Autodesk Design Review DWF Viewer Vulnerability »

Secunia is reporting a vulnerability with Autodesk’s Design Review DWF Viewer which can lead to a compromised PC.

The vulnerability stems from a flaw in the ActiveX control including the insecure “SaveAs()” method. If exploited, arbitrary files on the compromised computer can be overwritten.

This vulnerability was originally discovered by “bruiser” from Nine Situations Group and outlined here.  Bruiser tested the vulnerability using Internet Explorer 6 along with Revit Architecture 2009 SP2 and Autodesk Design Review 2009.

DWF is a very popular file format for quickly and easily sending drawing files through email, among other things.  Many CAD users prefer DWF because of its vector based capabilities, small file size and the ability for people to view drawing files without having AutoCad installed.  I previously posted on the benefits of DWF for CAD users.

Autocad 2008 Free Trial »

Autocad continues to be the industry standard for CAD and Autodesk has done a great job with their 2008 Autocad product. The 2007 version had some hiccups but they seem to have ironed them out with the newest version.

The full version of Autocad 2008 can be downloaded here or you can buy Online at Autodesk directly. After you install it, Autodesk will give you 30 days of the trial version with no restrictions, so take advantage of it.

If after trying AutoCAD 2008 you decide that it is more than you really need, you can always buy AutoCAD LT 2008 from Autodesk! AutoCAD LT is basically AutoCAD without the 3D capabilities and that means the price is much lower. You can also get a trial version of this product so you can compare firsthand for yourself the differences between the two.

Firefox Memory Leak »

It may just be me, but is Firefox having some memory leak issues? I have noticed it over the past few weeks and today it has finally forced me to exclusively use my second favorite browser – Opera, which is a super browser in its own right.

When I fire up Firefox, immediately 50Mb gets sucked up, which is way more than the amount of memory Opera uses (only 20Mb) and is more than even, dare I say, Explorer (30Mb).

So, I exported my bookmarks from Firefox and imported them into Opera.

No, I am installing the Opera versions of my favorite Firefox extensions.

With all the programs that I usually have open at a given time – Outlook (yes, I use Outlook – it syncs with my PocketPC – back off), Google Reader, usually Photoshop and sometimes AutoCad – I like to have maximum ram at my disposal. That means, Firefox has to be shelved until I can figure out why it is being such a memory hog, or they put out a patch and Opera is the new browser of choice.

Popular Blog Topics »

Most of our blog traffic comes from Google and other Search Engines but, oddly enough, the “Search” function on our blog gets quite a workout. So, I decided to post some of the most popular searches and maybe you will see something that grabs your attention.

For example, topics related to good passwords are always popular. Autocad is another hot topic for the blog. We also get tons of traffic from readers looking to secure a wireless network. Also, the series of posts I did on the TJ Maxx database hack and resulting loss of their customers credit card information has been wildly popular (my wife, who had her information stolen as a result of this event, still has not heard from TJ Maxx).

Identity theft and what to do if you think you may be a victim is another popular topic. I compiled a 4 part series of posts that tackled that issue.

One last example, a post we did on professional web design received a lot of traffic and even resulted in a few new web design clients .

Thanks to all our readers and “happy searching” .

Is Your Software Vista Compatible? »

As a rule, most people love having the latest and greatest things.  With all the hoopla surrounding Windows Vista when it was released, many people quickly jumped on the Vista train and either upgraded from Windows XP or purchased computers that had Vista installed already.  However, once they booted the machine running on the brand new OS, they began to run into problems.

There have been many stories about old-standby programs that would not work on Vista.  For example, in the beginning of Vists’s life, Apple’s iTunes was not on either the “Certified for Windows Vista” list or the “Works with Windows Vista” list. What about Adobe products? Nope. Not on the lists either.

Also, Autodesk 2008 English was the only AutoCAD platform that was originally supported. Now, most Autodesk products are supported although Architectural Desktop 2007 is the only one supported in that family.  We use AutoCAD 2005, which is not on the list, and I am not upgrading to 2008 anytime soon. So, we won’t be upgrading to Vista either (not that I was planning on it anyway ).

As far as Graphics design goes, currently only Adobe/Macromedia Studio 8 is supported, so that leaves quite a few missing.

Originally, the list showed about 800 programs labeled as Vista friendly. Of course, the “approved software” lists grew and will continue to grow as more vendors patch their programs to make them Vista-compatible. However, this information is good to know before you rush out to upgrade.

Taking this issue a step further, there are many examples of printers, scanners and the like that do not work with Vista.  So, if you upgrade OR purchase a computer pre-installed with Vista, you might have to upgrade other things as well.  Click here and check to see if your current equipment is on the list.  NOTICE – you can only view this list it you check it through Internet Explorer… it won’t work with the Firefox or Opera web browsers – good one Microsoft.