I read a post over at WPCentral this morning, and thought I’d share. They found a nice “skin” case for your Windows Phone 7 device (among others) that covers the whole device. It even includes a wallpaper (background) to match. So, it looks like it is a nearly 100% covering skin.
I’ll be ordering one of these shortly, myself!
This is always going back and forth, and they always have different winners and losers. For the time being, though, researchers at Black Hat have said that Microsoft has better security than Mac’s OSX, although OSX Lion has made many improvements. There are always those that say that Windows is so insecure, but Windows 7 has proven many people wrong since it’s release. It is the most secure version of Windows, even when tested.
Escalating privileges remains a problem on both operating systems, Stamos says, with OS X having more potential soft spots than Windows 7. But when it comes to network vulnerabilities, Apple is the loser. "OS X networks are significantly more vulnerable to network privilege escalation," he says. "Almost every OS X server service offers weak or broken authentication mechanisms."
The recent S&P downgrade of the US Government to AA+ has given Microsoft a heads up. They are one of four US companies that still command a AAA credit rating from S&P, and they are the only tech based company. What is this country doing? Apple has more cash than the US. Microsoft has a better credit rating. We can only blame ourselves on this one. Although, (political side rant incoming) after September 11th, we were all American’s. Now that this has come about, we are so divided and placing blame on everyone else buy ourselves. I guess that old saying is true – “United we stand. Divided we fall.”
It’s a sea change from the early 1980s, when the top rating was coveted. Back then, 60 U.S. corporations held the title. By 1995, half as many were rated AAA.
Today, it’s only four: Microsoft, Exxon Mobil, Johnson & Johnson and Automatic Data Processing. (This is excluding some financial and government-affiliated organizations.)
Microsoft seems to think that the mindless, nameless Jersey Shore “people” would be a great inspiration for your avatar on Xbox LIVE. You can get “The Situation” (WTF?!) Abs, or “Snooki” (Smart one, she is) hair. Does he always wear a womans belly shirt? I try and think of Xbox gamers as being a bit smarter than the Jersey Shore demographics. We have opposable thumbs.
MinWin, the core of Windows that allows administrators to run Windows at it’s very least components, is still around in Windows 8 – and much more prominent. At least, that is how the rumors are going these days. MinWin is basically just the very least that Windows needs to run: the kernel, HAL, TCP/IP, drivers and NTFS. With such little resources needed, you could run MinWin in a VM that takes up an extremely small footprint while still running what needs to be run.
Although the rumors are still flying about MinWin and the future of Hyper-V and XP Mode (they may be integrated into each other), the BUILD conference is where Microsoft will spill the beans on a lot of information on Windows 8. We’ll see how the predictions have been!
MinWin will allow Microsoft to decouple many subsystems from the core of Windows, including Internet Explorer. The underlying core that will be left will be the NT kernel. And that’s where Hyper-V may come into play, Villinger explained. It looks as if Hyper-V 3.0 could be baked into at least some Windows 8 client SKUs. The client-side Hyper-V hypervisor potentially could end up replacing XP Mode in Windows 7 and provide users with a way to run legacy apps on a much smaller and more secure virtualized Windows instance (MinWin), Villinger wrote.
Journalists were caught off guard last week when a authentic looking, but pretty fishy sounding, study was released. According to the study, Internet Explorer users scored lower on an online IQ test than other browser users. Many journalists reported on the story, and I had a post ready to be published, but it just didn’t feel right. I’m glad I didn’t, otherwise I’d be laughing at myself (although, to be honest, at first I thought it was legit). It made a lot of top stories, from the BBC to CNN. But, in reality, the company that did the research, ApTiquant, doesn’t even exist. The website for the firm was only recently registered and put online. Ouch. I guess in the age of the Internet, it’s difficult to verify information.
Windows XP is the leader when it comes to rootkits. With 74% of XP machines being infected with a rootkit. Windows 7 only accounts for 12% of infections.
Vlcek assumes that the big reason for this is the extra security built into Windows 7 and the huge amount of pirated copies of Windows XP installed. Many have not upgraded to the higher security of Service Pack 3 for Windows XP due to the fact it does expose that you are running a counterfeit copy of Windows. Microsoft will still serve you security updates as a pirate, but will label you as one in the process.
So, this is your reminder: it is best and most secure to run a legitimate copy of Windows and keep your box patched up with all the required updates for ALL of your software.
Rootkits have become an important part of the most sophisticated malware packages, particularly botnets, because they mask the infection from the user, the operating system and most security software. By installing a rootkit, the hacker insures the compromise goes undetected as long as possible, and that the PC remains available to the botnet’s controller for nefarious chores, such as sending spam or spreading malware to other machines.
At Microsoft, you’d probably not expect some weird job titles. But, deep in the Xbox Live team there is a team of “Unicorn Ninja’s” to help keep you safe and enjoy your online experience. They help keep hackers, cheaters, and those that keep you from enjoying your game (screaming obscenities, etc.) at bay. So, if you’ve had a close call with them, you probably weren’t doing something right on Xbox Live.
Day in and day out, the inboxes of Erickson and his fellow enforcers are piled high with stacks of complaints about offensive behavior, speech, and materials. They dutifully sort through it all and decide what’s next. That could be requiring a user to remove an offensive word or phrase from their profile to – in the more egregious cases – outright banning users.
According to NetMarketShare..com, Windows XP has finally fallen below the 50% mark in market share. Windows 7 is gaining and is at nearly 28%. Vista is well below that at just above 9%, and Mac OSX 10.6 is at ~4%. One thing I do notice is that the iPhone (iOS) is gaining and may pass the Mac OSX in market share. Apple knows it’s cash cow, and it’s not the Mac.
The DFT (Dark Forces Team) have been working on a utility that can load custom ROM’s on your Windows Phone 7 device. I’ve used custom ROM’s on my older Dell Axim Pocket PC, Motorola Q (Windows Mobile 6) and my Android powered phone, and they offer a lot over standard, vanilla ROM’s. From custom ringtones, to fully unlocked devices to extremely custom themes and features, the sky is the limit with custom ROM’s.
It’ll be interesting to see what the folks over at XDA Developers come up with in the coming weeks.
