Operating Systems

Arthur W. Burks, early computer theorist, dies.

Keith — Wed, 28 May 2008 00:03:00 -0600

Ah dammit, how did I miss this?

19-May-2008 - Arthur W. Burks, Early Computer Theorist, dies. Burks worked on Eniac, (amongst other things) and wasn't one of the "old guard" so much as he was part of the "original guard". I guess there aren't many left.

New Windows vulnerability may be the worst yet

Keith — Thu, 31 Jan 2008 20:04:10 -0700

Hold on to your hats everyone, it's happening again...

A new, remotely executable, exploit for XP and Vista has been demonstrated and depending on upon how a worm will use it (a worm is sure to be developed for this), this could make Slammer and Sapphire look like cake-walks. I hope I'm wrong (but I'm probably not).

How to telnet to a POP server that requires SSL

Keith — Thu, 03 Jan 2008 10:18:06 -0700

If you are anything like me, then every now and then you want to access a mail (POP3) server directly to sort out a problem without having a "helpful" email client get in the way. In these cases connecting to port 110 with telnet is the way to go.

But what about when the mail server has been set up to not allow plan-text connections (i.e. an SSL connection must be used)?

Leopards can't change their spots

Keith — Tue, 30 Oct 2007 14:18:57 -0600

As both a Mac user and industry "interested party" I have been watching the ongoing problems with Leopard (v10.5) with a great deal of interest, and I am struck by three feelings:

GMT timezone problem in Mac OS X

Keith — Tue, 25 Sep 2007 17:50:36 -0600

I have had an odd problem with my timezone settings on my Mac over the last few days, I went on holiday recently and (of course) I took my Mac, when I went to change the timezone I discovered that the settings would not "stick", and instead of going back to the timezone I started with, actually went to GMT.

In any case, I worked out what the problem was, so I thought I should post the solution in case anyone else has runs across the same thing.

Windows Vista and the cost of DRM

Keith — Sun, 07 Jan 2007 10:34:33 -0700

As it happens I had made my decision to not adopt Vista before I found the following report, but it underscores a number of my concerns about the platform.

Peter Gutmann (of Auckland university) has produced A Cost Analysis of Windows Vista Content Protection.

On NOT choosing Windows Vista

Keith — Sun, 07 Jan 2007 10:20:18 -0700

Whatever you may think of Windows Vista there are two things you do have to give it:

It is very pretty
It really does advance the Windows platform

However it also, in my opinion at least, contains quite a few downsides which one of these days I might even get around to detailing, but they include: licensing, security, DRM, process and memory management, user permissions, etc. In any case, I have decided that despite being a owner/user of Windows for more years than I care to count Windows XP will probably be the last version of Windows I will own.