Archive for the 'Microsoft' Category
I have been a long time Firefox fan and have thoroughly enjoyed my experiences with it and the many extensions available to extend its uses. I started using Firefox back in the early days, maybe even prior to the 1.x release, on the Windows platform. I then used Firefox on FreeBSD, different Linux distributions, and now on my current favorite OS, Mac OS X. Again, I have been very happy with my Firefox experience, but now a new contender has entered the ring.
I have been doing a lot of Web development these days and have been testing my designs and applications in multiple Web browsers on multiple platforms. During this testing phase (QA), I have been using the most stable release of Apple’s Safari Web browser on Mac OS X. I have got to say that Safari is fast to load (firing up the application) and extremely quick at rendering Web related content. Needless to say, I have been very impressed with Safari in the little amount of time I have been using it on OS X.
A week or so ago (maybe it was longer), I noticed that Apple had released a public beta of its Safari web browser, version 3.0. This release was for both Microsoft Windows and Mac OS X. That’s pretty impressive! Today, I finally got around to downloading the public beta of Safari for Windows and have been test driving it. So far, I’ve had some issues… Here’s the scoop.
On my box at work, I was able to install Safari but I was unable to launch it as an unprivileged user. Even if I used an administrator account to set the security permissions for the C:\Program Files\Safari\ folder, the application would still not launch. It would immediately throw up an error report for me to sen to Microsoft. I was able to launch it as an administrator, but not as an under privileged user. I assume there are some Registry Keys that need some sort of permissions changed for a normal user…
On my Windows box at home, I was able to install the browser and run it fine… Yes, I run as a local admin on my home Windows box. Bad in practice, I know, but I do it. I currently use the box all of about once a week.
But, here’s my gripe with Safari and my home box. I can run the application without a problem. I use dual monitors on my Windows box and from time to time choose to browse on the secondary monitor while something else is running on the primary. Guess what?! This works fine as long as I don’t maximize the Safari window on the secondary monitor. When I do maximize the window, the browser window disappears and I am only left with the remnants in my Windows Task Bar. I have to kill Safari and start over to get the browser window back. Strange, I know.
But, I’m not giving up. I am very impressed with the speed of Safari on my Mac, and will continue testing and working with Safari on Windows. If Safari has, or will have, community/vendor provided add-ons, similar to Mozilla applications, I may have just found myself another, faster web browser. I still have a lot of research and playing to do. I’ll keep you updated.
Until next time..
I have been doing a lot more design and development lately. It’s awesome working on my 13-inch MacBook along side my 24-inch Gateway LCD Display (model FPD2485W). This is an extremely nice setup and very comfortable, mostly due to the Apple Bluetooth® Mighty Mouse, Apple Wireless Keyboard, and my Griffin Elevator.
But, since I am doing more design these days, and I want all of my images and photos to have somewhat consistent color across multiple monitors, I decided that display calibration was in order. I looked around at some devices for performing display calibration and they all seemed a little more expensive than what I was willing to pay.
So, as I was walking through Office Depot a month or so ago, I spotted a little gadget over in the software section of the store. The device is called huey™ by Pantone® and retails for $89.99.
When I got my huey™ device home and started calibrating my laptop’s display, I was pumped. Then I wanted to calibrate my gateway display. Well, out of the box the huey™ will only calibrate one display. I did some research on the Pantone® web site and found out that they have a software upgrade that will allow you to calibrate multiple displays with the same huey™ device. The software, huey™ PRO is available as a download on the Pantone® web site for $39.99.
The device is cool in that it constantly monitors the room’s light and automatically adjusts the color settings of your displays to the appropriate levels to keep the colors where they need to be. It also prompts you to calibrate your displays periodically when it believes the previous calibration has expired. The calibration process is quick and easy and well worth the few minutes it takes to keep your colors looking fresh and your details popping!
With the upgraded software and the huey™ device I bought from Office Depot, I can now calibrate both of my displays and keep my colors consistent across both of my monitors. If you’re looking for an entry level calibration device for your monitors or displays, give huey/huey™ PRO a try and see what your colors are actually supposed to look like.
