlighted throughout the page and that you can browse forward and back two pages. Additionally, you'll find a navigation bar above the page that allows you to search for other terms in the book and browse other pages. Of course, you can always purchase the book by adding it to your Shopping Cart or by using 1-Click ordering, and we'll deliver the book to your door.

Search Inside the Book FAQ
http://www.amazon.com/exec/obidos/tg/browse/-/10197041/102-8019720-7150504

http://www.amazon.com/exec/obidos/tg/browse/-/10197021/ref%3Dsib%5Fmerch%5Fgw/102-8019720-7150504

Where Is Windows Going?
The next version of Windows isn't due out until at least 2005, leaving us to wonder: Will Microsoft address the big questions users have about stability, security, and features? In this special report, we look at where Windows is heading.

Love it or hate it, Microsoft Windows is almost ubiquitous. Well over 90 percent of desktop and laptop computers run Windows. In the two years since Windows XP first shipped, it has become a tremendous commercial success.

In our reader surveys, most respondents seem happier with Win XP than with previous versions of Windows; it crashes less often and has more features. But it has its shortcomings. Although it's more stable than previous versions, it still crashes and hangs. And more important, the number of security threats against Windows is growing. Although Microsoft has responded with updates and patches, it's disheartening that they are needed weekly.

The next Windows OS, code-named Longhorn, isn't expected until 2005 at the earliest. Because the industry needs to plan ahead, outlines of the system are beginning to come out. Longhorn looks ambitious; Microsoft calls it a "big bet," the kind that it makes only every decade or so.

Among the areas Microsoft is working on are making the system more "trustworthy" and secure, adding new communications and collaboration tools, creating a new content-based storage system, making it easier for developers to create stable applications, and improving the user interface and presentation of media.

In some areas, Microsoft's plans are clear. For example, for developers, Microsoft has long promoted switching to "managed code," which should result in more stable applications.

On security, Microsoft's goal is "trustworthy computing," including a Next-Generation Secure Computing Base, which splits the OS into halves, one tied to the hardware for secure communication and authentication, one for everything else. This would allow for more secure applications and better digital rights management, but it also requires hardware and software changes.

We know Microsoft is working on a storage system called WinFS that should make finding information easier.

In the pages that follow, you'll find out more about each of these areas—and where Microsoft's competitors are going.…

http://www.pcmag.com/print_article/0,3048,a=109987,00.asp

Ever wonder how a certain company sending unsolicited e-mail messages got your address?

Michael Rathbun, the director of policy enforcement at Allegiance Telecom, an Internet service provider in Dallas, says he thinks he has much of the answer.

Some five years ago, Mr. Rathbun bought a Palm hand-held organizer and, in registering it on Palm's Web site, gave the company an e-mail address he never used for anything else. Initially his in-box received only offers for products related to the organizer, but eventually he started getting advertising from some well-known companies like Bank of America, SBC Communications and Sprint. Lately, that one address alone has been receiving dozens of e-mails a month offering everything from travel clubs to acne remedies.

"This is not stuff," Mr. Rathbun said, "that I should be getting from them."

The problem of spam or unwanted commercial e-mail is usually attributed to outlaws and hucksters — peddlers of pornography, get-rich-quick schemes and pills of dubious merit — who use hackers to send their fraudulent messages in ways that cannot be traced.

But the torrent of spam that is flowing into people's electronic mailboxes comes not only from the sewers but also from the office towers of the biggest and most well-known corporations.

Established companies insist they send e-mail only to people who have voluntarily agreed to receive marketing offers. A spokeswoman for Palm says it does not know how Mr. Rathbun's e-mail address got into the hands of spammers and says it has never sold its customer list.

But often companies rent e-mail lists from a cottage industry that has emerged to lure Internet users, through a variety of schemes, into signing up for e-mail marketing.

At best, if you have ever entered a contest to win a prize, subscribed to an online newsletter or simply purchased a product on the Web, you may well have also agreed, as many such fine-print contracts put it, "to receive valuable offers from our marketing partners."

This practice falls under the rubric of what is called opt-in marketing, or getting permission to send advertising messages.

But many e-mail executives admit that these same list companies also add to their databases by buying, trading — sometimes even stealing — names.

