Core Solutions Ltd

Mozilla has officially made history with a new Guinness world record for the largest number of software downloads in a 24-hour period. The final record breaking 8,002,530 downloads for Firefox 3.0 took place in June with parties in over 25 countries. “The enthusiasm and creativity of Firefox fans was key to making this happen” said Marketing head Paul Kim. Gareth Deaves of Guinness World Records called it “an extremely impressive accomplishment”. The official figure was confirmed after logs from download servers were audited and checked to ensure duplicate and unfinished downloads were not counted. Marketing manager Mary Colvig said no party is planned to celebrate the record until the actual certificate is presented by Guinness World Records in London next week.

Source: BBC

On Tuesday, AMD announced a new version of its flagship “Black” Phenom X4, as well as two energy-efficient versions of the Phenom X4 chip. All three chips are manufactured on AMD’s 65-nm process, contain 2 Mbytes of a shard level 3 cache and include 512 Kbytes of level-2 cache per core.
AMD’s new Black processor consumes 140 watts at maximum, an increase over the 9850, which consumes 125 watts. However, the chip also ships with AMD’s OverDrive software with clock multiplier control, allowing users to scale down the performance to save power, or dial it up for more performance. At Computex, Asus released a list of boards that could accept the new 140-watt Black chips. The energy-efficient Phenom X4s, on the other hand, consume no more than 65 watts in total. All of AMD’s current chips are built with 65-nanometer transistors. Processors with 45-nanometer technology are expected this year. Starting late last year, Intel moved its product line to 45 nanometers, which means more transistors on a chip to deliver better power-to-performance ratios.

We would normally advise that you wait at least a few days before applying major updates but, if you’ve been affected by the Adobe CS3 file corruption issue, this would be worth downloading straight away. download here

Software giant Microsoft will stop selling its XP operating system on Monday. But that doesn’t mean the seven-year-old software won’t continue contributing to the company’s financial performance for years to come. Terminating XP was expected. It comes just 18 months after Microsoft introduced a new, more advanced operating system called Vista. While the new system is powerful, upgrading means spending lots of time and money to rework applications designed to run XP specifically. As a result, some companies, including Microsoft partner Intel Corp, have balked at adopting Vista, preferring instead to continue using XP.
Though Monday will be the last day Microsoft sells XP or provides free support for the “hundreds of thousands” of computers that are estimated to run on it, the company has come up with a novel way to wring money from the aging operating system: It is killing XP but isn’t letting it die. One way Microsoft will still make money from XP is by charging to provide support. Because the software continues to be popular, Microsoft’s “extended” support program is sure to generate lots more revenue. Microsoft will offer the program at least through 2014. That will likely attract lots of big corporate customers. Meanwhile, Microsoft will make more money by supplying XP to computer makers Hewlett-Packard Co., Dell Inc. and others. Because Vista has had trouble making headway in the corporate market, computer makers have asked for “downgrade rights” - the right to continue offering XP on their notebook and desktop computers.

Microsoft Chairman Bill Gates was set Friday for his last day of full-time work at Microsoft - the company he founded 33 years ago on a hunch that personal computers would become an integral part of everyday life. The world’s largest software company said that it was not planning any public events to observe the transition, though the change would be marked by internal events. Gates, 52, will continue to hold the title of non-executive chairman and work about one day a week at Microsoft. He intends to devote the rest of his time to the Bill and Melinda Gates Foundation, the wealthiest charity in the world, which is aimed at improving healthcare around the world and reducing extreme poverty. Founded with the vast fortune he made as Microsoft prospered, the foundation has an endowment of some 38.7 billion dollars with billions more expected to roll in as Gates transfers his massive personal wealth. Legendary investor Warren Buffet, currently the world’s richest man, has also pledged to transfer the vast majority of his wealth to the foundation.
Gates handed over his role as Microsoft chief executive to his long-time partner Steve Ballmer in 2000, when Gates became the company’s chief software architect. Under a carefully planned succession programme, Gate’s duties will be taken over by two top Microsoft executives. Ray Ozzie will be in charge of day-to-day management issues, while Craig Mundie will be in charge of long-term planning. The company, whose Windows operating system powers some 90 per cent of the world’s personal computers, has a market capitalization of about 260 billion dollars and employs more than 78,000 people in 103 countries. But even as its cash cow products of Windows and the Office productivity suite look set to continue their stellar earnings, Microsoft faces tough competition as Google’s online dominance threatens to cut into Microsoft’s core businesses.

