The Good Universities Guide 2008

The Good Universities Guide for 2008 has been released. This guide is based on information from graduating students in 2005.

The Good Universities Guide is Australia’s premier reference book because it is the only one that contains independent 5-star performance ratings of Australian undergraduate degree courses and their providers. These are based on exiting student surveys and thus are unbiased!

… Despite Prime Minister John Howard’s 1999 claim that his Government would not introduce an American-style system with fees costing more than $100,000, 111 degrees nationwide now cost six-figure sums. According to The Good Universities Guide, the number has more than doubled in three years. .. [1]

… With Melbourne University set to massively cut the number of undergraduate degrees it teaches under its US-styled Melbourne Model, the number of six-figure degrees in Victoria will fall next year from 43 to 36. This includes 25 at Monash, five at Deakin, four at Melbourne and two at RMIT. … [1]

[1] Student loans blow out as degree prices soar (2007-Aug-15) [The Age]
[2] The Good Universities Guides Website [Hobsons Guides]
[3] Annual guide delivers findings (2007-Aug-14) [The Australian]

This weeks links: 2007-08-15

What’s in your go-bag?
Whatever you want to call it, today we’re taking a look at the bag full of gadgets and productivity tools you throw over your shoulder as you head out the door, confident that you’ve got everything you need to get things done.
Show us your go bag [Lifehacker]

The IT Crowd – Season Two coming soon!
The lead-up to Season Two continues apace here at Channel 4 towers; Season one is being repeated on Thursday nights. It’s a bit late so don’t forget to set your PVRs!
And finally – FINALLY! – we can exclusively reveal that Season Two has been scheduled for Friday August 24th at 9.30pm! Get in!
IT Crowd News, Channel4.com

Gapminder
Hans Rosling is professor of health at Sweden’s Karolinska Institute. This man has an amazing ability to present statistical data – after seeing Hans Rosling’s talk over on TED I was extremely interested in the gapminder.org site. Have a look at the tools page especially the The Gapminder World 2006, beta.

New Toy – Behringer PODCASTUDIO Firewire

PODCASTUDIO comes with a studio-grade FireWire audio interface which includes the BEHRINGER Edition of Ableton Live Lite 4 music production software for PC and Mac computers. The package also features a professional 8-input mixer, high-quality headphones and a studio microphone plus cable, letting you go on air right away.

I went with the Firewire (IEEE 1394) unit as the kit appears to be more powerful straight from the box.

I have only just got my hands on this one, but first impressions are good. It is a solid set of items – Behringer Xenyx 802 mixer, Behringer C-1 Microphone, F-Control Audio FCA202 Audio Interface, Behringer HPS3000 headphones, a table microphone stand, windscreen, microphone cable, four 1/4″ jack cables, two FireWire cables.

Now to play …

[1] Behringer PODCASTUDIO Firewire [Behringer]
[2] Behringer PODCASTUDIO Firewire [Store DJ]

the.education.show

This week the education show is being held at Jeff’s Shed.

The Education Show 2007
Tuesday 14 and Wednesday 15 August
12noon to 7pm daily
Melbourne Exhibition Centre
2 Clarendon St Southbank

So what did I get to? These are the session that I made it to on the 14^th August;

Patch Tuesday Wednesday (AUG-2007)

Welcome to another Black Tuesday this time for August 2007 We have 6xCritical, 3xImportant patches for our entertainment, all are detected via Microsoft Baseline Security Analyzer. A restart will be required.

Bulletin	KB number	Description	Severity	Impact	Software
MS07-042	936227	Vulnerability in Microsoft XML Core Services Could Allow Remote Code Execution	Remote Code Execution	Critical	Windows, XML Core Services.
MS07-043	921503	Vulnerability in OLE Automation Could Allow Remote Code Execution	Remote Code Execution	Critical	Windows, Visual Basic, Office for Mac
MS07-044	940965	Vulnerability in Microsoft Excel Could Allow Remote Code Execution	Remote Code Execution	Critical	Office
MS07-045	937143	Cumulative Security Update for Internet Explorer	Remote Code Execution	Critical	Windows, Internet Explorer
MS07-046	938829	Vulnerability in GDI Could Allow Remote Code Execution	Remote Code Execution	Critical	Windows
MS07-050	938127	Vulnerability in Vector Markup Language Could Allow Remote Code Execution	Remote Code Execution	Critical	Windows, Internet Explorer.
MS07-047	936782	Vulnerability in Windows Media Player Could Allow Remote Code Execution	Remote Code Execution	Important	Windows
MS07-048	938123	Vulnerabilities in Windows Gadgets Could Allow Remote Code Execution	Remote Code Execution	Important	Windows Vista
MS07-049	937986	Vulnerability in Virtual PC and Virtual Server Could Allow Elevation of Privilege	Elevation of Privilege	Important	Virtual PC, Virtual Server
MS07-038	935807	Vulnerability in Windows Vista Firewall could allow information disclosure	information disclosure	Re-release	Windows Vista

Out of nine patches this month, eight patches patched vulnerabilities that were able to be exploited over the Internet to execute arbitrary code. [5]

PATCH NOW:
MS07-042, MS07-043, MS07-044, MS07-045, MS07-046,, MS07-047, MS07-048, MS07-049, MS07-050

Just as a reminder, support for Software Update Services (SUS) 1.0 ended last month on Tuesday, July 10, 2007. As support and update content availability for SUS 1.0 is no longer available, we encourage our customers to utilize Windows Server Update Services (WSUS) 2.0 or 3.0 as it supports updating a broader set of Microsoft products. [6]

LINKS:
[1.] Microsoft Security Bulletin Advance Notification [MS]
[2.] August ‘Black Tuesday’ overview [SANS]
[3.] Microsoft Security Bulletin Summary for August 2007 [MS]
[4.] Microsoft security updates for August 2007 [MS]
[5.] Microsoft Patch Disclosure – August 2007 [eEye]
[6.] August 2007 Monthly Security Bulletin Release [MS Security Response Center Blog]