Newfie2005 - Slashdot User

IBM's Pilot Program For Internal Use of Macs 257

Posted by kdawson on Friday April 18, 2008 @01:10PM from the thinking-different-than-blue dept.

geoffrobinson writes "Roughly Drafted has obtained internal IBM documents detailing the results of a small pilot program for internal use of Macs. Positive and negative results were detailed, but overall most participants were happy with their Mac experience. The pilot will be expanded this year. One advantage cited: less reliance on Windows. So it seems a mix of Macs, PCs, and Linux boxes are in IBM's future. Given the history between IBM and Microsoft, this is quite interesting."

Windows Update Can Hurt Security 220

Posted by kdawson on Friday April 18, 2008 @12:29PM from the manufacturing-exploits-on-internet-time dept.

An anonymous reader writes "Researchers at Carnegie Mellon University have shown that given a buggy program with an unknown vulnerability, and a patch, it is possible automatically to create an exploit for unpatched systems. They demonstrate this by showing automatic patch-based exploit generation for several Windows vulnerabilities and patches can be achieved within a few minutes of when a patch is first released. From the article: 'One important security implication is that current patch distribution schemes which stagger patch distribution over long time periods, such as Windows Update... can detract from overall security, and should be redesigned.' The full paper is available as PDF, and will appear at the IEEE Security and Privacy Symposium in May."

Comment Re:How are they logged? (Score 1) 548

by Newfie2005 on Thursday January 24, 2008 @09:00AM (#22165542) Attached to: Microsoft Says Vista Has the Fewest Flaws

Microsoft uses the North Pole to obtain statistical information concerning Vista, as you can see by this photo all of Vistas security team are elves....

Microsoft Says Vista Has the Fewest Flaws 548

Posted by samzenpus on Thursday January 24, 2008 @01:45AM from the eye-of-the-beholder dept.

ancientribe writes "Microsoft issued a year-one security report on its Windows Vista operating system today, and it turns out Vista logged less than half the vulnerabilities than Windows XP did in its first year. According to the new Microsoft report, Vista also had fewer vulnerabilities in its first year than other OSes — including Red Hat rhel4ws, Ubuntu 6.06 LTS, and Apple Mac OS X 10.4 — did in their first years."

Submission + - New Large Caves Found on Mars

Submitted by

David DelMonte

on Monday April 02, 2007 @05:12PM

David DelMonte writes: "space.com is reporting the discovery of seven dark spots near the Equator on Mars. They are thinking that these are cave openings. The openings are the size of football fields, and one of them is thought to extend approximately 400 feet below the surface. The full story is here. http://www.space.com/scienceastronomy/070402_mm_ma rs_caves.html
"

Oracle Linux Adopters Suffer Backlash 274

Posted by ScuttleMonkey on Monday April 02, 2007 @05:02PM from the plure-jealousy dept.

atbarboz writes "One of the first converts to Oracle's support for Linux said it has endured a public backlash since its decision to drop Red Hat. 'Melbourne company Opes Prime Stockbroking told ZDNet Australia that in the weeks following its announcement to adopt Oracle Linux, upset Linux enthusiasts phoned, e-mailed and wrote about the company online to complain at the decision. "People called us out of the blue to tell us we were idiots," said Opes executive director Anthony Blumberg.'"

Submission + - Windows Vista restricts GNU GCC apps to 32 MB

Submitted by

Dave Coffin

on Monday April 02, 2007 @01:05PM

Dave Coffin writes: "In Windows Vista, applications that don't link the Win32 API cannot use more than 32 MB of RAM. This affects all executables generated by GNU compilers. No such limit exists in earlier versions of Windows, and no work-around has yet been found. See http://www.trnicely.net/misc/vista.html for details."

Submission + - Editorial: Compiz and Beryl Merger

Submitted by

invisibastard

on Monday April 02, 2007 @12:34PM

invisibastard writes: "Linux Tech Daily has an editorial on the proceeding merger or Compiz and Beryl. LTD believes this is a good thing and the community overall will benefit. What do you think? Will it be possible for these teams to work together? One thing is certain, the 3D desktop space is drawing a lot of attention to Linux."