Month: March 2020

A successful Git branching model

Enrico

In this post I present the development model that I’ve introduced for some of my projects (both at work and private) about a year ago, and which has turned out to be very successful. I’ve been meaning to write about it for a while now, but I’ve never really found the time to do so thoroughly, until now. I won’t talk about any of the projects’ details, merely about the branching strategy and release management. Why git? For a thorough discussion on the pros and cons of Git compared to centralized…

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WHO encourages people to game #PlayApartTogether

Enrico
Word Health Organization

According to a report by USA Today, Activision-Blizzard and other game makers kicked off an initiative called #PlayApartTogether to entertain themselves while practicing social distancing. The initiative, supported by the World Health Organization (WHO), is particularly noteworthy because WHO previously designated video game addiction as an official mental health disorder. But the group hopes that the industry can “reach millions with important messages to help prevent the spread of COVID-19,” said Ray Chambers, the WHO ambassador for global strategy in a statement. Game companies will encourage players to stay distanced and observe other safety measures including hand hygiene, he…

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Are Windows 10 Control Panel’s days numbered?

Enrico
windows10 settings

Ever since the Windows 8 days, Microsoft has had two settings apps built into Windows. A modern Settings app, and a legacy settings app known as Control Panel. Microsoft has been slowly working to replace the legacy Control Panel with the modern Settings app on Windows 10, but as Windows Control Panel has been part of the OS for decades, transferring all those settings to the new app takes a lot of time. It’s been five years, and that process still isn’t done. With that said, the latest Windows Insider builds of…

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Getting started with GitHub Sponsors

Enrico

Are you interested in GitHub Sponsors but don’t know where to start? Do you have questions about whether you should sign up as an individual or as an organization? This guide walks you through several ways you can start pursuing funding for your open source work. We’ll cover how to sign up and receive funds, as an: Individual  Organization with a bank account Organization without a bank account And we’ll review a few other topics on how to: Display your Sponsors profile or external funding links with a button on your project Add sponsor…

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Microsoft warns of Windows zero-day exploited in the wild

Enrico

Hackers are exploiting a zero-day vulnerability in the Windows 7 OS to take over systems, Microsoft said in a security alert today. The zero-day is located in the Adobe Type Manager Library (atmfd.dll), a library that Microsoft uses to render PostScript Type 1 fonts inside multiple versions of the Windows OS. Microsoft says there are two remote code execution (RCE) vulnerabilities in this built-in library that allow attackers to run code on a user’s system and take actions on their behalf. “There are multiple ways an attacker could exploit the vulnerability, such…

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Windows Subsystem for Linux is making inroads with developers

Enrico

Last week, Microsoft and Canonical (the company behind the Ubuntu Linux distribution) were scheduled to host a developer conference focused on the Windows Subsystem for Linux (WSL) at Microsoft’s Redmond campus. Ars was invited, and I had plane tickets in hand—but the physical conference was canceled at the last minute due to the coronavirus. Note that I did say the physical conference was canceled—WSLconf itself went on, with 22 speakers and 21 talks given. Virtual attendees were reportedly more than double the (sold out) physical attendee registration and included developers…

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