Enjoy your holidays with Zune - The first digital music player from Microsoft..

Microsoft is planning to launch the first digital music player "Zune" on November 14 with a price tag equivalent to Apple iPod.

Users have to buy Microsoft credit cards instead of actual money or using their credit cards. The alternative is to pay a $14.99 monthly subscription to the Zune service, to download tonnes of songs. As mentioned in my earlier blogs, the downloaded songs can be sent to any other Zune user.

It is also likely to relase Zune accessories like AV cables and adaptors, cradles, dock, bags and "special" headphones.

Windows WebViewFolderIcon ActiveX vulnerability..

Microsoft Security Bulletin have notified of vulnerability in Windows WebViewFolderIcon ActiveX control which contains an integer overflow vulnerability that could allow a remote attacker to execute arbitrary code.

Systems affected: Windows / Internet Explorer

Microsoft has not released any patch to mitigate the vulnerability. However, as a precautionary measure it is recommended not to open any unsolicited URLs, including those received in email, instant messages, web forums, or internet relay chat (IRC) channels and also do not Open Attachments in the mail from unknown Mail addresses.

Zero day attack - Now its the turn of powerpoint

Not only Word and Excel, even now powerpoint has got the Zero-day attack. Microsoft warned of "limited zero-day attacks" that exploit a new flaw in PowerPoint. This attach will be carried out, if a user open a malicious PowerPoint file attached to an e-mail or otherwise provided to them by an attacker. Once user opens the file, the hole allows remote attackers to execute arbitrary code on a vulnerable computer. The flaw affects PowerPoint in Office 2000, Office XP and Office 2003 on Windows and Apple Computer's Mac OS X.

Microsoft has released a "critical" security fix for Windows on Tuesday. This update repairs a flaw in a Windows component called "vgx.dll.", which is to render vector images that gives more clarity pictures.

16GB CF Cards.. goodnews for those who want to take more pics :)

SANDISK, the expert in tiny card maker has come up with two new CompactFlash memory cards, which can store 12GB and 16GB. It works at a speed of up to 20MB/s data transfer. This will be really useful for those, who like to have high resolution pictures with RAW (exif) data.

1GB microSD is available now..

Kingmax Digital has released the first 1 Gig MicroSD card in the market. It is an ultra-small, removable flash memory card format, which is designed based on SanDisk's TransFlash card format. Because of the single level cell memory, the card will have much faster Read-Write speeds.

New version of ADOBE to hit the market sooon..

ADOBE announced that it will be releasing the next version of its Acrobat document management software in November. Acrobat version 8.00 will have a new feature, using which the users can connect to a virtual meeting room for real-time Web conferencing with live audio and video.

Eventhough this is a new feature in Adobe document management software, ADOBE has released a virtual meeting room conferencing software long back with the name "Connect 1", which is now integrated with with new version. Apart from it, the major development is the new version will enable better exporting of PDF documents to other popular document formats.

New Zero day virus..

An unpatched security bug in Internet Explorer has been identified, which will inject malicious software from rigged Web sites. Also, it was mentioned that some adult Web sites are among the first to exploit the IE vulnerability amd Microsoft plans to fix the flaw as part of its monthly patching cycle on Oct. 10, the software giant said in a security advisory.

The number of attacks may rise quickly. Hence, it is recommended to keep the security software updated and also take caution when browsing the Web.

The vulnerability lies in a Windows component called "vgx.dll." This component is meant to support Vector Markup Language documents in the operating system. VML is used for high-quality vector graphics on the Web.

The digital music entertainment revolution is just beginning...

Yes.. with Microsoft's Zune media player - a 30GB digital media player, a music service, built-in FM tuner and a three inch screen.

It supports MP3, AAC, and WMA formats, and comes with a Wi-Fi connection that will let you send songs directly to other Zune users.

It also allows to play slideshows as you listen to music, plays WMV, MPEG-4, and H.264 videos.

