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Microsoft’s most recent update for Windows caused many people using Check Point’s ZoneAlarm firewall to lose their Internet connection. The patch fixes a potential DNS-related security breach that affects servers and clients alike, so I’m sure Microsoft was compelled to release it as quickly as possible.

Choose either option that prevents Windows updates from being installed automatically.

Now get into the habit of watching the tech news wires each Wednesday after Microsoft’s Patch Tuesdays to determine whether an update is going smoothly before applying it manually. Sometimes being first isn’t such a good idea.

That’s little consolation for the many ZoneAlarm users who struggled to regain their network connection. Read more about the problem, and find a link to Check Point’s solution, at Robert Vamosi’s Defense in Depth blog.

(Credit:
Microsoft)

In Windows XP, click Start > Run, type sysdm.cpl, and press Enter. Click the Automatic Updates tab and choose either “Download updates for me, but let me choose when to install them,” or “Notify me but don’t automatically download or install them.” You can also choose “Turn off automatic updates,” but I recommend either of the semi-automatic methods. When you’re done, click OK.

The fact is, even with potentially serious security holes such as this appears to be, you can usually wait a day or two before installing the update to make sure the fix doesn’t cause some problems of its own. Simply set Windows Update to download updates automatically but prompt you before installing them, or to alert you when an update is available for download so you can decide when to fetch it and implement it.

To change your Windows Update settings in Vista, press the Windows key, type windows update, and press Enter. Click Change settings in the left pane, and choose either “Download updates but let me choose whether to install them” or “Check for updates but let me choose whether to download or install them.” As with XP, I caution against selecting “Never check for updates (Not recommended).” This is one of the few points on which Microsoft and I agree.

With a handshake, Expedition 18 commander Mike Fincke, right, transfers command to Expedition 19 commander Gennady Padalka. Crew, from left to right: Charles Simonyi, Michael Barratt, Padalka, Yury Lonchakov, Fincke, Koichi Wakata.

“There is a possibility that one of Space Adventures’ clients could launch on Soyuz TMA-16, which is currently scheduled for launch this September 30,” Eric Anderson, CEO of Space Adventures, told reporters Friday. “We have learned from Roskosmos (the Russian space agency) that the third seat aboard Soyuz TMA-16 may not, in fact, be used by the cosmonaut from Kazakhstan, and if that seat is not used…Roskosmos is considering both the possibility of another spaceflight participant opportunity for Space Adventures or using the seat for a professional Russian cosmonaut.”

Even so, Anderson expressed optimism that additional seats will open up occasionally, and he said the company is pressing ahead with plans for privately funded Soyuz missions, starting in 2012, that would include a Russian commander and two tourists per mission.

If all goes well, Fincke, Lonchakov, and Simonyi will say farewell to Padalka, Barratt, and Japanese astronaut Koichi Wakata the evening of April 7, sealing hatches between the Soyuz TMA-13 spacecraft and the downward-facing port of the Russian Zarya module around 8:45 p.m.

Assuming an on-time landing, Fincke will have logged 178 days in space, pushing his total time through two space station expeditions to 366 days, third on the list of most experienced U.S. astronauts behind Peggy Whitson (377 days) and Mike Foale (374 days).

Undocking is planned for 11:55 p.m., with a 22-second deorbit rocket firing expected at 2:24 a.m. on April 8. The three modules making up the Soyuz spacecraft will separate just before atmospheric entry at 2:52 a.m., and the central crew module carrying Fincke, Lonchakov, and Simonyi will descend to a parachute-and-rocket-assisted touchdown at 3:15 a.m.

Tito’s ticket reportedly cost $20 million. The price has since gone up to about $35 million, according to Simonyi. In a prelaunch telephone interview with CBS News, Simonyi said the future of commercial spaceflight is “certainly not my concern.” But, he added, “my feeling is (that) the commercial pressures will be toward resolving this and (having) more flights.”

But tickets to space, assuming that the seats are available, will be increasingly expensive.

Even at the current list price, Simonyi said, the experience of flying in space is worth it for those who can afford the cost.

