Thom Holwerda Archive

"This paper discusses the security implications of Mach being integrated with the Mac OS X kernel. A few examples are used to illustrate how Mach support can be used to bypass some of the BSD security features, such as securelevel. Furthermore, examples are given that show how Mach functions can be used to supplement the limited ptrace functionality included in Mac OS X."

Google has released a new tool which allows users to synchronize their Cookies, Saved Passwords, Bookmarks, History and tabs from their last session for the Firefox web browser. All of this data is uploaded to Google's servers continuously (and has the option to be encrypted), and then downloaded every time you launch Firefox on any computer with the extension installed.

"The next-generation protocol, Internet Protocol version 6, is the future of the Internet. Learn how IPv6 compares to Internet Protocol version 4, understand the version 6 address formats, discover the benefits of IPv6, and learn which IT products comply with this new standard."

The US House of Representatives definitively rejected the concept of Net neutrality on Thursday, dealing a bitter blow to Internet companies like Amazon.com, eBay and Google that had engaged in a last-minute lobbying campaign to support it. By a 269-152 vote that fell largely along party lines, the House Republican leadership mustered enough votes to reject a Democrat-backed amendment that would have enshrined stiff Net neutrality regulations into federal law and prevented broadband providers from treating some Internet sites differently from others.

"You might be surprised to know that you can connect Excel to a database, and this isn't limited to databases running Microsoft's SQL. Excel can connect to practically any mainstream database (MySQL, PostgreSQL, Oracle and others), provided that the database offers an ODBC (Open DataBase Connectivity) driver. In this article, you'll learn how to connect MySQL to Excel."

"What ever happened to the virtual reality, 3D world of the web? Back in the late 90s, all the hype was about VRML - Virtual Reality Markup Language - which would turn the web into an immersive environment that you'd maneuver around to get to the information you wanted. We're here to tell you that the reports of the 3D web's death are greatly exaggerated. As evidence, we present three 3D browsers that will use that graphics card for something other than gaming: 3B, Browse3D, and SphereXPlorer."

"1.7 gigabytes in 12 minutes. That's 1,700MB in under 15 minutes from the Internet to my PC. Glorious, spectacular, almost breathtaking speed, brought to me courtesy of Verizon FiOS. Yes, it's true, I finally got it installed and it's good. Devoted readers know the long road I took to get here, but for those new to me or to FiOS, here's a brief recap."

Linux now forms a quarter of Dell's server business and is growing fast, the company says. Should Microsoft be worried? Long hailed as the provider of choice for companies looking for PC solutions based on Intel hardware and Microsoft software, Dell says that Linux now makes up 25 percent of its enterprise market. The company also claims to have made inroads in the Linux services market and to have reached a comfort level with Linux systems where it can now solve over 90 percent of Red Hat Linux service calls without need to involve Red Hat.

SourceForge has announced the SourceForge Enterprise Edition Download. This is a free, 15 user download version of SFEE. It's packaged together with Subversion and CVS in a VMware image. SFEE is a corporate version of SourceForge.net that lets development teams work together on internal software projects. It's an integrated toolset that lets you monitor project status, find out what your offsite developers are doing, access project information and documentation in a central repository, manage software changes efficiently, and search across your software projects. Check it out and download it from SourceForge.net . There's also a community support site with documentation, discussion forums, add-ons, and sample projects.

Microsoft has cut PC-to-PC synchronization from Vista. Vista Beta 2, which is slated to go to as many as two million testers, does not include the P2P synchronization technology. Microsoft officials said they cut the feature due to quality concerns, but the functionality is still "something we plan to deliver to our customers in the future," according to a company spokeswoman.

"DebConf is best known as an annual gathering of Debian developers. But the Debian project likes the name so much that it uses it - give or take a capital 'C' - for the system used to configure Debian packages. Just as the conference is central to the social aspects of Debian, so the program is central to the package management system that is one of Debian's main technical advantages. Debconf gives users as fine a degree of control during configuration as they choose."

Microsoft acknowledged Wednesday that it needs to better inform users that its tool for determining whether a computer is running a pirated copy of Windows also quietly checks in daily with the software maker. The company said the undisclosed daily check is a safety measure designed to allow the tool, called Windows Genuine Advantage, to quickly shut down in case of a malfunction.

At a Computex event today, Intel officially unveiled its 965 Express chipset (the P965, codenamed 'Broadwater') for use with its forthcoming line of Core 2 Duo processors. The company confirmed the accelerated launch schedule for the Core 2 rollout: Woodcrest (a Xeon replacement) in June, Conroe (for desktops) in July, and Merom (for laptops) in August. There's also an ultra low voltage Merom in the works for use in very thin portables from Dell and HP.

Dell launched on Wednesday a new generation of servers with Intel's latest dual-core server processors and new management tools. The new PowerEdge servers make up Dell's second batch of products that use dual-core Xeon chips from Intel. However, the earlier generation of servers, based on a chip code-named Paxville, weren't expected to be mass-market products. The PowerEdge 1950, 2900 and 2950, based on Intel's latest Xeon processor, known as Dempsey, will become the new bedrocks of Dell's server lineup.