Quick post!
Testing some raw clips from AVCHD camcorders, and I found out the the current incarnation of Windows 7 can play AVCHD without any additional codecs/programs.
WordPress 2.8.1 is Released.
The great folks at WordPress.org have just released maintenance update to WordPress software. WordPress 2.8.1 can be obtained through WordPress.org site or can be automatically upgraded through WordPress Dashboard.
Info on WordPress 2.8.1 can be found at WordPress blog.
The automatic upgrade process was fast and painless.
Apple Seeds Snow Leopard Developer Preview Build 10A402
Thursday July 9th, 2009 afternoon; Apple seeds Mac OS X Leopard Developer Preview Build 10A402. The update is available through Software Update and weighs in on 1.31GB.
As usual, Apple Developer Connection members are bound by the Non-Disclosure Agreement (NDA).
From Software Update:
This Snow Leopard Developer Preview Update is recommended for all users running the Snow Leopard Developer Preview Build 10A394 or later. This update includes general operating system fixes for stability, compatibility, and security.
Mac OS X 10.6 Snow Leopard Developer Preview is not recommended for casual users and production system since it still contains numbers of software bugs.
VLC 1.0.0 is Released.
The VideoLAN project has officially released VLC 1.0.0 codenamed Goldeneye. Download it now.
VLC 1.0.0 is a cross-platform media player, available for Linux, Mac, Windows and other Operating Systems.
VLC media player is a highly portable multimedia player and multimedia framework capable of reading most audio and video formats (MPEG-2, MPEG-4, H.264, DivX, MPEG-1, mp3, ogg, aac …) as well as DVDs, Audio CDs VCDs, and various streaming protocols. See the full features list.
Microsoft warns of serious computer security hole.
Tuesday July 7th, 2009.
It is the first Tuesday of the month, so there will be no regular updates from Microsoft today. Instead on Monday Microsoft released a warning regarding a serious security hole that affects Internet Explorer on Windows XP and Server 2003.
It can allow hackers to remotely take control of victims’ machines. The victims don’t need to do anything to get infected except visit a Web site that’s been hacked.
Security experts say criminals have been attacking the vulnerability for nearly a week. Thousands of sites have been hacked to serve up malicious software that exploits the vulnerability. People are drawn to these sites by clicking a link in spam e-mail.
The so-called “zero day” vulnerability disclosed by Microsoft affects a part of its software used to play video. The problem arises from the way the software interacts with Internet Explorer, which opens a hole for hackers to tunnel into.
According to reports, currently there is no fix available from Microsoft, but there is a workaround.
http://support.microsoft.com/kb/972890#FixItForMe
Interestingly Microsoft might use this announcement to convince people to upgrade to Windows Vista or Windows 7.
iPhone OS 3.1 beta: Safari Scores 100 in Acid3 Test, Somewhat.
iPhone OS 3.0 Safari scored 97 out of 100 in Acid3 Test. The newly seeded iPhone OS 3.1 beta (build 7c97d) includes a tweaked version of Safari that scores 100 out of 100 in Acid3 Test. Even though Safari scored 100, it still did not render the page identically to the reference page. Note the white X in the pink box on the top right corner of the test box.
Meanwhile, iPhone OS 3.1 beta Safari did not even pass Acid2 Test.
Acid2 Test reference rendering below:
VirtualBox Goes 3.0 with 3D Graphics Support.
Sun Microsystems has just released VirtualBox 3.0 earlier this week. VirtualBox is a multi-platform open source virtualization software.
New on VirtualBox 3.0:
- Support for Microsoft Direct3D for Windows guests, which lets graphically-intensive Windows applications, including computer modeling and games software, run in a virtual environment
- Support for the Open Graphics Library (OpenGL) 2.0 standard, which lets high-performance graphical apps run CAM-based software on VirtualBox
- Additional support for a wide range of USB devices like iPods and phones.
VirtualBox 3.0 article from ArsTechnica.com.
VirtualBox 3.0 is available for Linux, Macintosh, OpenSolaris and Windows Operating Systems.