(Credit:
NASA TV)

The mission had been scheduled to conclude with a touchdown on April 7 northeast of Arkalyk, Kazakhstan, but the landing zone has been moved to a backup site about 180 miles to the southeast, where conditions may be more favorable. Touchdown now is targeted for 3:15 a.m. EDT on April 8.

Esther Dyson, a respected high-tech journalist, entrepreneur, and Space Adventures investor, trained as Simonyi’s backup and attended his launch at the Baikonur Cosmodrome in Kazakhstan. But it’s not clear whether she could fly on such short notice or whether she could complete required training in time. There are no other known clients who are thought to have a realistic shot at the September flight.

“I am aware of the questions that have been raised regarding the ability of the Russian space industry to supply an increased number of Soyuz missions,” Anderson said. “Building rockets is a complicated business; it’s certainly challenging, but…I’m confident (that) by 2012, for example, the prospect of adding a fifth Soyuz is something that is reasonable.”

(Credit:
NASA TV)

“The price is going up,” Simonyi said. “Future seats that NASA has bought are even more expensive. This has to be put into perspective because other means of getting to space are even more expensive. So this one is actually quite cost-effective at the current state of technology.”

Lonchakov will have logged 178 days in space on this flight for a total time of 201 days over three missions. Simonyi’s total will be 13 days in space for this flight for a total of 27 including his first station visit in 2007.

Simonyi’s visit was arranged through Space Adventures, a Vienna, Virginia-based company that has brokered seven space tourist flights using available seats on Russian Soyuz capsules, beginning in 2001 with U.S. businessman Dennis Tito.

But plans to boost the station’s crew size from three to six in late May could mean a hiatus in tourist flights, at least in the near term. While one seat on a Soyuz flight scheduled for launch this fall apparently has opened up, it’s not yet clear whether the Russians will fill the slot with a professional cosmonaut or allow Space Adventures to book one of its clients who has gone through training as a backup.

Soyuz TMA-13 spacecraft, foreground, with Progress supply ship in background.

During a change-of-command ceremony Thursday, Fincke formally handed the station over to Padalka, saying “all systems are in order, and Yury and I can now take a little bit of a rest and get ready, along with Charles, to come back to the planet.”

“Thank you very much, my best friend,” Padalka replied. “Expedition 19 is very happy to get (the) space station in great operational condition…We’re ready to work on behalf of all our space agencies and..all human beings.”

Fincke and Lonchakov were launched to the International Space Station aboard the Soyuz TMA-13 spacecraft October 12. Their replacements–Expedition 19 commander Gennady Padalka and flight engineer Michael Barratt, a NASA physician-astronaut–were launched March 26 aboard the Soyuz TMA-14 spacecraft. They were joined by Simonyi, a Hungarian-born U.S. software developer making his second privately funded trip to the space station.

But it’s not yet known whether the Russians can build enough Soyuz capsules and rockets to support expanded space station operations as well as tourist flights. Between the end of shuttle operations in 2010 and the debut of its replacement in 2015, the Soyuz flight rate will have to double to support six-person crew operations aboard the space station.

Snow and soggy conditions at the primary landing site in Kazakhstan prompted Russian flight planners on Friday to order a 24-hour delay, from April 7 to 8, for the return to Earth of a Soyuz capsule carrying outgoing space station commander Mike Fincke, flight engineer Yury Lonchakov, and space tourist Charles Simonyi.

Our servers are spread out across the country so you can choose the servers closest to you to minimize latency. If you are in Europe you would use our east coast servers, in Asia, our west coast servers. It makes a big difference. I have used the service from China, New Zealand and Europe over the last year and this is very important.

OK. again with the “most” stuff. We will soon allow customers to “customize” on the client side and choose different ports, etc. We optimized a standard configuration/bundle which would suit the needs of most everyone before we allowed customization. This ensures easier support, scaling, and allows us to offer a lower price to more people.

Glynn said: We pledge that we will not sell, share, trade, disclose or rent any of your information to others. We also state that we will not record, sniff, scan or view any HotSpotVPN user’s Internet traffic. Beware any VPN vendor that will use your information for other purposes.

Trust is one of the most important things in the security business. Our privacy policy consists of some strong simple statements that we have stood by for five years. We pledge that we will not sell, share, trade, disclose or rent any of your information to others. We also state that we will not record, sniff, scan or view any HotSpotVPN user’s Internet traffic. Beware any VPN vendor that will use your information for other purposes.