New Security Bulletins

Following are the new security bulletins released recently:

MS06-054: Vulnerability in Microsoft Publisher Could Allow Remote Code Execution (910729)
MS06-053: Vulnerability in Indexing Service Could Allow Cross-Site Scripting (920685)
MS06-052: Vulnerability in Pragmatic General Multicast (PGM) Could Allow Remote Code Execution (919007)

Norton AntiVirus 2007 and Norton Internet Security 2007 are gonna be available for the users soon..

Symantec is going to release the next version of AntiVirus, and NIS soon. Norton AntiVirus 2007 protects against viruses,as usual and also this time it is going to detect the spyware and related risks.

Norton Internet Security 2007 is a suite which consists antivirus and anti-spyware protection and also a firewall.

Symantec is including a phishing shield also this time and also increasing the boot time, scan speed, and user interface launch speed.

NVIDIA introduced the next generation NVIDIA 7100 GS card

NVIDIA introduced the next generation NVIDIA 7100 GS card....

The card will come with 128/256 MB of DDR 2 memory. In Turbo cache mode, the card will be able to address as much as 512 MB of memory, if the system has at least 1024 MB memory. This card physically has 256 MB of memory and can address an additional 256 MB from the System memory, which makes 512 MB on the whole. The card is based on G72 chip, and support the SLI mode which works with 128 bit bus.

The recently released Sec. Bulletins

Following are the recently released security bulletins.. Microsoft is in a plan to release two more security bulletins in a near future to address issues in Word, and Excel that were found recently:

MS06-051: Vulnerability in Windows Kernel Could Result in Remote Code Execution (917422)
MS06-050: Vulnerability in Microsoft Windows Hyperlink Object Library Could Allow Remote Code Execution (920670)
MS06-049: Vulnerability in Windows Kernel Could Result in Elevation of Privilege (920958)

ATIs X1950 PRO.. a great deal!!!

ATIs X1950 PRO is going to be the one good graphic card. The graphic card uses a 80 nanometre line and despite a quarter delay of the all 80 nanometre chips, it is finally shaping up for release of the RV570 based card.

This card will work at 600MHz core and 1400MHz memory and will support full blown 256-bit memory interface. ATI plans to launch the card very soon. This card will have 24 pixel Shader pipelines and will support cable less Crossfire.

Word flaw hit with zero-day attack

Published on ZDNet News: September 5, 2006, 7:59 AM PT

An "extremely critical flaw" in Microsoft Word 2000 is currently being exploited by malicious attackers, which could lead to remote execution of code on a user's system, security researcher Secunia advised Tuesday.

The vulnerability affects systems running Windows 2000 and occurs when processing malicious Word 2000 documents, according to Secunia's security advisory.

Security company Symantec, which several days ago detected the exploit, Trojan MDropper.Q, noted that it uses a two-step attack.

Trojan MDropper.Q exploits the Microsoft Word vulnerability to drop another file, a new variant of Backdoor.Femo, according to a security advisory by Symantec.

"As with other recent (Microsoft) Office vulnerabilities, documents incorporating the exploit code must be opened with a vulnerable copy of Microsoft Word 2000 for it to work," Symantec's advisory stated. "As such, it makes the vulnerability unsuitable for the creation of self-replicating network worms."
Microsoft has not yet issued a patch for the vulnerability, and users are advised to forgo opening untrusted documents.

This latest exploit of an Office vulnerability follows on the heels of a similar malicious attack in June. In that particular case, users' systems would become infected when opening a malicious Excel document called "okN.xls." That malicious file contained the Trojan horse Mdropper.J, which then dropped the Booli.A program on a user's system. Booli.A would then download more malicious files to the user's PC.

BECAREFUL, while openings word attachments :)

Do you have some questions on Windows Vista Starter Edition??

Hey.. if you have any doubts on Windows Vista Starter edition, see the link below.

Link - FAQs on Windows Starter Edition

Google Book Search is live now..

Google's Book Search is live now.. You can now download the free PDFs of your favorite books online.. ofcourse, if they are out-of-copyright :)

Lots of popular classics and rare books that are no longer subject to copyright are available through Google's Book Search service. Also, users will also be able to print the books; However, books still under copyright will only have bibliographies and limited extracts available through the search service. Check it out:

http://books.google.com/