MAKE: Blog: Build your own Chat-Cord
“Voice over IP is taking over the world and I also like the idea of calling for free! The problem I’ve experienced so far is the fact that you always have to use those cumbersome headsets. When it would be possible to use your standard phone for this application, the experience of VoIP would be much more like the real POTS (plain old telephone system).“
OpenCRS.com Provides Access To Over 8000 CRS Docs
Slashdot | Open CRS: Free Government Research Reports
“Ted Bridis of the Associated Press reports that more than 8000 Congressional Research Service reports produced exclusively for legislators are now available to the public for free. The Center for Democracy & Technology’s Open CRS project is a Web-based central clearinghouse that features several collections of government reports. The research service has ‘… a staff of more than 700 and a nearly $100 million budget …’ but ‘CRS Reports do not become public until a member of Congress releases the report.’ The Open CRS project wants your help in obtaining and adding reports to the database.“
Try Google Earth
BetaNews | Google Launches Free 3D Map Software
“Just like it did following its purchase of Picasa, Google has released a free version of the satellite imagery-based mapping software it acquired from Keyhole last October. Google Earth functions much like the company’s online Maps service, enabling users to zoom in on an address or get driving directions overlayed on a 3D map.“
New Qt Release, Integrated with VS .NET
freshmeat.net: Project details for Qt
“This is the first GPL edition available for MS Windows ever. Qt/Windows has been integrated with Microsoft® Visual Studio .NET. An all-new edition of Qt optimized for back-end server development is available. Binaries are provided for both commercial customers and the open source community. The paint engine and Qt Designer were improved and are more powerful. Wide architectural and API improvements were made. Support for multithreading was extended, and much more.“
REALbasic 2005 for Linux
Announcements 2005 | REALbasic 2005
“REAL Software announced today that REALbasic 2005 for Linux, a groundbreaking new visual development environment for Linux, is available for public beta and can be downloaded now from www.realsoftware.com/demo. REALbasic 2005 for Linux Standard Edition will be offered for free when it ships in August.“
Compatible with VB and includes utilites to migrate VB to RB.
Open Source Video Production Software
You don’t need to spend $$$ or get a Mac to get at some of the best VFX and 3D animation software out there. Just D/L it.
Turning Up Rootkits at UConn
UConn Finds Rootkit in Hacked Server
“The rootkit was first placed on the server during a system compromise on October 26, 2003, but was only detected one week ago, on July 20.UConn said the attack took advantage of an insecure service for which no vendor patch was available, but stressed that an analysis of the computer showed that that the original compromise was incomplete.“
A couple of things to keep in mind here. First, because the original compromise was incomplete, it most likely means that the rootkit was dropped by some worm exploiting a known weakness, but for some reason failed to fully deploy. In all likelihood, the ‘kit never “called home” so the attacker(s) never accessed the machine. Second, this stresses the need for constant vigilence. The 18 month gap between the intrusion and detection was most likely because the ‘kit was dormant and not giving off any signels of its presence. On the other hand, a sysadmin should know if, in less than 18 months, that there was an unauthorized access to the box.
So, remember folks: keep the firewalls up and limit remote acces to servers.
Summary of Blog Reaction to Grokster Decision
Darknet: Blogosphere weighs in on Grokster ruling
As expected from the most important copyright case of the digital age, there’s much discussion in the blogosphere this morning about the Supreme Court’s Grokster decision today.
Darknet’s summary of reaction around the blogosphere is pretty thorough. Worth having a look at what those close to P2P nets have to say about this.
O’Reilly Adds del.icio.us Tags To Articles
Our del.icio.us Folksonomy (Beta)
“We’ve just added del.icio.us tags to our articles. These are single keyword categories generated by the O’Reilly readers as they bookmark our articles in del.icio.us. The sum of these tags is a taxonomy (some say folksonomy) of articles that emerged from our readers rather than being handed down by our editors.“
Based on data supplied by del.icio.us, O’Reilly is adding popular folksonomy tags to it’s articles. The tag info will appear in the upper left hand corner of the article. This is a great way to tie content to the broader community and put it in some sort of context.
Running XP As Non-Admin
Users Overlook XP’s Non-Admin Security
“Microsoft is sparing no expense to spread the Least-privileged User Account security gospel ahead of next year’s Longhorn launch, but a little-known fact—especially among IT administrators and end users—is that the technology is already available in the Windows operating system.“
The article references the nonadmin wiki as a good source for information and tools. It is run by Microsoft developers.