The all new OS from canonical is out. I didnt try it yet, will do it today.

A full specification is available at http://www.ubuntu.com/getubuntu/releasenotes/910overview

• Gnome 2.28
• Upstart (faster booting)
• Empathy IM (replaces Pidgin)
• New login manager
• Quickly (easier application development)
• Ubuntu One (cloud-based sharing and storage)
• Linux Kernel 2.6.31
• Changes to power management
• New Intel video driver architecture
• Ext4 file system default
• Grub 2 default

So what are you waiting for. Click here to download your copy.

You could even request  your free copy here .

Even If I support open source, here I am writing about the latest OS from Microsoft,  Windows 7. Lets see its features.

Windows 7 is the latest version of Microsoft Windows, a

s

eries of operating systems produced by Microsoft for use on personal computers, including home and business desktops, laptops, netbooks, tablet PCs and media center PCs.Windows 7 was released to manufacturing on July 22, 2009, and general retail availability on October 22, 2009, less than three years after the release of its predecessor, Windows Vista.

Windows 7’s server counterpart, Windows Server 2008 R2, was released at the same time.

Unlike its predecessor, which introduced a large number of new features, Windows 7 is intended to be a more focused, incremental upgrade to the Windows line, with the goal of being fully compatible with applications and hardware with which Windows Vista is already compatible. Presentations given by Microsoft in 2008 focused on multi-touch support, a redesigned Windows Shell with a new taskbar, a home networking system called HomeGroup, and performance improvements. Some applications that have been included with prior releases of Microsoft Windows, including Windows Calendar, Windows Mail, Windows Movie Maker, and Windows Photo Gallery, are not included in Windows 7; some are instead offered separately as part of the free Windows Live Essentials suite.

Windows 7 is the latest version of Microsoft Windows, a series of operating systems produced by Microsoft for use on personal computers, including home and business desktops, laptops, netbooks, tablet PCs and media center PCs^. Windows 7 was released to manufacturing on July 22, 2009, and general retail availability on October 22, 2009, less than three years after the release of its predecessor, Windows Vista. Windows 7’s server counterpart, Windows Server 2008 R2, was released at the same time.

Unlike its predecessor, which introduced a large number of new features, Windows 7 is intended to be a more focused, incremental upgrade to the Windows line, with the goal of being fully compatible with applications and hardware with which Windows Vista is already compatible. Presentations given by Microsoft in 2008 focused on multi-touch support, a redesigned Windows Shell with a new taskbar, a home networking system called HomeGroup, and performance improvements. Some applications that have been included with prior releases of Microsoft Windows, including Windows Calendar, Windows Mail, Windows Movie Maker, and Windows Photo Gallery, are not included in Windows 7; some are instead offered separately as part of the free Windows Live Essentials suite.

The taskbar has seen the biggest visual changes, where the Quick Launch toolbar has been replaced with pinning applications to the taskbar. Buttons for pinned applications are integrated with the task buttons. These buttons also enable the Jump Lists feature to allow easy access to common tasks. The revamped taskbar also allows the reordering of taskbar buttons. To the far right of the system clock is a small rectangular button that serves as the Show desktop icon. This button is part of the new feature in Windows 7 called Aero Peek. Hovering over this button makes all visible windows transparent for a quick look at the desktop. In touch-enabled displays such as touch screens, tablet PCs, etc., this button is slightly wider to accommodate being pressed with a finger. Clicking this button minimizes all windows, and clicking it a second time restores them. Additionally, there is a feature named Aero Snap, that automatically maximizes a window when it is dragged to either the top or left/right edges of the screen. This also allows users to snap documents or files on either side of the screen to compare them. When a user moves windows that are maximized, the system restores their previous state automatically. This functionality is also accomplished with keyboard shortcuts. Unlike in Windows Vista, window borders and the taskbar do not turn opaque when a window is maximized with Windows Aero applied. Instead, they remain transparent.

