INFINITE LOOP / THE APPLE ECOSYSTEM Rendering bug crashes OS X, iOS apps with string of Arabic characters.

http://arstechnica.com/apple/2013/08/rendering-bug-crashes-os-x-and-ios-apps-with-string-of-arabic-characters/

And for another recent OSX sudo issue see:
http://arstechnica.com/security/2013/08/unpatched-mac-bug-gives-attackers-super-user-status-by-going-back-in-time/

Not a good time for Apple devices! Although this won't help I always recommend Mac users use a anit-virus package. There is no excuse really as there are free ones out there such as Avast's: http://www.avast.com/en-gb/free-antivirus-mac . I also recommend their Android security software which is awesome and much better than Apples built in 'find my phone' feature set.

Windows 8 and Avast won't play nice.

So so I really like Window 8. I started by trying an upgrade of my windows 7 install but was marred by blue screens of death. Not fun.... So I though it would be best to do a clean install (I wanted to anyway, I was just being lazy) but the BSODs continued....

ndis.sys and aswnet.sys were the culprits... This problem proved to be my Avast security suite... One uninstall and hey presto the system was fully functional again.

Avast say that program version 7.0.1473
 (announcement: http://forum.avast.com/index.php?topic=107531.0 ) is fully compatible but it looks like a fair few people are seeing the same issue:
http://forum.avast.com/index.php?topic=107811.0

I think I'll wait for a few more updates before installing it again. Overall I'm really liking the UI of windows 8. It takes a bit of getting used to but once you realise you can just start typing from the start screen to search for what you want its dead quick to navigate!

Microsoft (not so) security essentials

Today I started being re-directed to random sites when using Google search. Immediately this started ringing alarm bells... I'm on a new Windows 7 install and previously was using Avast (paid for). As I hadn't got the license file off of my Dad and was being a bit lazy I just installed Microsoft security essentials which I had not had an issue with before.

I was running fine for about a week until these Google issues today.... I eventually found a strange program sitting in the startup section of msconfig. I tried to open MS security essentials but it kept closing immediately. I removed the AV and installed the free version of Avast. This picked up the virus straight away and dealt with it so I'm already impressed. Then started a boot time scan just to double check everything was sorted and it was.

Once back up I put back on the paid license and all was good.