Microsoft

Windows Defender is a free program that helps protect your computer against pop-ups, slow performance, and security threats caused by spyware and other unwanted software. It features Real-Time Protection, a monitoring system that recommends actions against spyware when it's detected and minimizes interruptions and helps you stay productive. Now with 2 free support incidents for Windows XP and Windows Server 2003. Source: Windows Defender home The product has the following features: A redesigned and simplified user interface – Incorporating feedback from our customers, the Windows Defender UI has been redesigned to make common tasks easier to accomplish with a warning system that adapts alert levels according to the severity of a threat so that it is less intrusive overall, but still ensures the user does not miss the most urgent alerts. Improved detection and removal – Based on a new engine, Windows Defender is able to detect and remove more threats posed by spyware and other potentially unwanted software. Real...

Now this sounds familiar - compromise the dev tools and they compromise all products produced with them. Enterprises using open source software to engineer custom applications could be vulnerable to a newly discovered class of hack attack, a security firm claimed today. Fortify Software 's Security Research Group reported that so-called 'cross-build injection attacks' could allow a hacker to insert code into the target program while it is being constructed. The use of open source coding tools have opened the doors to "possible system-wide exploits", according to Fortify. If an attacker compromises either the server that hosts a component, or the DNS server that the build machine uses to locate that server, he could use these vulnerabilities to take full control of the build machine and possibly other machines on the remote network. Fortify discovered that, during the application build process, systems that automatically download external dependencies, including the popular Ant, Maven and...

I'm not feeling my best, so no comments, but below was an article I found very interesing: Independent study advises IT planners to go OOXML Posted by Mary Jo Foley @ 6:41 am Market researchers with the Burton Group have issued a 37-page study– not commissioned by Microsoft or any other tech vendor — that finds Microsoft’s OOXML document format to be more useful than the rival ODF format backed by Microsoft’s competitors. The new study, freely downloadable (in exchange for registration) from Burton’s Web site is entitled “What’s Up, .DOC? ODF, OOXML, and the Revolutionary Implications of XML in Productivity Applications.” Office Open XML (OOXML) is Microsoft’s XML file format that it made the default in its Office 2007 suite. Open Document Format(ODF) is the file format championed by Sun Microsystems, IBM, Google and other Microsoft competitors. Microsoft is seeking ISO standards approval for OOXML, largely to appease customers who prefer/require standards-compliant products, as well as to head off ODF momentum...

Earlier this month on the IE blog there was some discussion about IE8, almost the 1st discussion about this - Internet Explorer 8 . Now they talk about the "Standards Mode" and how for those who want near 100% standards based web sites can live happily together. It is worth saying that it might end up 100% standards based, but since I don't think such a thing exists, all I will say is that is passes all the standards tests. Acid is one of these tests. I strongly recommend you read the the whole blog Internet Explorer 8 and Acid2: A Milestone As a team, we’ve spent the last year heads down working hard on IE8. Last week, we achieved an important milestone that should interest web developers. IE8 now renders the “ Acid2 Face ” correctly in IE8 standards mode. If you’re not a web developer, the details of this blog post probably aren’t all that interesting for you. I’d like you to know that we’re building IE8 for many different customers (consumers, web service providers, independent software vendors...

I have updated the FAQ, but I can now confirm that there is an intention to ship Vista x64 to partners via the Action Pack, although all the details for the process have not be sorted, meaning that I cannot yet confirm which pack they will be shipping in. As soon as I get more information I will share it, but for now, be aware that we have again put in place a solution to the issues raised by partners around their desires for the Action Pack. ttfn David Technorati tags: Action Pack , Windows Client , Windows Vista and XP , Windows Vista , x64

I was at a Citrix event last week. It was a good event with my role explaining to people that "no", Microsoft and Citrix don't hate each other and in fact our technologies are very, very complementary. I'll post on the Microsoft, Citrix, Virtualisation (Terminal Services, Application, Desktop and Server) later, but part way through I got talking to Jon Silk from Lewis and we discovered that we both blogged to communicate with the world and have a conversation. I happened to mention the fact that I had 1.5M page hits last month and about 65,000 unique people (excluding search engines) visit the blog every month and look what he wrote... The British Scoble(iser) I met David Overton, ISV Partner Account Manager at Microsoft, at a conference today. We nervously circled each other over the bad coffee making polite comments. Then he let slip that his blog gets 65,000 unique visitors a month and I realised I was talking to the UK's answer to you-know-who . Check out his approach to blog design....

