David L. Farquhar, computer security professional, train hobbyist, and landlord
Due to the Dutch certificate authority Diginotar being compromised, Mozilla released Firefox 6.0.2 and Microsoft released security advisory 2607712 in order to prevent those compromised SSL certificates–in layperson terms, a file that permits web servers to use https for security–from being used.
Without this step, someone could use a compromised certificate to set up a fake web site masquerading as some other web site you trust and using it for fraud.
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When I wrote about using ipconfig /flushdns to fix intermittent Internet problems, a longtime reader reported he has the problem frequently on his dialup connection. If you find yourself doing this a lot, there’s a more permanent fix.
Dan Bowman sent over this ongoing series at Forbes. I’d seen the first couple of parts of it, but didn’t realize it was still ongoing. In light of new Amazon tablet rumors, it takes on new relevance.
It’s a thought-provoking look at the state of U.S. manufacturing today, and the state of management. I don’t know if the author thinks it’s too late to reverse this decline, but presumably no. Otherwise he wouldn’t be writing it, probably.
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Reports of Amazon’s tablet plans are trickling out. Basically, it’s going to be a 7-inch tablet running a very customized version of Android, tweaked to play media purchased from Amazon, and priced at $250, half the price of an entry-level Apple Ipad. (In English, we capitalize the first letter of proper nouns, and my native language is English, not C++, if you’re wondering.) Techcrunch and The Register have some of the details. The name: Amazon Kindle. The release date: end of November.
I wouldn’t call it a can’t-miss, but it’s clear Amazon’s thought a lot of things through here.
PC Magazine has reprised its sub-$200 PC. I think it’s a good guide, and a savvy shopper can potentially do a little bit better with some care and some luck. At that price, it’s running Linux, but it also serves as a good guide for upgraders looking to upgrade an existing PC inexpensively. If you have a case and hard drive you can reuse, you can either buy better parts, or just pocket the savings.
Here’s my take on their selections.
My brother in law told me he saw an 8-inch Vizio wifi-only tablet running Android at Costco for $285. Its reviews aren’t exactly stellar, but if you just want a basic tablet, it seems to be OK. I’d wait a few months and see what Amazon’s tablet plans are, though.
He also asked about laptops. And there’s some good stuff going on in the low end there too.
Many brand-name PCs, rather than giving you a regular Windows CD, give you a restore disc, which returns the laptop to factory configuration–junkware and all.
Just about the best thing you can do to pep up a brand-name PC’s performance is to do a clean Windows install. So here’s how to download a regular Windows CD so you can do just that, when needed.
And there’s one other situation where you’ll need this. If your PC came with 32-bit Windows and you want to upgrade to 64-bit, or it came with 64-bit and you need to downgrade to 32-bit for compatibility reasons, you can download the other version. The CD key for one will work with the other.
My Kingston SSDNow V+100 arrived today. I didn’t really get to play with it, but I have some early impressions.
Yesterday must have been Webserver Wednesdsay, because two things happened. A new version of Apache was released, and a new tool for testing the vulnerability of webservers to denial of service (DoS) was released.