"Everyone is looking for a quick buck now, and people are claiming to sell opt-in data who don't have it," said Pesach Lattin, who runs Adspyre, a New York e-mail marketing firm.

Moreover, some companies have allowed the e-mail addresses of their own customers, either deliberately or inadvertently, to fall into the hands of list peddlers who in turn sell them to e-mail marketers of all stripes. Sometimes, the lists are stolen from corporate owners by employees or vendors looking to make a quick profit. But in many cases, the big companies are deliberately buying and selling access to names, relying on privacy policies — often hard to find on their sites — that they say permit such actions.

"White-collar spam" is how Nick Usborne, a newsletter writer and Internet marketing consultant, refers to this phenomenon.

"When a responsible company," Mr. Usborne said, "gets someone to sign up for a newsletter and says, now that we have their e-mail address let's make more money off it and send them e-mail they didn't ask for, that's white-collar spam."

The antispam bill passed unanimously by the Senate last week imposes tough penalties on people involved in the lowest forms of spam but it does not deal with the central questions Mr. Usborne and others raise about white-collar spam. It does nothing, for example, to establish rules defining an appropriate list of names that a purveyor of a legitimate product can use to send an offer by e-mail. Nor does it regulate the transfer of names between companies.

The law would require that every e-mail message offer recipients a method to remove themselves from an advertiser's mailing list. But with the way that names are traded today, this method would do little to reduce the amount of e-mail people receive, industry executives say.

"People don't realize that once you sign up for a contest or free stuff on the Web and you forget to uncheck a box, these people will pass your name to a hundred other people,'` said Paul Nute, a partner of Soho Digital, a New York advertising agency that represents e-mail marketers. "You've just raised your hand and said, `Send me the diet pill offers.' And there is no way to get them all to stop."

http://www.nytimes.com/2003/10/28/technology/28SPAM.html?pagewanted=all&position=

Changing the product key on Windows XP
For most Windows XP installs, you’ll never need to worry about the validity of the product key assigned to your copy of the OS. However, software does tend to get installed without authorization, even in the most carefully managed shops, and so from time to time you may need to reset the XP product key.

For example, perhaps a user installed a pirated copy of XP but now wants to go legal. Maybe you've been hired by an organization that installed 100 pirated copies of XP but now has a legitimate volume-licensing key (VLK). Perhaps an end user purchased an additional retail license for XP but needs to use his original CD to install the software. When situations like these arise, changing XP's product key is often the most practical—or only—solution.

Determining if you have a valid product ID
Hopefully you already know if you're dealing with a pirated copy of XP. But if you're unsure, a quick way to tell is to install Service Pack 1. Shortly after releasing Windows XP, Microsoft realized that most pirated XP installations were using two specific VLKs, the most popular of which begins with "FCKGW.” These VLKs produce product IDs that match either XXXXX-640-0000356-23XXX or XXXXX-640-2001765-23XXX, where X is any number.

If you try to install SP1 and get the following error message:

The Product Key used to install Windows is invalid. Please contact your system administrator or retailer immediately to obtain a valid Product Key…"

You are dealing with a pirated copy of Windows. For more information about obtaining a valid product key, see Microsoft Knowledge Base article 326904.

You can also directly check the OS’sproduct ID by right-clicking on My Computer, clicking Properties, and selecting the General tab. The machine's product ID will be located under the Registered To section. If the ID matches either of the two models commonly associated with VLK fraud, you’ll need to obtain a valid XP product key before proceeding. None of the procedures described below will work without a legitimate product key.…

