Mind Circus

On reading about the new Asus N10J, it seems that it allows you to log in using your face:

Smart Technology – Quick Logons through Facial Recognition

Continuing with the tradition of breaking tradition, ASUS introduces a whole new way in which users logon to their computers—through facial recognition. The SmartLogon system detects the user’s face and logs on without any intervention from the user. This system is designed to learn the variations of the user’s facial features, and is capable of performing detection in different lighting conditions.

Maybe I’m a cynic, but I wonder what happens if you take a photo of the target user, print it out life-size and show it to the camera? It might even work with a high-res passport photo scan. Hmmmm, curious…

Think again:

Two pieces of malicious software affecting Apple’s Mac OS X appeared this week: a Trojan horse with the ability to download and install malicious code of an attacker’s choice, and a hacker tool for creating backdoors, according to security vendors.

The Trojan — called ‘OSX.RSPlug.D’ by Intego, the Mac security specialist that discovered the threat — is a variant on an older piece of malicious code but with a new installer, Intego said.

Naturally, it targets users in a traditional way:

The Trojan is found on porn websites posing as a codec needed to play video files, a technique used to trick the user into downloading and installing it.

I find myself saying this a fair bit: Mac OS X is not necessarily more secure than any other OS. At the present time, given their lower market share, they’re just not as sweet a target as the Windows install base. As Macs reach a critical mass, they’ll become just as desirable to infect as any other computer.

According to Engadget, even in a Pre-Beta state, Win 7 is making great progress

Windows 7 also manages wireless radios better allowing them to drop below 100% power draw while managing the connection. And by tweaking the OS kernel, the CPU can sometimes run at a lower frequency and stay idle longer. This results are a minimum of 11% better battery life for Windows 7 compared to Vista — and we’re still only talking about pre-Beta Windows 7 software, mind you. Nice. 

Nice, indeed

If you’ve ever struggled with configuring automated, scheduled backups for a SQL Express server, then check out Brian Knight’s super handy scripts.

The script contains three files:

• BackupExpress.sql – Does the bulk of the work, backing up every database on the instance other than tempdb.
• BackupExpress.cmd – The batch file that executes the script. Must pass in the instance name.
• ScheduleBackups.cmd – Schedules the job by using AT. Must pass in the instance name to schedule like ScheduleBackups.cmd .\SQLExpress.

To do this, make sure you have the Task Scheduler service started. Uncompress all three of the files into the root of your C drive and run the schedule file from the command prompt.

I tried to keep the solution simple since most people that have SQL Express on their workstation may not be technical. So with that said, there is very little configuration or options. The backup solution keeps 7 days of history and constantly overwrites the previous week’s backup.

Grab the scripts from the full blog post.

Don’t forget to add the Instance name of your SQL Express Server when you run ScheduleBackups.cmd from the command line, like so:

ScheduleBackups.cmd MYSQLSERVER\SQLEXPRESS

My colleague Dave just pointed me to an open-source alternative to MS Project:

OpenProj is a free, open source desktop alternative to Microsoft Project. The OpenProj solution is ideal for desktop project management and is available on Linux, Unix, Mac or Windows. OpenProj is a complete desktop replacement of Microsoft Project and even opens existing native Project files. OpenProj shares the most advanced scheduling engine in the industry with Project-ON-Demand. The OpenProj solution has Gantt Charts, Network Diagrams (PERT Charts), WBS and RBS charts, Earned Value costing and more. You can get more detailed information on OpenProj or download now!

Sounds promising. If it really is a viable alternative, it’ll save us a good £350ish per volume licence! Now, to find a few willing Project Managers to try it out…