Disable 'majority' of browser features

Disabling the majority of features in a Web browser may be your safest bet to keep malicious hackers at bay, says a U.S.-based IT security watchdog.
The United States Computer Emergency Readiness Team (US-CERT) said in a report released Thursday: "Many Web applications try to enhance your browsing experience by enabling different types of functionality, but this might be unnecessary and may leave you susceptible to being attacked. The IT security group is part of the U.S. Department of Homeland Security.

"The safest policy is to disable the majority of those features unless you decide they are necessary," the research team said.
While the exact browser settings differ from one browser to another, most platforms have settings and functions that are enabled by default.
US-CERT recommends that users set the highest security level possible, only enabling features when they are required, and to disable them again after the user is done with the Web site that required the functions.

Linux gets a taste of Windows and Mac

KDE is one of the major desktop user interfaces for Linux, though it works on some other operating systems as well. Like its top rival, GNOME, its software components range from low-level, such as buttons and a drop-down menu, to higher-level software such as file browsers, games, and a console for those who want a command-line interface. KDE handles many basic user interface tasks such as managing windows on the screen and letting users launch programs and switch between them.
This shot shows several new features in KDE 4.0, released Friday. Among them are the Kickoff menu at lower left, which provides quick access to favorite applications, the new Dolphin file manager at upper left, and the new System Settings interface toward the right.

KDE 4 gives Linux some Mac, Windows flavor

KDE programmers released a significantly revamped version of its Linux graphical interfaces software on Friday, incorporating several features that also appear in Windows Vista and Mac OS X.

KDE features a new start menu reminiscent of Windows Vista and a new System Settings interface similar to Apple Mac OS X. Click the above image for more screenshots of KDE 4.0.(Credit: KDE)
Among new features in KDE 4.0 are a start menu on steroids called Kickoff, new ways of viewing widgets and applications, a revamped file browser, and a new look to some entertainment applications that I hope will help pioneer a new user interface technology.
Unfortunately for KDE fans, the upgrade to version 4.0 comes at an awkward time, just a few months before Ubuntu's planned release in April of its "Hardy Heron" version of Linux. This will be the second version of Ubuntu for which its backer, Canonical, offers long-term support. Because Canonical wasn't confident that there would be good developer support for the previous KDE 3.5 and expected KDE 4.0 not to be mature enough, Canonical decided to support just GNOME.
But there still are plenty of other Linux distributions, and KDE 4 will work fine on Ubuntu (the version is called Kubuntu) even if commercial support is absent. And let's face it--Linux on the desktop has appealed more to programmers and technically savvy do-it-yourselfers than to mainstream computer users.
KDE (K Desktop Environment), is one of the two major interfaces for Linux, the other being GNOME (GNU Network Object Model Environment). Both open-source projects include software ranging from low-level components such as buttons and drop-down menus to higher-level applications such as file browsers, games, and a console for those who want a command-line interface. The software handles many basic user interface tasks such as managing windows on the screen and letting users launch programs and switch between them.
One of the significant new features is Kickoff, the revamped start menu. Instead of offering just a hierarchical list of applications, Kickoff offers several other ways to get at programs you might want, including a search bar a la Windows Vista, a list of favorite programs, and a list of recently used programs and documents. It also provides quick access to hard drives, USB drives, and other storage devices.
digg_url = 'http://digg.com/software/KDE_4_gives_Linux_some_Mac_Windows_flavor_2';
KDE 4 also has been reworked to take advantage of new glitzy interface possibilities. Windows can be made transparent--a feature for which I personally see almost no utility, but I'll keep an open mind. But there are more useful options, too, such as the ability to quickly show all running widgets or to show all running applications in miniature, features that users of Mac OS X's Dashboard and Expose will recognize.
Perhaps more significant in the long run is some work to make KDE more resolution-independent. Most operating systems and accompanying software assume computer screens have a resolution of something like 96 pixels per inch, but hardware companies are capable of producing much finer resolution.
Theoretically, that could help produce higher-quality text that's less pixilated and easier to read and photos with more detail, but in practice you risk running software that's unusable because of with microscopic type and icons.
Some KDE applications, including the KMines minesweeper game and KPat solitaire card game, now have vector graphics, which scale to any size independent of pixel resolution. It's a small but welcome step.
Another new feature is Dolphin, a new file browser that among other things can present thumbnails of images and let users add captions and star ratings.
A revamped Systems Settings interface resembles Mac OS X's approach, with different options split into related categories.
Cosmetically, KDE has new artwork, including graphical elements such as buttons and window frames, called Oxygen.
And under the covers, there are other changes. A new Phonon library provides audio support to programs, KHTML is available for Web page rendering (it's used by Apple's Safari, too), Trolltech's QT 4 user interface components require less memory, and a package called Solid helps manage hardware details such as power management, wireless networking, removable storage devices, and Bluetooth networking. And for those whose computers have multicore processors, the ThreadWeaver library is designed to make it easier for software to take advantage of hardware abilities.

