By Jin Nan Goto

Mozilla just released the final version of Mozilla Firefox 3.5.  Here are some noteworthy changes for the newest version of Firefox.

1. Support for HTML 5 and support for Open Video.  Which does not use a plug-in like Adobe Flash or Microsoft Siverlight
2. Adds Private browsing mode.  Useful for keeping birthday presents a surprise :)
3. Adds support for location aware browsing
4. Improved performance rendering Javascript using the new TraceMonkey Javascript engine.

Here is a video released by Mozilla introducing Firefox 3.5.  You can get the video at http://www.mozilla.com/en-US/firefox/video/firefox-3.5.html.  If I’m not mistaken, if you navigate to the page using Firefox 3.5 it uses HTML 5 Open Video.

As always you can get the latest Release of Mozilla Firefox at www.getfirefox.com

By Jin Nan Goto

Formatting emails in HTML is a very powerful tool and is often used very attractive emails.  Examples of legitmate uses of HTML email are for online promotions or newsletters.  However HTML has been heavily abused and has some very serious consequences for security.  It is very easy to hide the true destination of a link using HTML.  This is part of the nature of HTML.  Here is the code used to create a link.

<a href=”evilsite.com”> (This is the actual address of the link)

https://www.onlinebankingsite.com</a> (A fake address posing as a legitimate site)

In HTML a spammer can easily define a url and include also descriptive text which is presented to the recipient rather than the link.  The recipient does not see the url hidden behind the descriptive text and will click it, thinking it is the site referenced in the descriptive text, and is directed to whatever site the spammer wants. It is a potent tool often used in Phishing attacks to steal usernames and passwords, banking information, credit card numbers, etc.

Here is a real example

I got this suspected phishing email.  The link says www.paypal.com.  It’s also https so it’s secure right?

Here’s what what the link looks like if you look at the code.  Notice that the real address for the link is not https://www.paypal.com, but an IP address.

How to protect yourself

1. The safest way to protect yourself is to turn off the display of HTML in your email program.  This will ensure that all your messages are sent in plain text.  This is the safest way to use email.

2. If you absolutely need to follow a link in an email, copy the descriptive text of the link and paste it directly into the address bar of your browser.  This should ensure that the descriptive text is used as the address and not any hidden address.

3. Many email programs will automatically disable links in emails from unknown senders.  They also will recognize the spoofed address and warn user before enabling the links.  Although you should never rely on your email program to keep you totally safe.

By Jin Nan Goto

Microsoft released information on Windows 7 pricing.  Essentially Windows 7 will be made available for the same price as Windows Vista with the exception of Home Premium which will get a price cut of $10 for the upgrade and $40 for the retail version.

From June 26-July 11 Microsoft and retailers such as Best Buy and Amazon will offer pre-orders for Windows 7 with a special upgrade price of $49.99 for Home Premium and $99.99 for Professional.

As with the release of Windows Vista, Microsoft will offer free upgrades to Windows 7 for all computers running Windows Vista Home Premium, Business and Ultimate.  Although as with Vista details of the free upgrade (particularly regarding extras fees) will be left up to the OEMs. a

All the OEMs will be able to ship Windows 7 for all languages by the Oct 22 launch.  All languages will be made available for the retail version by the end of October.  In Europe, The full version of Windows 7E (created in response to the Anti-trust investigation in the EU) will be offered at the upgrade price until December 31st when upgrade versions are expected to be made available.

So here are the Prices:

Windows 7 Home Premium (upgrade version) – $119.99
Windows 7 Home Premium (full) – $199.99

Windows 7 Professional (upgrade version) – $199.99
Windows 7 Professional (full) – $299.99

Windows 7 Ultimate (upgrade) – $219.99
Windows 7 Ultimate (full) – $319.99

Prices and details about the expected Windows 7 Anytime Upgrade where you can go from one version of Windows 7 to another higher version have not been released yet.  Also no word on any type of Family Plan or multiple license discount, but keep your fingers crossed.

My Thoughts:

Overall I’m not surprised at the prices, although I had hoped that Microsoft be more aggressive with the price cutting.  I didn’t expect them to cut prices as drastically as Apple did with Snow Leopard ($129 was cut to $29) but a 10% discount across the board in this economy would have been nice.  Still the special offer for preordering Windows 7 gives pretty substantial savings so I suggest that people take advantage of that deal.

By Jin Nan Goto

If you downloaded the official Windows 7 Beta back in January (build 7000 if you’re keeping track of these things), it’s license expires on July 1st and Windows will start automatically shutting down every two hours. So now is a very good time to move on from the beta to the Release Candidate(build 7100).  Unlike the beta the RC will continue to function.  You can download the RC until August 15 and it will stay valid until march 2010.

You can download the RC from http://www.microsoft.com/windows/windows-7/download.aspx.  If you are so inclined you can try and get the latest build of Windows 7.  Although these are not released by Microsoft and are really only available from somewhat questionable sources **cough—bittorrent.  If you go for these later builds, be sure to check the MD5 checksum of these downloads to makes sure that you are not downloading and installing spyware and other unwanted additions.  You can get a free md5 hashing tool from http://www.winmd5.com/.

By Jin Nan Goto

Back in November Microsoft announced that it will no longer sell Microsoft Live OneCare on June 30 and that the anti-virus aspect of OneCare will be replaced with a free Antivirus product codenamed “Morro”.  Today a beta version of Morro has been released by Microsoft as Microsoft Security Essentials.  The beta was released in 4 countries United states, Israel, Brazil and China.

I installed it on a couple of my machines and it seems to follow Microsoft’s claim that this is a leaner Antivirus with a low memory and processor footprint.  The interface is very clean and simple as opposed to other anti-virus software.  Overall it seems like a very good solution for a free anti-virus.

Screenshots

Installation went very smoothly.  Although there were a lot more prompts than I would have liked.

Microsoft Security Essentials will only on validated Windows machines so it makes you pass validation before you can install it.  This is pretty common for Microsoft’s downloads so I’m not going to complain too much about it.

Here’s the EULA

A reminder that you should only have one anti-virus software installed or else you will potentially have conflicts between the different AV products.  In fact installing MSE will also disable Windows Defender (Vista’s built in Antispyware software).

Once you get though all the prompts the installation breezed through very quickly.

Installation is complete and you are prompted to download the latest Definitions and run a scan.

The interface is very clean and Changing the time and frequency for the weekly scans is very easy.

Not being willing to download an actual real virus to my computer just to get a screenshot, I downloaded the Eicar Test Virus and MSE immediately flagged it as possible malicious code.

It removed the test virus and everything turned back to a calming green.

By Jin Nan Goto

I was reading through a recent blog post from Harry McCraken (www.technologizer.com) with a comparison of the iPhone 3GS and the Commodore 64.  It reminded me just how amazing it is that there is more power in the iPhone which fits in the palm of your hand than a an entire desktop computer 10-15 years ago.  Just for fun I’m going to present another comparison. This showdown is between an 1996 vintage Apple Power Macintosh 6300 (the sort of thing I would find in the computer lab back when I was in Middle School) and the recently released Apple iPhone 3GS.

	Power Macintosh 6300	iPhone 3GS
Year Released	1996	2009
Processor	PowerPC 603e 100-120 MHz	600 MHz Arm
Memory	16 MB	256 MB
Storage	1.2 GB	16 GB or 32 GB
Cost	$2500	$199 -$299 *with 2 year commitment with AT&T

Power Macintosh 6300 Specs http://support.apple.com/kb/SP323
iPhone 3GS Specs http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_iPhone_and_iPod_Touch_models
Images from Wikipedia