How to Change the Product ID in Windows XP

HOW TO: Change the Volume Licensing Product Key on a Windows XP SP1-Based Computer

http://support.microsoft.com/default.aspx?scid=kb;EN-US;326904

http://support.microsoft.com/default.aspx?scid=kb;en-us;321636

http://support.microsoft.com/default.aspx?scid=kb;en-us;328874

http://techrepublic.com.com/5100-6270-5034890.html?fromtm=e103

WinXPnews™ E-Zine
Tue, Oct 28, 2003 (Vol. 3, 43 - Issue 99)
Does Tech Jargon Cause Confusion?
This issue of WinXPnews™ contains:
EDITOR'S CORNER
Speaking the Language: Does Tech Jargon Cause Confusion?
Followup: Office 2003
HINTS, TIPS, TRICKS & TWEAKS
lder Settings: Another Fix
What to do if HAL is missing
Another Alternative Browser
What is thumbs.db?
Better Movie Playing with Older Media Player
HOW TO'S: ALL THE NEW XP FEATURES
How to Clear the Page file at Shutdown
How to Remove the NetMeeting Remote Desktop Sharing icon from the tray
How to make file names appear on the left when you use the DIR command
How to Keep your Internet connection open when switching users
WINXP SECURITY: UPDATES & PATCHES
New Security Bulletin Warns of Flaw in Windows Messenger
WINXP QUESTION CORNER
How to Format the Hard Disk on an XP Machine
AutoComplete Stopped Working
WINXP CONFIGURING & TROUBLESHOOTING
Can't Install XP Pro to a Separate Folder After Installing XP Home?
Compatibility Mode Setting is Ignored
"Memory Could Not be Read" Error

http://www.winxpnews.com/

Microsoft Security Bulletin MS03-043
Buffer Overrun in Messenger Service Could Allow Code Execution (828035)

Affected Software:
Microsoft Windows NT Workstation 4.0, Service Pack 6a -
Microsoft Windows NT Server 4.0, Service Pack 6a -
Microsoft Windows NT Server 4.0, Terminal Server Edition, Service Pack 6 -
Microsoft Windows 2000, Service Pack 2 -
Microsoft Windows 2000, Service Pack 3, Service Pack 4 -
Microsoft Windows XP Gold, Service Pack 1 -
Microsoft Windows XP 64-bit Edition -
Microsoft Windows XP 64-bit Edition Version 2003 -
Microsoft Windows Server 2003 -
Microsoft Windows Server 2003 64-bit Edition -

Non Affected Software:
Microsoft Windows Millennium Edition

http://www.microsoft.com/technet/treeview/default.asp?url=/technet/security/bulletin/MS03-043.asp

Build cross-browser XML paging code
If scrolling through a long XML table is not an optimal experience for
your browser app, why not implement pagination? Presenting data in
page-length chunks can help your users find the data they need. See how
to build
fast, cross-browser XML pagination.
From Builder.com Bulletin

http://builder.com.com/5100-6371-5085227.html?tag=sc&fromtm=e601

Comment Spam
We've all seen that comment spam is becoming a serious problem. Particularly on Movable Type weblogs, where the generated pages are all very similar in structure and semantics, spammers are abusing comment systems to increase their rank on Google.

Even more frustrating than the spamming problem is the fact that there isn't a simple solution that will work for everyone and that all options have their own sets of pros and cons. During the past couple of months, we've been throwing around ideas at Six Apart about the best ways to combat spammers.

Readers of your weblog must register before posting to your weblog.
Before someone can post a comment to your weblog, they must register with your site.

For many webloggers, this solution is not ideal. Informal polling of webloggers has revealed that many do not want to require someone to register before posting. It usually discourages conversations from forming and is a barrier for open discussion. Additionally, without federation, logins on multiple weblogs become unmanageable.

While we do plan on integrating comment registration into Movable Type Pro (which we'll be talking about in more detail very soon), it's an option that serves a different purpose than just blocking spam. If you want to prevent links to explicit pornography from appearing on your site, you shouldn't have to be required to turn on comment registration.

Comments require approval before being posted
When a comment is posted, you can receive an email that provides a clickable link you must visit before the comment can be posted on your site.

For webloggers with a small amount of readers, this solution may be ideal. However, if you receive a good deal of comments, it's a solution that doesn't scale. Additionally, it may ruin the spontaneity of discussion.

Image comprehension technology
Before a comment can be posted on a weblog, human eyes must enter a code that, ideally, is not readable by a computer.

This solution is not feasible because of accessibility issues. Additionally, spammers seem to be searching with bots and entering spam manually.…

http://www.sixapart.com/log/2003/10/comment_spam.shtml

How spammers are targeting blogs
Technology analyst Bill Thompson has been getting lots of comments on his weblogs, unfortunately most of the want to sell him Viagra. He has been "flyblogged".

