I was asked what I think of all this Occupy Wall Street (OWS) peaceful protest, unexplainable violence aimed at the protesters, provocateurs placed into some of the protest groups to discredit them, and its importance now. In my opinion, the most notable thing about this situation is that a lot of people are very unhappy: The reported…
Ubuntu 11.10 Oneiric Ocelot
The next release of Ubuntu, October 2011, is Oneiric Ocelot. Reviews are here and here. Release notes are here. The Ubuntu home page is here. The conventional Download page is here. The Unity (mobile phone) desktop is mandatory now with no alternatives. Thunderbird is now the default email client. ‘Dash Home’ is the circle at the top left of…
Windows 8
Until we get a better manifestation of the brain-computer communication link the lowly keyboard will remain. Rumors of the death of the desktop are exaggerated at this time.
UEFI
Speculation is that Microsoft will force hardware vendors to hard wire their computers so that they can only boot Windows 8, through a feature called UEFI. See here, here, here, and here. Microsoft requires that machines conforming to the Windows 8 logo program and running a client version of Windows 8 ship with secure boot enabled….
Simple and Easy Security
InfoWorld.com had a good, short, article on hacking here by Roger A. Grimes. Roger makes the point that security losses are not usually due to smart criminals breaking in by unpredictable means, but rather Malicious hackers are using pretty much the same old tools and exploiting the same old weaknesses. However, companies and end-users aren’t…