More than a buzzword, SOA (service-oriented architecture) enables IT departments to build systems that map closely to the service requirements of organizations. Whether you are making a business case for an SOA project or implementing one, bookmark this toolkit for access to a wealth of SOA resources--from the latest news and industry developments to best practices and downloads.

Service-oriented architecture (SOA) may no longer be the hot new thing that it was a few years ago, but the Web-based infrastructure remains very popular, according to industry players.
Its roots began over two decades ago, in the early days of software integration, before it evolved into component-based development in the late 1990s. Back then, interfaces such as CORBA (Common Object Request Broker Architecture) were used to enable software components to communicate.

Today, SOA is a methodology that uses open standards such as Web services, which allows organizations to build more flexible IT infrastructures that respond more quickly to changing business needs.
What makes SOA so compelling for organizations?
U.S.-based Gene Phifer, who is Gartner's vice president and distinguished analyst, offered some insights over a phone interview with ZDNet Asia. According to him, SOA still generates the highest level of client enquiries.
Companies are keen on SOA because it is "built as a collection of services", and as such, allows companies to be more responsive to change, Phifer said.
"Organizations can consume these services one at a time and assemble those to [suit] their needs," he said. "[SOA] gives them more agility to respond to changes." He added that these changes can come in the form of mergers, new government regulations, and so on.
On a deeper level, SOA provides companies with the ability to take processes "buried in the bowels of application suites like SAP, Oracle, and homegrown apps", and expose and consume those applications at a very granular level, as well as model those processes very easily, he explained.
"Anything that changes can do that much better if the system is architected in SOA," he said.
Standards and interoperabilityAnother key aspect of SOA is that because it is built upon Web services, it enables organizations, and their ecosystem of business partners and customers to interoperate freely.
Pointing out that the SOA concept has been around since the 1980s, Phifer attributed its popularity as being ignited by the development of Web services in the early years of this decade. "You can think of it as the spark that lit the fire," he said.
Web services, popularized around 2001, are pieces of software that can communicate with another application over a network by using a specific set of standard protocols. These include Simple Object Access Protocol (SOAP), the Universal Description, Discovery, and Integration (UDDI) framework, and the Web Services Description Language (WSDL).
Peter Murchison, vice president of WebSphere Software at IBM Asia-Pacific, said: "With business processes supported by an SOA foundation, a company can make its previously-siloed data and software applications better interoperate across business units, as well as with third parties."
Echoing what Phifer mentioned earlier, Murchison told ZDNet Asia that "things like mergers, regulations, global competition, outsourcing and partnering have resulted in a massive increase in the number of applications a company may use".
The usual scenario would be that companies built applications with little knowledge of other applications that could be added in the future, and required to share information with existing applications, he said. And as a result, businesses are now struggling to maintain IT systems that co-exist, but are not integrated, he noted. Or if they are integrated, they are rigidly so, he added.
Murchison said: "Now just think about how many duplicate processes are occurring in separate departments and applications--and how much these duplicate processes are costing them."
And that is where SOA comes in, allowing businesses to provide standardized services and business processes, and thus enabling them to run their IT infrastructure more smoothly, he said. He added that this also frees up more energy for organizations to focus on their core businesses.