Adobe has warned their users that there was glitch that was recently discovered on their Acrobat and Reader softwares. This warning was given less than a day after Adobe released a patch for another vulnerability in those two softwares.

Users can patch up the glitch by applying the patches that were outlined in Adobe’s Advisory APSB07-18. The glitch exploits the ‘mailto’ command of the softwares.

The flaw lets someone seize a computer and implant a malware into it. The ones who are vulnerable are those who use Internet Explorer 7 in Windows XP or Server 2003 operating systems.

Source: Tgdaily

HeavyLoad is a freeware application designed to stress all resources of a system such as CPU, RAM, Hard Drive, Network and the Operating System. Why would someone want to do this? To test to see if a computer will run reliably under load. This is known as a “burn in” by system builders and its useful to run on new computers before they are used in a live enviroment.
The way HeaveyLoad stresses a PC is by writing a large test file to the temp file, allocates physical and virtual memory and draws patterns in its window.

Read the rest of this entry »

The next Windows kernel is called MinWin and it was designed to use very little RAM and hard drive space.

When comparing Windows Vista and MinWin, Vista has 50 times more system files 160 times more hard drive space that it is taking on a PC. However, it will be three more years before the next Windows version will be released so those figures may be closer in the future.

“It’s still bigger than I’d like it to be, but we’ve taken a shot at really stripping out all of the layers above and making sure that we had a clean architectural layer there,” said Eric Traut who is one of the head Operating System designers at Microsoft.

Source: Tech.blorge.com

A patch has been released for both Adobe Reader and Adobe Acrobat. They both have a version number of 8.1.1.

“Critical vulnerabilities have been identified in Adobe Reader and Acrobat that could allow an attacker who successfully exploits these vulnerabilities to take control of the affected system. A malicious file must be loaded in Adobe Reader or Acrobat by the end user for an attacker to exploit these vulnerabilities,” according to Adobe’s post in a bulletin.

However, only those who use Microsoft Corp.’s Windows XP and Internet Explorer 7 are the ones who need to get the latest version of those Adobe products.

Source: PC World

When computer technicians are starting their first business they are quite vulnerable to “getting burned”. I have personally been burned a few times because I was probably too eagar to please. Here are some ways that new business owners can get burned and ways to avoid them.
Read the rest of this entry »

• PQI S721 microSD Memory Card + Card Reader Review @ Rbmods
• AMD DTX Small Form Factor System Sneak Peek @ HotHardware.com
• Zalman VF1000 LED Video Card Cooler Review @ Madshrimps
• Coolmax CUQ-1200B Green Power 1200 Watt ATX Power Supply Review @ Tweaknews.net
• NVIDIA PerfKit 5: New Tools for 3D Developers @ Digit-Life
• Zalman Reserator XT @ Overclockers Online
• Trendnet TEW-633GR Wireless N Gigabit Router Review @ The Tech Zone

Read the rest of this entry »

A massively multi-player online game called EVE online was shut down by EVE Online’s owner, CCP, due to an anomaly in their database which indicated a potential exploit.

It was shut down for about ten hours on Friday. “While some may feel that such a drastic reaction was not warranted, it is always our approach to err on the side of caution in order to protect the players. We of course understand the effect and disruption this has had for our players and apologize for not having been able to explain to the community what was going on. In these cases it can often be counterproductive to containment to give out information while we are in the process of evaluating the scope of the problem,” said the chief operating officer.

Source: Register Hardware

Various websites reported that attackers were exploiting a new flaw that was discovered in RealPlayer.

Symantec’s Security Response Team uncovered the flaw three days ago. The flaw affects both versions 11 beta and 10.5. So far, it has been confirmed that it can be exploited on a computer that is running Windows. However, there is no news whether Linux and Mac OS X users may also be affected. Ben Greenbaum who is the senior manager of the team said that the code would probably be written for those platforms for the exploit to work.

RealNetworks, the developer of the RealPlayer software, has not made any response to this issue.

Source: PC World

A new update has been released for Mozilla’s internet browser, Firefox. The latest version number is 2.0.0.8. This version is compatible with Apple’s upcoming operating system, Leopard, according to Mozilla. Previously, it had trouble rendering Flash content on Intel-powered Macs and incorrect number items are shown on the add-ons dialog box for those who are already using Leopard.

There were 10 bugs that were fixed in the update and Secunia rated the package of patches with an overall rating of “highly critical.”

Beside security updates, Mozilla also added two new localized languages which are Georgian and Romanian.

Source: COMPUTERWORLD

A blog entry was written earlier today at Sophos.com about a spam that contains an audio file.

The audio are stock spam according to Neil who was the person who wrote the blog. They, the spammers, are advertising the stock which has a code of EXTO.

Most of these of emails do not have anything written on the subject line and Neil wrote that the mp3 tracks are randominzed. The file size also vary.

The voice in the files are feminine and they are multitone. The pitches vary too and they are adjusted throughout the track.

Source: Sophos