MS distributes kids' book

Microsoft's home server marketing reached new levels at the 2008 Consumer Electronics Show as the software giant published a children's book called: "Mommy, why is there a server in the house?" says design news.

The tongue-in-cheek book includes illustrations of commercial servers and explains to children (and adults) that servers can play a role at home.

"Big people have a server at the office," the book says. "The office is a boring place where big people do boring things. Offices are why big people get grumpy, and say bad words. But guess what? Some servers aren't boring. They don't go in offices...they go in houses! Maybe in your house!"

A mass attack ongoing for the past month against Linux Apache Web servers has become increasingly successful because its break-in method makes use of an automated password and installation process, according to a security researcher monitoring its progress, reports PC World.

Don Jackson, senior security researcher at SecureWorks, says the attack, which was first thought to have compromised several hundred Web sites, has hit at least 10 000. He says the attack relies on making use of stolen passwords to Linux Apache servers by automating the installation process to force it to serve up attacks against vulnerabilities on Windows clients.

"The Web server ends up serving up vulnerabilities from 2006 related to Windows malware," Jackson says. "The whole attack is very mysterious. It's based on a botnet but it doesn't match the Russian and Chinese groups and may be Western Europe or North American."

Dell's PowerEdge M-Series is a response to customer demand for products that reduce energy consumption while maintaining high levels of performance, says InformationWeek.

Dell has introduced a blade server series that the computer maker said is designed from the ground up for energy efficiency.

The PowerEdge M1000e is a 10U enclosure that supports up to 16 blade servers. The hardware has been optimised for Dell PowerEdge M600 and M605 blades, which support up to two quad-core Intel Xeon processors and two dual-core AMD Opteron processors, respectively.