Browser Wars, Round N

ComputerWeekly says:

There have now been more flaws in the Firefox browser this year than in Microsoft’s Internet Explorer.

I think this needs considerable qualifying:

The Firefox team have fixed more things than the MSIE team this year;

MSIE has over six times as many outstanding (unfixed) bugs as Firefox;

MSIE’s many outstanding flaws are rated “Highly critical”, FF’s few are rated “Less critical”;

Working wild exploits for FF: zero; for MSIE: hundreds;

Because MSIE is closed-source, only a very few people can audit it, but anybody can audit FF;

This cannot be written off to popularity, since MSIE’s exposure far outweighs the popularity ratio.

For some interesting if somewhat unnerving statistics, see here:

http://nanobox.chipx86.com/ie_is_dangerous.php

For the record, I use the Konqueror web browser.

Comments

every-application-is-part-of-a-toolkit at work

I have a LibreOffice Impress slideshow that I wish to turn into a narrated video. 1. export the slideshow as PNG images (if that is partially broken — as at now — at higher resolutions, Export Directly as PDF then use ‘pdftoppm’ (from the poppler-utils package) to do the same). 2. write a small C program (63 lines including comments) to display those images one at a time, writing a config file entry for Imagination (default transition: ‘cross fade’) based on when the image-viewer application (‘display,’ from the GraphicsMagick suite) is closed on each one; run that, read each image aloud, then close each image in turn. 3. run ‘Imagination’ over the config file to produce a silent MP4 video with the correct timings. 4. run ‘Audacity’ to record speech while using ‘SMPlayer’ to display the silent video, then export that recording as a WAV file. 4a. optionally, use ‘TiMIDIty’ to convert a non-copyright-encumbered MIDI tune to WAV, then import that and blend it with the speech (as a quiet b

new life for an old (FTX) PSU, improved life for one human

the LEDs on this 5m strip happen to emit light centred on a red that does unexpectedly helpful things to (and surprisingly deeply within) a human routinely exposed to it. it has been soldered to a Molex connector, plugged into a TFX power supply from a (retired: the MoBo is cactus) Small Form Factor PC, the assorted PSU connectors (and loose end from the strip) have been taped over. the LED strip cost $10.24 including postage, the rest cost $0, the PSU is running at 12½% of capacity, consumes less power than a laptop plug-pack despite running a fan. trial runs begin today.

boundaries

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Plantagenet Penguinista

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