As you probably already know, I love to rant about the price of gasoline.  It was quite high for some time and it seemed as though there would be no relief in sight.  Then it happened.  Gas prices started a rapid decline that led me to fill my tank at $0.79 per litre today.  I should be happy, right?  By my own account, this is exactly the relief I was hoping for.  For months I was longing for a break in the price.  Well, now I have it - but I'm a little bit scared.

Why?  Because something isn't right.

Gas prices haven't been this low in a couple of years and the continual decline is pushing me towards paranoia.  Why have the prices come down so low?  Supply and demand isn't adding up for me.  Consumers continue to consume as much gas as before, so there's no let up in the demand.  OPEC has decreased the production of crude oil by 1,000,000 barrels a day, so the supply has gone down, therefore the cost should go up.  Right?  I'm no economics major, but I do get the basic principles - something isn't quite right.

Gas is one of those things that has systematically risen in price for as long as it has been consumed.  I remember when I got my first car in 1996 and gas was $0.54 per litre.  That is less than half of the $1.34 per litre that fuel prices hit this summer. 

With the economy collapsing around us, maybe this is a sign of sorts.  One more warning that things are about to change for the worse?  Who knows.  For me, I'll shut up and take my cheap gas while I still can.  Who knows when it will pull an about face and skyrocket again.

Personally, I'm a big fan of winter.  I love the snow.  I love to drive in it, I love to play in it, and I just can't wait to bust out my snowblower for the season.  This year I have made a personal commitment to not destroying the neighbour's fence with it.  The leaves have pretty much all fallen and the rain should soon turn to ice.  This year I have an extra special reason for wanting it to get here.  I bought a 4-wheel drive Chevy Colorado and I can't wait to test it against our poor plowing practices.  Last year, I got stuck a number of times with my Saturn Ion, but this year I will emerge victorious!

The week, my wife had us put up the Christmas tree and all the other decorations.  The outside lights are up and the house is really starting to look the part.  Now we just have to roll into this commercial holiday and start buying up the gifts.  My goal is to do better than last year and get all the gifts done before the final weekend before the big day.  Last year I had some trouble with that.

The kids are starting to get revved up about the holiday.  They repeatedly ask how many more days till Christmas and often tell us about all of the wonderful gifts they should be receiving.  It's kinda cute.  Yesterday they were asking about getting some more magical reindeer dust, since we ran out last year. 

I just can't wait to get out there and build snow forts with them, and take them tobogganing!  Playing in the snow is incredible fun for the whole family.  The snowblower is exceptionally helpful for building snow forts, just create a big pile and dig out the middle!  Hurry up winter!

If you know a thing or two about the Xbox 360, then you would probably tell me that I can have DivX on my console.  In fact, an update published by Microsoft in the Fall of 2007 had specific provisions to allow DivX playback on the Xbox 360.  Now you are wondering what I am complaining about, right?  Well, let me break it down for you.

I currently have an HTPC (home theatre pc), running Vista Media Center, that controls my entertainment centre.  All of the tv that we was is basically DivX movie files that have been PVR'd at some point in time.  When I got my Xbox 360, I wanted to set it up as a Media Center Extender so that I could create additional playback scenarios within my home.  Xbox has some pretty neat and easy to use functionality to configure it as an extender.  Within about 20 minutes I had it up and running and I could see my network storage (provided by FreeNAS).  When I located a previously recorded television show, and selected it for playback, I received the greatest letdown of the week.

I was informed that a codec could not be acquired and the tv show would not play.

To test out a theory, I went back to the Xbox dashboard and setup a connection to my file share.  I then selected the same file for playback.  Low and behold, it started to play.  Now this may just be the geeky side of my coming out, but wouldn't it make good business sense to use the same player and protocols anytime a movie file is played on the Xbox?  Not to mention the fact that it would have been easier and taken less development time.

Back to the issue at hand, I now sit with my 360 still being just a console and the extended functionality still leaving a bitter taste in my mouth.  In this day and age, I expect better from companies like Microsoft.  You're extending your own products, make them work.

So it would seem that I was right in my earlier posts about Yahoo being a bad purchase decision for Microsoft.  I'm glad that deal never went through.  Yahoo would have been a dead weight and would have only degraded Microsoft's already craptastic search engine.  The story gets worse though...  much worse.

Back when Microsoft laid their offer on the table, they were offering Yahoo somewhere around $32 per share.  Yahoo felt this was an insult and responded by saying that they felt their company was worth $48 per share.  Well, I am happy to announce that as of yesterday, Yahoo stock prices had dropped into the $9 per share range.  $9 ??

Yep. 

The truly horrific part of this scheme is actually that the embattled search engine company has actually lost around $31 billion in shareholder value since that initial offer from the mighty M$.  Hindsight is always 20/20, but it's obvious that Yahoo should have jumped on that offer and saved their sorry hides.  Now it's time to face the music.  We're heading into a great depression and the economic downturn is systematically collapsing dot com companies. 

It's been nearly over five years since Yahoo stocks have seen prices this low, but the worst is yet to come.  If and when the Yahoo stocks hit the $5 mark, it could pretty much all be over.  According to CNET News "A number of institutional investors, such as pension funds, asset managers, and endowments have policies that require them to discard stocks that fall below $5".  That means that once it hits that mark, the price's fall will greatly accelerate.  The last time the prices were $5 was in October of 2002.

Goodbye Yahoo, it was nice knowing you.  Maybe someday I can Google you and get a link to the Wayback Machine.

Does anyone else watch this show?  I absolutely love it.  I'm addicted and can't get enough.  The premise alone rocks me.  A drug dealer soccer mom.  How cool is that?  I never quite know how to take the show.  Is it a comedy, or a drama, or what?  I can say this much - it's brilliant.

I'm not sure why or when I started watching the show, but my wife and I simply love it.  We're starting to watch the 4th season now and, like ever season before it, they've taken it to the next level. 

Of you don't already watch it, here is the synopsis:

A typical suburban family suffers the loss of their primary bread winner and father figure.  The wife starts selling a little bit of marijuana to help make ends meet in this tragic time.  Before you know it, she is growing big and fast.  She eventually has employees and starts making deals with gangsters, all while trying to manage a household.  The show stars Mary-Louise Parker as mother/dealer - Nancy Botwin.  SNL's Kevin Nealon makes an excellent addition to the show as councilman Doug,  a pot smoking corrupt politician/account who has his hands in everything that is dirty.  The rest of the cast is also brilliant and the show would fail without all of them connecting so incredibly well.

