• Download in .ogv format.
• See how I did it.
• See how Shawn does it.

Thanks to Keith for this one.

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Computer World: Google Chrome OS may be security hotspot in 2010

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Info Security: Secure USB drives have flaws, warns Kingston "under the right conditions – a skilled person can access the data on the drive"

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A few weeks ago we wrote about a mysterious Easter Egg on Google’s homepage that we dubbed The Google Countdown. After clicking the “I’m Feeling Lucky” button with no search query entered, the page would display a countdown timer ticking down the seconds until… something. A little trickery with our computer clocks revealed that the timer was counting down until January 1, 2010 at 12:00 AM (the New Year, for those of you who haven’t been paying attention). But nothing happened once to timer reached zero.

Today, Google has flipped the switch on its New Years surprise. No, it isn’t an amazing new free web service. Instead, it’s a cheesy digital fireworks display that overlays the classic Google homepage with multicolored stars and ‘Happy New Year’ banners dancing across the screen. I can’t help but be slightly let down, but then again, it’s only five more days until the rumored launch of the Nexus One. And it is kind of funny.

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Steve Balmer, the CEO of Microsoft gets pretty scared by the success of Linux & other Open Source Software. Microsoft wants to hire a so-called “Linux and Open Office Compete Lead”, as the job description in one their recent marketing job ads shows.

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Many bloggers take December 31 each year to do a recap of their year in blogging. Google is no exception.

The multi-billion dollar company has a post today patting itself on the back for a solid five years worth of blogging. More notably, they talk about how the amount they’re blogging has increased significantly over the years. In 2009, Google had 423 posts on the Google Blog, which is just one of dozens of blogs they run. That represents a 15 percent increase over 2008. They also note that just about 14.5 million people stopped by the blog this year, which is a 21 percent increase over the previous year. Make no mistake: Google is taking its blogging very seriously.

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[SECURITY] [DSA-1953-2] New expat packages fix regression

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[SECURITY] [DSA-1964-1] New PostgreSQL packages fix several vulnerabilities

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Snapstream, a startup that makes a device that lets enterprises record thousands of hours of TV (from both satellite and digital cable sources) and search inside the recordings for keywords, recently launched a trending topics site for TV. Snapstream has released its top trends on TV for 2009, with the mention of “Twitter” used more often than Facebook, MySpace and other social media platforms. .

TV programs used the word “Twitter” in their programming three times more often in December 2009 than they did in late 2008 and January 2009, according to the data. SnapStream also released the top keyword mentions on TV, which are in order: Iran, Michael Jackson, Swine Flu, North Korea, AIG, Pirates, Hamas, (The) Inauguration, Ted Kennedy, and Balloon (boy). SnapStream also revealed that mentions of “health care” eclipsed mentions of “economy” towards the end of the year thanks to President Obama’s healthcare initiative.

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[Joel] wanted to use his newly acquired welding skills to make something useful. With tasty flesh in mind he put together this meat smoker. What resulted is incredible, but the fact that he then gave it away as a gift is just amazing.
A curved joint between two pipes is known as a ‘fish mouth’. They [...]

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What does this tell us about ourselves?

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Cnet founder Shelby Bonnie and other angels have put another $2.5 million into Whiskey Media, which operates niche media sites such as ComicVine (comics), GiantBomb (gaming), and AnimeVice (anime). The company, which has been around since 2007, previously raised about $1.5 million in angel money as well.

Whiskey Media’s sites are wiki-like content sites in the vein of CrunchBase or GDGT, which built around structured databases which can be edited by the readers. (In fact, CrunchBase was inspired by Whiskey Media’s first site, now-retired PoliticalBase).

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Today I’d like to talk to you about Linux Mint 8, AKA Helena. I’ve said this many times before, but the codenames still sound a little tacky to me. The distro itself is anything but tacky though and it’s been one of my firm favourites in the past. How would this release stack up? Well, I’ll tell you…

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Ever wanted to get the MAC or IP address of your computer in a
Linux shell script?
The following two commands should work on most flavours of
Linux/Unix.

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You would think, reading the comments on his blog, that it is greatest left-wing victory since Franklin Roosevelt won the presidency.

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Almost everywhere I go I find MS-Outlook, MS-Office, MS-IExplorer and Adobe Acrobat reader. Some of these installations even lack MS-Project, MS-Visio and in some cases even MS-Access. If those really were the only tools at my disposal, I would call it working with “stone axes and bear skins”.

