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Atari Online News, Etc. Volume 11 Issue 19
Volume 11, Issue 19 Atari Online News, Etc. May 8, 2009
Published and Copyright (c) 1999 - 2008
All Rights Reserved
Atari Online News, Etc.
A-ONE Online Magazine
Dana P. Jacobson, Publisher/Managing Editor
Joseph Mirando, Managing Editor
Rob Mahlert, Associate Editor
Atari Online News, Etc. Staff
Dana P. Jacobson -- Editor
Joe Mirando -- "People Are Talking"
Michael Burkley -- "Unabashed Atariophile"
Albert Dayes -- "CC: Classic Chips"
Rob Mahlert -- Web site
Thomas J. Andrews -- "Keeper of the Flame"
With Contributions by:
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=~=~=~=
A-ONE #1119 05/08/09
~ Google-Apple Inquiry! ~ People Are Talking! ~ ISP Probe Continues!
~ Mini Monitor Is Useful ~ Win7 for the Holidays? ~ Twitter for Sale?
~ Michigan Seniors Site! ~ New Leisure Suit Larry ~ StarCraft II Beta!
~ Guitar Hero, Van Halen ~ Sun: We Broke The Law! ~ Star Trek: DAC!
-* Spam Down, Zombie Armies Grow -
-* Hackers Already Booby-Trapped Win7! *-
-* Windows 7 Raises Complaints from Rivals! *-
=~=~=~=
->From the Editor's Keyboard "Saying it like it is!"
""""""""""""""""""""""""""
Well, the sun has finally decided to show itself, after a week of mostly
rain and cool temperatures. About the only good things that the rain
helped me out with was my lawn needed the water and I didn't have to go to
work at the golf course. Well, I could have worked, but I was beat; and
there was just enough cold and rain to be a non-incentive to go in! Yup,
it's tough getting old[er]! Well, not in mind, just the body!
Lots to talk about, if you're in the mood these days. Yes, the banks that
got bailout packages "passed" their recent "stress" tests. Wow, are you
impressed? They had better pass them! But, how about the general public?
How about giving us a stress test and see how well we do! Like there's a
real lot of decision there, right?! People losing their jobs left and
right - which means less or no money being poured into the economy. That
makes sense, duh! Local and state government are losing money? Sure,
raise taxes more! Jack up the price of everything, we have a surplus of
cash laying around! We're in for one helluva roller coaster ride, you can
count on that!
Until next time...
=~=~=~=
PEOPLE ARE TALKING
compiled by Joe Mirando
joe@atarinews.org
Hidi ho friends and neighbors. Another week has come and gone and it's
time to dig and see if there are enough messages in the newsgroup to make
a decent column...
Nope. There are more than there were last week, but still not enough to
make an interesting column. I'll put 'em aside for next week.
It's going to be a short column this week, because my back is bothering
me. It sucks getting old, ya know that? It's not a major issue, it just
aches and spasms once in a while. I know that if I spend too much time
sitting up I'm going to end up paying for it.
Anyway, one of the things I want to talk about today is the 'banking
health report' issued this past week that says basically that, although
most of the banks they looked at are doing okay, they're still going to
need an infusion of cash to keep going. And we're talking BILLIONS here,
not pocket change.
Okay, I can accept that. Things are tough right now. But I remember back
in the 'good old days' when there was only one way to increase your funds
if you were a business, and that was to treat your customers better. The
conventional wisdom was that if you gave your customers a reason to do
business with you, they would. Even as early as the 1980's, when people
stopped putting money in banks because times were tough, banks raised
their interest rates on savings and CDs and even found ways to make
checking accounts a better deal. Giving 'em a 'deal' was a good way to
make sure your business had its best chance at survival. If your
customers made out well, you would make out well.
But it guess it ain't the 'good old days' no more... Not judging by the
way the banks are acting.
First, they tell the government that they're in dire straights and need
money to keep the entire financial system from collapsing. So we give it
to 'em. Without so much as a 'thank you', they took it. And you'd think
that would have been that. The billions of dollars, after all, in
conjunction with tightening their corporate belts, should have solved
most, if not all, of their problems, right? Yeah, I would have thought so
too.
But that belt-tightening has taken a rather unexpected turn. The
corporate gurus still got their salaries (and wait 'till next month when
it becomes apparent that they've not only gotten their 'usual' salaries
but have actually gotten raises in a disturbingly large number of cases),
but have gotten incredible bonuses. Maybe it's just me, but I remember
when a bonus was a sort of reward for having gone above and beyond what
you were expected to do; for doing a better job and being even more of an
asset than you were expected to be when you were hired. Whatever happened
to THOSE days? What happened to being responsible for your own actions?
20 years ago, a corporate executive who'd lead a company to a
multi-billion dollar loss would have been booted out the door without so
much as severance pay. Today, we offer them multiple millions of dollars
despite the fact that they've failed miserably and haven't shown the
interest or ability to reverse the trend.
