Amazon receives patent on "related products" - yes, exactly, customers who bought this product also showed interest in the following additional products now has a US patent. And of course, something like this would never be enforceable as a patent in Europe (and pigs can fly). It's great to see how innovative software patents are and how important they are for strengthening the software industry - because with such a patent, one could make a fortune in the warning letter paradise of Germany and kick out annoying competition. By the way, they already have the patent on one-click ordering. Yes, web shops could become a legal minefield if the EU Council's software patent directive prevails. And patent lawyers will become fat and rich ...
My Finder still shows all applications twice or even three times in the context menu for a file in the Open With submenu. And I can't figure out for the life of me how to fix this. Hasn't anyone else had this problem? There must be a way to clean it up, after all, the menu is dynamically created by OS X from the installed applications - but there must be some kind of type registry somewhere where applications register themselves so that OS X knows they can read this file type. And that's the place you should be able to clean up. But how in the world do you do that? Where does OS X remember which programs can open which file types?
Privacy advocates' concerns are fear-mongering - at least according to Otto Orwell:
Concerns about biometric passports, RFID technology, and tele-surveillance, expressed for example by privacy advocates, are fear-mongering that one should not fall for, said Federal Interior Minister Otto Schily at the symposium "Computers in everyday life - opportunities for Germany" in Berlin. The mentioned technologies are not used to monitor or suppress citizens, but to increase their security.
Funny. I rather believe that Otto Orwell's talk is simply fear-mongering - what security is increased by massive and widespread spying on citizens? Certainly not the citizens' security - but they are being fed pseudo-risks and alleged solutions for them, just like the Bush administration, to reduce their civil rights in Germany. Without regard for facts, without regard for proportionality.
The ignorance he attributes to the critics is probably on his side. Because he may still be considered competent as a lawyer (I can't judge his competence there), he has no clue about cryptography and its risks - as they come into play, for example, in the context of passports valid for 10 years.
Who wants to make statements about the security of cryptographic methods today if they have to make this statement for a point in time 10 years from now? Yes, I know, Otto Orwell does - as I said, he simply has no idea what he is talking about. SHA1 was once described as a secure alternative to MD5 signatures - and has essentially failed. MD5 signatures are now completely unusable - as scientists have proven when they produced two real texts with meaningful content and identical MD5 signatures. I've had enough of pathetic politicians with brains too small, who want to impose their alleged doctrines on citizens with absurd claims. And I've long had enough of their idiotic argumentation loops with which they want to sell total surveillance as a security feature to citizens.
Study Shows Windows Beats Linux on Security - this time, Microsoft bought the desired results from the company Wipro. Just as absurd as previous attempts in the same direction. Contains such gems as:
“We already know how to secure a Windows-based solution and keep it running smoothly,” says Stephen Shaffer, the airline’s director of software systems. “With Linux, we had to rely on consultants to tell us if our system was secure. With Windows, we can depend on Microsoft to inform us of and provide any necessary updates.”
Sorry, but seriously: if my IT manager tells me he relies on Microsoft for the security of his systems, that would be a reason for me to fire the guy as quickly as possible.
WordPress 1.5.1.3 includes an important security fix. So at least take the xmlrpc.php from the release.