The clever storyline tackles all kinds of familiar social issues.  Everything is fair game.  From bored housewives to alcoholics to stereotypical racism, no stone is left unturned.  The writers do a tremendously good job at making you associate with the characters and bond with them, yet still keeping a slapstick air of humour about it.  Five stars.

I can't do the show any justice simply by writing about it, you have to see it and judge for yourself.  You can read more about Weeds on IMDB.

The good news is that the update only affects AVG 8 products running on Dutch, Italian, Portuguese, and French versions of Windows XP. 

AVG has long been emerging as a leader in the home PC antivirus market, with their free product protecting millions of users world wide.  Recently, the Czech-based company has suffered from some embarrassing setbacks.  In October, an AVG update detected some ZoneAlarm firewall files as a virus and in July the company had to reconfigure its Linkscanner tool when site operators started to complain about an increase in traffic due to the tool's proactive scanning techniques.

Still, users should not begin to panic about the AVG product.  The company may have made a couple of mistakes, but their software protects millions of users from millions of threats and at little to no charge for the end-user.  AVG 8 continues to be the best performing and widely supported free antivirus program on the market today. 

AVG Free can protect you from viruses, spyware, adware, and identity-theft.  The number of threats out there grows everyday and if you don't have protection on your PC, you are putting yourself at risk.  If you don't already have a virus scanner, I would encourage you to download a copy today.

The downside is in the companies that produce them.  My GPS came with my car.  It's not built in, in fact, it's a Magellan Maestro 3210.  It was a freebie from General Motors for my purchase of a Chevy Colorado this summer.  As an aside, I love my truck.  That being said, the maps in the GPS are limited to Canada only for some strange reason.  To make matters worse, they are from the first quarter of 2007.  That means that they were a year and a half outdated when I received it. 

Now you can argue that what is free should not be complained about, but indeed these products are still for sale.  A while back, I visited the Magellan website in order to check for updates and I was very happy to see that an update was expected sometime in 2008. 

Well, yesterday I checked out their site again and saw that an update is now available!  I can now have the latest and greatest maps to help me navigate the world.  This update is a steal at only $79.99.  What?!?  They want me to spend $80 to have their inferior product updated?  That's half the cost of a new device.  We're not talking about new features here, just updated maps to support a product that millions of people have purchased. 

I wish Microsoft made a GPS dash unit.  They do have a USB GPS device that works with a laptop and Microsoft Streets and Trips, but that is cumbersome for the dash of the truck.  What's so great about their product though that would make me want them to compete with the in-dash market?  Quarterly construction updates.  Every three months, Microsoft releases a map update through Windows Update that includes road changes and construction information and is available free of charge.

That's the way it should be.  New products can be released every couple of years with new features and better operating systems, but the content (i.e. the maps) should be updated at least every quarter so that users get the best value for their money.  No need to rip people off.  I won't be buying any Magellan GPS products again until they fix their business model.

Update:  While finalizing this post I discovered that Microsoft is indeed entering the portable navigation market by introducing a new operating system that targets GPS units.  It's called Microsoft Windows Embedded NavReady 2009.  It's currently expected for the 2008 holiday season.  More to come on that...

Ok.  About 2 weeks ago I scored an XBox 360.  It's the first video game console I have owned since Nintendo 64 and I am totally and utterly addicted to it.  A grown man addicted to video games?  It's true.  All of it.

I've been somewhat of a game fan for most of my life.  I had an Atari 2600 growing up and I vividly remember the Christmas morning where I found a Nintendo Entertainment System under the tree.  It was the action set that included Duck Hunt.  I hated duck hunt with a passion, but I loved Super Mario Bros.  Eventually I upgraded to a Super Nintendo.  That rocked my world.  My friends and I spent a lot of time in front of the SNES.  We had the Super Scope 6 - remember?  It was that giant shoulder mounted bazooka type thing. 

It was during the SNES years that I got robbed and someone stole it.  I was devastated, however the insurance replaced it with a Nintendo 64.  I was over-joyed, but found a lack of games that could hold my interest for this platform.   It sat on the shelf for a good number of years before I dusted it off for the little ones to mess around with. 

Then it happened.  A few months back I was visiting an old friend from childhood and we found ourselves playing drunken Playstation 3 at all hours of the morning.  I was renewed.  I had to get a new console.  The choice was tough, but in the end, XBox 360 prevailed and my wife so graciously acquired one for my birthday.  :)  Thanks hun.

I have been racking up incredible amounts of time on both Need for Speed: Pro Street and Grand Theft Auto 4.  Both games are very addictive!

• Windows 9x - Version 4
• Windows XP - Version 5
• Windows Vista - Version 6

While the next smash hit from M$ won't have a catchy name, simplicity will prove to have its virtues.

While the official beta version of Windows 7 isn't slated to be available until spring 2009, 32-bit and 64-bit pre-beta versions are already flooding peer-to-peer networks.  BitTorrent sites such as The Pirate Bay and MiniNova are hosting multiple downloads of the pre-beta versions.  Don't get too excited though, many of the downloads are the latest stable release given out at the Professional Developer Conference (PDC), and not the latest and greatest.

It's interesting to note that rather than being greeted by the Vista Welcome Center, users are now greeted with a Windows Live sign-in window.  It appears Microsoft is planning to increase the integration of the Live product family into the new OS.  Windows 7 will also feature support for multitouch input and a new taskbar that makes managing multiple open windows a breeze.

I think the best news about the new design is the cleanup of the annoying User Account Control feature from Vista. 

Are you sure you want to do this?  You have to be an administrator to do this.  This requires elevated permissions to do this.  Last chance to back out... 

Now users will be able to easily change how often the system warns them of changes being made to their PC.

I personally can't wait to see the product take shape as the countdown to the official release begins.

If you recall, John's Background Switcher is a utility that periodically changes your desktop wallpaper, or in my case, allows me to display different images on each display of a multi-monitor setup.  It's very simple to use and really creates great value for anyone who strays away from the default background from the operating system.

