An insecurity expert has has discovered a vulnerability in older versions of Windows which pesky attackers could exploit to take over control of your PC. Somewhat ironically, the vulnerability afflicts the Help and Support Center for Windows XP and Server 2003, which users may still - just about - be able to use to get online technical support.

From the apple site: "The 10.6.4 Update is recommended for all users running Mac OS X Snow Leopard. It includes Safari 5 and general operating system fixes that enhance the stability, compatibility, and security of your Mac, including fixes that: resolve an issue that causes the keyboard or trackpad to become unresponsive, resolve an issue that may prevent some Adobe Creative Suite 3 applications from opening, address issues copying, renaming, or deleting files on SMB file servers, improve reliability of VPN connections, resolve a playback issue in DVD Player when using Good Quality deinterlacing, resolve an issue editing photos with iPhoto or Aperture in full screen view, improve compatibility with some braille display."

It seems that the previous news about Mandriva SA being for sale have been more than simple rumors. Frederic Cuif* (incorrectly unaccented due to limitations in our CMS), active member of the French-speaking Mandriva User Group has summed up the various outcomes and proposed projects he found after contacting several key members of the company in order to gather information. The result of his investigation can be found on his blog, along with a detailed analysis of the Mandriva business model and the proposed outcomes, from a renewed interest in the distribution and the community from Linagora, potential buyer, to what could be the end of the Mandriva adventure if nothing is done. (Thanks to everybody who submitted this)

Apple have updated the Mac Mini. It now sports an aluminium (no, I am not going to spell it "aluminum") enclosure, an HDMI port, an internal PSU (no power-brick!) and oddly, an SD card slot in the back. There's also an access hole on the bottom to change the RAM easily.

The MacOSX sandbox functionality is not talked about, and there exists almost zero documentation on the subject. As Google Chrome uses it to contain it browser, so could any other app. The goal of the ironfox project is to provide the user with a secured Firefox, but still let the user browse the web without the sandbox interfering. It does this by white-listing all the actions that Firefox may do. Should the user's browser be compromised by a vulnerability in Flash or Java, the sandbox would prevent it from leaking any data or executing binaries, preventing system compromise. To break the sandbox the attacker would likely need to have a exploit for the browser and a kernel exploit that would work within the context of the sandbox. The policy is included in the package and should give the user great insights in the workings of the sandbox. It only works in 10.6 but could be backported to 10.5 without much trouble, as both have the seatbelt/sandbox kernel module.

Andrew Hudson, whose recent article on BFS over at ARSTechnica intrigued us, shares with us some thoughts on the state of apps on Haiku. It turns out there are several repositories with a vast array of applications ready-to-go for your new Haiku install.

Yes, the day is finally drawing closer: the day Windows XP died. October 22, 2010 will be the final and definitive day for the venerable operating system, since OEMs will no longer be able to pre-load it on netbooks after that day. I might not make myself popular around here with this, but thank god, it's about time that pile of junk is taken behind the shed.

"Microsoft has fixed the distribution scope of a toolbar update that, without the user's knowledge, installed an add-on in Internet Explorer and an extension in Firefox called Search Helper Extension. Microsoft told us that the new update is actually the same as the old one; the only difference is the distribution settings. In other words, the update will no longer be distributed to toolbars that it shouldn't be added to. End users won't see the tweak, Microsoft told Ars, and also offered an explanation on what the mystery add-on actually does."

"The row between Google and Apple over the strict iPhone analytics information sharing policies, which Google and its AdMob subsidiary claim unfairly shuts them out of iPhone and iPad advertising in favor of Apple's iAd, may face antitrust scrutiny. According to the Financial Times, US regulators are looking into the situation, though it's not yet clear if a formal investigation will happen."

"SCO was dealt yet another blow in court today when District Judge Ted Stewart rejected the company's motion requesting a new trial or judgement of law. In a ruling issued today, Judge Stewart sided with a jury that issued a verdict against SCO in April, finding that Novell was the rightful owner of the UNIX SVRX copyrights. According to Judge Stewart, SCO failed to demonstrate that the jury's verdict contradicted the evidence presented in the case."

This is a problem I've been dealing with for a while now. I have a Lexmark printer which I've bought without checking for compatibility with Linux (I bought it when I was still using Windows), and as it turns out, this printer is not supported in Linux. I switched to Linux on my main desktop full-time late last year, so instead of to my desktop, I hooked this printer up to my bedroom Windows 7 media server/HTPC, and whenever I need to print, I just drop the file in question on this machine, and print form there. I need a better solution. Update: As it turns out, Lexmark has recently started releasing Linux drivers (good stuff). Still, the problem at hand stands, as there might still be other printers that suffer from the same problem.

It's late here, but we're having election night, and the two leading parties are currently tied seat-wise, with a 10000-vote difference. Anyway, it gives me some time to cover a major problem: Microsoft is at it again. The company has pushed an update through Windows Update which silently, without user consent, installs two browser extensions - one for Internet Explorer, and one for Firefox.

WebM support has been added to Firefox trunk. "Today I landed Firefox's WebM support on mozilla-central, our Firefox development branch. It should appear in nightly builds from tonight onwards. Firefox should build with WebM support without needing any extra changes to your build configuration, unless you're building on Win32, where you'll need to have MASM installed in order to compile libvpx's optimized assembly."

After much, much development, the developers behind AmigaOS 4 have released the first alpha of Timberwolf, the AmigaOS 4 port of the Firefox web browser. I tried it out on my Amiga, and indeed confirmed that this is very much alpha material.