Earlier this week I got an e-mail to tell me that someone called Levitra had commented on one of my entries on the VoxPolitics weblog.
Since it's a group weblog for "e-democracy titbits and crumbs", we get quite a few comments from random readers, and often they are useful and informative, so I read it with interest.

Sadly, it was not about the latest e-voting disasters in California - a topic of great interest to me - but a rather obvious piece of spam.

It said; "Interesting comments and a Superb Web Site" and then, like so many spam e-mails, had a link to a site that wanted to sell me a Viagra alternative.

Over the next few days I got 20 more, most offering Viagra substitutes but one featuring a cable TV scam - presumably for the times when I would have used up all my Viagra supplies.

Every one of them was posted as a comment on the blog, and they could only be removed individually through the administrative pages of the site, which takes ages.

It felt like the digital equivalent of flyposting - coming home one day to find your windows covered with posters for dodgy clubs and bands you have never head of.…

http://news.bbc.co.uk/2/hi/technology/3210623.stm

Generating Thumbnails on the Fly Using ASP.NET!
If you've ever attempted to create image thumbnails for your site, you'll know it's a tiresome task. You either do it manually, or use an inflexible system such as the FrontPage thumbnail feature.

However, as you've seen in previous tips, ASP.NET gives us tremendous control over how our images work. As such, we should be able to generate thumbnails on the fly... and this snippet will enable you to do just that.

http://www.developer.com/net/asp/article.php/3098311

Syndicated Photography Feeds
Pheed.com is a database of information about photographs available on the web. We present the work of photographers who have made information about their images available as an RSS feed. RSS is a simple document format based on XML that is used to syndicate web-based content. A pheed is simply an rss feed that has been extended to include information about photographs; a photo feed. The links to the left will show you how to create an rss pheed and include information about your photographs in our database.

http://www.pheed.com/

Effective XML: 50 Specific Ways to Improve Your XML
Item 3, Stay with XML 1.0

This book excerpt is from Elliotte Rusty Harold's "Effective XML: 50 Specific Ways to Improve Your XML;" ISBN 0321150406. All rights reserved. Item 3, Stay with XML 1.0 is posted with permission from Addison-Wesley.


http://www.webreference.com/programming/xml/

Columns & Editorials from the ACM
Association for Computing Machinery
Founded in 1947, ACM is a major force in advancing the skills of information technology professionals and students worldwide. Today, our 75,000 members and the public turn to ACM for the industry's leading Portal to Computing Literature, authoritative publications and pioneering conferences, providing leadership for the 21st century.

http://www.acm.org/~hlb/col-edit/

The Basics of Color Systems and Color Management
If you talk to a printing professional they will most likely tell you that they have been doing color management their entire life! They will say that they have been getting customer correct color off their printing presses and they've been getting this off their scanners and they've been proofing it and the press operator has been doing color management for his or her entire career.

How are they accomplishing this? They've been chasing color.

If you talk to a designer, they will most likely tell you that they send their files to the printer. What does the printer do with these files? They rework them to translate the color that the designer has created into the capabilities of their printing facility. And that's how the designer has managed color.

What has that done with color? It's made color magic.…

http://www.eworld.com/colorsync/benefits/training/index.html

Introduction to Cryptography
People mean different things when they talk about cryptography. Children play with toy ciphers and secret languages. However, these have nothing to do with real security and strong encryption. Strong encryption is the kind of encryption that can be used to protect information of real value against organized criminals, multinational corporations, and major governments. Strong encryption used to be only military business; however, in the information society it has become one of the central tools for maintaining privacy and confidentiality.

As we move into an information society, the technological means for global surveillance of millions of individual people are becoming available to major govenments. Cryptography has become one of the main tools for privacy, trust, access control, electronic payments, corporate security, and countless other fields.

Cryptography is no longer a military thing that should not be messed with. It is time to demystify cryptography and make full use of the advantages it provides for the modern society. In the following, basic terminology and the main methods of cryptography are presented. Any opinions and evaluations presented here are speculative, and the author cannot be held responsible for their correctness.

http://www.networksolution.com/understanding/introduction.htm