If it’s MacWorld week, it must be time for more Mac news here. Today’s dose: Research In Motion has licensed IAA’s PocketMac product. It’ll be made avaialble as a free download on RIM’s web site starting in February. This is obviously a good move for IAA, makers of PocketMac, and clearly it’s an effort by RIM to remain competitive with Palm for hearts-and-mindshare among Mac users.
Interesting: RIM licenses PocketMac’s BlackBerry product
Comments Off on Interesting: RIM licenses PocketMac’s BlackBerry product
Filed under General Stuff, Musings
Flip4Mac WMV playback codecs now free
Flip4Mac has been making Windows Media codecs for QuickTime for a while now. They work as advertised: download them, and you can play WMV files in your QuickTime applications. They also make some other products that provide QT/WMV import and export. Microsoft cut a deal with them, and now you can get the Flip4Mac WMV playback codecs, for free, from them directly. This is particularly nice because of the low quality and functionality of the Mac version of Windows Media Player; I hope it means that WMP for Mac will die, and that the engineering effort behind it will be redirected to other Mac projects.
Comments Off on Flip4Mac WMV playback codecs now free
Filed under General Tech Stuff
Google Earth for Mac OS X released
This is great news: Google finally released Google Earth (their 3-D map program) for the Mac. Get it here. The coolest thing I’ve found for it so far is a real-time 3-D flight tracker– check out FBOweb and watch flights into ORD, JFK, BOS, or ATL in real-time, with altitude and speed.
Filed under General Tech Stuff
Need a sword? See Brian
I recently finished helping my friend Brian Dreier build a new web site for his Japanese sword business, Ronin Swords. Along the way I learned a ton of new vocabulary (for example, I now know what tsuka-maki are, not to mention same). If you’re into actual or reproduction Japanese swords, check out Brian’s site at roninswords.com.
Comments Off on Need a sword? See Brian
Filed under Friends & Family
MS06-003: TNEF vuln in Exchange 2000 and Exchange 5.5
It’s Patch Tuesday, so you know what that means. This month, there’s actually an Exchange patch, although it only applies to Exchange 2000, Exchange 5.5, and Exchange 5.0 on the server side (Outlook 2000, Outlook XP, and Outlook 2003 are all affected too, though). The vuln reported in MS06-003 is a problem in the TNEF decoding engine that can allow remote code execution. Interestingly, MS released security patches for Exchange 5.5 even though it just went end-of-life 10 days ago… and what’s up with that crazy Exchange 5.0 patch? That’s been out of support for quite a while, and I’d bet the percentage of sites using it is very, very small.
Comments Off on MS06-003: TNEF vuln in Exchange 2000 and Exchange 5.5
Filed under General Stuff, Musings
Time for a new laptop?
Lenovo and Apple are fighting over my wallet. I’m thinking about buying a new laptop, and the two contenders now are the Thinkpad T60 and the brand-new MacBook Pro. The big variable is whether the MacBook can run Windows, either using VirtualPC (Microsoft isn’t saying) or natively. If yes, that’s my choice; if no, I’d probably lean towards the Thinkpad. Fortunately, neither one is actually shipping, so I don’t have to make a decision quite yet.
Filed under General Stuff, Musings
Tough decision: MacBook or Thinkpad T60
Lenovo and Apple are fighting over my wallet. I’m thinking about buying a new laptop, and the two contenders now are the Thinkpad T60 and the brand-new MacBook Pro. The big variable is whether the MacBook can run Windows, either using VirtualPC (Microsoft isn’t saying) or natively. If yes, that’s my choice; if no, I’d probably lean towards the Thinkpad. Fortunately, neither one is actually shipping, so I don’t have to make a decision quite yet.
Update: there’s some great stuff at AppleIntelFAQ.com that partially answers my question about dual-booting. Dave Schroeder also commented at Macintouch that side-by-side Windows solutions will be available in “weeks/months”, and that XP won’t install on the MacBook Pro because XP lacks EFI support– but that Vista might install. Now that would be worth trying.
Filed under General Tech Stuff
Block outbound SMTP at the firewall
Jim McBee says something that I’ve been evangelizing for a while: turn off outbound SMTP on your network. The only machines that should be able to send it are your messaging servers. Maybe, if you’re feeling generous, you might allow VPN users to send SMTP so they can send mail while on the road. That’s it, though. There’s no good reason why Joe Cubedweller should be able to send SMTP direct from his machine. Worms like Sober use it, as do a number of rootkits/botnet droppers.
