an icepick through the keyhole

Mildly old news - but in the last couple of days, in case you've missed it, Microsoft announced its version of the multi-touch user interface: Microsoft Surface. Here's a video piece by Popular Mechanics on it, and you can get more info and a higher resolution video with accompanying article from their July issue (and a couple of more videos) at the PM site.

Also, here's the transcript of a fascinating joint interview with Bill Gates and Steve Jobs at the Wall Street Journal's All Things Digital 5 conference (the videos are also available, as a highlight reel or split into a prologue and 7 parts for the whole thing). I don't know about you, but when Jobs and Gates both weigh in on stuff, their joint history, and what might be coming, I find myself paying real attention.

Public service announcement. You may have heard of the latest WMF exploit for Windows. This is serious stuff, people — you may think you're not vulnerable, or that it won't happen to you, but it can, and it's just so easy to do, and it gives complete control by an intruder over your computer. Everything.

So rather than wait for Microsoft to get off their asses and patch it up by January 10, by which time Lord knows how many people will get bitten, you might do well to be just a tad paranoid and get the unofficial patch.

For just what the WMF exploit can do, see http://www.f-secure.com/weblog/archives/archive-122005.html

And the unofficial patch can be found at:

http://www.grc.com/miscfiles/wmffix_hexblog14.exe
http://handlers.sans.org/tliston/wmffix_hexblog14.exe
http://castlecops.com/modules.php?name=Downloads&d_op=getit&lid=496
http://csc.sunbelt-software.com/wmf/wmffix_hexblog14.exe
http://www.antisource.com/download/wmffix_hexblog14.exe

So, begone — go forth and patch that hole. Once the fix from Microsoft is issued, you can uninstall this and install the official one.