Of course, Apple is late to the party. By early July 2008, Microsoft had a Windows patch ready for distribution, and the major *NIX systems had their own patches ready. This Cnet article called Massive, coordinated DNS patch released has more information about this project, which preceded the public announcements about the flaw.
It’s sad that Dan Kaminsky’s warnings, detailed in a 24 July 2008 Cnet article called Kaminsky (finally) provides DNS flaw details, did not inspire an urgent response form Cupertino. Apple’s July 2008 patch addressed DNS server issues, but left most Mac users without a fix.
There are still other ways to redirect a computer to a bad domain name, of course. Another piece of prevention involves using OpenDNS instead of your ISP’s domain name servers. OpenDNS is free, fast, and provides spellchecking and phishing protection that is better than most PC and Mac security software.
Talk Like a Pirate Day is one of my favorite holidays. It’s also a a good chance to show off 12seconds.tv, a microblogging website that lets users record and post very short videos, kind of like a video Twitter. The service is still undergoing some testing, hence my 5-second video.
No word on what this means for recently-acquired EDS, the primary vendor for Oahu’s most famous outsourced IT project, the Navy-Marine Corps Intranet (NMCI). The restructuring plan is necessary, given the US$13.9 billion price HP paid for EDS.
I noticed three uniformed HPD officers at the Hotel and Fort Street crosswalk a few minutes ago. Two had Segways, and one was on a bike.
I overheard one saying that they are giving out warnings to pedestrians who crossed against the light. Education is always good, especially with a few thousand new pedestrians on the Mall. Hotel Street is a transit road, and there’s at least one bus rolling through every few minutes.
Image courtesy of GeishaBot through a Creative Commons license.
During the last month, I’ve watched faculty and staff moving great quantities of furniture between classrooms and offices. It’s a summer ritual at HPU.
We work and live on an island, so shipping pre-assembled furniture to our campus can be expensive.
There are several sites with interesting collections of economical yet attractive flat pack furniture. These designs are much easier to ship to Hawaii in bulk than comparable pre-assembled furniture.
Here’s two YouTube videos with some interesting ideas in flat pack furniture.
Here’s are 2 cardboard classroom desks that were designed by students at the Rhode Island School of Design. The specific dimensions of this cardboard chair, complete with a functional desk, are available at the YouTube page for the first video called Amazing Cardboard Chair Design Unfolding RISD.
This next video shows the assembly process for a Legare desk, available from SimonHelene.com. The components are manufactured at the company’s factory in New York state, and can easily be shipped in a flat pack. Putting the desk together is much easier than the flat pack kits sold at many big box stores.