So What's new in version 3.6?  Glad you asked.  From the documentation provided with the application:

The main big new feature for 3.6 is RSS feed support. Any photo site that support RSS feeds (look out for the feed icon picture right) can now be used as a photo source for JBS. Popular sites like DeviantArt, Photobucket and Zooomr (to name a few) expose RSS feeds so there's no excuse for not using your favourite pictures on your desktop!

There are also a host of other bug fixes and some much-requested features like being able to never show a picture you don't like again, choose a picture to always use as the background in a snapshot scrapbook and shuffle photos in 'Pictures' mode so you get to see them all.

It's also worthwhile to note that JBS integrates with Facebook to pull down the latest and greatest photos of your friends, family, and you.  There is also a support forum, in case you run into any challenges that can't be readily solved.

Head on over to John's Adventures and read more about this great utility - or better yet, download your own copy.

I've been a fan of the UFC (Ultimate Fighting Championship) for some time now.  In fact, since the beginning.  My friends and I would pool our money and order the pay-per-view event and watch the greats, like Royce Gracie, dominate the tournament.  Back then it was tough.  There were no weight classes, no holds barred.  Just plain skill, endurance, and stamina.  You had to fight four times in one night, just to win the $50,000 prize pot.  Nowadays fighters earn six figure contracts just to fight four times a year.  There is no more tournament.  The UFC is trying to turn itself into the WWE now.  It's all about the drama.  The fighters have to invest in long term strategies if they want a shot at the champion belt for their weight class. 

It kinda disgusts me.  Dana White, while boasting true entrepreneurial genius, is an idiot.  He's taking the best part about the UFC and trading it in for a mainstream market.  Twice a year the Ultimate Fighter airs on Spike TV and lets would-be fighters compete for a contract in the UFC.  More often than not the group is a pride of drunken trailer trash and anger management issues.  These guys aren't athletes, they're jackasses. 

Last night I watched UFC 90, just to see Patrick Cote compete against Anderson SIlva.  Silva is widely regarded as the greatest mixed martial arts athlete in the world.  For two, five minute rounds he displayed none of that.  He danced around the octagon, waved his hands around like an angry swarm of bees and did little to injure his opponent.  Cote fought hard, as was expected, but his efforts did little to take out the Spider.  Then it happened.  Cote dropped to his needs as the world watch his knee pop out.  Silva had nothing to do with it.  It was a disappointment to say the least.  The handed Silva a TKO (technical knock out), and that was that.  The problem is that, technically, he knocked out no one. 

It saddens me that this is the state of the UFC today and if the drama gets any worse, I'll have to find a new underground fighting championship to peak my interests.

One can only assume that this is a very easy exploit, considering the move by Microsoft to release outside of their standard monthly cycle.  The patch is being pushed down via Microsoft Update.

The Executive Summary from the bulletin outlines:

This security update resolves a privately reported vulnerability in the Server service. The vulnerability could allow remote code execution if an affected system received a specially crafted RPC request. On Microsoft Windows 2000, Windows XP, and Windows Server 2003 systems, an attacker could exploit this vulnerability without authentication to run arbitrary code. It is possible that this vulnerability could be used in the crafting of a wormable exploit. Firewall best practices and standard default firewall configurations can help protect network resources from attacks that originate outside the enterprise perimeter.

This security update is rated Critical for all supported editions of Microsoft Windows 2000, Windows XP, Windows Server 2003, and rated Important for all supported editions of Windows Vista and Windows Server 2008. For more information, see the subsection, Affected and Non-Affected Software, in this section.

The security update addresses the vulnerability by correcting the way that the Server service handles RPC requests. For more information about the vulnerability, see the Frequently Asked Questions (FAQ) subsection for the specific vulnerability entry under the next section, Vulnerability Information.

Recommendation. Microsoft recommends that customers apply the update immediately.

Promise me that if you care about the security of your systems, you'll patch this right away! 

CNET offers some additional defensive computing advice to Windows users in their article Time to patch Windows again, ASAP.  They suggest disabling services that you don't need to lower the attach surface area of your system, in addition to properly configuring your firewalls.

My original goal for setting up the network was to play with setting up the Xbox as a media extender, and in doing so I discovered that my Xbox needed some upgrades.  Most of the content that I view with my media centre PC is DIVX/XVID encoded videos and that doesn't play very nicely with the Xbox.  There is hope though.  After doing some research, I discovered that the latest updates for the Xbox contain DIVX/XVID codecs.  Sweet.

Maybe not.  I must have spent an hour in the console interface trying to figure out how to download updates.  After some Googling, I finally figured out that you need to connect to Xbox Live to make this happen.  No problem.  Xbox Live Silver is free of charge. 

Here in lies the rub.  While trying to configure my Xbox Live setup, the console informed me that there was a problem with the MTU setting of my router/modem.  Say what?  More specifically it was unable to get the MTU setting to validate it.  Since I use SmoothWall as a firewall/router, and the Xbox 360 is on the green network, I made the assumption that my smoothie was the problem.  The answer is actually quite simple and you can read all about it at the SmoothWall Community Forums.

To sum it up:

1. Set a static IP for your Xbox. In my case it's 192.168.1.13 and it's on my green network, and I set the IP on the Xbox itself.
2. In your Smoothie, under Networking click on the Incoming tab.
3. Forward ports TCP/UDP 88 and TCP/UDP 3074 to the Static IP set for you Xbox.
4. Under the Outgoing tab, allow ports 88 and 3074. (When you allow ports on the Outgoing tab, it automatically allows both UDP and TCP ports)

Note - If you specified a DNS server when setting your Xbox IP settings manually other than your Smoothwall, and you have a half-open network, you'll need to allow port 53 (DNS) as an outbound port as well.

That's it - quick and easy.  After making these changes, I was connected and updating in no time.

Why is it that, as a society, we gravitate to that which is bad for us.  Alcohol, tobacco, drugs, and prostitution are facts of life.  I'm not going to pick on anything that harsh today.  Nope, today is a junk food rant.  Junk food is the vice of choice for many these days.  We fill our mouths, and subsequently our bellies, with all sorts of crap.  I can put back a bag of chips a night - it's just that easy.  I also need to wash that down with a soda based beverage of some sort.  Maybe two or three of them.

