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Microsoft has released a table shaped, multi-touch sensitive computer called the Surface. It looks cool and more than one person can interact with the content through touch and gesture, without the use of a mouse or keyboard. This 30-inch table computer costs around $10,000 and is targeted towards big hotels, casinos, phone stores, restaurants and public entertainment venues. The Surface runs on Windows Vista and has Ethernet, Wireless and Bluetooth connectivity. Here’s a video of first look at Surface.

MailPlane is a Gmail cient for Mac OS X. I’ve been using it for few weeks, and must say that I’m really loving it. Yesterday it was updated to 1.46, this latest version supports multiple Gmail accounts. Now I can switch between my Gmail accounts with a click. It has a sleek mac look, supports drag and drop attachment, comes with an iphoto plugin and many more… currently it’s in private beta, if you want to try it, go and register here, you’ll have to wait for your turn, they’re sending 100 invitation each day.

WordPress 2.2 is available for download and as always Technosailor has an article on 10 Things You Should Know About WordPress 2.2 . I’m not going to upgrade my blog to 2.2 mainly because my web server is still using MySQL 3.x, but I’ve seen several users downgrading after hasty upgrade due to the widget problem (apparently affecting only IE users). So, if you’re using the widgets and planning to upgrade your blog to Wordpress 2.2, you might consider waiting until the bug is fixed.

I locked myself in for 2 months to prepare for the CISSP (Certified Information System Security Professional) exam, and now I’m back triumphant to tell the story. Yes, I just received the Congratulations email from ISC2. I’m sharing my experience here with a hope that it might be helpful to anyone who’s preparing to take the exam. There’s no doubt that it was THE MOST difficult exam I’ve ever taken.

Let me give you a general idea about this certification. CISSP is a security certification carried out by (ISC)², which is a globally recognized, vendor neutral organization for certifying information security professionals. To pass the CISSP exam you’ll have to be competent in 10 Domains of the Common Body of Knowledge (CBK):

• Access Control
• Application Security
• Business Continuity and Disaster Recovery Planning
• Cryptography
• Information Security and Risk Management
• Legal, Regulations, Compliance and Investigations
• Operations Security
• Physical (Environmental) Security
• Security Architecture and Design
• Telecommunications and Network Security

To qualify to sit for the exams you need to:

Subscribe to the (ISC)² Code of Ethics.
Have a minimum of four years of direct full-time security professional work experience in one or more of the ten domains of the (ISC)² CISSP® CBK® or three years of direct full-time security professional work experience in one or more of the ten domains of the CISSP® CBK® with a college degree. Additionally, a Master’s Degree in Information Security from a National Center of Excellence can substitute for one year toward the four-year requirement.

Update: Effective 1 October 2007, professional work experience requirements for the CISSP will increase from four to five years, and direct full-time security professional work experience will be required in two or more of the ten CISSP CBK domains. A new endorsement policy will also be in effect, requiring anyone who passes a CISSP, CAP, or SSCP exam to have their qualifications endorsed by another (ISC)² credential holder. These changes will not affect those who sit for an examination on or before 30 September 2007. For more information, please refer to the Experience Requirement Change FAQs.

The exam itself is 6 hours long, with 250 questions based on the 10 domains. 25 out of 250 questions are for research, but you’ll have to answer all of them, and there’s no way of knowing which one is which. So, 225 questions will be scored, and you’ll have to get 700 out of a possible 1000 points on the grading scale to pass. Different questions carry different weight (marks) and there’s no way to know which question carries how much marks. As of writing this, the exam costs US$ 499 if you register 16 days ahead of exam date or US$ 599 if you register later.

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