Glynn said: TunnelGuardian: HotSpotVPN is more than just a VPN. We have software running in our infrastructure that will proactively block malware and optionally block all on-line advertisements from getting to the client’s computer. In low bandwidth situations the ad-blocking speeds up the surfing experience. Most importantly on-line ads served through reputable ad agencies can be used to load Trojans and viruses onto a computer. Ad blocking prevents this attack vector from being used against our users.

TunnelGuardian: HotSpotVPN is more than just a VPN. We have software running in our infrastructure that will proactively block malware and optionally block all on-line advertisements from getting to the client’s computer. In low bandwidth situations the ad-blocking speeds up the surfing experience. Most importantly on-line ads served through reputable ad agencies can be used to load Trojans and viruses onto a computer. Ad blocking prevents this attack vector from being used against our users.

Below is the un-edited reply from Bill Bullock, President of WiTopia.

Yesterday I briefly described the VPN services, and related costs, from two companies, WiTopia and HotSpotVPN
(see More about VPNs: Price and Trust). The head of each company made long comments on yesterdays posting. Since they raise important points, I’m re-publishing them here.

Reply:

My name is Glynn Taylor and I’m the founder of HotSpotVPN and WiFiConsulting, inc. I’d like to expand upon my rather terse reply above.

Most Flexible: With HotSpotVPN2 you have a choice of ports to use and you can switch from tcp to udp protocols. We default to tcp on port 443 so if a browser on a https session works, the vpn will work. You can also change to the udp protocol which provides much better voip streaming video and audio than tcp.

Reply:

Below is Glynn’s comment, unedited.

Glynn said: Our servers are spread out across the country so you can choose the servers closest to you to minimize latency. If you are in Europe you would use our east coast servers, in Asia, our west coast servers. It makes a big difference. I have used the service from China, New Zealand and Europe over the last year and this is very important.

Bill Bullock of WiTopia

Here’s the question: To deliver the TunnelGuardian service, wouldn’t HotspotVPN have to inspect the html code before encrypting it to block malware, on-line ads, etc.? Wouldn’t the traffic have to be scanned?

Reply:

Thank you.
GT

See a summary of all my Defensive Computing postings.

Bandwidth: Our goal is to provide quality service to our users without having to throttle their bandwidth down to annoying levels. We have succeeded in this and are actually adding another 1.2 Gigabits during the next change control window (about a week from now).

Same with WiTopia as governed by our privacy policy. We absolutely do not record or monitor customers’ data, sites visited, etc. and also certainly do not share customer information with any third party. Again, we take the privacy aspect of the service deadly serious.

Reply:

Reply:

WiTopia’s openVPN SSL service is optimized for video and VoIP (using udp) and we designed the PPTP to be more “scrappy” using tcp as its error-correcting ability is superior if there are network irregularities.

Glynn Taylor of HotSpotVPN

Glynn said: Most Flexible: With HotSpotVPN2 you have a choice of ports to use and you can switch from tcp to udp protocols. We default to tcp on port 443 so if a browser on a https session works, the vpn will work. You can also change to the udp protocol which provides much better voip streaming video and audio than tcp.

If you work for a large company, you may already be using VPN software to make an encrypted connection to the home office. Many of you however, need it and don’t use it.

I have a legitimate question on TunnelGuardian, but HSVPN may have a great answer. Don’t know. It sounds like a neat feature if you think ads are slowing your connection.

Hi. This is Bill Bullock from WiTopia. Glynn raises some additional points in his amendment that I feel should be addressed just so they are not misleading. Not that Glynn meant to mislead in promoting his service. I would like to give credit where credit is due, but clarify that we do not charge less because we “skimp” in the areas mentioned.

Glynn said: Price: We have many more features than any of our competitors and this leads to higher costs in our infrastructure. It also leads to the most safe flexible and usable VPN service available. We use the service ourselves so we built it with everything we wanted it to have.