Filed under General Stuff, Musings
Skunk Works (Rich)
by Leo Janos, Ben R. Rich
Fun, breezy read covering Ben Rich’s life as an engineer at the legendary Lockheed Skunk Works. Rich (and his ghostwriter, Leo Janos, who also helped out with Yeager) has a breezy, conversational prose style and a ton of great war stories. Kelly Johnson was who I wanted to be when I entered college; as Rich points out in the last two chapters, though, those days are gone– that realization is part of what led me to stop pursuing a career in aerospace. Good thing I did, because the problems for aerospace companies that Rich pegged in the last chapters have all happened in the years since the book’s published. As someone who built model SR-71s and U-2s as a kid, and who eagerly snapped up every tidbit of info on the F-117A as it gradually became public, I thoroughly enjoyed this book, but admittedly it’s not for those who aren’t interested in aviation or aircraft design.
Contact lenses
I wore contacts once upon a time– when I was about 13. My old pal Dr. Otis J. Bourg prescribed a set; as I recall, they were stiff little circles of plastic that required a draconian regime of toxic chemicals to keep them from turning into encrusted eye-ruiners. The regime wasn’t a big problem because I kept losing them, so after a few weeks my experiment was over.
Enter my current eye doctor, Mike Zysik. He’s been telling me that there are now silicone hydrogel lenses that are much more comfortable than the old ones. I tried a pair, and whaddya know? He was right. They are very comfortable. Unfortunately, I have funny eyes: one’s farsighted with an astigmatism, and the other is nearsighted. The hydrogels aren’t made in the same range of prescriptions that regular glasses’ lenses are, so we couldn’t exactly match my prescription. Turns out that for my left eye, I need a toric lens, which meant switching to another brand and lens material. The lenses I have now are not nearly as comfortable as the originals, but with them in I can see as well– or better– as I do with my glasses, at least until the lenses dry out. I’ve asked Mike if he has any other potential lens types to try, but I’ll probably stick with these for six months or so and see how they work over the long term.</P
Filed under General Tech Stuff
Cool: hook your Xbox 360 controller up to your Mac
This is pretty neat: an OS X driver for using the Xbox 360 controller with Mac games. I’ll have to give it a try, assuming I can pry myself away from the Xbox 360 to try it.
Filed under General Tech Stuff
My new calling
I’ve been the first counselor in our ward’s Elder’s Quorum presidency for a little over two years now. On Christmas Day, I got a present of sorts: I was called as a Primary teacher. That means that every Sunday, I teach a class of 8 and 9-year-olds: Michael, Max, Kaitlyn, Adam, Heather, and Ethan. Since I have three boys, this isn’t as daunting as it might seem; I’m already pretty familiar with how kids that age tend to act: they ask lots of questions and they go off on tangents all the time, but they also can surprise you with what they soak up from classes and lessons.
My first class this Sunday went well, though it was a little odd to be in the Primary room with all of the other Primary classes instead of the more familiar environment of my priesthood quorum. Because I’m an adult convert, I don’t know most of the Primary songs, which is definitely going to take some effort to correct. Fortunately, several other new teachers were called at the same time as I was, so I’m not the only one who has to try to adapt. I’m looking forward to this new challenge, and I’m reminded of this article explaining that your spiritual growth isn’t necessarily driven by the calling you hold. I think I’ll do just fine as a teacher.
Comments Off on My new calling
Filed under Spiritual Nourishment
Back from the holidays
I’m finally getting back into my normal groove after an extended vacation. The kids were out of school from 12/22 until today; I took a solid week off, during which I did no work. It was wonderful, and we could not have had a better Christmas– we were all together, and that made it something to remember. Baby Charlie learned a few new tricks (including patty-cake); we ate like kings, and everyone got to spend time with everyone else in various combinations.
Coincidentally, even after that week was over, I didn’t have much to do because I’m waiting on go-aheads for several projects. Things are starting to pick up, though, so I’ll be posting here slightly more regularly.
Comments Off on Back from the holidays
Filed under Musings
TechEd ’06 session proposals in
I just sent off three session proposals for TechEd 2006. I didn’t bother to submit anything last year, and– big surprise– didn’t speak. It was nice to take a break and attend without having to speak, but I missed it, so this year I’m back to my normal MO. I’ll also be speaking at Exchange Connections 2006 and the newly added Exchange Connections Europe– more info on those coming soon!
Comments Off on TechEd ’06 session proposals in
Filed under General Stuff, Musings
Threats and Countermeasures version 2.0
I’m delighted to announce that Microsoft has released updated versions of two of its key security guides: the Threats and Countermeasures Guide 2.0 and the Windows Server 2003 Security Guide 2.0. Devin and I put in a lot of hours updating these two guides to reflect updated settings in XP SP2 and Windows Server 2003 SP1, and there’s some very useful new information therein.
Comments Off on Threats and Countermeasures version 2.0
Filed under General Stuff, Musings
Paul's Down-Home Page 