We know it's not good for us, but we do it anyway.  How does McDonalds stay in business?  You know how.  They cater to the very vices that we cling to.  Deep fried, no nutrients, sugar loaded pleasantries abound.  There is nothing better than polishing off a 20 pack of Chicken McNuggets.  Mmm mmm good.  Follow that up with a super-sized Coke - excellent.  Maybe you're not a fan of the golden arches.  Maybe you prefer the candy bars?  How do you choose your poison?  Does Snickers really satisfy you. 

Halloween is nearly here.  That means that your children are going to be getting that taste of the sweet, sweet goodness - in preparation of becoming morbidly obese adults.  Are you ready?  Are they?   Maybe you should take them out for an ice cream or two to celebrate.

One food I really love is the nachos and cheese that you get at 7/11.  Man that is a good snack after a night of binge drinking.  I can really appreciate and enjoy such a delicacy.  Sometimes I like to follow it up with a hot dog that has been on the rollers far too long.  It's a wonder I don't just eat out of a dumpster. 

I once heard a story of a parent sending their kid to school with a 2 litre bottle of rootbeer and a sleeve of saltine crackers - as a weeks worth of lunch.  We're getting them started early these days, aren't we?

Well nobody says it as good as the manufacturer, so let me quote them:

The Web Platform Installer Beta (Web PI) provides a single, free package for installing and configuring Microsoft's entire Web Platform, including IIS7, Visual Web Developer 2008 Express Edition, SQL Server 2008 Express Edition and the .NET Framework. Using the Web Platform Installer’s simple user interface, you can select specific components or install the entire Microsoft Web Platform onto your computer. To help you stay up-to-date with product releases, the Web Platform Installer always contains the most current versions and new additions to the Microsoft Web Platform.

That was a mouthful.

In layman's terms, it's a one-stop-shop for installing the components you need for the Microsoft Web Stack.  As a developer, this is a very helpful tool that installs all of the components you need to have a fully functioning Web Stack.  IIS, ASP.NET, SQL Server, Visual Web Developer, plus all of the current IIS Extensions.  You can basically just run the tool and wait patiently for all of this great stuff to magically appear.  That's where my 'sort of' comes in.  It took me three tries to get it all done.  On two different occasions the system required me to reboot after installing one of the components.  Each time this happened I had to go back to the Web Platform Installer website and re-launch the installer. 

After the third launch, SQL Server completed installing and I was off to the races.  I think this application has some huge potential and I look forward to seeing the final version, as well as the effect this will have on future product installations.  Just a note of caution, Windows Vista or Windows Server 2008 are requirements to use this tool and both 32-bit and 64-bit are supported.

You can try it out at the Microsoft Web Platform Installer Website.

Silverlight helps in providing a very unique, very rich user experience to web users.  Companies such as CBS College Sports, Blockbuster, Hard Rock Cafe, Yahoo Japan, AOL, Toyota, HSN and Tenecent are building their next generation web sites using Silverlight.  Microsoft will also be extending support for Silverlight development to the Visual Web Developer 2008 Express Edition development tool, which is free for download.

Highlights of new Silverlight 2 features include the following:

• .NET Framework support with a rich base class library. This is a compatible subset of the full .NET Framework.
• Powerful built-in controls. These include DataGrid, ListBox, Slider, ScrollViewer, Calendar controls and more. 
• Advanced skinning and templating support. This makes it easy to customize the look and feel of an application.
• Deep zoom. This enables unparalleled interactivity and navigation of ultrahigh resolution imagery.
• Comprehensive networking support. Out-of-the-box support allows calling REST, WS*/SOAP, POX, RSS and standard HTTP services, enabling users to create applications that easily integrate with existing back-end systems. 
• Expanded .NET Framework language support. Unlike other runtimes, Silverlight 2 supports a variety of programming languages, including Visual Basic, C#, JavaScript, IronPython and IronRuby, making it easier for developers already familiar with one of these languages to repurpose their existing skill sets. 
• Advanced content protection. This now includes Silverlight DRM, powered by PlayReady, offering robust content protection for connected Silverlight experiences. 
• Improved server scalability and expanded advertiser support. This includes new streaming and progressive download capabilities, superior search engine optimization techniques, and next-generation in-stream advertising support. 
• Vibrant partner ecosystem. Visual Studio Industry Partners such as ComponentOne LLC, Infragistics Inc. and Telerik Inc. are providing products that further enhance developer capabilities when creating Silverlight applications using Visual Studio. 
• Cross-platform and cross-browser support. This includes support for Mac, Windows and Linux in Firefox, Safari and Windows Internet Explorer.

The SCP, which will augment the powerful built-in control set in Silverlight includes controls such as DockPanel, ViewBox, TreeView, Accordion and AutoComplete.

If you would like to learn more about Silverlight, check out the Silverlight Fact Sheet over at Microsoft.com.

Get Silverlight 2

Each critical patch affects one of the following:  Windows, Internet Explorer, Microsoft Host Integration Server, and Microsoft Excel.  Nothing new there.  All four patch security holes that would allow remote code execution if exploited.  Nothing new there either.  The important patches all affect Windows and could enable remote code execution or privilege elevation if exploited.  All together now - No shock there.

More importantly than the routine hole fillers, Microsoft will begin sharing the technical details of new vulnerabilities this month.  That means that software manufacturers can have the opportunity to update affected products before the public announcement.  The goal here is for Microsoft Partners to not be standing there looking stupid and clueless when vulnerabilities and patches are released.

Microsoft will also be providing an "exploitability index" with each bulletin to help system administrators prioritize patches.  Where I work I doubt this will have any impact, since they simply push all security patches out to the desktops and servers.  No rhyme, no reason.  Just deployment.  Surprisingly though, they have disabled access to Windows Update.  Must be a control thing... and we can discuss that another time.

I applaud Microsoft for this first small step towards community collaboration and possibly, just possibly, bringing us one step closer to a more secure operating system of the industry giant.  I won't go holding my breathe, but I will hold out just a little hope.  If you have concerns about Microsoft Security, visit their Technical Security Notifications page and sign up for an E-mail, RSS, or Windows Live Message whenever a new security bulletin is issued.

The first challenge I faced was getting disks.  Apparently the only type that I stock in my home are DVDs.  So I trekked down to the local Wal-Mart and grabbed a spindle of 50.  Sadly, they were nearly double the price of the same sized spindle of DVDs.  Not cool.