We do agree moving gateways closer to customers is a factor of performance so we have several spec’ed out to be deployed over the next quarter. Although, there are other factors… and from personal and customer experiences from all over the world, I’m not sure this matters as much as even we once thought. Improvements in routing, capacity, peering points etc. on the Internet have lessened the need for geographical proximity. Still, we’ll be doing our rollout too. Purchasing shiny new gear.

Defensively speaking, anyone using a public WiFi hotspot should employ Virtual Private Network (VPN) software
to encrypt all traffic/data traveling over the airwaves. Less obviously dangerous, but equally snoopable, are wired Ethernet connections to the Internet in hotel rooms. I wrote about the dangers in hotels last month, see Defending against insecure hotel networks with a VPN.

So I don’t crash CNET’s servers with my response, I’ll just conclude with, we don’t throttle any bandwidth whatsoever. Our only policy is if usage falls completely outside reasonable customer norms, e.g., you try to run a phone company over it, we have the right to be “unpleasant.” Haven’t had to do it yet!

Yes. We use our own service too. I think words like “most” may be misunderstood. I don’t believe any VPN provider (or any network service) can accurately claim “most usable,” “most safe,” “most flexible.” We have comprehensive security and usability features in place. Some simply keep “bad guys” off the service, thwart attacks, and enforce solid security policy, and some are convenience such as providing zero-config SMTP relays, certificate regenerators, etc. This gets into network design elements and “secret sauce” that would likely be quite boring to most people. Again, I would sincerely hope both services have serious networking expertise behind them.

A note about finding each company. HotSpotVPN is at hotspotvpn.com. The website hotspotvpn.org is from a competing company, one that I know nothing about. This competitor doesn’t say anything about who they are, and doesn’t even offer a physical address on the Contact Us page. Trust is part of the equation with VPN companies, so I would not consider using this competitor. WiTopia is at witopia.net. There is no website at witopia.com and if one shows up tomorrow it will not be from the VPN company, which does not, at the moment, own the .com domain name.

Reply:

Glynn said: Bandwidth: Our goal is to provide quality service to our users without having to throttle their bandwidth down to annoying levels. We have succeeded in this and are actually adding another 1.2 Gigabits during the next change control window (about a week from now).

Price: We have many more features than any of our competitors and this leads to higher costs in our infrastructure. It also leads to the most safe flexible and usable VPN service available. We use the service ourselves so we built it with everything we wanted it to have.

I’ll update this when I have a response.

Jay Adelson, the company’s CEO, posted a blog entry on Friday in response to a rampant rumor that Microsoft, Google, and two major media companies were placing bids on the hot start-up’s price tag. A sizeable number of avid Digg users were thrown into panic mode over the prospect of a corporate parent. Adelson appeared to deny the rumors outright.

But Adelson could be acting a bit cagey here. The original report on TechCrunch never mentioned a “bidding war” per se, just that four companies were in the running to acquire the company. The “bidding war” phrase in Adelson’s post could have referred to embellished rumors and speculation that subsequently floated about the Web. I’ve e-mailed Adelson to ask him to clarify whether he’s willing to debunk the entire contents of the post.

He continued: “Sorry to burst any drama theories, but they aren’t true. We remain focused on improving Digg and rolling out great features.”

“Normally our policy is to not comment about things like this,” Adelson wrote, “but this morning’s rumors about a bidding war involving Google and Microsoft have created such a stir we feel compelled to tell you all directly that they are completely inaccurate.”

Social news site Digg, a perpetual target of acquisition rumors, normally addresses the “is _____ buying you?” questions with a “no comment” answer. Not this time.

Updated 2:55 p.m. PST with January and year-ago figures for Google, Yahoo and Microsoft.

(Credit:
Nielsen Online, MegaView Search)

The trends are similar to those reported for February recently by ComScore–which had Google’s U.S. search share rising to 59.2 percent in February; Yahoo’s and Microsoft’s slipping to 21.6 percent and 9.6 percent, respectively; and AOL and Ask.com flat at 4.9 percent and 4.6 percent, respectively.

Google’s market share for Web search in the U.S. rose in February to 58.7 percent, up from January and the same period a year ago, while Yahoo’s, at 17.6 percent, was down compared with the same periods, according to data released Wednesday by Nielsen.

Meanwhile, AOL was at 5.2 percent, up from the month before but about flat with a year ago; and Ask at 2.5 percent was flat with January and slightly up from a year ago.

