An Ordinary User’s Adventures In Linux
by Lawrence D'Oliveiro
I helped an elderly friend set up his new PC yesterday. His
previous machine, over a decade old, was running Windows XP. I had set
up an Ubuntu dual-boot a few years back, and he liked playing the games.
But then the Linux boot stopped working--there was a message to the
effect “hd0 out of disk”, which sounded like a GRUB problem (“hd0”
being a GRUB disk name, not a Linux disk name). I booted up
SystemRescueCD, and found that disk space was ample. I did an fsck on
the Linux volume, and found no filesystem problems. I ran a badblocks
scan, and it reported several bad sectors, though oddly they only seemed
to be in the Windows partition (if I interpreted the numbers
correctly).
Naturally I searched online, but the hits I found for that error
message didn’t seem very helpful. Reinstalling GRUB didn’t help, so I
concluded there were likely other hardware problems, so time for a new
machine.
He got an entry-level dual-core AMD box from PBTech--their own house
build, in a CoolerMaster case--for well under a grand. Nothing fancy,
but good enough for his needs--mainly Web browsing, e-mail, a little
bit of word processing, and those games.
The PBTech box came without an OS. He could have got Windows 10 for it,
but considering he would be facing a learning curve coming from XP
regardless, I suggested going 100% Linux for all his daily needs, to
see if that would work. He could always spend the $160-odd extra on
Windows later if need be.
So I set it up with Linux Mint, since that seems to be everybody’s
favourite :). He was already using Firefox on Windows, so moving all his
Web bookmarks across was easy. The Mint install put an icon for
Thunderbird on the desktop by default, so I decided to try that for
e-mail. Getting his address book across from Outlook Express was
fairly straightforward, once I figured out how to map the exported CSV
field names correctly. The mail messages were slightly more fiddly, but
I found this extension
<https://addons.mozilla.org/en-US/thunderbird/addon/importexporttools/>
which directly loads Microsoft’s .dbx files, and that seemed to work OK.
Then he wanted to play CDs. When we put in an audio CD, it came up with
options to run Banshee (media player) or Brasero (disc burner). The
Banshee media player wouldn’t play the CD directly, it insisted on
ripping it to the hard drive first. This was not really what he wanted.
I had a look round, and found KsCD, which will indeed play audio CDs
without trying to rip them to audio files first. As far as I know, this
is the only GUI Linux app that can do so.
So, day 1 ended on a reasonably successful note. He was already
noticing how much faster the new machine was. So we’ll see how it goes
from here...
2 years, 8 months
Java Security Plagued By Crappy Docs, Complex APIs, Bad Advice
by rowan schischka
>Does a system of assigning point scores to people make things better ...
or worse?
Gamifying an internet forum/social media; My experience with stackoverflow
is it really rewards people who have a lot of spare time.
The problem of measuring work is, the work will be moulded by your method
of measurement. Any point/scoring/KPI system results in cheating & corner
cutting in some way.
2 years, 8 months
Java Security Plagued By Crappy Docs, Complex APIs, Bad Advice
by Lawrence D'Oliveiro
... researchers from Virginia Tech contend more care needs to be
taken when copying code from accepted Stack Overflow answers, at
least in the context of Java.
... they found that many of the answers endorsed by the Stack
Overflow community led to insecure code. For example, accepted
answers often recommended the use of MD5 and SHA-1 crypto
algorithms – despite the fact that they're insecure and should not
be used.
...
They also observed that in some instances, the higher social
reputation of Stack Overflow respondents led to incorrect answers
being accepted over more correct fixes offered by individuals with
lesser reputation scores.
<http://www.theregister.co.uk/2017/09/29/java_security_plagued_stack_overf...>
2 years, 8 months
Internet Explorer Bug Leaks Whatever You Type In the Address Bar
by Peter Reutemann
'The latest version of Internet Explorer has a bug that leaks the
addresses, search terms, or any other text typed into the address bar.
The flaw was disclosed Tuesday by security researcher Manual
Caballero. Ars Technica reports:
The bug allows any currently visited website to view any text entered
into the address bar as soon as the user hits enter. The technique can
expose sensitive information a user didn't intend to be viewed by
remote websites, including the Web address the user is about to visit.
The hack can also expose search queries, since IE allows them to be
typed into the address bar and then retrieved from Bing or other
search services. The proof-of-concept makes it transparent that the
attacking website is viewing the entered text. The hack, however can
easily be modified to make the information theft completely stealthy.
A proof-of-concept site shows the exploit in action.'
