It’s the second Tuesday of the month once more. This means that it’s Microsoft Patch Tuesday. So fire up Windows Update and begin updating your flawed Windows system. 3 Critical updates, 2 Important updates, and 1 Moderate.
Full details can be found at the Microsoft Security Bulletin Advance Notification for July 2007 page.
In less than 2 weeks, Microsoft signed another Linux deal. This time, it’s with Linux desktop distributor Linspire Inc. In the report by BusinessWeek, Microsoft will license instant messaging and digital media technology to Linspire. Because of this, Linspire users will be able to voice-chat with Windows Live Messenger buddies, watch Windows Media video and audio files on open-source media players, and view and create documents using familiar typefaces. Linspire also agreed to set its default Web search engine to MSN Live Search.
Listed below are the other terms of the deal, according to the report:
Windows users should pull up Windows Update today. Microsoft just released 6 patches for the 15 vulnerabilities found in a variety of Windows programs such as Internet Explorer, Outlook Express, Windows Mail and Windows Vista.
BBC News also gave a tip that the second Tuesday of every month is the date on which Microsoft typically issues security patches for its software programs.
Good news for Web designers and Web developers! Apple has announced the availability of its Web browser, Safari in Windows XP and Windows Vista operating systems.
Safari 3 for Windows XP and Windows Vista is in its public beta stages.
Reasons why you’ll love Safari:
Visit the Safari home page for more details.
Download the beta version from the Safari download page (around 8 MB).
Secunia reported 2 security advisories yesterday regarding vulnerable components (DLL) in the Yahoo! Messenger instant messaging program. Secunia rated these vulnerabilities as extremely critical. In response, Yahoo! has released an emergency patch today.
- A boundary error within the Yahoo! Webcam Upload (ywcupl.dll) ActiveX control can be exploited to cause a stack-based buffer overflow by assigning an overly long string to the “Server” property and then calling the “Send()” method.
- A boundary error within the Yahoo! Webcam Viewer (ywcvwr.dll) ActiveX control can be exploited to cause a stack-based buffer overflow by assigning an overly long string to the “Server” property and then calling the “Receive()” method.
Successful exploitation of the vulnerabilities allows execution of arbitrary code.
The vulnerabilities are confirmed in version 8.1.0.249. Other versions may also be affected.
Update to the latest version.
Current Version: 8.1.0.401
Yahoo! Messenger Download Page
Last year it was Novell. Now it’s Linux desktop and server provider, Xandros. In relation to the previous article entitled, Microsoft Wants FOSS Users to Pay Royalties, Microsoft has once again signed a deal with Xandros in which the terms were similar to that of the Novell deal, according to Yahoo! News. Furthermore, Microsoft said in a statement:
"These covenants… will provide customers with confidence that the Xandros technologies they use and deploy in their environments are compliant with Microsoft’s intellectual property."
Having heard of Adobe Flash’s would-be competitor earlier this month, I finally went over to the Silverlight Gallery to see how it significantly differs with Flash. A plug-in is needed to view Silverlight movies so I first downloaded the Microsoft Silverlight 1.0 beta plug-in and installed it. It’s a good thing that the developers included support for Firefox and Safari browsers in their beta release, though support for Opera would be much more appreciated.
