I was recently stepping into a new network environment. I had inherited it with a client, had little documentation, and needed to understand it in order to be able to support it. I investigated the physical components – the switches, the firewall, the patch ports – and the software configurations – static IP addresses in illogical ranges – but was still looking for more to help prepare me for any traps or gotchas.
Avast! 7 available as beta, new version will bring streaming definition updates
Avast! 7 will use a hybrid of traditional antivirus definition updates and a new streaming system. This will allow AVAST to “push” out new updates as they are ready so all users will the most protected in minutes. The change will mean Avast receives about 20 updates daily and more frequent as the infrastructure can support it. Instead of getting bundled packages like now, users will get “streaming” updates.
Sandboxed Adobe Flash Player available as beta for Firefox
Adobe announced good news for Firefox users yesterday through its Adobe Secure Software Engineering Team (ASSET) blog. The post announces that Adobe has launched a public beta of a new Flash Player Protected Mode for Firefox. Much like the Protected Mode in Adobe Reader X, this will hopefully lead to fewer exploits able to impact a computer.
Flash Player will establish a low integrity, highly restricted process that must communicate through a broker to limit its privileged activities. The sandboxed process is restricted with the same job limits and privilege restrictions as the Adobe Reader Protected Mode implementation.
Easily log into a local account for a Windows 7 PC joined to a domain
For administrative purposes, you might need to log into a Windows 7 locally after it has been joined to a domain. Unfortunately with the Windows 7 login screen, you have to know the computer name in order to log into those accounts – otherwise, it assumes you want to log into the domain.
Brand Bowl allows real-time ranking of Super Bowl commercials
So you’re watching the Super Bowl today, right? Whether you are watching it for the game, the commercials, or both, you might be interested in the Brand Bowl 2012 going on simultaneously. The Brand Bowl seeks to analyze the most successful and failed Super Bowl TV commercials. Companies are paying $3.5 million dollars to reach this large audience, Boston and Mullen want to analyze the Twitter commentary and direct ratings of commercials.
As web hosting options get crowded, HostaVPS says it’s in the details
There are a lot of options out there for where you want to host your website. How do you decide where to setup your virtual presence? One company, HostaVPS, thinks the answer will be found in the details of what a hosting company is offering. In my experience, a lot of companies skimp on service in order to reduce their price but the saying “You get what you pay for” usually follows.
How various ad networks profile you
If you were driving down the road and saw all the billboards ahead of you flipping to advertise you products and services that you had recently been looking at online, writing e-mails about, or shopping for, you would probably be a bit creeped out. Whether you are aware of it or not, there isn’t much difference between that analogy and how targeted advertising works online.
You can see what information various online advertisers have collected about you and the profile they’re building. Sometimes it will be accurate and allow online ads to be more helpful and inform you about the products you are looking for. Other times, the online advertisers’ profile of you could be horribly skewed, stuck on something that was a one-time interest or not even you.
White House says ‘mums the word’ to petition for MPAA bribery investigation
Under Obama’s administration, the White House website got a lot more tech savvy and democratic. One way the White House has allowed people to voice their opinions has been through a new petitioning system on WhiteHouse.gov titled We the People. There have been a number of petitions covering current events and a variety of other topics that reached the required 25,000 signatures in order to get a response from the administration. Unfortunately, most of those responses have been a lot of words and little action.
