Once more, I am trying if dasBlog and JRoller are finaly cooperating. This is the first entry to be cross posted. Let's see if this works. Since I am using dasBlog as my Main blog, here are the settings for crossposting to http://blogs.sun.com/roller/page/beuchelt:

Profile Name
Host Name		Port
Username		(set)
Password		Repeat
Endpoint		API Type	Blogger

Windows Vista introduces a new 'Network Level Authentication' mechanism to RDP. It will be intereting to find out what they are doing there exactly, but meanwhile you might want to be able to use your legacy RDP clients to access your Vista desktop. Here is how you do this:

To configure Vista for the old RDP clients, go to Control Panel -> System -> Advanced System Settings. Select the "Remote" tab and then "Allow connections from computers running any version of Remote Desktop". That works - at the very least - good for mstsc.exe on Windows.

Here is a screen shot (Build 5342):

Now, the interesting thing would be to get this to work with rdesktop(1) and similar non-Windows RDP clients as well. Unfortunately, the latest Build 5342 is very uncooperative here. rdesktop fails miserably. Compare the TCP streams (upper one is rdesktop, lower one is mstsc.exe on Windows XP SP2):

Again through ConsortiumInfo: Minnesota is introducing a bill that will require the state CIO to chose products that support open standards over those that feature proprietary ones. This is definitvely good news, particularly when looking at the extensive definition of "open" in the text (H.F. 3971, 1.1 (f)):

(f) "Open standards" means specifications for the encoding and transfer of computer 
data that: 
(1) is free for all to implement and use in perpetuity, with no royalty or fee; 
(2) has no restrictions on the use of data stored in the format; 
(3) has no restrictions on the creation of software that stores, transmits, receives, or 
accesses data codified in such way; 
(4) has a specification available for all to read, in a human-readable format, written 
in commonly accepted technical language; 
(5) is documented, so that anyone can write software that can read and interpret the 
complete semantics of any data file stored in the data format; 
(6) if it allows extensions, ensures that all extensions of the data format are 
themselves documented and have the other characteristics of an open data format; 
(7) allows any file written in that format to be identified as adhering or not adhering 
to the format; 
(8) if it includes any use of encryption, provides that the encryption algorithm is 
usable on a royalty-free, nondiscriminatory manner in perpetuity, and is documented 
so that anyone in possession of the appropriate encryption key or keys is able to write 
software to unencrypt the data.

Wow - this goes definitively far beyond RAND and comes pretty close to my understanding of what 'open' really means.

It seems noteworthy that as per provision (6) in this list, the 'openness' of a data format is quite viral in the sense that it requires all descendants to be 'open' as well. One problem that I have with this provision is that the standard itself cannot gurantee that any descendants will be open - if there is an extension point, any implementator could choose to extend without documenting. This should be clarified in the text, maybe to the extend that it should reference the implementation, not the standard.

Since Vista features the new boot loader system, multi-boot is not quite so trivial. There are various guides and FAQs on how to do XP/Vista dual boot (see e.g. here or here), but getting a GRUB based OS (such as Solaris 10 U1 or Debian Linux 3.1) dual booted is not very well documented.

I used the 5342 build of Vista, which ships with the bootsect.exe command in the \boot directory of the installation medium (in my case a DVD ISO image). Ths utility is only needed if you want to go back to the original Vista boot loader by running: bootsect.exe /nt60 ALL

I first installed Vista on my system with all defaults on my first hard drive (IDE 0:0). The new boot loader was in place on the MBR for that drive.

Now I installed Debian and agreed that GRUB should take over the MBR for the IDE 0:0 drive (/dev/hda). After that, Vista became invisible and Debian booted just fine from /dev/hdb (IDE 0:1).

Now, in Debian, you have to edit the /boot/grub/menu.lst that configures grub at run time. I simply added an entry for Vista:

title	Windows Vista (Build 5342)
root	(hd0,0)
makeactive
chainloader	+1

Then you simply reboot and - voila: it should offer you a menu item for Vista. If you select that, the Vista boot loader takes over and the Windows OS comes up.

Some notes:

• I was using Virtual PC 2004 SP1 for this experiment. That is also the reason why I did not use Solaris 10, since VPC and Solaris are not really a happy couple. Since Solaris 10 U1 also uses GRUB, there should be no difference.
  
