Read the full story

Un-adulterated

BULL-SHIT!

When did Dave Winer and Adam Curry develop the idea of Podcasting? 2001 and VoloMedia had nothing to do with inventing podcasting.

See here

The government patent office appears to not be doing their own research and most likely was asleep at the switch. WTF!

How do you amend a patent?

The head of the DoD-sponsored Digital Forensics Challenge said that contests like this will help the U.S. government find the talent it needs.

There’s a clear need in agencies as diverse as energy, aviation, and, of course, defense.

“We are conducting a national competition and talent search to find 10,000 security experts for the entire government,” James Christy, director of future exploration (FX) at the Defense Cyber Crime Center (DC3) and a former security officer in the Air Force told InternetNews.com.

Read the rest of the story.

If newspapers can’t monetize the content in new digital channels at the same level as with print, or cut structural costs enough to keep up with the changing competitive environment, the prospect of additional recapitalizations or shutdowns will grow, adding further pressure to ratings.

You may wonder what’s the deal here? How could these companies let this situation happen with no apparent adequate response? Well dear reader, there can be many reasons for the big bucket-o-trouble.

Momentum – Long term capital equipment contracts, union contracts, senior manager’s hanging on until retirement, political ideology, owners planning on bankruptcy to get rid of unions and equipment contracts, human nature to do the familiar and to be fearful of change, etc.

Something to think about (information, aka News, eventually will be freely available). In the future you will pay based on relevance for some news from trusted sources. It will be your choice.

The full report is available on Moody’s site and here.

Using Google Spreadsheets as a Database with the Google Visualisation API Query Language

Wouldn’t it be handy if we could treat all the public spreadsheets uploaded to Google docs as queryable tables in a database? Well, it appears that you can do so, at least at an individual spreadsheet level: Introducing the Google Visualization API.

Over the weekend, I started exploring the Google Visualisation API Query Language, which is reminiscent of SQL (if that means anything to you!). This language provides a way of interrogating a data source such as a public online Google spreadsheet and pulling back the results of the query as JSON, CSV, or an HTML table.

Got that? I’ll say it again: the Google Visualisation API Query Language lets you use a Google spreadsheet like a database (in certain respects, at least).

One of the great things about Macs is how Apple has included a wealth of free and open source tools in Mac OS X. This collection includes both major portions of the operating system (much of Mac OS X’s Unix core), and numerous additional applications and components. Windows file sharing, printing, and even Safari are all based on open source tools also used on other platforms. While this provides us with immeasurable benefits, it does present some potential liabilities on the security front. Like all software, these open source components occasionally suffer from security vulnerabilities, but since Apple doesn’t control them, Apple can’t necessarily make code fixes quickly, if at all.

This disconnect can result in a major security issue for Macs (and iPhones) when the vulnerability is patched for other platforms, but Apple fails to provide a fix. Apple has an unfortunate history of leaving some of these vulnerabilities unpatched for months, as is the case with a five-month-old vulnerability in Java.

As reported by researcher Landon Fuller, Mac OS X is vulnerable to a Java flaw that could allow an attacker to execute arbitrary code under the logged-in user’s account. While perhaps not as bad as full administrative access, it still allows an attacker plenty of latitude to perform all sorts of nefarious activity on your system.

While an attacker could technically trick you into downloading and running a malicious program written in Java, it’s far easier for them to trick you into visiting a malicious Web site and take over your system when your browser automatically runs their ‘bad’ Java applet. Attackers have developed ways to sneak these onto even trusted Web sites, so merely sticking with known safe sites isn’t sufficient to stay secure. Landon includes a demonstration exploit on his site, which clearly shows how an attacker could take over your system.

The best way to protect yourself is to turn off Java in your Web browser. This will break some Web sites, but until Apple provides a fix it’s the only way to protect yourself.

To disable Java in Safari, go into Preferences and disable ‘Open safe files after downloading.’ Then click on the Security tab, and uncheck ‘Enable Java.’

To disable Java in Firefox, select Preferences and then the Content tab. As with Safari, uncheck ‘Enable Java.’

Hopefully Apple will fix this soon, and stop leaving Mac users vulnerable to security flaws already fixed on other platforms.

Copyright © 2009 Rich Mogull. TidBITS is copyright © 2009 TidBITS Publishing Inc. If you’re reading this article on a Web site other than TidBITS.com, please let us know, because if it was republished without attribution, by a commercial site, or in modified form, it violates our Creative Commons License.

(Via TidBITS: Mac News for the Rest of Us.)

Taking Off The Training Wheels

(Via Macworld.)

I read Facebook. Otherwise all my Facebook activity is suspended.