E-Musings Mon Immorata

Quick 'N Easy Web Site Comparisons Free Comparator helps you view sites simultaneously in Internet Explorer and Mozilla, plus Windows Updates, new vulnerabilities, and free worm detection utilities 'Twas a busy week with lots happening. Top of the list is news MP3 Surround: the next generation in MP3. This 5.1 surround format developed (again) by Fraunhofer Institute and Thomson Electronics, who also developed the original MP3 codec. As well as its enhanced quality at lower data rates (and file sizes) MP3Pro codec released the MP3 Surround Technical Preview in early December 2004. The version now released is the MP3 Surround 5.1Public Beta encoder and player. According to the developers, the new format is backwards compatible with MP3. Its just that the enhanced sound quality won't be heard when playing MP3 Surround on older MP3 software and hardware players. But as someone who use the enhanced MP3Pro format to store music, files so encoded sound dull on standard MP3 players when compared to their original digital versions! There is a whole wave of Microsoft Internet Explorer-related vulnerabilities. My advice is not to stand around while IE slowly goes down in flames! Instead Get Firefox now. As this browser's basic feature set can be easily expanded using free plug-ins (extensions) whose best collection is available at Extensions Mirror. Or at the Mozilla Development Center. But before we go to problems, let's review Comparator: a reasonably elegant solution for testing websites. Developed by Vasanth Dharmaraj, the software is built on the .Net platform (requires .Net Framework 1.1 or better pre-installed). And uses the Internet Explorer and Mozilla (ActiveX-powered) rendering engines to display how a web site looks in a horizontally-tiled 2-pane view. Comparator's interface is as basic as you can get. It offers a simple Toolbar and status bar. And can access the IE Favorites folder. The Address Bar supports auto-complete and URL completion (so common to Maxthon, MyIE2, NetCaptor and Firefox) like Ctrl+Enter (.com), Shift+Enter (.net) and Ctrl+Shift+Enter (.be). As well as synchronized browsing (one URL viewed in separate rendering engine windows) but you still need to force-refresh the URL even when only one of the two engine views fails to load properly! If you belong to a bona fide educational institutions your school can take advantage of Opera Software free Academic license for the Opera Browser. According to the press note

The Opera browser is fully customizable. A university can use its school colors and mascot in the design of the browser's buttons, backgrounds and borders. The Opera browser also features a communication banner where the school can insert news or other announcements for its students. Schools interested in Opera's free site licenses can e-mail education@opera.com or visit www.opera.com/education for more information.

Readers with a GMail account lamenting the death of the GMail Drive extension for Windows Explorer. Rejoice. The new GMail Drive Extension 1.0.5 allows GMail account holders to use their 1 GB account for more than just email. This utility creates a virtual file system within GMail allowing you to save and retrieve files directly from inside Windows Explorer. Each file is actually a blank email draft with a 40-character subject (file name) and a file attachment. But using GMail to store files is not fool-proof. As the next service upgrade will probably break the extension again. Instead do try Streamload, a free data storage service. That offers 10 GB of free space for music, video and picture files. Free accounts are limited to a monthly 100 MB download. But Streamload has other affordable pricing plans in both gigabytes and terabytes. And readers angling for a free GMail account go ask someplace else. I don't have invitations to spare. I understand GMail Beta accounts are being traded for a dime on eBay. And for the unlucky few still unblessed with a GMail account, don't rejoice over bug (detected by HBX Networks while testing a Perl script) that allowed users to read other people's messages. Its been fixed almost immediately. What you should remain alert for is an Internet Explorer vulnerability that bypasses built-in browser warnings. And allows a remote attacker to download malicious content. The browser's download control's unable to detect "onclick" events combined with the HTML Body tag (that defines the start and end of a Web page's visible content). An attacker combining "onclick" with "createElement" creates an IFrame linking to a Web page that auto-downloads malicious files without generating a warning. This vulnerability affects all versions of Internet Explorer 6.x. Including that included with Windows XP Service Pack 2! Meanwhile Microsoft has released updates to resolve critical vulnerabilities in Windows HTML Help, in cursor and icon management. And in Windows file Indexing system that could allow remote code execution. Of course the best approach is to allow Windows Update to track newly released system patches and alert you accordingly. Its far more convenient. And in tandem with its anti-spyware initiative, Microsoft has also released a free MyDoom, Doomjiuce and Sasser worm detector that can runs from the web (requires Internet Explorer). Its also available as a downloadable file. However, only the online version will be regularly updated. You'll need to download each updated version manually. Finally do remain alert for Wurmark-D worm (W32/Wurmark-D), a new Sober-like worm. Its distributed through a mass mailing campaign offering a nude New Year's message! Labeled an amusing file, the attachment also includes the worm code embedded into a graphic of naked men and women aligned to form the words Happy New Year. The worm installs in the background as you view the nude image. It targets antivirus and security software to disable them. Before harvests email addresses and using its own SMTP engine to send copies of itself to all of them with spoofed mail headers. Stay Safe. Until Next Time. Click Here to Email Me