Ok, So maybe you came here this Saturday expecting a Web Design Tutorial/Tip. Well I’m here to tell you that I’ve officially changed Saturday to “Weekend Update” for the tech field. I’ll be reporting on some of the big stories that happened over the past week in my own wonderful fashion every Saturday from here on out. Sorry to all of those who actually liked my jargon-filled Web Design Tips, but now you can enjoy my jargon-filled news reports. Anyways off we go:

Windows XP SP2 Is Released In A Somewhat Timely Fashion!

My first response, “Holy Crap!” My second response, let me go grab this from BitTorrent. My third response (After I had installed waited about 45 minutes for it to install and reboot) was a generally good one. I’ve had the SP2 Beta’s installed for a while now and I loved the direction they were going in. And I have to say, all MS bashing aside, they did good this time around. (This may be the only time any self-respecting Geek will admit it but…) Props Bill, Props.
NOTE: The big bad ‘M’ is giving away free CD’s for those of you who don’t feel like downloading the 266 MB Update - here.

Mandrake’s Back In The Game… Sort Of

MandrakeSoft has announced the release of Mandrake Linux 10.1 Beta 1 which is available from one of the many mirrors or from BitTorrent. Xorg is now the standard and there are many other changes from the previous version of Mandrake Linux. Screenshots are available here.

Long Distance Hacking

Two “Security Professionals” successfully demonstrated how to hack a bluetooth-enabled cellphone from over a mile away at this weeks DefCon Hacking Convention in Las Vegas. DefCon is one of the biggest and most wonderful Geek conventions out there. Everybody “1337 h4×0r” is in attendance to show off their latest “accomplishments.” The attack basically consisted as follows:

Using a program called ‘BlueBug’ from a laptop, an attacker could instruct a target phone to call his phone. The phone would make the call silently and, once connected, open a channel for the attacker to listen to conversations near the targeted phone. The attacker’s phone number would appear on the victim’s phone bill, but if the attacker used a throwaway phone, the number would be out of service.
You can read the full article over at WiredNews.

No One Is Safe From The Trojan Man

Symantec and The Register are reporting that the first Windows CE trojan horse, known as Brador, has been mailed to Trend Micro. This cannot spread on its own; it must be mailed or transmitted, then opened. Once opened, it opens a TCP port, allowing the remote-controller to connect and establish control over it. As expected, this will most likely be used to make new botnets, and it leads me to wonder: Will we soon need firewalls for Windows Embedded? And secondly What in the world is Windows Embedded?

Now This Is Just Plain Stupid

The online version of Forbes Magazine says that Bill Gates has expressed an interest in buying Nintendo from Japanese billionaire Hiroshi Yamauchi.” Though this news seems to have been part of a theoretical ‘what if’ question, the story reports: “If Hiroshi Yamauchi phones me up, i will pick up at once,’ Gates told WirtschaftsWoche magazine on the sidelines of an analyst conference.” Personally, If Bill Gates ever bought Nintendo, I think there would be some sort of uprising, don’t ask me how or why, Ii’m just pretty sure the internet would be become a battlefield.

Well that’s it for this week’s tech news, Now be all means these are not the only big stories that happened this week; These are just the ones I was interested in enough to post report on them here. Well for Weekend Update, peace out

-b