It's a bird! It's a plane! It's a ... Mac-alike!

Linux, of course, can be configured to look like anything. (There's a fair selection of such anythings here.) And now making Debian or Ubuntu look like a Mac is simply a matter of a download.

The Mac OS X Transformation Pack is "designed to transform Linux’s appearance and layout into a Mac OS X environment". It's easy to install -- just extract the archive, click to install.sh to run and answer a couple of preference questions -- and you'll transform this ...



... into this ...



And if you change your mind, uninstall.sh will return you to sanity!

Posted by Geoff Palmer at 8:09 PM | Permalink | Comments ( 0 )

I wrote about the mysterious Stuxnet worm in our November print issue. Now more details have emerged about its possible authors.

You'll recall that Stuxnet is a worm with very specific tastes, namely Windows PCs running Siemens SIMATIC Step 7 controller software that in turn is used to program (and run) Programmable Logic Controllers (PLCs) -- devices that handle everything from amusement park rides to industrial assembly lines. Initial suspicions that it was targeted at the centrifuges used to enrich uranium seem to be borne out.

However it looks like yet another IT screw-up. In spite of squandering three zero-day exploits to get it in place, Stuxnet then just hung around propogating like mad -- which drew the attention of the antivirus companies who quickly put it out of business.

"... whoever did write it failed in one respect because Stuxnet has not stayed live for as long as its creators hoped. The control system set up needed to have been in place for years to have a seriously disruptive effect on its intended targets. 'Someone has serious egg on their face because they are never going to be able to use this investment ever again ...' "

Opps!

Still, Stuxnet marks a watershed in the virus business because, as Kaspersky Labs noted, it's "a working -- and fearsome -- prototype of a cyber-weapon that will lead to the creation of a new arms race in the world."

Posted by Geoff Palmer at 10:56 PM | Permalink | Comments ( 0 )

Lost some photos or trashed a hard drive? Have I got some fantastic (free) tools for you!

Both come from CGSecurity and both run under Windows, Mac and Linux (along with DOS, BSD, Solaris and more).

PhotoRec recovers lost files from hard disks and CD-ROMs along with lost pictures from digital camera memory cards -- hence its name. It ignores the filing system and goes after the underlying data instead, so it'll still work if your media has been severely damaged or even reformatted. It can recover lost files from FAT, NTFS, EXT2/EXT3 filesystem and HFS+ partitions.

Its companion program, TestDisk, recovers lost partitions on a huge variety of filing systems -- everything from BeFS to XFS -- and makes non-bootable disks bootable again. There's a step-by-step guide to running it here.

Both programs are open source software and licensed under the the GNU General Public License (GPL). Keep 'em in your toolkit!

Posted by Geoff Palmer at 7:13 PM | Permalink | Comments ( 1 )

Six years ago today, (9 November 2004), Firefox 1.0 hit the servers.

Development of the browser was officially announced in April 2003 and originally called Phoenix -- raising the ire of the trademark holders. Renaming it Firebird raised the ire of the free database software developers, so it was finally branded Firefox nine months before it's inital release.

At the time, Microsoft's Internet Explorer 6 was the dominant player in the browser market. A security nightmare and notoriously non-compliant with W3C standards, it nevertheless had a 98%+ market share and was considered unasailable.
What difference could a non-bundled browser that users had to manually download and install for themselves make?

Quite a lot, actually.

As Firefox started nibbling at their numbers, Microsoft's browser developers were dragged out of the semi-retirement they'd been in since the release of IE6 in 2001, and eventually churned out IE7 in late 2006 -- copying many of Firefox's features. Six days later, Firefox 2.0 hit the servers, and the battle's continued ever since.

Firefox 3.0 was released in June 2008 and set a Guiness World Record for over 8 million unique downloads in a single day. And it's numbers keep on climbing. According to NetMarketShare (October 2010), Firefox now has 23% of the browser market with IE down to 59%. That will certainly fall further with all the fun features coming in Firefox 4.0. It's currently in beta (get a copy here) and due for release early next year

So raise your glasses this evening (as if you needed an excuse!) and toast Firefox, the little browser that could.

Posted by Geoff Palmer at 4:51 PM | Permalink | Comments ( 2 )

Will HTML5 be a Flash-beater? Why not play them off against each other? The folk at Code Computerlove have created a Flash/HTML5 hybrid in the form of a game of Pong so now you can play one against the other.



The left half of the playing field is in Flash, the right half in HTML5. Play here.

Posted by Geoff Palmer at 1:02 PM | Permalink | Comments ( 0 )

Synchronising email between different devices seems like a great idea, but don't think of synching it between the web and a mobile device. Why not? Because, thanks to software patents, Microsoft owns that idea.

Microsoft is currently suing Motorola over alledged Android infringements, and there's a story circulating that they're alse pressuring Acer and Asustek for royalty payments for using Android. This issue is neatly summed up in this brief blog by Dana Blankenhorn:

The problem with software patents, as opposed to those for drugs or medical devices, is that they don’t cover the way you do something, but the idea of doing something. Thus, Microsoft claims to control the syncing of e-mail between the Web and a mobile device. You can’t innovate around the patent, as you might around the patent for a new pacemaker. This is what makes software patents so dangerous. They place an ever-larger tax on innovation, because innovations are always based on what came before. And if you can’t innovate around an idea, then you must pay for it. And pay and pay and pay. ... In that scenario Windows doesn’t have to be better. It doesn’t even have to be as good. It just needs to be in the ballpark.

Apple are currently suing HTC over the use of Android in its handsets, Oracle are suing Google claiming violations of its Java patents (picked up through it's recent acquisition of Sun) ...

Could we be heading for an all-out patent war?

Posted by Geoff Palmer at 8:12 AM | Permalink | Comments ( 2 )