Now, I have Roxio installed, but I'm getting tired of it bloating my system with useless features, so I set out to find a new burning app.  The obvious place to find such a thing is LifeHacker.com, and a quick search brought me to the Free Replacements for Paid Tools as voted by the readers.  In the article, readers suggested their favorite burning tools as a replacement for Nero - another pile of bloatware crap.  The winner?  CDBurnerXP.

A quick browse of their website showed me some screenshots of the tool and gave me a good impression of what it could do.  Here is the lowdown:

Key Features:

• burn all kinds of discs
• audio-CDs with or without gaps between tracks
• burn and create ISO files
• data verification after burning process
• create bootable discs
• multi-language interface
• bin/nrg → ISO converter, simple cover printing and much more!
• Operating Systems: Windows 2000/XP/2003 Server/Vista

Excellent I thought.  Audio CDs with or without gaps!  Too good to be true.  What the hell.  I downloaded and installed it.  Installation was easy and painless.  The application interface is relatively intuitive.  Even though it's called CDBurnerXP, it runs great on Vista.  I loaded up the audio tracks, burned the disk and then ran it through the test.  Success!  It plays in a cd player. 

Second test, an ISO of XMBC LiveCD.  Selected the file, clicked burn.  Waited.  Tried to boot from disk.  Didn't work.  Excellent.  The problem was with XBMC, not the burn.  I can safely say that CDBurnerXP is a very acceptable replacement for the bloatware pushed out with burners these days.  It's refreshing to see free products that are 100x better than a competing retail product.  Check out their awards page to see just how great this utility is.

Download it today!

The story starts off on a Labour Day weekend. A woman received a call from her banks fraud investigator asking if she had withdrawn $500 from an ATM in California over the weekend.  Her answer was, not surprisingly, "no".  After all, she does live in Washington and had been home all weekend.  The immediate reaction being that someone had cracked her online banking was the standard uneducated response.

As security professionals know, the answer is usually much simpler.  See, cracking online banking usually requires a great degree of effort and computing power, since the encryption they use is pretty much top notch.  The easier thing to do is to copy the card information from an unsuspecting victim and then record their pin.  Sound complex?  Think again.  Often times the criminals will install small hidden cameras at the pump, or slip a fake keypad over the real one. 

The thieves install a small and relatively undetectable device to the swipe mechanism of the pump.  Unless you are a trained eye, you are not going to see these things.  This hard to spot reader is also known as a "skimmer" and can grab the card info without disrupting the transaction.  Sounds a little technical for organized crime, but surprisingly identity theft is starting become the big business of mobsters the world over.

Long weekends are the most popular times for attacks of this nature, since banks are closed and extra day.  This means that the thieves have a whole extra day to cash out before anyone even notices.  It also used to be more popular to steal credit card numbers, since you didn't need a pin.  Nowadays, debit cards have become bigger targets because you don't need to use them in person.  You can simply get cash and walk away.  A credit card usually means that the thief would have to buy something, then fence it to get their return.  Too much work.

In Las Vega, cops have even discovered wireless transmitters inside the pump.  The thieves wait in the parking lot with a laptop while your info is transmitted to them in real time.

Gas pumps are NOT the only targets either, just the latest.  Skimming happens all over the place.  Even the ATM could have a skimming device embedded in it.

Well, wait no longer my friends.  The announcement of Visual Studio 2010 and .NET 4.0 has arrived!

Microsoft Corp. today provided the first look at the next version of its developer tools and platform, which will be named Visual Studio 2010 and the .NET Framework 4.0. Microsoft described the next release through the following five focus areas: riding the next-generation platform wave, inspiring developer delight, powering breakthrough departmental applications, enabling emerging trends such as cloud computing, and democratizing application life-cycle management (ALM).

Today’s announcement included an in-depth look at how Visual Studio Team System (VSTS) 2010 (code-named “Rosario”) will help democratize ALM with a unique solution that brings all the members of a development organization into the application development life cycle, and removes many of the existing barriers to integration. Additional details on the other focus areas will be disclosed over the product development cycle.

“With Visual Studio 2010 and the .NET Framework 4.0, we are focused on the core pillars of developer experience, support for the latest platforms spanning client, server, services and devices, targeted experiences for specific application types, and core architecture improvements,” said S. “Soma” Somasegar, senior vice president of the Developer Division at Microsoft. “These pillars are designed specifically to meet the needs of developers, the teams that drive the application life cycle from idea to delivery, and the customers that demand the highest quality applications across multiple platforms. You can expect to hear a lot more about Visual Studio 2010 and the .NET Framework 4.0 in the coming months.”

Democratizing Application Life-Cycle Management

Today, much of application development remains siloed throughout the enterprise, leading to decreased productivity and lengthy product development cycles. With VSTS 2010, Microsoft is taking the next step forward in giving individuals and development organizations an advanced solution that enables them to integrate effectively and build and deliver high-quality applications.

This includes new capabilities that make it easier for all contributors on the software team to participate throughout the life cycle — from the core developers and testers to the wider team of project managers, designers and business analysts. Highlights include the following:

• Modeling tools. With VSTS 2010 Architecture, Microsoft will enable both technical and nontechnical users to create and use models to collaborate and to define business and system functionality graphically. The new version supports both Unified Modeling Language and Domain Specific Language support, so development organizations will have the right tool for right job. The new modeling capabilities in VSTS 2010 are a core part of the larger Microsoft modeling platform, which will also include the “Oslo” repository, tools and language.
 
• Improved efficiency throughout the test cycle. With VSTS 2010, Microsoft has made a significant investment in testing features and dramatically simplifying the tools required to integrate testing across the life cycle. New features include the ability to eliminate nonreproducible bugs, fast setup and deployment of tests to ensure the highest degree of completeness of test, focused test planning and progress tracking, and ensuring that all code changes are properly tested.
 
• Substantial improvements in collaboration capabilities. Microsoft has made major investments in the capabilities and scalability of Team Foundation Server (TFS) including significant improvements that allow teams to configure and adopt any flavor of Agile development processes. Teams can track and trace work more easily with richer linking of work items enabling hierarchical work item relationships. In the source code management system, TFS now provides visualization tools for tracking changes across branches and into the production build. VSTS 2010 also introduces workflow-based builds that catch errors before they have a chance to affect the rest of the team or, worse, enter production. Finally, administrators will find dramatically simpler TFS deployment and management.
 