For developers, Windows 7 includes a new networking API with support for building SOAP-based web services in native code (as opposed to .NET-based WCF web services), new features to shorten application install times, reduced UAC prompts, simplified development of installation packages, and improved globalization support through a new Extended Linguistic Services API.At WinHEC 2008 Microsoft announced that color depths of 30-bit and 48-bit would be supported in Windows 7 along with the wide color gamut scRGB (which for HDMI 1.3 can be converted and output as xvYCC). The video modes supported in Windows 7 are 16-bit sRGB, 24-bit sRGB, 30-bit sRGB, 30-bit with extended color gamut sRGB, and 48-bit scRGB. Microsoft is also implementing better support for solid-state drives, including the new TRIM command, and Windows 7 will be able to identify a solid-state drive uniquely. Microsoft is also planning to support USB 3.0 in a subsequent patch, although support was not included in the initial release because of delays in the finalization of the standard.^[52]

Internet Spades, Internet Backgammon and Internet Checkers, which were removed from Windows Vista, were restored in Windows 7. Windows 7 includes Internet Explorer 8 and Windows Media Player 12.

Users also are able to disable many more Windows components than was possible in Windows Vista. New additions to this list of components include Internet Explorer, Windows Media Player, Windows Media Center, Windows Search, and the Windows Gadget Platform. Windows 7 includes 13 additional sound schemes, titled Afternoon, Calligraphy, Characters, Cityscape, Delta, Festival, Garden, Heritage, Landscape, Quirky, Raga, Savanna, and Sonata. A new version of Virtual PC, Windows Virtual PC Beta is available for Windows 7 Professional, Enterprise, and Ultimate editions. It allows multiple Windows environments, including Windows XP Mode, to run on the same machine, requiring the use of Intel VT-x or AMD-V. Windows XP Mode runs Windows XP in a virtual machine and redirects displayed applications running in Windows XP to the Windows 7 desktop. Furthermore Windows 7 supports the mounting of a virtual hard disk (VHD) as a normal data storage, and the bootloader delivered with Windows 7 can boot the Windows system from a VHD. The Remote Desktop Protocol (RDP) of Windows 7 is also enhanced to support real-time multimedia application including video playback and 3D games. That means that Direct X 10 can be used in a remote desktop environment. The three application limit will be removed from Windows 7 Starter.

” Hey your server is infected with virus, google has blocked it again…can you fix it or not !!!”

This is the words that most of the webhosts hear from their customers these days. Anyway I would like to explain here, how and why these kinds of attacks are done.

The first point that I would like to share with you is that, it is NOT a server issue.

The main reason for such an attack is either

1. A Vulnerable code.  Most of the websites use CMS such as wordpress/joomla etc. If they are not updated properly, you are likely to have attacked.

2. A weak ftp password, that can be easily cracked by bruteforcing.

3. A clinet Pc ( Windows) being infected by virus and this is the most common way I have seen so far.

Working

I am not explaining here the first two methods as they are self explanatory. The third one works as mentioned below.

It startes with a google search. When someone searches for something in google, probably infected websites or even attackers website itself pops up in results.

When the user click on this, his pc gets infected with the virus.

If he is a webmaster, when he tries to upload or edit contents of his website, the virus code is also injected.

So what does this injected code do ?

The basic idea is that an code loads the content of an external site(Virus website) into the site, sets the external content to be invisible and then overlays the page you’re looking at. When you click a link you see on the current page, you are in fact clicking on the externally loaded page and about to load pretty much whatever the attacker wants.

Thus it propagates from client Pc to Pc.

Got Infected..What to do now!!

If you have a good backup, you are saved. Else you have to contact someone to write some kind of script to remove the injected code. The sad part is, I have seen many hexadecimal code which does’nt have any pattern. In this case it is extremely difficult if your site is having thousands of webpages.

Also, I have seem some attacks, where the original content is replaced. In that case, if you do not have any backups there is no other way than to contact developer to rebuild the website.

How to Avoid

The basic steps that is to be done to prevent this type of attack in future are

1. Install software from the latest version of the developer’s site manually.
2. Check this site periodically or use any built in update functions the script may have to ensure you are running the latest version.
3. Stay up to date with news the developers may post or any exploits posted on security sites such as http://www.securityfocus.com/. Some times developers just can’t patch their software fast enough, some developers can’t even fix the exploits in their software between versions.

4. Use a good antivirus software in your PC. ( Anyway Linux users dont have to worry about this !!!)