Open Source

Most of us probably knew this already but Internet Explorer (IE) is one of the most unsecured browsers on the planet. Last year alone, it was unsecure for 284 according to a Washington Post article by Brian Krebs. Washington Post: “Internet Explorer unsafe for 284 days in 2006” (Ars Technica) Security Fix spent the past several weeks compiling statistics on how long it took some of the major software vendors to issue patches for security flaws in their products. Since Windows is the most-used operating system in the world, it makes sense to lead off with data on Microsoft’s security updates in 2006. ...

For more information about the Linux directory structure see the Filesystem Hierarchy Standard (FHS) which is part of the Linux Standard Base (LSB). / The root directory (not to be concerned with the root account) is similar to a drive letter in Windows (C:, D:, etc.) except that in the Linux directory structure there is only one root directory and everything falls under it (including other filesystems and partitions). The root directory is the directory that contains all other directories. When a directory structure is displayed as a tree, the root directory is at the top. Typically no files or programs are stored directly under root. ...

Microsoft announced on Sunday that it would share Microsoft Office 2003 source code as part of the Microsoft Government Security Program. The program is designed to make governments feel more comfortable about Microsoft’s security practices. The source code for Office 2003 is going to be shared with the governments of more than 30 countries. I’m sure the United States will have numerous teams from different agencies analyzing this source code. It will be interesting to see what the NSA has to say about it. Something I’m curious about is if a government finds a blatant security flaw of some sort are they to fix the flaw themselves or is Microsoft the only person allowed to manipulate the code? I’m Microsoft isn’t going to want to have over 30 different versions of Office 2003 out there but it sure would be nice to strip out the Excel game and all of the other non-sense incorporated into Office in an effort to speed things up and make it more secure. ...

This will be the final article in the “Moving to Linux” series. The Moving to Linux plan had been going along as it should. My Western Digital 200 GB hard drive arrived and I was ready and waiting with a freshly burned copy of Red Hat 9. All the research I had previously done indicated that there shouldn’t be any major issues because of all the key components in my computer being compatible with Linux. ...

When I got the idea to write this article I decided to do some searching and see what other people were saying about ease of use in Linux. I found the results of my searches to be less than fruitful, see for your self: https://search.yahoo.com/search?p=linux+ease+of+use https://www.google.com/search?q=linux+ease+of+use What came up were a few useful writings but nothing significant in terms of Linux ease of use. It has been said that 2003 will be the year of Linux on the desktop so why isn’t there more information out there about Linux ease of use? Hopefully, this article will explain why. ...