Hi guys, here at Partner Conference and one of the snippets I picked up is that Virtual PC is now a free download, following the lead Virtual Server. There are restrictions I believe, in the number of hosts, but how great is this. The product can be downloaded from http://www.microsoft.com/windows/virtualpc/downloads/sp1.mspx ttfn David

Well, it is now over 30 years since Star Wars made me realise that there is more to life and that doing the right thing was something to fight for. However, just as a bit of nostalgia, here is a little posting from the Community Pages sharing how Happy Christmas (non-PC version) was done 30 years ago "Happy Holidays!" Love, 1977 December 21, 2007 Thirty years ago next week, 20th Century Fox began running a newspaper ad for the 1977 holiday season which offered seasons greetings from several Star Wars characters. Even our favorite Grand Moff and Sith Lord offered their best -- we'll chalk that up to New Year's resolutions. Star Wars: Community | "Happy Holidays!" Love, 1977 ttfn David Technorati Tags: Star Wars , Happy Christmas

You can see any Live areas you have access too by going to http://ideas.live.com You can now IM to Yahoo Messenger users. Try it | Learn more | View blog The Live.com site continues to be updated - there is just so much you can do to your home page. If you have not been here, have a go at http://www.live.com and see how much fun it can be. Try it | Learn more | View blog There are lots of things you can load onto your Live.com page, your toolbar, Live Messenger and more - the place to configure all this is the Gallery - http://gallery.live.com Of course, there is also: messenger.live.com toolbar.live.com ttfn David

I’m really sorry that everything has been so very quiet on the blog front – work has just been maxing out and I even took some personal time out – I’ve now been married for just over ten years and to celebrate Mrs Overton and I visited Niagara Falls for the weekend. It was a wonderful time and worth the break, however I now need to get my skates on. Niagara Falls from our hotel room American and Honeymoon Falls from hotel room Before that I was planning and helping an ”EBC” or Enterprise Briefing Center with a number of UK ISVs. The trip gave insight to these Partners and an opportunity to discuss next steps on working together. It certainly helped me in my conversations with COA Solutions: This week I will be working on SBS 2008 materials for publishing when the technology preview becomes available. I also have a back log of other information to share about Microsoft, SaaS, ISVs, partners and more. ttfn David Technorati Tags: Personal , ISVs

One of my University lecturers help at the London Science Museum to build the Babbage difference engine around twenty years ago. Engines like this which is very mechanical based are obviously simple ways to implement functions of modern cpus in nano technology. It was a a nice surprise to see the article " Antique engines inspire nano chip " where we see that this is progressing. “The blueprint for a tiny, ultra-robust mechanical computer has been outlined by US researchers. ”What we are proposing is a new type of computing architecture that is only based on nano-mechanical elements,” said Professor Robert Blick of the University of Wisconsin-Madison and one of the authors of the journal paper. “We are not going to compete with high-speed silicon, but where we are competitive is for all of those mundane applications where you need microprocessors which can be slow and cheap as well.” ttfn David Technorati Tags: Nano Technology , Babbage , Difference Engine

Linux... what an emotive word around Microsoft that is! I used to be a Unix/Linux boy, but there again, I used to be a Mainframe boy, and then a security boy... I have worn too many hats. I can see the things people like about all of these, but too often the discussion is religious rather than customer centre'd or factual. Howvever one more factual and yet spoken from the heart can be found at http://www.vladville.com/2006/06/sbs-vs-linux-the-response-from-email-battles.html Vlad tells it how he sees it. Rock on. ttfn David