Until next time…
I have been looking for a Mac OS X alternative to TechSmith’s Camtasia Studio ever since I started using my MacBook last year. Camtasia Studio allows you to capture videos of your computer’s desktop as you work in applications and then edit and arrange those captured videos to make a movie viewable in a number of different formats. You can even make interactive videos for training and educational purposes with Camtasia Software. Needless to say, the software is very impressive but it has only one drawback that keeps me from buying it… It is only available for Microsoft Windows machines and is not currently available for the Macintosh platform (and may never be available on a Mac unless we can do some CrossOver trickery).
Today, I was thinking about how I needed to redo a demo for some software I developed for my personal business, Fruitful Solutions, and I needed to see what was available for doing this on the Mac. My 30-day free trial of Camtasia Studio expired a while ago and I didn’t really want to pay the $299.00 for Camtasia Studio plus have to use my Windows machine to do the demo. I did some searching and came upon a great alternative for a really great price. Enter Snapz Pro X from Ambrosia Software.
Snapz Pro X, version 2.0.3, is a very powerful application allowing a number of screen capture features for still images and video. There are a number of different compression and output options available for both types of captures as well as the ability to record anything that is playing internally on the Mac’s audio system and from a microphone input. Basically, I get all the functionality I had with Camtasia Studio, minus some editing features that I can do within additional free software if necessary, for the very welcome and very low price of $69!
I used the software this evening to see how well it worked and after easily creating a video capture of my desktop and me messing around in some applications, I was sold. The output at 30 FPS was phenomenal and the file size was manageable. I believe this software has every feature that I am looking for to recreate my presentation and demo for my application, even at a price almost anyone with the need can afford.
If you’re in the market for some screen capture software for your Mac, I highly recommend looking into Snapz Pro X. There is a trial version available so you can try before you buy. Give it a shot. I don’t believe you’ll be disappointed.
Until next time…
This post is the reason I posted my previous blog entry on installing the Metasploit framework on my Apple MacBook. Chris sent me a link to this movie showing someone exploiting a vulnerability in Microsoft’s Windows. The .ANI Header Stack Overflow vulnerability allows a remote attacker to send a malicious e-mail to an unsuspecting user with an unpatched Windows machine and gaining remote shell access.
After Metasploit was installed on my MacBook, I followed the steps in the movie as they were shown and it worked like a champ. The recipient of the e-mail has to be viewing the e-mail in HTML. I was only able to exploit this vulnerability when using Microsoft Outlook or Microsoft’s Outlook Express e-mail client’s when the client was setup to view messages in HTML. Either way, I gained access to one of my own machines using this exploit and it showed me just how easy it would be for someone with malicious intent to really wreak havoc on a novice or unsuspecting user.
I am impressed at the whole concept behind the Metasploit framework for exploiting known vulnerabilities and delivering payloads with basically the push of a button. The interface and command logic is easy to understand, for this exploit anyway, and I look forward to learning more about the framework, the exploits, and the payloads in the near future.
Until next time…
I have known about the Metasploit framework for quite some time but have never really known how to use it or taken the time to learn. Recently, Chris inspired me to try it by showing me a movie explaining how to exploit a vulnerability in Microsoft Windows related to the .ANI Header Stack Overflow Vulnerability (more on this in my next post).
Before I could begin working with this nifty little exploit in Metaspolit I had to get the framework installed on my MacBook. Metasploit is a suite of Ruby scripts and will run on virtually any Unix based operating system and Windows (with some minor tweaking). I checked the MacPorts for Metasploit and it was available as a port install but the latest version in the ports tree was 2.7. I needed at least version 3.0, and later determined I needed a development version, version 3.1, from the trunk to get the exploit I was after.
The first thing I did was upgrade my Subversion client on Mac OS X. I got the universal binary from here and installing and upgrading my Subversion was pretty painless. It installed like most other Mac applications from a package.
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