“The application life cycle is an integral part of today’s business. Regardless of core competencies, all organizations are driven by software that is created and customized to deliver a competitive advantage,” said Theresa Lanowitz, founder of voke, inc. “Enterprises that invest in an ALM solution can decrease their total cost of ownership of applications in their IT portfolio, and bring about a global approach that is an integrated and expansive system consisting of people, processes and technology. This global approach to ALM facilitates collaboration and takes the risk out of software development to produce predictable and reliable results for an optimized business outcome. Solutions such as VSTS are poised to take advantage of market opportunity by offering an application life-cycle platform to help enterprises realize this ROI benefit.”

In another move to increase integration across the life cycle, Microsoft also announced that VSTS 2010 will provide a unified VSTS Development and Database product. As a benefit to existing Software Assurance (SA) customers, those who currently own Visual Studio Team System 2008 Development Edition or Visual Studio Team System 2008 Database Edition will receive all the following products starting Oct. 1, 2008, for free:

• Visual Studio Team System 2008 Development Edition
 
• Visual Studio Team System 2008 Database Edition
 
• Visual Studio 2005 Team System for Software Developers
 
• Visual Studio 2005 Team System for Database Professionals
 

The products will be available to SA customers through their normal Microsoft Developer Network channel. More information can be found at http://www.microsoft.com/licensing/sa.

More information about Visual Studio 2010 and the .NET Framework 4.0 is available at http://go.microsoft.com/?linkid=9537302.

Founded in 1975, Microsoft (Nasdaq “MSFT”) is the worldwide leader in software, services and solutions that help people and businesses realize their full potential.

One of my favorite things to do first thing in the morning is to sit down at my computer and read the news.  Well, not just the news per se, but an information gathering session of sorts.  I read the weather for the day and sift through an army of RSS feeds, but the news is also high on my list.  So why is it always bad?

I don’t mean bad in the sense of getting unwelcome or unhappy news.  I mean bad in the sense of tons of useless stuff that I don’t want to read.  I’m going to pick on CNN, since it’s one of my favorite sites to hit.  Every morning, and all day long for that matter, CNN is jam packed with useless, unimpressive “news”.  What passes as newsworthy today is downright disgusting. 

The US presidential election seems to consume about 1/3 of their content.  Are Americans really that interested in their politics?  The headlines read “Obama Goes to the Bathroom” and “Palin Prefers Green Beans”.   Seriously, I can’t imagine that the vast majority of the population is that interested in this stuff.

To add insult to injury, the Crime section of their site is very stagnate.  With the levels of crime in North America, one would think that covering crime stories would be easy money.  Instead we get to read about how the mother of missing little girl Caylee had called her a snot head.  Who cares?  Find the child – it helps no one to hear that she called her daughter a name.  Everyone calls their kid a name at some point in time.  We’re human.  All I’m asking for here is to not read the same regurgitated story for days, just because you can’t find a new story to write about.

CNET is no better.  Another one of my favorite reads, I get my tech news from CNET because frankly, CNN couldn’t cover technology to save its life.  CNET is riddled with articles like “How long before Wal-Mart reverses DRM decision?”.  This is an article of pure, speculative crap in a place where I seek out the truth and the facts.

Journalists have gotten sloppy these days.  Find interesting news and report it as cold hard facts, lest you become a blog full of useless rants, like mine.  J

The last point is where today's story picks up.  Now you know that I can't reveal actual names, but I will tell you a refreshing tale of corporate waste that snuck up on me today and pushed my sanity level to a whole knew dimension.

It starts with an interview process to hire, wait re-hire a temp employee who has been with us for a number of months now.  The contract had run out and rather than extend the contract for said temp employee, office politics had forced us into wasting the time of re-posting the position.  Imagine my dismay when we discovered that only one of the multiple other possible candidates was eligible for an interview based on a vast and accurate scoring criteria.

Imagine my further dismay when that interview bombed to the point of not being usable.  Our policies require that two candidates be interviewed so that we can prove how honest we are.  So what did we do?  Well, we decided to pick the best of the worst and give them an interview as well.  All the while knowing full well that they aren't qualified and won't get the position - just to say that we did our due diligence.  Waste factor number two.

And why did we go to this effort?  Simply put - to appease the requirements of one of the chiefs five levels up from us.  If we didn't do this, our complete placement would be jeopardized and we would have to start the filling process all over again.  So to recap, we did an additional interview at the cost of the time of three employees and wasted the candidates time, just to achieve the same end-state solely to appease the king of the castle.  Do you think if we asked the king about his thoughts on the entire situation that he would be pleased with the waste we created to satisfy his policy?

A couple of days ago I was playing with a VM of Windows Server 2008 Core and was having some trouble adding the VMware tools.  I didn't have to look far for an answer, the folks at Windows Reference have a terrific article up with multiple solutions to this problem.  I've referenced them below.

Solution 1

Windows 2008 Server Core benefits from VMware Tools, even though the GUI is mostly just a commandline. The most important benefit is the VMware enhanced mouse driver. This allows you to move the mouse in and out of the VM without having to to press the Ctrl-Alt release sequence.

Installing VMware Tools is a bit tricky, though, because there’s no shell to integrate into. Here’s how to install VMware Tools on Server Core: 

• Log into your Windows Server 2008 Server Core VM with an admin account 
• From the VMware Workstation console, click the VM menu Install VMware Tools. This will mount the VMware Tools disk in the virtual CD-Rom drive. 
• From the command line, switch to drive D: (or whatever drive is your CD drive) 
• Type Setup and press Enter 
• Click Install to the VMware informational message. The VMware Tools will begin to setup. 
• Click Next to install 
• Click Next to perform a Typical setup
• Click Install to begin the installation 
• When you see the status stall, open Task Manager (Ctrl-Alt-Ins Start Task Manager) 
• Click the Applications tab, select the RUNDLL process and choose End Task 
• Close Task Manager and click OK to any error messages. Setup will continue as normal.
• Click Finish and click Yes to restart the server
  When Windows Server 2008 Server Core starts up, it will be in 640×480 resolution. Read my next blog post to explain how to configure the resolution in Windows 2008 Server Core.

Solution 2

VMware Tools on Server Core by first mounting the VMware Tools ISO by selecting the “Install VMware Tools” option, then issuing:
msiexec /i “d:\VMware Tools.msi” /qn
in the console window.

