Posts filed under ‘News’

In a fairly hefty Patch Tuesday, Microsoft put out fixes for 34 different Windows vulnerabilities as described in their monthly bulletin found here. There are a total of 14 “critical” patches, 15 if you count this month’s Malicious Software Removal tool.

Many of these vulnerabilities can be exploited by opening specially crafted files, but some are as easy to exploit as using the preview pane in Outlook. It’s better to be safe than sorry, so take a few minutes and run Windows Update when you get a chance.

In a huge victory for fair-use, the EFF and other assorted organizations won several exemptions from the U.S. Copyright Office covering acts that were previously considered violations of the DMCA.

The new ruling allows users to “jailbreak” any mobile device in order to install and manage software of their choosing.  This includes installation of any legally-obtained applications or the uninstallation of  bloatware and other software they do not want on the phone.

This could result in a significant hit to Apple’s iPhone app store, but it’s a long shot:

Now that it is legal, I can imagine more individuals will jailbreak their phones.  How many more is anyone’s guess.   Apple claims this will still void the warranty, but I would not be surprised if someone (or several individuals) tried to sue in order to preserve the warranty on a jailbroken phone.  If there is indeed an influx of new jailbroken phone users,  I would think that other “open” app stores will surface aside from the well-known Cydia since the stigma and risk surrounding jailbreaking  has the potential to quickly vanish.

Secondly, I can see app developers jumping ship from Apple’s store in order to seek out better payment structures or a more relaxed approval process, providing someone can force Apple to keep the warranty intact on a hacked phone.

The ruling also made legal the sampling/ripping/copying small portions of DVDs for non-commercial derivative works such  as remixes, commentary, etc.,  especially in the pursuit of educational goals.   As far as I have seen however, the ruling does not specify what a “small portion” consists of, so that may come into question sometime soon as well.

The final exemption handed down in this ruling is not a new rule, but an extension of an old one.  Previously, the EFF had successfully petitioned the Copyright Office to allow for unlocking of used mobile phones.  This ruling has been extended as a result of the most recent actions of the EFF.

That said, what are you waiting for?  Jailbreak your phone!

[EFF via boingboing]

Well, that didn’t take long.

After all the chatter regarding the Droid X’s eFuse and its ability to (somewhat) cripple the phone if the secured bootloader has been tampered with, a sharp individual known as “Birdman” has already managed to root the phone.

In a pretty simple 12-step process, Birdman shows you how you too can root your Droid X.  It looks like an incredibly easy procedure, making a rooted Droid X easily obtainable by anyone with even a passing knowledge of Linux.

Happy Rooting!

[AllDroid via AndroidCentral]

Intel released an update to its Matrix Storage Manager software just the other day, which among other things, enables TRIM on SSD drives connected to a controller in RAID mode. In the past, you could not utilize TRIM on any SSD connected to a controller with RAID enabled, even though the drives were not part of an actual array. Now, if you are running Windows 7 (and Server 2008, IIRC), you can have RAID arrays alongside your SSDs and enjoy TRIM support.

Unfortunately, this does not mean that you can use TRIM on a RAID array of SSDs. That technology is still (hopefully) in the pipe.

Also, in this release, Intel has deprecated the “Matrix Storage Manager” moniker and replaced it with “Rapid Storage Technology” or RST.  Going forward, their RAID driver and software package will be named as such.

Updates to RAIDFix enabling support of this new version are forthcoming.

If you want to grab the new drivers, head this way.

In a follow up to this post regarding bad firmware on Seagate’s Barracuda 7200.11 line of drives, I am happy to say that they have released a follow up to their original firmware fix.  It is not exactly breaking news, but important enough to relay nonetheless.

You can pick up the firmware images here

I flashed two of the affected drives last night with no issues whatsoever.  Still, this is a firmware update so proceed with caution.