unixwiz

Just released, another exploit to Internet Explorer 6 & 7, that allows “hackers” to install software on your machine… What do the major Antivirus people say:

“To minimize the chances of being affected by this issue, Internet Explorer users should ensure their antivirus definitions are up to date, disable JavaScript and only visit Web sites they trust until fixes are available from Microsoft,” Symantec said.

How many mom and pop’s out there even know how to disable java script, and only visit sites they trust? Let alone make sure their antivirus definitions are updated. I have seen some virus trick Symantec’s AV in to thinking the definitions were up to date, and then I go to find hundreds of virus’ on my parents computer. This is just another reason why building the web browser in to the OS is a bad thing and why it should be sandbox’d off in to its own little area.

M$ Winders, MacOSX, Random Stuff, Rant, Security IE, Rant, Security, WIndows

I believe that XM Radio’s Customer Service is probably the worst I have ever seen and has gotten worse every year I have had to renew my radio. This year their “trick” is that they are now going to start charging an extra fee to use the online part of the XM Radio service. Right now it is free but according to this:

Because you are a valued customer and you enjoy listening to XM Radio online, we are offering you a special opportunity to continue to listen online at no cost if you renew your subscription now with one of our longer term plans.

On March 11, 2009, the XM Radio Online listening platform will be upgraded to a higher quality digital audio and no longer included as a part of a base subscription at no charge. If you renew now at www.xmradio.com/lockintoday, you can continue to listen online for FREE for the length of term you choose — but only if you act quickly. Rest assured, any credits on the account from earlier payments made will be applied to your renewal – you’ll only be charged the difference.

Act before March 10!
This is your only chance to keep your online listening at no charge. Beginning March 11, if you wish to listen to XM Radio Online, you will need to purchase a supplemental Premium XM Radio Online subscription for $2.99* per month. Your current XM Radio Online listening privileges will be available at no charge until your next renewal date.**

It’s Easy to “Lock In” & Save.

They are going to start charging for the online service. So I decided to “lock in” and renew my subscription for my car for 2 years, just so I would have the online service for free for the next 2 years as well. So I went to the web site they listed, and did a 2 year renewal and filled out all my information. The last thing I see is:

So I thought all was well. Well it has been 8 days since I did that. No charge has showed up on my credit card, and my “listenercare” site on XM’s web site still shows that my I still have the 1 year service, and it was last paid on March of 2008.

I then went back to XM’s site, and filled out a billing contact form to ask them what was going on… What did I get back from them:

XM is proud to announce our exciting new lineup. Along with your favorites, we have added new channels, shows, legendary DJ’s and celebrity hosts, giving you more of what you love about satellite radio. You’ll get 69 commercial-free music channels covering all genres of music, including new channels like Bruce Springsteen’s E Street Radio, the Grateful Dead Channel, Elvis Radio, Jimmy Buffett’s Radio Margaritaville, Siriusly Sinatra, Metropolitan Opera Radio, Eminem’s Shade 45, Jam On, Little Steven’s Underground Garage and more. Plus, you’ll also get new personalities and exclusive shows like Barabara Walters, Chris Mad Dog Russo and Jeff Foxworthy. And, even more entertainment including Doctor Radio, Blue Collar Radio and the Foxxhole.

Everything you need to know about the new lineup is online at www.xmradio.com/newlineup. Download the new channel guide and keep it by your radio. With all of the new programming and personalities, Everything Worth Listening To is Now on XM.

Absolutely nothing to do with the question I sent them. I still have not even received any information about what is going on with my account either. So I decided to call the number listed on the email.. Got a man name “samual” with an obvious indian accent. He had problems with my account and could not understand why my stuff did not work. He then transfers me to his manager “winston” with another indian accent. He then “fixed” my account and told me that my credit card would be billed at midnight when their system does billing. So we will see if it works or if I have to make another call back to them yet again.

One thing that XM really needs to do is work on their web site and their customer service. It is just piss poor.

Rant, XM Radio customer service, Rant, sucks, XM

Once again, darn AT&T sucks… When I got home my data connection on my AT&T phone no longer works and I only have 1 bar of signal. Yet, my verizon phone has 5 bars and full data and it is sitting right next to the AT&T… Need to look at getting rid of the AT&T one. They really need to work on their coverage, if they want to “have the most bars, in the most places” cause as it stands now I get better coverage on a provider that is not even native to the area than I do with a native coverage provider.

Rant Rant

Since having my cell phone switched to AT&T, I have noticed more problems that when I had US Cellular. Now while driving up the interstate the signal goes up and down, sometimes cutting out completely. In fact at home my signal goes between 1 and 2 bars… US Cellular at least had 4 or 5.. So everytime I see one of those commercials, it just makes me mad, as unless you are in a highly populated area, your stuck with the same old crappy coverage that Cellular One had before AT&T bought them out. The only good thing about the new one, is that the GPS works in it with Google Maps. But other than that, the internet access is slow, calls dropped and the coverage sucks.

Random Stuff, Rant Random Stuff, Rant

This weekend I went to install the new Communications Suite with Convergence and I decieded to install OpenSolaris 2008.5 on my machine and put the Comms Suite in a zone on it (so I could easily blow it away after my testing was done..)

Let me be probably not the first to say that OpenSolaris != Solaris.. I have been using Solaris 10 since it was in beta, and OpenSolaris through me for a couple of loops…

First are some of the cool things I liked:

1. The interface, it is updated and seemed a lot faster.

2. The ease of “patching” only took about half an hour to do a pkg image update.

3. Zfs root made it easy to roll back changes..

Now the parts that i had problems with and did not like too well.

1. I had to download a driver for my ethernet card as the one Sun delivers (sk98sol) is still too old and did not support my card which is one built on to a 3+ year old motherboard.

2. To create a zone, you MUST have a network connection (and at least to the internet for the time being). This really made me mad as I sometimes don’t have access to the Internet, and if I need to create a zone, I don’t want to have to wait for it to download 200+ Mb of packages, that are already on the machine in the first place.

3. No more “full root zones”, I created a zone in the hopes of installing the Comms Suite in it, only to find out that it was not a full root zone and stuff that is required by the Comms Installer to be there wasn’t and therefor I could not install it… Such simple things like unzip and perl are missing from the newly created zone.

In the end, I ended up reinstalling the box with Solaris 10 05/08, which was a task in itself. See when you install OpenSolaris it makes the root drive zfs, and did  some weird things to the VTOC. Therefore when I went in to do the install of the “older” Solaris 10 05/08, the installer would show me the disk, let me “carve” it up like I wanted in the gui and via command line, but when the install went to go on, the installer always came back saying that there was not enough disk to install Solaris. What I ended up having to do was go and do a “format -e” and then fdisk and delete the Solaris partition that was made by OpenSolaris, and let the Solaris installer create it’s own fdisk partition again.

So after finally getting Solaris 10 installed and the latest Recommended/Security/Sun Alert patches put on, I called it a night and left the Comms install for next weekend.

Overall I think OpenSolaris is going in the right direction, but there needs to be a lot of things fixed in it.. The biggest is the zones, there should be an option for “cloning” the already installed OS, since it is already on a ZFS pool. The second is that there should be an option when creating the zone as to what kind of zone it should be, whether a full (which would load every package, so you don’t have to try and do it  your self), sparse or maybe a new one called Jail which has everything in it read only.

OpenSolaris, Rant, Solaris, Zones/Containers OpenSolaris, Rant, Solaris, Zones/Containers