• For some strange reason I am getting a "Boot Failure" prompt now, right after the BIOS check. After hitting the <any> Key, I get to the GRUB menu.
• I have no idea if this will work similar on AMD x86 machines.
  

Marc is working on a nice and *clean* web application description language (WADL) that can be used for non-SOAP web services as well.

For an introduction to RESTful web services with JAX-WS, please take a look at his recent post. It might be an interesting excercise to get this to work with Clemens' RESTful extension for WCF.

Here is a nice little tool for Firefox that helps in creating tags for blogs entries. It allows you to create master lists to choose your frequently used tags from. While it has a somewhat odd interface, it is still quite useful.

There are a couple of quite interesting developments in the office document formats discussion. One if them being that the Australian National Archive is now moving their entire content to ODF. This can be considered a major victory for ODF on the long road to broad government adoption.

A little mixed is the current situation at SC 34 of ISO regarding the formal standardization of ODF through ISO/ITU-T: since Microsoft recently joined the sub-committee working on this, there is the possibility that they are trying to stall the process, until their OpenXML formats make ECMA and thus go head to head with ODF.

Microsoft on the other side is now also sponsoring a community dedicated to working with their XML office formats. There is nothing about the binary formats (yet?), but it hosts a few interesting articles and links, including a high-level introduction to the packaging model.

Pat found this interesting article by Chuck. It is on a Java implementation of the InfoCard protocol.

Tags: InfoCard, Interoperability, Java, Identity

While XUL is definitively an interesting alternative to XAML for creating application through XML, Java now has its own: JAXX

If you are interested in UI design, using XML in new ways or XAML (the markup language for creating .NET applications in WPF), you might want to check out JAXX as well.

Tags: JAXX, Java, XML, XAML

The Sun Game Server is the first product released from Project Darkstar. It is a online gaming engine that scales massivly and comes with a rich set of client APIs. You can get the EA bits here: https://games.dev.java.net/.

Update: The final web site for Darkstar is going to be http://www.projectdarkstar.com - Thanks to Jeff Kesselman for pointing this out.

Tags: Online Gaming, Darkstar

Yahoo! (well, actually more: Goooogle!) Google Earth finally has some decent resolution for my most favorite regon on the planet: Cologne, Germany and surrounding areas. My parents house is extremly crisp - you can see the citrus plant on their porch .

Tags: Google Earth

Here is a really nice article on InfoCard. Not only does it cover the implementation and APIs, but also the message flow.

Here is an interesting interview with Steve Ballmer of Microsoft. In it, he muses about the potential claims that Microsoft might make against the Linux user and development community.

In order to limit access for specific pages on MediaWiki (e.g. for developing internal ideas etc.) you might find this add-on to MediaWiki interesting. It add a 'restrict' functionality to each article, similar to the 'protect' mechanism. Its access control is not very fancy (if you are in a group called 'restrict' you can view and edit all restricted pages), but it is useful in general.

Tags: MediaWiki

Now that I have less time than ususal, it might be a good time to restart some of my GSS-SAML efforts. If you are interested, I suggest you subscribe to saml-mechanism@washington.edu and/or check the archives.

To get something for the Montreal IETF meeting, I will coordinate writing a draft. Please let me know if you are interested.

Tags: GSS-SAML, SAML

This is just plain sickening: FCC Comissioner Martin expressed understanding for the plans of the large telcos like AT&T to extort Internet web sites and services. While some arguments brought forth might be valid, in the end the consumers actually pay the ISP and telcos to get access to all internet sites with any traffic they (the customers) like. As far as I am concerned, creating a 'multi-tiered' internet is getting dangerously close to limiting free speech. To me this is a great example of over-regulation and monopolies harming individuals rights.

Tags: Regulation, FCC, Internet

I recently started to play around with a useful tool called TrueCrypt. It allows to create an encrypted diskfile, that can be mounted on most major operating systems by giving the proper password.

This comes in REALLY handy, when you have a USB key chain drive to spare: I have been using it to store a lot of my personal information like passport and credit card numbers, but also scans of certificates, degrees etc.

Given the fact that you can employ a triple encryption using AES, Twofish and Serpent, along with RIPEMD-160 or Whirlpool for hashing. The code is open source.

Tags: Security, TrueCrypt, Encryption