Article: 103 Free Security Apps for Mac, Windows and Linux

I recently came across this list of 103 free (but not all Open Source or all cross platform, but some are) security applications for Mac, Windows, and Linux. Security is a fundamental component when using your computer, be it for work or leisure. This list is nice because it doesn’t include trail versions of software. Why not equip your computer with the software it needs to fight grayware and malware and do it without breaking your budget. This list is for a beginner in computer security to advanced power users. Even if you just breeze through the list and never heard of any of these terms, it is a good learning experience in computer security. Check out the list here at :http://www.itsecurity.com/features/103-free-security-apps-041607/.

Thanks to IT Security for this list. If you would like to view an abbreviated version of this list, click on the more link. To view the list with brief descriptions, visit the IT Security website.

-Angel Brady

Heading East: 10 Semi-Obscure Mac Programs You Shouldn’t Be Without

This is a nice list of useful Mac based utilities. Angel - this is more fodder to counter your brother’s anti-Mac campaign.

Heading East: 10 Semi-Obscure Mac Programs You Shouldn’t Be Without
I keep seeing lists of 10 must have Mac programs, but the lists is they are well known can’t-live-without programs like Launchbar and Windowshade already installed on Machead machines. Here are some slightly more obscure programs I use every day

Alexa - Web Discovery Machine: Watching the ‘Net Trends

I was a bit surprised to find that I had been doing many of these. It really does give you a heads up on what’s going on to pay close attention to del.icio.us/popular, for instance. You end up being the one who says “Hey did you hear that ?” all the time, and people respond with some wonder, thinking “How did he hear about that - I’ve been on CNN all morning and they never said a thing. That’s web 1.0 thinking right there, buddy.

I must say though, I’m not as big of an alexa fan as this guy.

John|work++

Alexa - Web Discovery Machine: Watching the ‘Net Trends

Watching the ‘Net Trends
My job requires that I keep tabs on all the latest trends on the ‘Net, but there is no single good way to do that. Some things still escape my attention. So, I thought it would be interesting to have a discussion about trend-watching on the ‘Net and the methods for keeping up.

Audio and Video File Extensions

In case anyone was wondering: A great overview of AV file format extensions. You know you wanted to know what a m2v was just as much as me.

MIT/~tbuehler on File Extensions

aac - A newer MPEG sound format.

ac3 – A Dolby-Digital encoded audio file. Used primarily in DVDs. Needs proprietary codec to play.

aif, aiff – Audio Interchange File. The Mac equivalent of wav, but it is cross platform as well.

asf – Advanced Streaming Format. The original file extension for Windows Media files, this extension refers to both audio and video files. The confusion this caused lead to Microsoft abandoning this extension in favor of wma and wmv.

avi – Audio-Video Interleaved. One of the most common video files.

divx – Some DivX encoders and applications give the option of using the divx file extension for DivX encoded files. The files are exactly the same as those with the avi extension, with the only difference being that they have substantially worse compatibility (many applications that can play and import DivX encoded avis do not work with files that have the divx extension). Needless to say, the extension is pointless and you shouldn’t use it.

dv – Raw DV stream. Not commonly used, since most raw DV streams use an avi or mov extension.

m1v – An elementary MPEG-1 video stream. Cannot contain audio.

m2p – MPEG-2 program stream.

m2v – An elementary MPEG-2 video stream. Cannot contain audio. Requires MPEG-2 codec (commonly acquired with DVD player software) to playback. Most professional DVD authoring packages require m2v files.

mov, moov – Quicktime movie.

mpa – An elementary MPEG-2 audio stream.

mpg, mpeg – A multiplexed (audio and video combined) MPEG-1 or MPEG-2 file (although most commonly MPEG-1).

mp1 – MPEG audio, layer 1.

mp2 – MPEG audio, layer 2.

mp3 – The ubiquitous audio format that we all know and love. It is actually called “MPEG audio, layer 3″ and, as the name implies, intended to encode the audio portion of MPEG-1 movies.

mp4 – MPEG-4 movie (although MPEG-4 movies can also be avi or mov). Some people claim that mp4 is a new version of mp3. These people are idiots.

mpv – See m2v.

ogg – Ogg Vorbis audio file.

ogm – Ogg Vorbis video file.

omf – A video format developed by and used primarily by Avid editing systems, but has been adopted by other professional video applications and has become a high-end standard. Usually these files are not playable from the desktop but rather only inside the applications that use them. Stands for “Open Media Format.”

qt – Quicktime movie.

rm – Real video file.

ram – Real audio file.

swf – Macromedia Flash animation file.

vob – Video object file. Used in DVDs. Contains MPEG-2 video and several possible audio formats, as well as menus and interactivity.

wav – Microsoft wave audio file. PCM (pulse code modulation) audio, usually uncompressed.

wma – Windows Media audio file.

wmv – Windows Media video file.

