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Think your safe? NOT!

So your running Windows XP Pro, you’ve downloaded service pack two and turned on the built in firewall. You’re setup for automatic updates and you install them automatically to make sure you’re up to date. Feeling pretty safe right about now aren’t you? Well guess what if you have remote desktop turned on your wide open for an attack! There is a vulnerabilty in this configuration as reported by ZDNet UK. The vulnerabilty would allow a remote user to crash your system. As of yet there is no patch available to fix this. My recomendation if the system is addressable via the Net is to turn of Remote Desktop if you have it enabled until Microsoft closes this door.

Full Story…

** UPDATE! This vulnerability is more widespread! It effects all flavors of XP including Media Center, as well as Windows 2003 servers.

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Windows XP Pro 64bit?

Windows XP Pro 64bit is definitely not ready for primetime. First off you’re not going to see much of an improvement unless you’re running a 64bit application. Right now there really isn’t much out there that take advantage of the benefits of 64bit. However you will be getting yourself into a world of hurt if you have a lot of accessories attached to your system, guaranteed! I found this out the hard way, helping a friend build his dream computer. He went for the best of everything, dual core Athlon 64bit 4200+ processor, 1 gigabyte of Corsair XPERT memory, Dual Nvidia 7800GTX graphics board in a SLI configuration. With this type of hardware you would think why not run Windows XP Pro 64bit to get everything you can out of the system. There is one resounding answer why not to, there is no driver support what so ever. Unless it is built into Microsoft’s build, you might as well just hang it up. He has the following peripherals attached to his system: HP Scanner, DYMO label printer, several HP printers he prints to on different floors and across a WAN, most important Alcohol 120% to keep images of all his game discs. We found that the scanner and label printer had no drivers. Alcohol 120% will not run under 64bit because it creates a virtual drive and needs a driver to create it. We made a phone call to Dymo to get a status on driver development and were basically told “We are not in the process of designing any drivers for 64bit Windows”. Umm, hello, can we have a reality check here. It seems the industry is in one of those which came first the chicken or the egg scenarios again. Developers do not want to take the time to develop drivers until they see OS adoption. Then you have the end users that will not adopt without drivers. Get your act together folks and just design and make drivers available for the products we shelled out our good hard earned dollars for. It’s not like we are talking about Mom and Pop companies, were talking huge corporations like HP that don’t even have any driver support for most of their products under 64bit Windows. My suggestion for now is just avoid Windows XP Pro 64bit like the plague unless you have not peripherals attached to your box. Do your homework first on all devices and software you will run under 64bit Windows or you will wind up throwing your system out the window in frustration.

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Apple on Intel!

There have been rumors of this coming down the pipe for the last three years or so. Last time the rumor came around it concerned Apple using AMD processors. This time the rumors were Apple going to Intel for processors instead of the PowerPC processors. Well this time the rumors were true and Steve Jobs let the cat out of the bag while also demonstrating OS X running on a PC and has been doing so in their development department for several years already. What does this mean for the future, only time will tell? One thing I would like to see is Apple licensing its OS to OEMs, so I could run a triple boot WinXP, Linux, OS X box. Now that would be sweet!!!

Here are some links on the announcement as well as keynote highlights:

http://news.com.com/Apple+throws+the+switch%2C+aligns+with+Intel/2100-7341_3-5733756.html?tag=nl http://arstechnica.com/news.ars/post/20050606-4974.html http://www.macrumorslive.com/web/

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Counter-Strike Source Server Up!

I have been playing Counter-Strike for over 4 years now. Counter-Strike is a team based first person shooter. It’s a game I truly love to play and I am very good at it. However with any team based game, it can be great or a disaster dependant on the other players on your team. If you have a group of players that do their jobs and play as a team it is a joy. On the other hand if you have a group of players that could care less about an objective it becomes nightmarish. I was just recently an admin on a server for a couple of months and was hated and loved by everyone. Those that could care less about an objective hated me and those that hated campers with an objective loved me. Let me explain why. On a map that the terrorists have to plant a bomb, they have the objective. The objective is to get to the bomb site and plant the bomb. On the flip side if you were a Counter-Terrorist on hostage map, your objective was to rescue the hostages. If the objective team does their job and rushes, it becomes a fun quick paced match. But once the camping begins, it is a slow and boring match. Generally you have an objective and you don’t rush, you usually lose. The thing I hate the most is when you have players trying to do their jobs and rush and you have individuals that stay at their spawn area and camp and don’t help their teammates. What happens is the rushers die because of lack of backup and then have to sit and wait 3 minutes while their camping teammates get picked off one by one. I don’t tolerate camping by an objective team under any circumstances. I lost my admin privilege on a server because of my stance, because too many whining campers complained about my strict guidelines. If I caught someone camping I would warn them 3 times. If the warnings were not listened to, I would slay the individual on the spot. If the individual continued to camp, I would kick the player. If after the slaying and kicking the player still couldn’t get it through his thick skull, I would permanently ban him with no recourse of ever coming back again. I have since gotten so frustrated I decided to put up my own server where others who share in the pleasure of the game and despise campers can join and play. If you’re looking for a good Counter-Strike server, try PC-Doc.com Source Server @ 216.46.76.189:27015

Enjoy.

