Posted 03/09/10 at 08:26:42 AM by Paul Lilly

In the not too distant future, you'll start to see netbooks running Google's Chrome OS. How popular the OS turns out to be remains to be seen, but one thing's for sure - Google appears to be taking a pretty serious approach to system security.

According to Will Drewry, a Google software security engineer, all of the Google Netbook products will ship with the Trusted Platform Module (TPM) installed to ensure security in key storage and multi-factor authentication. This in addition to the "trusted bootpath."

By keeping Chrome OS open source, Drewry said it allows for constant feedback from developers about its security design. He also referred to Chrome as a "hardened" OS, pointing out the auto-updating and sandbox features, both of which are intended to keep malware at bay.

Will Chrome OS live up to the hype? We'll find out soon enough, as the first Google Netbook is expected to ship later this year.

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Posted 03/05/10 at 07:58:01 AM by Paul Lilly

This upcoming Patch Tuesday won't be anything like the one last month, in which Microsoft plugged 26 security holes with 13 bulletins, some of which included critical vulnerabilities for Windows.

Those numbers are way down, according to Microsoft, who announced on Thursday it will issue two bulletins to fix just eight vulnerabilities, all of which are being rated as "important."

"We recommend that customers review the Advance Notification webpage and prepare to deploy these bulletins as soon as possible," Microsoft wrote in an official blog post. "To provide additional guidance for deployment prioritization, customers should note that both bulletins will address issues that would require a user to open a specially crafted file. There are no network based attack vectors."

In addition, Redmond said it is continuing to monitor a VBScript issue disclosed on Monday. The software maker said there are currently no known attacks, but is "encouraging" customers to apply the suggested workarounds in the advisory nonetheless.

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Posted 03/05/10 at 07:34:52 AM by Paul Lilly

Do you download updates and plug up your Windows install every 5 days? According to security service vendor Secunia, such is the burden the average Windows user faces.

"It's completely unreasonable to expect users to master so many different patch mechanisms and spend so much time patching," said Thomas Kristensen, the chief security officer of Secunia

Secunia came by its numbers by analyzing the results of its Personal Software Inspector (PSI), a free tool that scans PCs and compiles a list of potentially vulnerable software. According to Secunia, half of those who ran the program in January had 66 or more programs from 22 or more different vendors on their machines, which was also concerning to the company.

"That's why we called for software vendors to create a unified patching standard last year," said Kristensen. "A few vendors said 'We want to hear more,' but a lot just ignored us or turned down the idea outright."

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Posted 03/01/10 at 02:53:02 PM by Paul Lilly

It remains to be seen what kind of market exists for handheld tablets, but the general consensus is that even at $499 -- the cost of Apple's entry-level iPad -- tablets are going to be a tough sell. Enter Archos, who just announced a pair of large-screen Android-based tablets that cost less than half as much.

First up is the Archos 7 Home Tablet. As the name would suggest, this one comes with a 7-inch touchscreen display. It also sports a slim form factor measuring just 12mm thick and weighing less than a pound.

Keeping things modest, you'll find an ARM 9 processor inside clocked at 600MHz. Other features include built-in Wi-Fi, a USB port, and up to 7 hours of video playback or up to 44 hours of music playback, Archos claims. This will be available in April in 4GB ($193) and 8GB ($223) configurations.

The Archos 8 Home Tablet boasts the same specs, only with a larger 8-inch screen and slightly heavier frame (0.9 pounds versus 0.8 pounds). Look for this one to start shipping in May in 4GB form for $193.

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Posted 03/01/10 at 07:52:59 AM by Paul Lilly

For awhile there, things were looking pretty grim for T-Mobile G1 owners (aka HTC Dream). There was a lot of talk that insufficient internal memory would halt OS updates at Android 1.6 (Donut), where the only workaround would be to take matters into your own hands and hack/root the G1. According to Taylor Wimberly of Androidandme.com, that's no longer the case.

"I have maintained that the full version Eclair (Android 2.x) mat not be possible on the T-Mobile G1. After talking with several inside sources familiar with the matter, I would like to report that every Android phone currently released in the United States will be receiving an upgrade to Android 2.1," Wimberly writes.

There are a couple of caveats, however, such as missing features. Wimberly says that live wallpapers may not work even though the Android 2.1 firmware is installed. But the biggest downer is that "select Android phones will require a wipe when they are upgraded to Android 2.1." Wimberly went on to say that all Android phones might fall into this category, but that remains to be seen.

As scheduled, most of these updates will take place in the second quarter of this year.

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Posted 02/24/10 at 07:33:57 AM by Paul Lilly

As it turns out, not only is Windows 7 a much better operating system than Windows Visa, it's also being much better received by early adopters than its predecessor was.

Web metrics firm NetApplications says Windows 7 accounts for 9 percent of all OSes in use online in February. That's twice as much as Vista claimed five months after it launched, which only saw a 4.5 percent share. 

"Looking at the trends, the [Windows 7] growth rate seems to be strong and consistent with no visible decline," said Vince Vizzaccaro, executive vice president with NetApplications. 

There's also been a difference in Windows 7's weekend and weekday scores, which Vizzaccaro says is indicative of "personal usage growing faster than corporate usage, which fits expectations." 

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Posted 02/16/10 at 07:50:28 AM by Paul Lilly

Microsoft's Windows 7 Team sent out an email this morning reminding Windows 7 Release Candidate (RC) users that the free ride is almost over.

"While most people who tested Windows 7 have now moved to the final version, some are still running the Release Candidate. If you haven't moved yet, it's time to replace the RC," the Windows 7 Team wrote.

In case you're fuzzy on the dates, here are the ones to remember:

• March 1, 2010: PC's with Windows 7 RC installed will begin shutting down every two hours. Work will not be saved during these shutdowns
• June 1, 2010: Windows 7 RC fully expires

Once June 1 rolls around, you may continue to use the RC in two hour spurts, but you'll also have to tolerate a solid black background with a persistent message on the desktop, as well as periodic notifications alerting you that your copy is no longer genuine.

The good news (for some of you) is it's tax time, so if you're getting a big refund this year, you can add Windows 7 to the list of annual computer upgrades.

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Posted 02/15/10 at 01:40:38 PM by Paul Lilly

On paper, Linux doesn't seem susceptible to any of the performance pitfalls associated with transitioning from 512-byte to 4096-byte sector hard drives, but is that really the case? According to Timothy Miller, founder of the Open Graphics Project, Linux is just as vulnerable to the potential performance impact as Windows XP.

Miller came to his conclusion after picking up a pair of new Western Digital Caviar Green drives and putting the paper assumption to the test.

"The problem most likely to hit you with one of these drives is very slow write performance," Miller wrote on his blog. "This is caused by improper logical-to-physical sector alignment. OS's like Linux use 4K blocks (or multiples of 4K) to store data, which matches well with the physical sector. However, nothing restricts you from creating a partition that starts on an odd-numbered 512-byte logical sector. This misalignment causes a performance hit since the drive has to read and rewrite the 4K sectors with whatever 512-byte slices changed."

Miller's findings fly in the face of WD's claims, who says that both Mac OS X and Linux would be "unaffected." During Miller's testing, he found that 1000 random aligned 4K writes consistently took between 7 and 8 seconds, while the same number of unaligned 4K writes took between 22 and 24 seconds, or three times longer.

"We've known about this issue for LONG time, and now it's here, and we haven't fully prepared," Miller added.

Get the full scoop here.

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