Solution 3

For those unfamiliar with Server Core it is a command line only version of Windows Server 2008. On the GUI version of Windows 2008 server, VMWare tools must be installed to get the NIC working. Server Core however is command line only. VMWareTools is a GUI installation so this is not an option for Server Core.

The workaround is to transfer VMWareTools (contained in a file called windows.iso) from your ESX server to a local drive. This can be done using Winscp. Use Virtual Center to mount the windows.iso file as a CDROM drive in the Server Core VM. The driver files are located in \Program Files\VMWare\VMWare Tools\Drivers\VMXNet\w2k of the windows.iso file. The command used to install the drivers is

C:\Windows\System32>pnputil -i -a vmxnet.inf

Microsoft PnP Utility
Processing inf : vmxnet.inf
Successfully installed the driver on a device on the system.
Driver package added successfully.
Published name : oem2.inf

Next check the installation of the driver. Vmxnet should be displayed near the end of the list.

C:\Windows\System32>driverquery

ws2ifsl Winsock IFS driver Kernel 23/03/2007 04:52:40
vmxnet VMware Ethernet Adapte Kernel 22/04/2006 23:13:11

One of the questions I hear a lot is "How do I make Windows Server 2008 look more like Vista?".  One of the answers that I love to give is "Why would you want to do that?".  Seriously, it's a server - it's not supposed to be pretty.  In fact, if your server is properly secured, you should never see the interface.  That was easy.  Well, not that easy.  Since part of having a successful blog means answering reader questions, I have decided to provide the information to you.

After some brief searching, I found the answer over at thevistaforums.com and decided not to re-invent the wheel.

First, add the Desktop Experience and .NET 3.0 features.
1. Right-click Computer, an click Manage.
2. Click Features, then Add Features.
3. Expand .NET Framework 3.0 Features, and select .NET Framework 3.0 and XPS Viewer.
4. Select Desktop Experience.
5. Click Next and install the features; reboot.

Next, configure the Themes service to run automatically.
1. Right-click Computer, select Manage.
2. Expand Configuration, click Services.
3. Scroll down to Themes, and double-click it.
4. Under Startup type, select Automatic.
5. Apply the change, then Start the service.

The Windows Vista Basic and Windows Aero themes should now be visible if you right-click your desktop, select Personalize, and Window Color and Experience. To enable the full effects of the Aero theme, we have to take it a step further.

1. Right-click Computer, select Properties.
2. Click Advanced System Settings.
3. Under the Performance section, click Settings.
4. Select Adjust for Best Appearance.

And there lies the answer to your question.  Now you can pretty up and slow down your server like a champ!  Again, I will remind you that I don't recommend doing this, but it's your server and not mine.  :)  

Everyone knows that I am a huge fan of FreeNAS - the free network attached storage solution that runs on a cd.  Well, last night Gary Sims pointed me in the direction of his site http://www.learnfreenas.com/ and I have to tell you that I was quite impressed!  Gary just happens to also be the author of the Learning FreeNAS book from PACKT Publishing.

The Learn FreeNAS website is a fantastic collection of articles and videos that can help you understand the FreeNAS product and the best ways to use it.  The first video I saw was a "Tour of the FreeNAS server" which was a narrated video tour of the FreeNAS web interface.  I found the videos and articles to be very easy to follow and quite helpful as a training aid.  In addition to content regarding the current version of the product, there are also many articles and videos on the future FreeNAS version 0.70 release.  If that's not enough for you, there is a forum where one can play question and answer, and a downloads section where you can grab a copy of the latest versions of FreeNAS.

The site also offers a news section that gives the reader access to all of the latest FreeNAS related news, plus offers up an RSS feed that allows keeping-up-to date to be easier than ever.  From what I can tell, Gary isn't directly affiliated with the FreeNAS team, but after reviewing his work I definitely think that he should be.  I wish more products out there had this type of additional documentation layer.  Thanks Gary for helping the masses embrace this incredible storage solution - and thank you for bringing it to my attention!

Head on over to http://www.learnfreenas.com/ today and see just how easy this product is to use. 

As airlines fight to keep the money rolling in, a wave of new services is coming online to entice would-be travellers.  One such service is the in-flight Internet access from American Airlines.  Since August 20th, a limited amount of fliers have been able to stay connected while in the air - a service that should have been available years ago.  While not free, the $10 - $13 service is being used by business users and Internet Junkies alike.  This great step forward also has a dark side though...

It would seem that the flight attendants and the other passengers have raised a lot of complaints regarding the viewing of pornography by the consumers of these services.  The Association of Professional Flight Attendants has asked American Airlines to add filters to the service which would block inappropriate content.  While there has been no announcement in regards to a response, American Airlines has stated that the program is in a 3-6 month trial period and usage will be reviewed at the end of it.

Restricting access could cause the airline a lot of grief though.  Earlier this year, the Denver International Airport blocked access on its free Wi-Fi service to web sites deemed inappropriate by officials.  That didn't go over well and the airport suffered some very negative PR.  While they could argue that as a free service, consumers should not be complaining, a paid for in-flight service is a different matter. 

The flip side to this story is that airlines have not banned pornographic material on planes.  Anyone can bring a magazine or a video on their portable DVD player on a plane and review it while in the air.  So what makes using a laptop and the Internet any different?  How often does this really happen anyway?

Source:  cnet news

Earlier this week, the London Stock Exchange suffered a tremendous blow as the software that runs the show became plagued with connectivity issues.  It took six hours and 45 minutes to get it back up and running, but the damage was already done.  I first came across this story on Steven J.Vaughan-Nichols' blog over at the ComputerWorld blogs.  What I found was unfortunately not the facts, but the jaded opinion of a Linux loving Microsoft hater.

I'm not pro-Microsoft or pro-Linux.  I'm pro-intelligent.  I'm all about getting the job done in the best possible way and every scenario is different.  Steven took the time to point out that Microsoft and Accenture (a previous employer of mine) had created the TradeElec software utilized by the LSE.  He further made sure to note that the TradeElec software runs on hundreds of Windows 2003 servers and stores data on a Microsoft SQL Server 2000 platform.  None of this is relevant to the story though.  Had he done his research, he would have discovered that network connectivity was the problem and that is independent of the problem.

He also indicated that New York Stock Exchange is already using Linux on some of its servers.  My thoughts on that are "And then?"

