Study: PEBKAC still a serious problem when it comes to PC security
Click title for rest of article at ArsTechnica.com…
Eric Bangeman
October 01, 2007
Today is the start of National Cyber Security Awareness Month in the US, and to mark the beginning of the month’s efforts, security software vendor McAfee and the National Cyber Security Alliance (which has a useful section on Cyber Security Basics) have released a new study meant to draw attention to smart practices in computer security. What the study shows is that many users are at risk from malware without realizing it, due to overestimating the amount of protection they have along with lax updating habits.
The study shows the frustrations of many a helpdesk worker, who all too often find that while security tools are in place on client PCs, they’re not well maintained. Or, to put it another way, one of the biggest problems securing the PC happens to be its most important component: the one sitting between the chair and keyboard.
We can take comfort in that fact that a whopping 98 percent of those participating in the study realize that it’s important to have up-to-date security software on their PCs. 87 percent of the users contacted said they used antivirus software, while 70 percent use anti-spyware software. Less used were firewalls and anti-phishing tools. Only 64 percent of those surveyed by McAfee and the NCSA reported having their firewalls turned on, and only 27 percent use software designed to stop phishing attempts.
October 8, 2007
Security: “Study: PEBKAC still a serious problem when it comes to PC security”
Tools & Code: “NeoOffice for the Mac”
NeoOffice for the Mac
Click title for all images and full review at TechRepublic.com…
NeoOffice, version 2.2.1, offers Apple computer users a free suite of office productivity applications. Whether Mac users own Intel- or PowerPC-powered Apple systems, NeoOffice provides a highly compatible collection of productivity tools.
You may download NeoOffice for free from the TechRepublic Software Library.
As you can see here, NeoOffice offers a word processing program, a spreadsheet utility, presentation and drawing tools and even a database application.
With its high compatibility, ease of use, similarity to Microsoft Office applications and open source (free) licensing, NeoOffice is the right tool for Mac users requiring standard office tool functionality.
October 4, 2007
Code Project Pick: “HTTP File Downloader Class for .NET”
HTTP File Downloader Class for .NET
Click title for source at CodeProject.com…
By Alex_1
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Code Project Pick: “EnvMan 1.2 – Windows Environment Variables Manager”
EnvMan 1.2 – Windows Environment Variables Manager
Click title for source at CodeProject.com…
By Vladislav Setchin
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Code Project Pick: A simple reporting tool or your .NET applications…
A new .Net reporting way
Click title for source at Codeproject.com…
Go here for download…
By Fabio Zanetta
Introduction
About three years ago I started develop in .Net using a famous free editor and I needed to add some reports to my applications. Since I like to see what I’m going to print, just to don’t waste an half forest in paper only to adjust that text font, I started to develop a little reporting library and a designer that use it. By the way, my first work was included into that famous free .Net editor, but I abandoned that project because I saw that it was bad designed (this is the doom of most of first drafts), so I become a brand new project: MyNeoReport engine and designer, that let me design reports in a WYSIWYG way and, if I want, I have a total control on each the report object from my application.
(more…)
October 3, 2007
Trends: “Sanity check: Is WiMAX almost here and will it unlock the next stage of the Internet?”
Sanity check: Is WiMAX almost here and will it unlock the next stage of the Internet?
Click title for rest of article at TechRepublic.com…
Jason Hiner
September 28th, 2007
To cut through the haze of WiMAX buzz and hype, I went to Chicago on September 25-27 for WiMAX World 2007 to see how close WiMAX is to being widely available and to get a clear view of what the services are going to look like when they go live. Most of all, I wanted to get a sense for whether WiMAX is truly on track to revolutionize mobile Internet access and bring fast, affordable broadband Internet to new corners of the world, or if it is being hyped by overzealous expectations.
I’m glad to report – and you can mark it down in pen – that 2008 will be the year that WiMAX arrives in full force as a new option for Internet access. In the United States, WiMAX will be available to more than 100 million people by the end of 2008, according to Sprint, and there are significant international WiMAX deployments happening in Asia, Europe, Australia, the Middle East, and South America. There are even some niche players, like Xanadoo in Texas and Wateen in Pakistan and KT Telecom in South Korea (using a related technology called WiBro), that already have live deployments in action.
But what impressed me the most at WiMAX World was the huge vendor ecosystem that has coalesced around WiMAX. There were more exhibitors (350) at WiMAX World 2007 than there were at LinuxWorld 2007 (200) last month in San Francisco. The leading players in the WiMAX movement have taken a very open, standards-based, interoperable approach to the technology, and the response has been widespread participation from industry heavyweights plus a plethora of startups with solutions to help make WiMAX work or make it better.
Tools & Code: “Internet Explorer 8.0: The silence is deafening”
Internet Explorer 8.0: The silence is deafening
Click title for rest of article at ZDNet.com…
Mary Jo Foley
September 28th, 2007
How far along is Microsoft with the next version of Internet Explorer (IE) — which might be IE 7.5 or IE 8.0, depending on what Microsoft decided to do since last time we heard anything truly tangible from the IE team (which was about a year ago)?
Posters on Microsoft’s Channel 9 site are asking for an IE update. Among them is Dave Massy — a former Senior Program Manager on the IE team who resigned from Microsoft in February 2007. Massy posted some of his qualms about the IE team’s silence this week on his new personal blog:
“I do agree though that the IE team needs to start talking to the developer community on a much more consistent basis. After the release of IE7 all online chats stopped. The online chats had been taking place every month since well before IE7 was under development. After the release of IE7 the bug reporting system was withdrawn. There have been vague promises that it was only temporary but it has now been almost a year and no replacement is in sight. The IE team does not have to give exact details of IE8 but their complete silence shows a complete lack of respect for the developer community.”
Tools & Code: “15+ Free Visual Studio Add-Ins”
15+ Free Visual Studio Add-Ins
Click title for tools at CarlJ.ca…
CarlJ’s Blog Site
After some extensive researching (Googling), I’ve compiled this list of 15+ FREE Add-ins for Visual Studio 2005. Some of these add-ins will help improve the quality of your code, while others will help you code faster, however, none are guaranteed to help you get with the ladies.
If there’s an add-in that I’ve missed and you think that it should be added to this list, just post a comment with the name, URL, and a brief description. But before doing so, make sure that it meets the following strict requirements: a) It must run within Visual Studio 2005. b) It must be free.
So without further ado, here’s my list of 15+ Free Visual Studio 2005 Add-Ins …
R&R: “Why There’s No Such Thing as a Good Night’s Sleep”
Why There’s No Such Thing as a Good Night’s Sleep
Click title for rest of article at LiveScience.com…
Meredith F. Small, LiveScience’s Human Nature Columnist
28 September 2007
For new parents, transatlantic travelers and people who stay up watching late-night TV, life is all about getting enough sleep.
No one really knows why human and other animals sleep, or why, after losing sleep night after night, we become crazed. We bumble around, grumpy and complaining, and then lie down for a good sleep but end up wide awake.
And now, Francesco Cappuccio at the University of Warwick Medical School in Coventry, Canada, claims that too little sleep will also kill us.
Cappuccio and colleagues at the University College, London, gathered sleep data on 10,308 civil servants in the late 1980s and then again in the early 1990s. Of course, some of those government employees had died in the meantime, and so the researchers could factors out such variables as smoking, exercise, obesity and blood pressure and concentrate on how sleep might send us into the Big Sleep.