Wired News: Futurists Pick Top Tech Trends

The futurists are envisioning a pretty cool future, as usual. In this latest set of predictions:

Simplicity, Mobile Socialization, The end of the combustion engine, and a move towards greener living, capped with a 2006 Technology Explosion the likes of which we haven’t seen in like, at least 8 years. Fun stuff, but a lot of it seems positioned to be true.

Wired News: Futurists Pick Top Tech Trends

Simplicity: Over the past couple of decades, gadget makers have toiled ceaselessly to add functionality. As a result, your cell phone can now play games, do math and sound off like a barking dog when your ex calls. Your digital camera can shoot extremely poor-quality video. And nearly every device you own with a screen also contains a clock.

The problem, says Ian Pearson, futurist in residence at British Telecommunications, is that most people buy a device for a particular purpose. They neither want nor care about all the extra capabilities.

“We’ve done 20 years of adding functionality, and 99 percent of that functionality isn’t needed,” Pearson said. “There will be an enormous market over the next several years for really simple stuff.”

Dirk Loss: Windows-Tools on CD-ROM

This is a mighty cool software list.

Dirk Loss: Windows-Tools on CD-ROM

Having created several bootable Windows CD-ROMs with Bart’s PE Builder, I thought how nice it would be if I could use some of the plugins on running systems (i.e. without having to reboot). So in spring 2004 I started searching the Internet for useful utilities that can be run directly from CD-ROM. These were my requirements:

* Must be available free of charge (at least for non-commercial use). If source code is available under a Free Software/Open Source license, that’s even better.
* Small is beautiful
* Graphical user interfaces are nice (this is Windows after all… * My focus is on diagnostic, network and security tools (no games or MP3 players…)

Here’s my list. Download the tools, exctract the archives to a folder on your harddisk and burn them on a CD-ROM. Or put them on your USB-stick. If you leave out all unnecessary files (documentation, language files, etc.) and compress all executables with UPX, all these tools together (more than 600 executables) take less than 100 MB of disk space.

Excavating ancient abbreviations in Linux

This is a nice, quick overview of some of the more cryptic abbreviations in the Unix world. I knew a few, but I had no idea what TTY stood for.

Excavating ancient abbreviations in Linux
Perhaps the most confusing jargon in Linux relates to terminals. TTY is an old abbreviation for a TeleTYpe. Teletypes, or teletypewriters, were originally printer-keyboard combinations that read and sent information over a serial line, not too different from an ancient telegraph machine. Later on, when computers only ran in batch mode (when card readers were the only way to get your program loaded), a teletype was the only useful “real time” input/output device available. Eventually teletypes were replaced with keyboard-and-screen terminals, but the operating system still needed a program to watch the serial port where the terminal or TTY was plugged in.

NewsForge | The Eighth Commandment of system administration

More good advice from a great series.

NewsForge | The Eighth Commandment of system administration

A system log is one of the most effective ways to monitor a server’s health and underlying problems. Often before a major hardware or application crash takes place there are indicators of impending disaster within the syslog. As a good and attentive administrator, you should be reviewing your logs on a regular basis, but oftentimes these logs are forgotten due to other duties or important data is lost within pages of white noise telling about normal events.

Falk AdSolution

VIII. Thou shalt not lose system logs when a server dies

NewsForge | The Seventh Commandment of system administration

Another great entry into this fantastic series. Down with Telnet! Long live SSH!

NewsForge | The Seventh Commandment of system administration

VII. Thou shalt use encryption for insecure services

Believe it or not, security-related information can often be found in plain text floating around your network. I invite you to plug into the gateway to your network and capture traffic. At your leisure, go through the traffic and follow what you can follow. If you haven’t stressed the implementation of various encryption mechanisms within your servers and network, you’re likely to be shocked at what you will find. If you’re using Ethereal, look for a Telnet session and then select “Follow TCP stream.” You’ll see the entire Telnet session, login, password and all, naked to the world. The same goes for logins to internal Web pages that are not encrypted with SSL. If you add a wireless network into the equation without encryption, your troubles triple. Now malicious people don’t even need to physically be plugged into your network to catch valuable information.

NewsForge | The Fifth Commandment of system administration

The commandments continue…

NewsForge | The Fifth Commandment of system administration

If you’re a good administrator, you pride yourself on developing a fundamental understanding of the systems you build. After a while, as you begin to comprehend the complete complexity that goes along with building and maintaining your infrastructure, the commands and procedures to control them become second nature. You have to look at the documentation less and less, until eventually people refer to you as a guru. Having this kind of understanding of your servers is important, but it does no good if you aren’t available when something crashes. By creating detailed written policies detailing the ins and outs of your systems in advance, you can provide critical background information to your backup admin who can use it to restore functionality in your absence.