In January, Google had 56.9 percent share and Yahoo had 19 percent share. A year ago, Google’s share was 55.8 percent and Yahoo’s was 20.7 percent.

February share at MSN/Windows Live Search was 11.2 percent, up from 9.6 percent a year ago but down slightly from 12.1 percent in January.

Here's the man of the hour (or of several hours from now, anyway).

A lot of people in the stands are simply chilling, taking in the high-altitude sun, and snapping photos of the occasional media celebrity passing by. A good handful of people are also sitting with their laptops open, fighting the glare, and attempting to post their blog entries.

Ooh, Michelle Obama sighting at the ABC media platform! I may be a seasoned journalist, immune to political hype, but on this stage, on this night, she’s like a rock star.

DENVER–I have just arrived at Invesco Field, home of the Denver Broncos, for Democratic presidential nominee Barack Obama’s acceptance speech at the Democratic National Convention. Thousands of the 75,000 expected audience members have already filled the stands; keep in mind, Obama is not expected to appear until sometime in the 8 o’clock hour, at least five hours from now.

Without a doubt, there is electricity in the air. Like a halftime show, the stadium production team has provided a wide smattering of video entertainment. We just watched a tribute to President Lyndon Johnson, who would have turned 100 Wednesday. That was followed by the winner of a YouTube video contest who explained in roughly three minutes why he’s voting for Barack Obama. The music interludes have also been clearly calculated to represent a wide variety of tastes to appeal to a broad demographic: the National for the young hipsters, Simon & Garfunkel for the boomers , and some good ol’ country-western for the Colorado natives (who are expected to make up half the crowd).

I have found a cozy perch to write this post in the CBS media tent located at one of the stadium end zones. (I’m writing on my Treo; outlets and Internet connections come at a premium!) It’s out of the sun and there are box lunches to nibble on, but the perks stop there. Evening News producers, writers, and correspondents are huddled together, some casually killing time, some freaking out over deadlines that are seemingly an eternity away.

Continue reading Porsche’s winter fantasy camp, part 2 >>>

While the weather was still fair, a team of designers mapped out the track circuit, careful to avoid obstacles such as sand traps. When winter hit, the builders used a “snow cat” tractor to pack snow into the grass over a period of a couple of weeks to create a base layer. Then, a water truck was used to run about 75,000 gallons of reconstituted water over the track, one section at a time, to create a layer of ice. Finally, fresh snow was dragged over the ice to create a powdery finish. That’s no small feat.

Another thing that impressed me about Camp4 was the quality of the driving instructors. Most, if not all, had professional racing experience–including rally, open-wheel, drifting, and Nascar (though I won’t hold the latter against them).

(Credit:
Jonathan Elfalan, courtesy of Road & Track)

(Credit:
Laura Burstein)

Our day began with a classroom session, where we learned about vehicle dynamics such as weight transfer, cornering, and traction, and how applying steering, throttle, and brakes in different combinations could control (or fail to control) a car in a slippery situation.

The Colorado school is based on Porsche’s Camp4 program in Finland, a winter-driving program in its eighth year that takes place at the Arctic Driving Center, a test facility long used by car manufacturers for covert cold-weather testing. But whereas the Finnish program takes place on a permanent circuit, the Colorado course had to be created from scratch:

Some of the Porsche instructors

After class, it was time to head up the mountain to the track.

Camp4 offers both a one-day program and a five-day program. The longer school is a combination of driving instruction and recreational activities (with only two-and-a-half days of actual driving time). Our media program was a tad modified–we did one full day of driving, with some additional organized activities afterward.

When I was invited to participate in the program, I was both excited and hesitant; this California girl has hardly ever seen snow, let alone driven in it.

The twisty road course, built on top of a golf course, is the training ground for Camp4 Colorado, a winter driving school hosted by the Porsche Travel Club, an offshoot of the Porsche Sport Driving School. Here, with professional instruction, participants drive the Porsche 911 Carrera 4, the Carrera 4S, and the Cayenne SUV, in a variety of exercises designed to familiarize drivers with how the
cars respond in low-traction conditions.

