Found this on the SC website the other other day:

Hackers are able to send a corrupt JPEG image to a RAZR which would run malicious code if viewed, according to the ZDI advisory, released on Tuesday. Malicious code could force the RAZR to make unwanted calls or send unwanted messages, for example.

The flaw exists in the JPEG thumbprint component of the EXIF parser. EXIF, or Exchangable Image File format, is a set of tags that can be embedded in image files, which might include the location where the image was taken or the camera used to take it.

When the user tries to view the image, a memory corruption is caused and malicious code can be run on the phone.

A firmware update has been released from Motorola to patch the vulnerability.

To read more about this vulnerability, go here.

Wordpress 2.5 has recently been released. It is a major update to previous releases, and I must say it has a nice feel to it. But I nearly didn’t get to enjoy it….

I realise how important it is to backup your wordpress install (and database) should an upgrade not work.

Here’s what happened:

I upgraded via fantastico, and for the last few updates, I haven’t bothered backing up my data etc because I’ve never had problems.
When I loaded up my site, yeah it looked fine. But when I tried to go to my admin panel, a message (shown below) came up:

Fatal error: Cannot redeclare activate_plugin() (previously declared in /home/username/public_html/wp-content/plugins/installer/includes/functions.inc.php:69) in /home/username/public_html/wp-admin/includes/plugin.php on line 116

What the? After asking my friend Google what he problem was, it appears to be the ‘installer’ plugin that was causing the issue. I FTP’ed into my plugins and renamed the installer folder - which in effect made it treated like a new plugin (by Wordpress), and thus deactivated. I was then able to get into my admin panel and carry on as normal.

The moral? Keep regular backups of your Wordpress installation and SQL database, as well as deactivate all your plugins prior to upgrading.
Also, backups are fine, but have you ever tested doing a restore?
Another thing to keep in mind is that I decided to try and use the backup tar file that fantastico auto generates when updating. Guess what? the file was corrupt

Netstumbler is a great program for detecting Wireless Access Points, and more importantly, the signal strength. It’s a must-have program that every tech/nerd should have.

Unfortunately, it doesn’t work in Microsoft Vista - but there is an alternative. It’s called Vistumbler. personally I haven’t tried it, but friends of mine say it looks and feels very simialr to the ‘original’.

Gmail’s g-archiver seems a great utility for backing up Gmail messages to your computer.

But there appears to be a security flaw.

From this website I read:

The backstory:

Yeah, but it wasn’t a ‘coding mistake’. He coded it in there, so when someone used this tool, it uploaded YOUR username and password to HIS email account. (Nice huh?)

OUCH!!!!

Anyway, looks like the good people of Google have removed g-archiver, and are recommending you remove it from your computer. Their official explanantion:

What happened was that a member of our development team had inserted coding used for testing G-Archiver in the debug version and forgot to delete it in the final release version.

Just made the switch to Linux from Windows (or even OS X?) and are having trouble finding software similar/equivalent to what you are used to?

Yes, the linux learning curve is steep but rewarding when you do start working it all out.

Here is a good website that lists the Windows/OS X software and the linux equivalents.

In a lot of cases there are multiple options which is good. You aren’t tied down to one thing which you may not like.