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On behalf of All about Linux blog, I wish you all a very prosperous, happy, and fullfilling New Year 2010. :-)

For more news, tips, and reviews on all things Linux, Open source and Free software, visit Linux Help blog.

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A public letter from the President of the FreeBSD Foundation which discusses the future of the organization, it’s value/worth and other items. In 2009, the FreeBSD project had the misfortune of losing two long time contributors: John Birrell and Jean-Marc Zucconi. I chatted with John recently, during this year’s BSDCAN, so his death was all the more shocking. It forced me to recognize my own mortality and to consider what contributions from our lives remain after we pass away. Reviewing the heritage of FreeBSD it becomes clear that our work on this project takes on a life of its own. John and Jean-Marc’s efforts live on in FreeBSD.

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You know it’s getting a bit ridiculous when hardware that hasn’t hit the streets is being rooted. That’s exactly what has happened, root access can now be achieved on the Nexus One. [Paul] found an exploit and packaged it nicely so that anyone can do it. We do wish he had shared the details of [...]

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When we introduced you to the Twitter Christmas tree ornaments, sadly we had very little information about the project. Luckily [Rob] made contact and clued us in on the inner workings. It even turns out we were wrong about the usage of Arduinos! We invite you to check out all the juicy inner workings after [...]

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Are you tired of living in public, sick of all the privacy theater the social networks are putting on, and just want to end it all online? Now you can wipe the slate clean with the Web 2.0 Suicide Machine. (Warning: This will really delete your online presence and is irrevocable). Just put in your credentials for Facebook, MySpace, Twitter, or LinkedIn and it will delete all your friends and messages, and change your username, password, and photo so that you cannot log back in.

The site is actually run by Moddr, a New Media Lab in Rotterdam, which execute the underlying scripts which erase your accounts. The Web 2.0 Suicide Machine is a digital Dr. Kevorkian. On Facebook, for instance, it removes all your friends one by one, removes your groups and joins you to its own “Social Network Suiciders,” and lets you leave some last words. So far 321 people have used the site to commit Facebook suicide. On Twitter, it deletes all of your Tweets, and removes all the people you follow and your followers. It doesn’t actually delete these accounts, it just puts them to rest.

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Not only is it good journalism to fact-check Republican lies, it’s entertaining too.

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[Jeri Ellsworth] is building her own pinball machine. Her build log is delivered in the form of daily videos that walk through the progress. In addition to seeing the intricate ramps, traps, and controllers she outlines her build techniques. These include reproducing parts based on old pinball machines and bending acrylic with a custom tool [...]

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It’s almost January 1st, 2010 and we’ve been mulling over our favorites of 2009 – and the previous decade. Here we present another installment of our “Of the Decade” lists.

Valve’s follow-up to the revolutionary Half-Life is our game of the decade not just because it’s a fantastic game, but because it is a fine example of modern gaming. It exemplifies DLC done right, community support done right, and comes part and parcel with Steam, which has helped revolutionize digital distribution for games. All this while still being the standard by which other FPSes are measured.

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CoffeeScript is a language that compiles down into JavaScript. “But why? JavaScript is so simple?” Bullcorn.
If you don’t use JavaScript everyday the language is wonky and frustrating. When you need quick snippet of Javascript to build into a page you may know how to do it with three or four different languages but struggle with [...]

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The order is part of a sweeping overhaul of the executive branch’s system for protecting classified national security information.

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Here at Linux Journal, 2010 has been designated a Linux Odyssey. I was fortunate enough to be asked to lead the charge as the Guest Editor for the January issue where we took a small departure from our normal January focus and instead looked at Amateur Radio and Linux.

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This Metasploit module exploits a stack overflow in Oracle Document Capture 10g (10.1.3.5.0). Oracle Document Capture 10g comes bundled with a third party ActiveX control emsmtp.dll (6.0.1.0). When passing a overly long string to the method SubmitToExpress an attacker may be able to execute arbitrary code.

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The only Democrats who I hope vote against the final health care bill are center-right incumbents who face primary challenges from their left.

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This Metasploit module exploits a directory traversal in Persits Software Inc’s XUpload ActiveX control(version 3.0.0.3) that’s included in HP LoadRunner 9.5. By passing a string containing ..\\\\ sequences to the MakeHttpRequest method, an attacker is able to write arbitrary files to arbitrary locations on disk. Code execution occurs by writing to the All Users Startup Programs directory. You may want to combine this module with the use of multi/handler since a user would have to log for the payload to execute.

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