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We have discussed the problem of older operating systems and security here many times, now it's great to see that Microsoft has released two critical updates for Windows 98 and WinMe users. You can learn more about the patches at Informationweek, but to get the new patches and install them, go to the Windows update website.
Linuxense.com has started a new server break-in challenge to begin tomorrow, March 9th. If you can keep a server up for 48 hours without interruption, you win an active shell account to play with. No big bucks, or prizes, just a simple challenge for the Linux geek in all of us. Here’s a few details, but the full list of rules can be found at the link above.
Microsoft announced last year that there were four major parts of Longhorn that will make it worth the upgrade, since Longhorn will not be released for at another year or two, Microsoft thought it better make as many of these available to WinXP system users as possible. WinFS is the latest Longhorn feature to be ported to WinXP. Tom Rizzo, Microsoft's director of product management for SQL Server said Microsoft is busily back-porting the WinFS file-system technology to Windows XP. The question is now, will there be any reason to upgrade to Longhorn when, or if, it ever sees the light of day?
Security
Not long ago we had a spirited discussion here on GeekNewsCentral about the fact that everyone was running WinXP and they all should be updated to the latest security patches. Well now I have some figures to show you just how old of operating systems we have on our computers. According to this Yahoo News article, “ The research firm IDC estimates that of the roughly 514 million paid-for copies of Windows on desktops and laptops worldwide at the end of 2004, almost 21 percent were the aging Win 95, 98 and Millennium Edition releases. Among the 19 million Mac OS desktop and laptop installations IDC surveyed, just about half were running releases predating Mac OS X.”
Apache server software has been steadily increasing in popularity this year. When you hear someone talk about Apache, you assume they have a Unix-flavored server, but as of late, many folks are using Apache on their Windows machines instead of IIS. Their are many reasons for this including security, database usage and scripting. But running Apache on a Windows system is not always an easy task. I found a great article that walks you through the basics and has links for all the questions you may run into while working with Apache. Check it out for yourself at SitePoint’s Opensource Blog.
I upgraded one of my network file servers, yesterday. I replaced a hard disk that was setting off occasional error notices, and, while while I was at it, I replaced the current operating system (Mandrake Community 10.1) with Knoppix 3.7. Knoppix is the Linux distribution that I use in class to demonstrate how simple Linux is to use, because Knoppix is a fully-functional operating system with common applications that can boot from a single CD. So, with the bootable CD, I can quickly convert any computer to Linux without the risk of deleting any existing files from the Windows operating system.