-- source: https://tech.slashdot.org/story/17/09/28/0245228
Cheers, Peter
--
Peter Reutemann
Dept. of Computer Science
University of Waikato, NZ
+64 (7) 858-5174
http://www.cms.waikato.ac.nz/~fracpete/
http://www.data-mining.co.nz/
2 years, 8 months
System76 Pop!_OS Beta Ubuntu-based Linux Distribution Now Available To Download
by Peter Reutemann
'Next month, a new era of Ubuntu begins. Unity is dead, and GNOME 3
takes over as the default desktop environment. While this change was
for the best, it was still shocking for many. For a company like
System76, for instance, that sells computers pre-loaded with Ubuntu,
this was problematic. Why? Well, the company essentially lost control
of the overall user experience by relying on vanilla Ubuntu. It was
being forced to follow Canonical's path. To solve this, and regain
some control, System76 has been developing its own operating system
called 'Pop!_OS.' No, it is not reinventing the wheel here -- it will
still use Ubuntu as a base, and GNOME will be the desktop environment.
The company is customizing the operating system, however, with things
like fonts, themes, and icons, to create something truly unique. This
could lead to an improved user experience. Today, the first official
beta of the operating system becomes available for download.'
-- source: https://linux.slashdot.org/story/17/09/28/190247
Cheers, Peter
--
Peter Reutemann
Dept. of Computer Science
University of Waikato, NZ
+64 (7) 858-5174
http://www.cms.waikato.ac.nz/~fracpete/
http://www.data-mining.co.nz/
2 years, 8 months
The World's First Blockchain Smartphone Is In Development
by Peter Reutemann
'A company called Sirin Labs is developing an open-source smartphone
that runs on a fee-less blockchain. "The Finney -- named in honor of
bitcoin pioneer Hal Finney -- will be the only smartphone in the world
that's fully secure and safe enough to hold cryptographic coins,"
reports Engadget. The company is launching a crowdsale event this
October (date to be confirmed) to support the phone's development.
>From the report:
According to Sirin, all Finney devices (there's an all-in-one PC
coming, too) will form an independent blockchain network powered by
IOTA's Tangle technology. The network will operate without centralized
backbones or mining centers cluttering up the transaction process,
using the SRN token as its default currency (only SRN token holders
will be able to purchase the device). And it'll all run on a Sirin
operating system specially designed to support blockchain applications
such as crypto wallets and secure exchange access. The phone comes
with all the bells and whistles you'd expect from a device with a
$1,000 price tag, including a 256GB internal memory and 16MP camera,
plus a hefty suite of security measures. '
-- source: https://mobile.slashdot.org/story/17/09/27/0749240
Cheers, Peter
--
Peter Reutemann
Dept. of Computer Science
University of Waikato, NZ
+64 (7) 858-5174
http://www.cms.waikato.ac.nz/~fracpete/
http://www.data-mining.co.nz/
2 years, 8 months
Mozilla's 'Firefox Quantum' Browser Challenges Chrome In Speed
by Peter Reutemann
'The next version of Firefox, aptly named Firefox Quantum, is getting
a big speed boost. "The idea, of course, is that the upcoming version
57 is a quantum leap over predecessors -- or, in the words of Mozilla
CEO Chris Beard, a 'big bang,'" reports CNET. While Mozilla stopped
short of declaring victory over Chrome, Nick Nguyen, vice president of
Firefox product, said Firefox Quantum's page-load speed "is often
perceivably faster" while using 30 percent less memory. From the
report:
The new Firefox revamp includes lots of under-the-covers improvements,
like Quantum Flow, which stamps out dozens of performance bugs, and
Quantum CSS, aka Stylo, which speeds up website formatting. More
obvious from the outside is a new interface called Photon that wipes
out Firefox's rounded tabs and adds a "page action" menu into the
address bar. It also builds in the Pocket bookmarking service Mozilla
acquired and uses it to recommend sites you might be interested in. A
screenshot tool generates a website link so you can easily share what
you see by email or Twitter. Mozilla even simplified the Firefox logo,
a fox wrapping itself around the globe. More improvements are in the
pipeline for later Firefox versions, too, including Quantum Render,
which should speed up Firefox's ability to paint web pages onto your
screen. '
-- source: https://news.slashdot.org/story/17/09/27/0727226
Cheers, Peter
--
Peter Reutemann
Dept. of Computer Science
University of Waikato, NZ
+64 (7) 858-5174
http://www.cms.waikato.ac.nz/~fracpete/
http://www.data-mining.co.nz/
2 years, 8 months
Distrowatch opinion piece about DRM in browsers
by Ian Young
Some may not have seen an opinion piece in this week's Distrowatch
Weekly. Link on front page to article by one Jesse Smith who does most
of the reviews on DW.
The W3C, encrypted media and software freedom
~ Ian Y
2 years, 8 months
