Windows

Hackers are actively exploiting a critical vulnerability in Microsoft's Windows operating system that allows them to remotely execute malicious code when victims visit a booby-trapped website.

"These attacks are being distributed both via malicious web pages intended for Internet Explorer users and through Office documents," Andrew Lyons, a Google security engineer, wrote in a blog post published Tuesday. "Users running Windows XP up to and including Windows 7 are known to be vulnerable."

All Windows 8 licensed hardware will be shipping with secure boot enabled by default in their replacement for the BIOS, Unfied Extensible Firmware Interface (UEFI). So far, so good, who doesn’t want more security? The fly in the soup is that by default only Windows 8 will run on these systems, so no Linux, no BSD, heck, no Windows XP for that matter. Fedora Linux, Red Hat’s community distribution, has found a way: sign up with Microsoft, via Verisign to make their own Windows 8 system compatible UEFI secure boot key. A lot of Linux people hate this compromise.

Every Windows computer needs a beginners programming language. Those of us from the DOS days can look back fondly on QBasic. From learning how to program, to just having a quick and easy scripting language that a business user can use to write some simple app in a few minutes, a beginners language makes sense. So what beginners programming language might fit the bill for Windows 8? Microsoft's own Small Basic!