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WOW Weekly – Dell, Xbox Turns 10, WP App Release

Welcome to this week’s WOW Weekly. Dell got into a little hot water when a rogue root certificate was found on its systems. Xbox 360 celebrated its 10th Birthday. WordPress.com release a handy new piece of software for the Mac and the Raspberry Pi Zero is looking rather yummy.

Dell - Computer Security
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Dell eDellRoot Security Alert

Dell the giant computer manufacturer got itself into a little hot water when it was discovered that they had included a rogue root certificate on their systems. The eDellRoot certificate can cause major security issues and through misuse can verify illegitimate software as being legit, also known as a man in the middle attack. Dell insist that they were wrong to install the root certificate as the intended purpose was to use it with the Dell support tool which makes it faster and easier for customers to maintain their system. They have issued an in-depth guide to uninstall it but will also release an update soon to automatically remove it.

Xbox 360 Turns 10

It’s hard to imagine that the Xbox 360 is now 10 years old. When it was released on the 22nd November there wasn’t enough units manufactured in time and those that were lucky enough to buy one could practically double their money if they wanted to sell their new prized possession.

The Sony Playstation 3 was released in 2006 in direct competition with the Xbox 360 for the hardcore gaming genre, a battle which was won by the 360 in our household even though we purchased the PS3 first, remember the Blu-Ray/HD debate? When we bought the Xbox 360 7 months later it became our personal favourite and the PS3 was used for playing Blu-ray discs and the occasional game that you couldn’t buy on the 360.

On a sad note the Xbox 360 is likely to get discontinued next year whilst top game companies are only developing games for the Xbox One and PS4. The Xbox 360 has shaped a gaming generation, roll on the next 10 years!

New Releases in Brief

WP.com brings out a new open source blogging app for the Mac, with Windows and Linux versions coming soon. Not only does it free your browser from distracting you, with Jetpack you can publish from your self hosted blogs, WP blogs, read the blogs you are following and check out those vital web stats. I wrote this blog post using it and I’m pretty impressed with the realtime speed on switching back and forth from wp-admin to desktop app. Looking forward to future versions and my dream would be to include established plugins like Yoast SEO.

The Raspberry Pi, a popular cheap mini computer board for DIY enthusiasts has been around for 3 years and now has a new kid on the block. The Raspberry Pi Zero, made in Wales, is the size of a credit card and is priced at $5. Featuring a 1GHz ARM11 core broadcom processor which is 40% faster than the Pi 1, 512MB of RAM, micro USB sockets for data and power, a mini hdmi socket for 1080p video output. The raspberry pi zero runs Raspbian. If you are lucky to get your hands on one the MagPie magazine are giving one away for free in their latest edition. If you can’t find a copy of the magazine then someone has snapped them all up and will be selling them on Ebay at a highly inflated price, no doubt!

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