As if the last security hole in Internet Explorer was not enough, here’s yet another reason to drop Microsoft Software. This time it’s their cash-cow, Office:

Attackers are exploiting the just-patched vulnerability in Internet Explorer (IE) by hiding malicious ActiveX controls in Microsoft Word documents, according to security researchers.

“Inside the document is an ActiveX control, and in that control is a line that makes it call out to the site that’s hosting the malware,” said David Marcus, the director of security research and communications for McAfee’s Avert Labs. “This is a pretty insidious way to attack people, because it’s invisible to the eye, the communication with the site.”

This all reminds me of a sieve - full of holes.

If I was a small business using Microsoft application software today, I would be dropping it faster than a red-hot rock. If I was a CTO I would be planning now how to migrate away.

OpenOffice.org will protect you from malicious ActiveX in documents, Firefox for web browsing and Thunderbird for email will do the same whilst allowing you to continue to use the Windows OS as you plan the final step to freedom. Ubuntu will complete the process.

If you need help, there are companies out there who can provide support and technical assistance.

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I would like to announce the launch of a new social networking site, specifically catering to the needs of people called Alan*.

The idea came to me after a Friday night in my local pub, and being told by one of our colleagues at Canonical, that we are now simply known as “The Alans”. Funnily the chaps at Elonex usually call us that too…

If you are an Alan, or know one, then head on over to http://thealans.com where you will meet up with literally several like-named people. If you happen not to be called Alan then you can still register and take a look around, but we might just delete your profile after a few weeks. The site is based on the Elgg social networking platform. If you think your company could use facebook-like technology as an internal tool that you can control then give me a shout and we can help you get started with Elgg.

* Alternative spellings are of course acceptable as are gender alternatives such as Alana, Allana and Alanis.

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Halleluya

The Inquirer has broken the news that the UK Government, helped by BECTA, has finally approved at least two companies to be official suppliers of Open Source Software into our Education sector.

OPEN SOURCE companies have been granted official permission to supply software to the UK public sector for the first time in British history.

At least two Open Source software suppliers have been awarded places on the £80 million Software for Educational Institutions Framework, making them official suppliers to UK schools and scoring a victory in what has been a long and frustrating battle against favouritism shown to conventional commercial software companies in UK politics and procurement.

One of the suppliers is Sirius IT run by Mark Taylor.

Mark, here’s many congratulations from us at The Open Learning Centre. You have been a fantastic advocate for OSS for many years and this award to supply is thoroughly deserved. We wish your company every success.

Novell are apparently another “named” party to the supplier framework and having been long-time sponsors of the OSS eco-system also deserve congratulations. Now, if only they’d drop the deal-with-the-devil…

Novell didn’t make it; Becta have just announced and released the list of the 12 suppliers. And as Glyn Moody also considers, the “pact with the Devil” in which Novell sold its identity to Microsoft probably means that it isn’t such a bad thing in reality. By way of support, the article I wrote just 6 weeks ago “How to remove Mono from Ubuntu…” was, and remains, the most read piece on the whole blog. And almost all of the 50+ comments are in support of the objective. Clearly there isn’t much appetite for tainited code in FLOSS from the enlightened…

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I switched on our new website this morning. It has taken far longer than I anticipated, but these things always do don’t they?

The layout and general idea is my own design, although the colour palette itself came from here which I thought was a brilliant resource. Using the search tool, I had the main colour for our Logo (#D40000) and this site threw up several ideas which were very nice indeed. I liked Rich Choice Lighten the most.

The initial idea for the menu came from Stu Nicholls’ excellent site CSS Play. I tried to use this menu in my original design but it didn’t play well with Joomla! and the accursed IE6 browser - man that is one bad web browser. So I opted for the really great swMenuFree native Joomla! module instead.

The site is running on Joomla! 1.5 and is still a WIP (Work In Progress) but then it probably always will be to be honest. There’s quite a bit of content still to do - mainly around the technology section - adding and describing applications that we feel are important and deserve covering. But now the framework is in place we can add to it fairly easily.

I will be packaging the template up shortly. It’s GPL and will be available for download from the site, probably under the resources section somewhere.

Any comments about it are very welcome. Our old site badly needed a refresh and this is quite a big change, although I definitely think it is more professional looking.

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Over the last few years Becta, the government’s advisers to education on technology, have been consistently increasing their level of interest and support for Free and Open Source Software. Today they surprised a lot of folk by awarding a contract relating to Free and Open Source software to a little consultancy called AlphaPlus. No I haven’t heard of them either. There was quite a bit of competition for this tender, and some of those who were unlucky this time, including our friend Mark Taylor at the Open Source Consortium, are struggling to understand the decision. You can read Mark’s reflective musings in an open letter here. It doesn’t appear to me that AlphaPlus have done anything untoward in the process, most reactions I have seen were along the lines of “Who?” rather than “Not them again!”. I am sure the education sector in the UK will continue on the path of software Freedom, in fact I wouldn’t be shocked if Freedom 1 (The freedom to study how the program works, and adapt it to your needs) became mandatory for all software used in Education. I am sure that as schools continue on their path they will need more help and assistance which they will get via procurement processes (procurement just means “buying stuff from people who like filling in forms”) and in these processes contracts will be awarded to big companies and small companies and companies full of educationalists and others full of geeks. Some you win, most you lose.

We at The Open Learning Centre congratulate AlphaPlus Consultancy on winning this contract and wish them the best of luck in delivering a fantastic solution that will just encourage more and more future contracts to go to deserving little consulting companies

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The Open Learning Centre has a stand at the forthcoming Surrey Heath Business Expo in Camberley on 17th June. We have been busy chaps getting stands made up, givaway CDs printed and preparing the all important speaking slot. We have a 20 minute seminar showing local businesses how they can spend less and do more, by using Free and Open Source Software. If you are in the general area then do pop in to see us, and the other exhibitors. It promises to be a fun event, a small local and friendly tradeshow, we are looking forward to it.

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