Day: May 19, 2006

I have been a Microsoft System Admin for YEARS… but when I think of stable, solid operating systems… Microsoft is NOT what first springs to mind. Linux does! Why am I a Microsoft Admin professionally, then? Because the people that pay my salary believe that they NEED to run Microsoft products to be viable. They are a “Microsoft Shop.” All hail, Bill Gates!!! However, what do I do for my OWN business (Dr. Bill Bailey.NET), and at home for my home servers? You got it. Linux. But, Microsoft goes on to spread the “FUD” (Fear Uncertainty and Doubt) that if you want to be stable, you need to use proprietary software.

Microsoft Says Open Source is Not Reliable or Dependable

Right! What a joke!

A “zero day” attack has been reported on a method that allows a fully patched Windows XP system running Microsoft Word to be compromised. The trojan was apparently written by sophisticated hackers in China and Taiwan.

MS-Word Attack

“The exploit arrives as an ordinary Microsoft Word document attachment to an e-mail. However, when the document is launched by the user the vulnerability is triggered to drop a backdoor with rootkit features to mask itself from anti-virus scanners.”

Bottom line: Do not open e-mail attachments!

Check it out, we now know what the official requirements for Windows Vista are:

Requirements for Vista

Absolute minimum:
“So-called Vista Capable PCs, Microsoft is expected to say, will require an 800MHz processor, 512MB of RAM, and a DirectX9 capable graphics processor, the sources said.”

And to get the REAL (all features with Aero Glass interface) system enhancements:
“Premium Ready guidelines will call for a 1GHz processor, 1GB RAM and 128MB of dedicated graphics memory. But, having met those, a PC’s graphics processor must also adhere to DirectX9, WDDM (the Windows display driver model format for writing drivers) along with supporting Pixel Shader 2.0 and offering a color depth of 32 bits per pixel, in addition to a minimum bandwidth requirement, the sources said. Microsoft is expected to say that 128MB of graphics memory will be capable of serving a display with up to 1.9 million pixels, a resolution of up to 1200 by 1600 pixels. It’s expected to say that higher resolutions will call for another step up in memory, an allotment of 256MB or more.”

Me? NO! I know, I know… am a radical techno-geek… but I guess I am just not ready to trust, essentially, a software program, to get it right… sigh!

Robot Does Heart Operation

“The 50-minute surgery, which took place in a Milan hospital, was carried out on a 34-year-old patient suffering from atrial fibrillation. Dozens of heart specialists attending an international congress on arrhythmia in Boston also watched.”