Information Week posted an article about an attack called Windows Jingle. It is a method about stealing a user’s password by encoding it on the Windows startup tone and then decoding it by using a local or remote microphone.

This attack requires malware on the user’s computer according to the article. Also, since it uses sound as a transmission for the data, the attacker does not need a network connection to get a user’s data.

This attack would also work for Mac OS X and Linux operating systems according to Eric Filiol who explained how this process works at the Black Hat conference in Las Vegas.

Source: Information Week

Users who are using Zone Alarms could not connect to the internet after installing the latest patch that Microsoft released according to various tech sites.

“That’s a very serious type of issue,” said Laura Yecies of ZoneAlarm. More than 300 messages were posted on a forum at dsl.com about the issue.

Telegraph.co.uk notes that the update can be uninstalled via the Windows “Add or Remove Programs” utility. A similar event occured last may when Microsoft released the third service pack for Windows XP.

The Zone Alarms software is a free software that was created by ZoneLabs.

Source: Telegraph.co.uk

The new XO computer has a new design according to various tech sites. It is called XO 2.0 and it will be slimmer and lighter.

“Being small is very important. The current one is a little too big; it’s a little too heavy,” said the one laptop per child chairman, Nicholas Negroponte.

“It’s a totally new concept for learning devices,” he added since it will have a touch-screen keyboard which can double as a second display.

It will be produced in 2010 and it will cost as little as $75. Microsoft will begin on testing Windows XP on this new XO system in June.

Source: Information Week

According to an article at informationweek.com, the internet explorer version 7 from ISPs such as Comcast and Qwest may crash during the SP3 installation because they tend to be outdated.

The crash occurs because XP3 runs a dll file called XMLLite.dll and it is not compatible with versions of IE7 that were released before October.

“If you produce custom IE7 packages, then you need to ensure that those packages will install successfully on Windows XP SP3,” said Jane Maliouta to ISPs in her blog. She added that the ISPs can update their distributions by downloading a kit from Microsoft’s TechNet site.

Source: Information Week

Mac users can finally backup their files though an online backup provider such as EMC’s MozyHome.

The cost of this service is $4.95 per month and there is no limit on how much users can upload to backup their files.

“Previously, Mozy was just for Windows data. Now it’s also for Mac, starting with the consumer, and moving soon to a business version,” says the CEO of Mozy. Their two other services, MozyPro and MozyEnterprise are currently available only for Windows systems but Mac users can start to use these services sometime in summer.

A different company called Carbonite will also launch a similar service starting in July.

Source: Byte and Switch

A security patch has been issued by Apple yesterday for their Safari web browser according to Information Week.

One of the four vulnerabilities is described by Apple as, “A heap buffer overflow exists in WebKit’s handling of JavaScript regular expressions. The issue may be triggered via JavaScript when processing regular expressions with large, nested repetition counts. This may lead to an unexpected application termination or arbitrary code execution.”

Two of the vulnerabilities are only applicable to the Windows version of the web browser.

Users can get the patch either by downloading it on Apple’s site or through the Software Update function of Mac OS X.

Source: Information Week

Its not often that I mention other tech websites here on Technibble. I will only do it if the site is high quality and I believe it will be useful to my readers and the Mike Tech Show is one such site. Many of the technicians in our forums are already fans of it.

The Mike Tech Show is a technology and computer podcast discussing cool sites, software, tips and tricks that will make you more productive at home and work.

What makes this show so relevant to us technicians is that the shows host (Mike) is also a technician. He works as a network manager for a large company and does a little business consulting on the side. His content remains nice and fresh because a new podcast is available every friday.

Its well worth a listen, check it out: http://www.miketechshow.com

Apple has updated their Time Machine system and it can now recognize a USB hard drive according to an article at The Register.

When users install the Time Machine and AirPort updates, their USB hard drives will now have an access to Time Machine’s capabilities like Apple’s Time Capsule hardware. The update can be downloaded through the Software Update functionality of OS X or users can download it at Apple’s support web site.

Previously, the Time Capsule hardware is the only computer hardware that can work with the Time Machine software.

Source: The Register

It is no longer the case that widely used PHP applications would run poorly on Windows Server when it comes to the newest Server operating system of Microsoft according to a recent post at Slashdot.

The brief article notes that 75% to 80% of PHP users develop their software on Windows workstations and this is great news for them.

Microsoft certified the Zend Core form of PHP as ready to run ‘with performance and stability’ on their latest Server OS. This statement is according to Andi Gutmans who is the co-founder and CTO of Zend.

Source: Slashdot

A news report has been released that Eee PCs, which will come with Windows XP preinstalled, will be available to be bought by consumers later this month. There is no price yet for this upgraded product but it will be higher than its current price of $499.

The OS and Office suite will run from a 2 GB SD card according to an article at apcmag.com.

“We are hard at work on the project here, and we are using an approach that is a little unusual for Microsoft in that we are managing the entire process of adapting and testing an existing version of Windows for a new PC,” said James Utzschneider, who is the head of Marketing and Communications for Microsoft, in his blog.

Source: APC