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Mmmm.. Einbecker Beer

I just received my monthly delivery of my favorite beer, Einbecker. This is a really hard beer to find in the USA. I have a distributor in Connecticut obtain it for me and then have my In-Laws deliver it when they come to visit. This beer and I, share a great story that dates back to my college years. When I was away at college my freshmen year, we drank the cheapest stuff we could get our hands on Meister Brau, Tuborg, Blue Ribbon just to name a few. The second semester me and my college buddies said no more, from that point on we made it our point to only drink imported beer. I went to school at NYIT in Central Islip on Long Island. We found a distributor in Smithtown that sold Einbecker Ur-Bock. We fell in love with that beer that semester. That summer I traveled to Germany to see my family on my Mother’s side, which I had not seen since I was a child. My Aunts and Uncles picked me up in Frankfurt and drove me to Heckenbeck where they live. On the way we stopped at a place for lunch along the Autobahn. I believe I had some bratwurst and a beer, which beer eludes me at the moment. But seeing that I was drinking beer they asked what my favorite beer was? My reply was Einbecker Ur-Bock, everyone broke in to laughter as I sat there trying to figure out what was so funny. Once they calmed down they told me that the Brewery was only 15 minutes from the house and that they had several cases in the cellar. I visited the brewery on several occasions that summer while in Germany and was in total bliss being able to go to various pubs and have my favorite beer served at the perfect temperature and from tap. Below are a couple of pictures I took of the beer that just arrived. If you would like more information about Einbecker Beer please follow this link: www.einbecker.com

Enjoy.

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Gaming Rig

After many requests, here are pictures of my gaming rig and an inventory of the components. The system is primarily used for gaming and testing software. I keep this separate from my main workstation to ensure that it remains stable at all times. All the components are housed in a Lian-Li case. The water components all have ½ barbs on them except for the water pump which has 3/8. I modified one of the drive bezels with a dremmel so that I could insert the flow meter into it.

 

Continue reading “Gaming Rig”

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The Luck!! Aaaaarrrgh

My friends Joel and Lisa just came back from vacation with some story to tell. If they didnt have the pictures to prove it, I never would have believed them. They went to Paradise Island in the Bahamas and stayed at the Ocean Club. On the way down they flew first class and Joel had someone sitting behind him that he knew but just couldntput his finger on it. He sat in his seat listening to some Pink Floyd on his iPod when it hit him ‘That’s Roger Waters, Holy #$&#!’ Now my friend is a huge Pink Floyd fan as am I and I am surprised he didnt just jump out of his seat when he realizedit. He played it cool and managed to get an autograph as well as the photo pictured below. He was like that made the trip for me by itself, but told me it gets better. It winds up that Dustin Hoffman was staying at the same resort they were and ran into him on several occasions. Why do others have all the luck? I guess they deserve it. I have had my run in with several actors so I guess its only fair that others have the opportunity.

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Return Of The Tech Guys

Last night I met a bunch of the guys that I hung out with in college (New York Institute of Technology). I first caught up with them at Scruffy Duffys on 8th Avenue between 46th & 47th. We spent some time there and watched some of the Yankees game. The unique thing that the bar does is if either of the Matsuis hit a home run they buy the entire bar a drink on the house. When Matsui first stepped up to bat, he nailed it but it fell short at the warning track. One big ‘Damn’ rang out at the bar. We had a lot of fun there and had some of the best Buffalo wings I have ever had. The party then moved a little further up 8th avenue to Social a very nice bar with three floors and a great bartender on the 2nd floor named Kim. No sooner did we get there sit down have a couple of drinks still watching the Yankees get their butts kicked, Matsui steps up to the plate and nails a home run. I think we could hear the packed bar at Scruffys yelling a block away. We spent a couple of hours there before I took off to catch the 2nd to last train to White Plains. You really never want to take the last train on the Harlem line out of Grand Central because it has the nickname of ‘The Vomit Commit’ for a reason on weekends.

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MSN Video and IFILM Plan to Collaborate

IFILM will curate and deliver popular content and celebrated Viral Videos to MSN consumers.

REDMOND, Wash., and LOS ANGELES, April 7, 2005 MSN® Video, a premier provider of streaming video content online, and IFILM, a leading video entertainment destination on the Web, are joining forces to deliver IFILM content to MSN Video’s free streaming entertainment channel at http://video.msn.com. With the added IFILM programming, MSN consumers will now have access to the some of the most celebrated, irreverent and timely filmed content on the Web.

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