It took me awhile to notice this update (yeah I guess I really am that busy) but Michael and Chris updated to the new Beta 2 version of K2. It looks like it is just a general bug fix and appearance tweak release and if you are interested you may read more about it here.
Monthly Archive for January, 2006
Its that time of month everyone, thats right its Free-For-All Friday! I am REALLY late in posting this time and I do apologize but I have been so freaking busy! Here are the rules again for anyone who has forgotten.:
Linus Torvalds says thanks but no thanks to GPLv3 in a post this afternoon on the Linux Kernel Mailing List. According to the quotes on NewsForge. he said “I think it’s insane to require people to make their private signing keys available, for example.”
Nothing really unexpected there, but boooo! 
Just letting everyone know that I am indeed still alive. The reason that I have been so quite is because we are extremely understaffed at work so they have everyone working (all 4 of us at present) working 20 hours or more a week as we try to fill all 140 hours of the US work week (still 18 hours short though). This is going to be a problem for me though as this semester I have CIS 591 which is the final programming class of the CIS degree program. This class demands at the very minimum 150 hours devoted to the project till the final presentation in May (of course, more is always better). They have changed this course a great deal, as I’m fairly certain that I have mentioned at some point, so I am presently working on locating a local non for profit or business that will provide me with sponsorship so I can code something for them and actually be allowed to graduate in May. So, if you live in the Springfield area and are interested in gaining customer service experience please let know and I can send you on to our hiring people. I really hope we get some more people so I can drop back to 15 hours or so.
Also on tap for the semester I have me two capstone courses, my COBA capstone is entitled Strategic Management and Planning and of course contains an obscene amount of group work (oh I so love group assignments . . .) and my University capstone is entitled Diversity in America. This one should be a cakewalk as there are no tests and all we do is watch movies and videos. My only remaining course is Roman Civilization which will fulfill my last “Globalization” requirement for graduate and is the only course that I actually want to take. I hope this class will be fun even though it is taught by a woman over in the English Lit. department who looks as though she has never had a non academic job in her life. Ad I am free of some of the distractions that I had last semester I am hoping to finish up strong and walk with the class of 2006 in May! 
This is cool, the GPL is going to guns with DRM stating “GPL software cannot use ‘digital restrictions’ on copyright material unless users can control them.”
Its about damn time!
Well according to the National Weather Service it is supposed to sleet and possible snow tonight. As I am really tired of scrapping ice, etc. off of my cracked windshield I have purchased a cover for my car. So bring it snow, I am ready for once! 
In other news Matthew purchased me a Delphi XM MyFi for Christmas so I have been rocking out to tons of commercial free, and extremely high quality music which is great for all of the cold days and nights this winter.
I hope everyone is doing well and keeping warm, I am trying to enjoy this last week of the Winter Break that I have left as we start classes again after Martin Luther King Day. Here’s to my last semester at Missouri State! 
Another exploit for the Windows operating system has come out recently, no surprise there, but this little bugger is particularly nasty so pay attention! I found out about this because I float in IT circles and the Security Now! Podcast’s Episode 20 discusses a patch for this venerability that was written by Ilfak Guilfanov. I have installed it on my machine and it does correct the venerability.
Here is a little background on how this works.It was discovered back in December of 2005 and it affects all versions of Windows (including ME, 98, and 95.. Of course the word of this new hole in Windows was spread rapidly through the Internet “Underworld” and there are already sites that have embedded this exploit into the code, images,etc to further spread the exploit. It has been reported that something like 100 different variations are currently known so you may already have a venerable system.
Low and behold this is not even a new vulnerability, it has been lying dormant as it were since 1991. I should take some time to explain exactly what occurs before I get to involved. A MetaFile is a set of computer instructions that tells Windows how to draw primitive shapes such as circles and squares. The most common use of a MetaFile that you will probably be familiar with are the thumbnail of images that you see inside of Windows Explorer. There is bug in the code base of Windows though, that allows other code to be executed if for some reason the MetaFile is corrupt. I assume this was due in order to have an error thrown so that a developer would know that their file was damaged in some way
Continue reading ‘Critical “0 Day” Windows Exploit is roaming around!’
On December 31st. the WordPress Team finally announced the release of the 2.0 release of WordPress. The files actually came out on the 26.th but I guess better late than never. 
This release is known as Duke after, and in honor of, jazz pianist and composer Duke Ellington. The core files of WordPress saw over 500 changes and the upgrade process is a little risky with all the changes. I was lucky that I did not have any problems myself but if you are upgrading make sure that you start with version 1.5.2 unless you want to completely “hose” you install! There are 3 really simple things to remember 1. Backup 2. Backup 3.BACKUP both your database and ALL of your WordPress files. If you are interested you can read the official post about the release over on the WordPress Developer Blog and the list of some of the changes in this version include:
A new post for a New Year. Welcome to 2006 and Happy New Year everyone! Have fun and be safe!