We’ve been getting quite a few inquiries about problems saving files from Photoshop directly to network drives when using the recently released Mac OS 10.5.3. (I’m told the issue can affect InDesign and maybe other apps as well.)

The short story is that Adobe have been working closely with Apple to troubleshoot the issue and have identified the cause. Apple is working on a fix, and we expect they’ll release it in the next System Update, 10.5.4.

The slightly longer story is that saving directly to a network is a generally bad idea.  Here’s what Adobe have to say:

Directly writing to a network filing system adds a level of complexity, which includes timing issues, network noise, performance, and other potential issues. We’ve occasionally run into bugs with different configurations/combinations, but as there are too many variants for us to reliably test and certify all the clients, servers, hardware and software, we recommend the safer course of working with files locally and then copying them up to a file server when you’re done. While directly reading/writing to network file systems should work in theory, and while we do some limited testing in the most popular configurations to verify that it does, we can not certify that it will work reliably in your configuration.

That’s probably not what you want to hear, but it’s a long-standing advisory from most of the major software producers.  Saving files locally, then transferring them, offers better performance as well as greater reliability.   We understand that 10.5.4 should be released by July, though that does obviously depend on Apple.  In the meantime your options to address this problem are to work locally or go back to 10.5.2 which involves reinstalling the system that shipped with your machine and then downloading the 10.5.2 update from the Apple site and applying it, rather than using Software Update.

by Pete Marshall 

We’ve seen various printing problems from CS3 applications, typically the print job leaves the application normally and appears in the printer’s queue. It then disappears rather faster then usual and nothing happens at the printer, or the data light flashes briefly and then stops. If you’re checking the printer queue carefully you may see an error message flash past but it’s often too quick to notice. You can always check the cups error log in /var/log, accessible from the console (in /applications/utilities).

The problems often seem to be PPD related, ensure you have the latest drivers for your printer and, if relevant, the particular one for your configuration, there may be different drivers for Intel or PPC machines and there may be different drivers for the various revisions of OSX.

Delete the existing printer and any current related PPDs and then install the latest drivers and add the printer again.

Another cause we saw recently was related to the page setup. The customer couldn’t print from InDesign CS3 from certain machines which after some investigation was caused by several settings in the print dialogue box. Firstly, in the “Marks and Bleed” window, selecting “All Printer’s Marks” prevented the job printing. Just choosing “Crop Marks”

was fine. Secondly, in the “Graphics” the default setting of “Optimised Subsampling” seemed to be an issue, selecting “All Data” resulted in a successful print.

We should stress that different printers will have different RIPs embedded and different revisions of RIPs and what works for one printer may not work for another but if you’re having printer problems, look at your page setup and try a few different settings.