When the weather turns cold, scores of well-to-do winter sports enthusiasts flock to the high slopes of Vail valley in Colorado for world-class skiing and snowboarding. But about 20 miles west of Vail Village, high upon a privately owned mountain, sits a secret winter wonderland: a racetrack made of snow and ice.

Ballmer said that Microsoft did know the fines were coming when it made its big interoperability announcement last week.

Asked whether he was surprised it has taken this long. “Many acquisitions, they take this long,” he said.

However, Ballmer stopped short of saying that Microsoft’s regulatory hurdles were behind it.

“This is not news today,” Ballmer said in an interview with CNET News.com. “We are in compliance, they agreed we are in compliance. This is a fine for activities that pre-date the compliance activities that Ms. Kroes talked about last fall. It says there was a past transgression and they assessed a fine for that past transgression.”

“I think as a company with a big market footprint, we will constantly be looked at by regulators in all parts of the world,” he said.

LOS ANGELES–Despite having just been hit with a record fine, Microsoft CEO Steve Ballmer said Wednesday that his company is actually in full compliance with European regulatory demands.

As for Yahoo, Ballmer had little new to say. He declined to say what Microsoft’s next step would be. “If there’s news, I’m sure you guys will be the first to know.”

I’ll have more Thursday on what Ballmer had to say on other topics, such as the economy, Apple, and Google, among other issues.

“We knew it was pending,” Ballmer said. “We didn’t know it was this week, but we knew it was coming at some point.”

“We don’t comment specifically about whether they’re a licensee, but certainly it would be consistent with our interoperability principles to enable Apple to do that work,” he said.

Finally, he declined to say outright whether Apple’s enterprise news next week will include an announcement that it has licensed the right to connect directly to Microsoft Exchange servers.

Full coverage
Microsoft’s big bid for Yahoo Click here for the latest on the software giant’s attempt to buy the Net pioneer.

From the competitive standpoint I can’t point to a single account where Mule has lost to Iona or Progress (though I am sure they exist) in our multithousand user base. Now the odds are even lower.

Having dealt with Iona personally over the last two years as they have “participated” in the open-source community I can say that I am very pleased that the company is being taken out. For all their open-source positing, Iona has been divisive in the community and clouded the market with FUD. I don’t see how or why Progress would continue with the open-source efforts, which haven’t been particularly lucrative.

I tend to be fairly low-key on this blog (and in public) about my company’s complete and total domination, whereas these third-tier players like Iona blather on and flail. These guys and others like them are just noise.

My targets remain Tibco, BEA, Oracle, IBM, and so on. If you are an open-source company and your goal is to beat other open-source companies then you are destined to fail. The economics of re-attacking a market that is shrunk by open-source pricing simply don’t work.

The Iona acquisition rumors have been flying for months, and now we know the winner (loser?) of the prized pig: Progress Software. This is a not a bad purchase for Progress, which does a lot of business in legacy application integration. Iona’s CORBA products are good and fit into the Progress customer base. What they’ll do with 3 of the same products (Artix, Sonic, and Servicemix) I have no idea.

As a great man said in the movie There Will Be Blood, I drink your milkshake.

Got a big archiving project you’ve been itching to do? Pioneer’s latest development could help you keep all your data in one nice, little circular package.

Blu-ray comes in single layer (25GB) and dual-layer (50GB) flavors. Pioneer does say that because the lens specification for reading the discs is similar to Blu-ray, “it is possible to maintain compatibility” between its disc and Blu-ray discs. That’s not saying it will be compatible, but it would make sense since Pioneer is one of the original Blu-ray Disc Association members.

(Credit:
Pioneer)

The Japanese electronics maker has been working on an optical disc, which, like Blu-ray, can store 25GB of data in a single layer. But Pioneer says it’s one-upped the high-definition format to the sixteenth degree. The company announced today that it has a single disc that contains 16 layers of storage, at 25GB each. That adds up to 400GB of data capable of being stored on a single disc.

However, plans for that archiving project will have to be put on pause if you want to use this technology. Pioneer is going to demonstrate it at an industry conference next week, but for now the disc is read-only. Eventually, they’ll add write capability as well.

Pioneer says it can store 25GB of data per layer, on 16 layers on a singled disc.