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OS X

Apple Patches Massive Holes In OS X 246

Trailrunner7 writes with this snippet from ThreatPost: "Apple's first Mac OS X security update for 2010 is out, providing cover for at least 12 serious vulnerabilities. The update, rated critical, plugs security holes that could lead to code execution vulnerabilities if a Mac user is tricked into opening audio files or surfing to a rigged Web site." Hit the link for a list of the highlights among these fixes.
Earth

Acorns Disappear Across the Country 474

Hugh Pickens writes "Botanist Rod Simmons thought he was going crazy when couldn't find any acorns near his home in Arlington County, Virginia. 'I'm used to seeing so many acorns around and out in the field, it's something I just didn't believe,' said Simmons. Then calls started coming in about crazy squirrels. Starving, skinny squirrels eating garbage, inhaling bird feed, greedily demolishing pumpkins. Squirrels boldly scampering into the road. And a lot more calls about squirrel roadkill. Simmons and Naturalist Greg Zell began to do some research and found Internet discussion groups, including one on Topix called 'No acorns this year,' reporting the same thing from as far away as the Midwest up through New England and Nova Scotia. 'We live in Glenwood Landing, N.Y., and don't have any acorns this year. Really weird,' wrote one. 'None in Kansas either! Curiouser and curiouser.' The absence of acorns could have something to do with the weather and Simmons has a theory about the wet and dry cycles. But many skeptics say oaks in other regions are producing plenty of acorns, and the acorn bust is nothing more than the extreme of a natural boom-and-bust cycle. But the bottom line is that no one really knows. 'It's sort of a mystery,' Zell said."

Comment vgetty experiences (Score 1) 54

A couple of years ago, I was also looking for such a package. I had a physical fax machine, answering machine, and PC with a modem. I had to try...

I tried vgetty and found it did what I wanted: automatically answer the phone (a) play back a greeting and record a message or (b) switch to receive a fax. It could also switch to become a data line but I never tried using that functionality. This worked fine under both Linux (RH) and FreeBSD with an ISA USR voice/fax/data modem.

Some problems I encountered:
- voice recordings incoming and outgoing were in a proprietary format. Tools to convert to/from that format existed and were relatively straightforward to use/script but made editing sound clips more difficult.
- greetings needed to be recorded in the propriety format. Phoning myself from my cell phone and copying my recorded message avoided having to do audio conversions.
- WAV files after conversion were 100s of KB for even short messages. Converting messages to MP3 (LAME encoder with voice settings) made them small
- checking messages remotely was easy once the MP3 files were exported to my web server in a password protected directory. The same browser could also check faxes.

Good points too:
- I was receiving an annoying number of junk faxes. At least now they did not use paper and could be easily deleted
- being able to attach a received fax to an email message and forward it on without using a scanner was neat

Didn't try:
- checking messages remotely with voice commands or touchtones, but I only got as far as the documentation. I used a browser to check messages/faxes.
- I think it could also work with caller id to screen calls

However, after several months, I went back to an inexpensive, battery-backed, touchtone remote controlled, dedicated answering machine and connected it to the real fax machine. It was just easier to use and maintain.

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