by Pete Marshall

Security researchers reported last week that they’ve spotted a Mac Trojan horse in the wild that could compromise machines running Apple Inc.’s Mac OS X 10.4 or 10.5. SecureMac, a Mac-specific anti-virus vendor, posted an alert last Thursday that its researchers had found a Trojan horse, dubbed “AppleScript.THT,” being distributed from a hacker-operated site where discussions of spreading the malware via iChat, Apple’s instant messaging and video chat software, were also taking place. The company classified the threat posed by the Trojan as “critical.” The malware exploits a recently publicized vulnerability in the Apple Remote Desktop Agent (ARDAgent), part of Tiger’s and Leopard’s Remote Management component. Composed as a compiled AppleScript, or in another variant, script bundled into an application, the Trojan leverages the ARDAgent bug to gain full control of the victimized Mac.“[It] allows a malicious user complete remote access to the system, can transmit system and user passwords, and can avoid detection by opening ports in the firewall and turning off system logging,” claimed SecureMac. “Additionally, the Trojan can log keystrokes, take pictures with the built-in Apple iSight camera, take screenshots, and turn on file sharing.” SecureMac’s warning came one day after an anonymous reader disclosed a few details of the ARDAgent vulnerability on Slashdot.org, and on the same day that rival security vendor Intego provided more information about the bug. Malicious AppleScript, said Intego, can call ARDAgent, which then gives that script full “root” access to the system. Like any Trojan horse, AppleScript.THT does not spread on its own but relies on user interaction, such as downloading and launching, to infect a machine. Trojans can also be silently introduced on a computer if it’s injected after a successful attack using another vulnerability, such as a browser bug.

Source: Computer World

When Mac OS X 10.5.3 was released at the end of last month it was a massive download, tipping the scales at 420 MB. Unfortunately with the Mac OS X 10.5.3 update we didn’t see the three known iCal bugs resolved but we saw numerous fixes which made many Leopard users happy; however, others have faced major issues.

Adobe Creative Suite users quickly discovered that they could no longer correctly save files from InDesign, Photoshop, along with other CS3 programs to an Apple File Server. The files were corrupted which made them useless. Reports of these issues flooded Apple and Adobe forums as frustrated users looked for a way to get these issue resolved.

Apple has reported that the first beta release of Mac OS X 10.5.4 would be delivered to developers ahead of the WWDC. Keeping its promise Apple delivered Mac OS X 10.5.4 to developers on last Wednesday evening. Mac OS X 10.5.4 isn’t as large as Mac OS X 10.5.3 it only weighs 55MB; however, this is expected to reolve the issue with Creative Suite users working with files that reside on an Apple File Server.

Our suggestion to Adobe CS3 users would be to avoid installing the Mac OS X 10.5.3 Update. We will be glad to be informing you of the release and safety of Mac OS X 10.5.4 Update once we will have tested it against these specific issues.

All other updates and Security Updates can be downloaded and installed as normal.

One way to avoid installing the Mac OS X 10.5.3 Update “by mistake” is to select it in the Software Update window and “ignore” it by pressing the Backspace Key.

After several beta releases and a planned bid for the Guinness Book of World Records, Firefox 3.0 has arrived. As of 1pm EDT Tuesday, users can download the latest version of the open-source browser, which includes an improved book marking system and drop-down search returns in the URL bar, among other features. Aesthetically, the browser is not drastically different from its predecessor. The forward and back buttons have been altered, while the browser buttons and window frames have also been redesigned to conform to the look of a user’s operating system, but not much else has changed. On the features front, the drop-down URL bar—dubbed the Awesome Bar—offers suggestions of possible Web sites as you type your search query.

Version three offers a three-tier bookmarking system: bookmark stars allow for one-click favorites; bookmark tags allow you to add details to your favorites; and bookmark folders are saved searches that update when you add new items matching that search to your bookmarks, according to Mozilla. Download manager has also been revamped and now includes the ability to pause and resume downloads, search through downloaded files, obtain more detailed file information, and revisit the original download page. Firefox 3.0 also boasts improved color profiles, font and text rendering, and zooming capabilities, as well as malware and phishing protection, Mozilla said.

Version 3.0 is three years in the making. Mozilla released the first beta version of Firefox 3.0 in November 2007, with version two debuting a month later. Beta 3.0 version 3 arrived in February with major code rewrites of the page layout, graphics, and font engines and over 350 plugged memory leaks. Most recently, Mozilla on June 5 unveiled the second release candidate for Firefox 3 with several localization updates. That came a little over two weeks after RC1 was made available. When the download went live yesterday, the clock started ticking on Mozilla’s bid to break a Guinness world record for most downloads in a single day. Mozilla said last week on its blog that it has already received at least one million pledges from users who say they will download Firefox 3 on release day. We will have to see!