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Vol. 6,
No. 2
1-12-06
1 WMF and HD-TV follow-ups and some interesting info on the USPTO and the SCO vs. IBM case
2 Take
me back
3 iPod Levis, Trek communicators for the Navy, “annoying” law, no Intel on Apple cases
4 Panda patches
5 Spybot errors
As happens frequently in the computer and technology fields, last week while I was doing a final edit on Thursday’s newsletter and installing the WMF vulnerability workaround on a couple more test machines Microsoft released a patch.
Around 6:30 on the 5th Microsoft broke their once-a-month patch cycle and released KB912919 to address the growing threat from the Windows Metafile vulnerability, which can allow remote code execution and is already being exploited by a number of viruses.
If you installed last week’s workaround don’t worry, the actual MS update works fine with it, plus you can uninstall the third party patch through Add/Remove programs.
The MS update is available through the Windows Update site or you can download it directly from http://www.microsoft.com/technet/security/Bulletin/MS06-001.mspx.
Dan Dennison’s article on his adventures with HD-TV last week generated a lot of mail. Most seemed to think you HAD to have an HD box from the cable company to get HD content because it needed to be decoded by the tuner and decrypted because it is protected content.
Just to explain Dan’s findings from a different direction, let’s start with the tuner. Dan’s HD-TV has an internal tuner. Most LCDs and plasmas say “HD Ready” which means they have no internal tuner, so they need the box to decode the HD signal, but an HD-TV with an onboard tuner can do its own decoding, no box needed.
The other big sticking point about the article was that HD signals are encrypted, which absolutely require a pre-programmed box from the cable provider to decrypt, but local stations who broadcast over-the-air HD signals don’t encrypt those signals, nor does the cable provider. Any HD-TV that can decode HD signals internally needs no box to get unencrypted programming such as WHAS and KET, a box is only needed for channels like ESPN-HD.
Hopefully that will clear up some misconceptions.
For some newer issues, the US Patent and Trademark Office announced this week to improve the quality and accuracy of its patents while also speeding up the process.
Hopefully this will reduce the number of ridiculous patents granted for processes that have been in use for years, like mouse clicks and hyper-links. Personally I’d like to see this change go even farther, moving software programs and processes to the realm of copyright instead of patents. The idea behind a patent is for something physical that you can see and hold in your hand, or climb on, or sit in. It’s not lines of code that are like a novel written in a foreign language.
But any progress toward sanity is a good thing in the end, so I look forward to seeing if they can come through their promises.
The other thing of interest I noticed this week was an interview of Intellectual Property attorney Thomas Carey (http://searchopensource.techtarget.com/originalContent/0,289142,sid39_gci1157425,00.html) on why he feels the SCO lawsuit against IBM and Novell has no merit.
It’s a good read, if a little dry, but let me boil it down to a single point quoted from the piece:
“Thomas Carey: The key to the case is that
IBM specifically negotiated with SCO a clause that permitted it to use the same
programmers who saw the Unix code to make competing products. This was
documented as part of a transaction in which SCO was paid lots of money. SCO
conveniently left that clause out of its explanation of the facts. But in the
long run, it will not be able to hide from that concession.
The
result is, absent literal copying of meaningful amounts of Unix into Linux, SCO
has no case. None. Nada. Zilch.”
Tada! I hope SCO investors take note of this
little tidbit and start pressuring CEO Darrell McBride to drop this ludicrous
case and go back to trying to make SCO a player again. When you run a company whose business
model is to do nothing but file lawsuits you’re bound to run out of money sooner
or later, which means bankruptcy and massive losses for investors. Did you guys with SCO stock hear
that?!?
Kevin Mefford, Editor
Terry Wise
Tech News of the Week
Levi's is set
to launch iPod jeans...these are either going to be
waaaayyyy cool or come
with a pocket protector:
http://www.vnunet.com/vnunet/news/2148389/levis-ipod-jeans
The
Navy or 'Star Trek'? A new secure communication setup may make you
wonder:
http://www.wired.com/news/technology/0,69996-0.html?tw=wn_tophead_4
You
may not have heard about 47 U.S.C. 223, the 'annoy' law that now
seeks to
govern abuses of Internet communications. There's a link in
the story
to the actual text of the law. It's worth a read:
http://news.zdnet.com/2100-1035_22-6025396.html?tag=zdfd.newsfeed
The
first Intel-based Macs have arrived, but don't expect that famous
sticker to
show up on Apple's stylish cases:
http://hardware.silicon.com/desktops/0,39024645,39155515,00.htm
Copy
us on the good stuff ;-)
Matthew Dattilo
thepcgurus@gmail.com
www.mattdattilo.com
Download of the Week
When asked for opinions on antivirus solutions we generally suggest Panda or Kaspersky as retail products, along with AVG and aVast as free alternatives.
If you’ve chosen the Panda option and use either Titanium 2005 or Platinum Internet Security 2005 a glitch has arisen that you should be made aware of. On some systems Panda has begun to block the processing of Windows Updates, which isn’t a good thing.
Panda is aware of the issue and has issued hotfixes for both programs. Get the Titanium fix from http://www.pandasoftware.com/support/card.aspx?id=21043&idIdioma=2&pagina=5 and the Platinum fix from http://www.pandasoftware.com/support/card.aspx?id=21234&idIdioma=2&pagina=16.
If you run these versions of Panda and haven’t experienced any issues with Windows Updates then you can skip the patches, but if you choose to install them anyway they don’t cause any problems.
Email Question of the Week
Q: Hi. I have a question that perhaps one
of you all can help me with. I have
used Spybot Search and Destroy for
quite a while. I also use MS
anitspyware program and AdAware.
Recently when I went to update Spybot
Search and Destroy, it came up and said
"check sum" error (whatever that
is). So, I attempted to update again
and got the same message. Then I
uninstalled Spybot and reinstalled
it. Went and updated it again and got
the same check sum error
message. Any suggestions on how to fix this
problem? I am lost as
to what to do or what is causing this error message.
A: I've run into this problem many times
before, and here's the solution.
On your update screen, you'll see a box
with the name of a site,
"Safer-Networking #2" can be the default, but it
could be any of a number
of sites. There is a little down arrow next to
that site, and when you hit
it, out drops the site list. Just pick
another one of the sites, BN
FileForum (World) does a good job, and use it to
do the updates.
What's causing this? I honestly don't know, but I
do know some of the
servers are hit and miss with the updates, and some just
don't get them
transferred correctly.
Also, make sure you are using
Spybot S&D 1.4. Usually updates won't even
show up for older
versions, but I haven't checked running updates in the
old versions
recently.
Hope this all helps, and feel free to e-mail us
back!
Daniel A. Williams
daniel@thepcgurus.com
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