I certainly agree that the 8 year old database platform could use an upgrade, but if it isn't broken, why fix it?  The anti-Linux people would have loved if the LSE was using Linux so that they could use the same kind of story to blast the Linux platform.  It's quite sad really.  The rumour mill got all fired up on this one and all kinds of stories started popping up about hackers and sub par software.  The fact remains though, it was just the network.

I feel for all the traders who were unable to capitalize on the news that the U.S. government was coming to the aid of Freddie Mac and Fannie Mae.  Better luck next time.  As for Steven, maybe you could try your hand at being a Wal-Mart greeter.

Terry Childs was your everyday network administrator, quietly and brilliantly keeping the show going for the city of San Francisco.  His attorneys refer to him as a model employee.  So what causes a model employee to be sitting behind bars on a $5 million bail?  Crazed and scared politicians who don't understand the very technology they employ - that's who.

Back in July, Terry was charged with four felony counts of computer network tampering for allegedly rigging the city's FibreWAN network with his own passwords.  They also allege that he installed traps that would cause a complete system failure should the power be shut off.  The question remains though, why did he do it?  The answer is shockingly simple.  Just like every other IT worker out there, he wasn't appreciated.

If you are in IT, then you already know that you aren't paid what you are worth and your work is generally taken for granted.  Even though you keep the lights on and the operation running smooth, your role in the organization is viewed as miniscule.  When cutbacks happen, IT workers are the first to go.  It doesn't matter that most of the non-IT staff can be replaced by systems built by the IT employees.  Politicians and decision makers never have a grasp of the IT world. 

There are no concrete details as to why Terry did it.  The media is running a circus and creating a buzz by turning him into a monster.  None of their stories make sense though and it all adds up to fear mongering. 

The city now has it's network back.  In a secret jail cell meeting, Terry gave the mayor of San Francisco the passwords to the locked out FibreWAN. The papers report that the cleanup from this wrong-doing will cost the city $1 million.  Sadly, the public is unaware that in the private sector, that job would only cost about $200,000.  Tax payers are generally unaware that they pay 4x - 10x more for technology services within governments than could be purchased on the street.

One day the admins will unite and render the rest of the world obsolete.

If you would like to follow the story, Paul Venezia over at InfoWorld is doing a good job at collecting the facts.

Today I discovered a new version of an old app.  Google Mobile App for Blackberry.  That's a mouthful.

While the app itself isn't new, this version is and it's jam-packed with goodness.  Existing users will notice that the home screen is much cleaner than it was before (I read that on their blog as I am a new user).  New users will simply be delighted with the interface.  It really brings together some of the most useful and common Google applications all in one place on your Berry.

In addition to basic search functionality, all of your favourites are there:

• Google Mail
• Google Maps
• Google News
• Google Reader
• Google Calendar
• Google Docs
• Google Photo
• Google Sync
• Google Notebook

I think this app is a very handy tool to have at my fingertips and will certainly be of benefit to the vast majority of the CrackBerry community.  The biggest downside is that most of the applications that this one brings together are still web based, so clicking on them usually results in the launching of a browser window.  As much as I would love to see a migration to native applications, I can settle with this for now.  The interface really does wonders by eliminating clutter and bringing the tools together in a slick and easy to use manner.

Google has been on a roll lately, making my Internet-connected world that much easier to handle.  Last week they introduced the world to Google Chrome and now this!  What's next from the technology giant?  I personally can't wait to see.  Maybe it will be the Google Space Shuttle or the Google Mars Lander.  Imagination is the limit.

Back to reality, if you want to get this Google Mobile App for yourself head on over to http://m.google.com/ with your BlackBerry browser and get Googling today!

Yesterday I was trying to find some information on MS Virtual Server vs the new and exciting Hyper-V product.  I was a little confused when I opened up what appeared to be a Microsoft community forum website and the address at the top of the screen said http://thesource.ofallevil.com/communities/newsgroups/en-us/default.aspx?dg=microsoft.public.virtualserver&tid=510822d7-50ab-4ce2-a87a-5906bd0707de&cat=en_US_4547053a-f94d-4ba8-8099-616e26d29a02&lang=en&cr=US&sloc=&p=1 .  Notice that the address doesn't start with "www.microsoft.com", but rather "thesource.ofallevil.com".  Amusingly fitting.  For a moment, I thought Microsoft was playing a cruel joke on me, so I started poking around.

My colleagues suggested that someone had actually made a realistic duplicate of the Microsoft website for whatever illicit purposes, but I wasn't convinced.  The information was too up-to-date for me though.  If someone was indeed working a scam, they were pretty dedicated to it.  I did some more Googling and found a very large number of forum posts where people were asking the same questions as I.  The most informative post I found was on the Spire Security Viewpoint blog.  It would seem that there are no concrete answers. 

What I can tell you is that this site was registered in 2002 and has a DNS CNAME record that resolves to the same IP as Microsoft.com.  While the whois information for the ofallevil.com site is not the same as the Microsoft.com whois, it is possible that M$ bought the domain at some point in the past 6 years.  The reasoning is that normally Microsoft would shut down such a site, as it places bad PR upon the company.  There is another subdomain of the ofallevil.com domain as well.  theroot.ofallevil.com maps back to the VeriSign website.

An elaborate prank or shameless promotion - what are your thoughts?

I personally found it very easy to setup and start using.  The installation is very straight-forward and the interface takes very little time to adjust to for basic browsing.  My first impressions were very focused on a very large performance increase in loading websites.  When connecting to my internal firewall logs, I was able to load the page in less than a second.  This is a far cry from the 7 - 10 seconds that Internet Explorer has been taking to load the same pages.  The general consensus on the web is strikingly similar.  Chrome is blowing away the competition when put into any sort of performance tests.  Google seems to have also taken a cue from Microsoft and added in a stealth browsing feature called "Incognito".  This allows you to surf without leaving a trace of history or cookies on the computer you used.  Great for the office.

Sadly, there were some areas that could be improved.  For example, the download bar that irritates you by showing you everything you have downloaded.  Then there is the auto-suggest feature that relays your browsing habits back to Google - not just what you are searching.  Basically they have access to any keystrokes that are typed into the Omnibox.  This problem is easily rectified.  Simply right-click in the address bar and select "Edit search engines".  Then you can uncheck the box labelled as "Use a suggestion service..." and continue on your merry way.

There is also a stack of easter eggs hidden in the browser