But that's okay, right? They can always get more money from the
government. Perhaps what NASA and FEMA and the Social Security
Administration should ask for a bail-out. Can you imagine what NASA could
do with and extra 50 billion dollars? What natural emergencies could FEMA
be ready for with an extra $50,000,000,000.00? Social Security? Imagine
an extra fifty billion dollars in Social Security and Medicare!
Oh, but that's 'special' money! It's supposed to be FROM the people, not
FOR the people, I guess. Just to put it on context, by the way, 50
billion dollars is about $150 dollars for every man, woman and child in
the country right now. Now, right now, a hundred and fifty bucks a piece
may not sound like a HUGE amount, and many of us would give it freely in
order to help, but you've also got to consider that that's on top of your
'regular' taxes, and on top of THIS one, there are going to be others
piled on.
"Oh?" you say? You didn't realize that this was going to be on top of
your regular taxes? Where do you think they're going to get this 'extra'
money from?
The other thing I want to mention is the talk that's brewing about
picking a Supreme Court Justice. As I said last week, Associate Justice
Souter is retiring. It now falls to President Obama to choose a
replacement. Despite the mis-steps that lead to the nominations of such
'heavyweights' as Harriet Miers for Associate Justice in the last
administration, the conservatives are making noise about who the
President should nominate and who/what he should not. Y'know what guys,
the liberals won the election. You need to sit down and shut up for the
next four years where things like this are concerned.
The discussion does, however raise some important and interesting points.
SHOULD a Supreme Court Justice be, of necessity, a Judge? The answer,
evidently, seems to be no. It's not a necessity that a Justice be a
Judge. That's why they're not called Judges but Justices.
What IS important, is that a nominee be intelligent and cognizant of the
Constitution. I'm not going to get into a debate about 'legislating from
the bench' or 'activist judges', but anyone who is asked to interpret the
Constitution should be intimately familiar with it and have an
understanding of not only the intent of the authors of the Constitution,
but how it relates to today's government and citizenry.
It's a pity that the President's schedule is so full these days. As a
former professor of Constitutional Law, he'd be an ideal candidate.
[chuckle]
Yes, yes, I know that would violate the idea of separate arms of
government. Mingling the Executive branch with the Judicial. Checks and
balances, don't ya know. Heck, we've all seen what happens when one
branch rides roughshod over one or both of the other two.
The bottom line here is not about 'activist judges' or 'liberal elite' or
anything else. It's about balance. When no one branch can over-ride the
other two, you can be pretty sure that they're... if not doing their
best, at least not ganging up on the REST of us.
That's it for this week, kids. Tune in again next week, same time, same
station, and be ready to listen to what they're saying when...
PEOPLE ARE TALKING
=~=~=~=
->In This Week's Gaming Section - StarCraft II Beta Test!
""""""""""""""""""""""""""""" New Leisure Suit Larry!
Van Halen, Guitar Hero!
And more!
=~=~=~=
->A-ONE's Game Console Industry News - The Latest Gaming News!
""""""""""""""""""""""""""""""""""
StarCraft II Beta Test: Ready, Set, Click!
Care to opt-in early for the StarCraft II beta test period? Blizzard just
stamped its World of Warcraft news feed with a new post detailing the
steps necessary to make it so, if you'd like a shot at a golden ticket.
Head over to the "Beta Profile Settings" page in your Battle.net account
management interface - you'll need a Battle.net account if you don't have
one - and walk through the new beta "opt-in" procedure (basically a
system-spec snap-grab so Blizzard can ensure you're not planning to test
running Windows on WINE in Linux on a 486-something-or-other).
Only downside? You'll have to download an app to run the info-pull.
Well, that, and Blizzard's a little vague on what "other information"
refers to in the sentence "includes such information as how much RAM you
have, available hard drive space, your graphics card and driver, and
other information about your system." Will we trust 'em anyway? Probably.
Tired of opting into Blizzard's sneak previews proactively? Run the new
process once and you'll apparently have the option to volunteer for
future betas as well. Easy enough.
Note that signing up now is still a gamble. Per the StarCraft II Beta
FAQ, "once you've successfully uploaded a beta profile, the associated
Battle.net account is added to a pool of *potential* beta testers."
No word (yet) on whether this covers all eventual intended platforms,
i.e. both Windows as well as OS X.
First to test when they flip the switch? North America, Australia, and
New Zealand, says Blizzard.
Hands On with Star Trek: DAC Game
If this week's release of the Star Trek film has whet your appetite
for all things Federation, you should definitely check out Star Trek:
DAC, launching for Xbox Live on May 13. The game is not - repeat not -
continuation of the movie narrative; rather, it's a multiplayer
ship-to-ship combat game with a retro style, top-down view.
Star Trek: DAC lets up to 12 online players for game play, or you can
play locally with bots. It pits the Federation against the Romulans in
three team vs. team-battle situations: Deathmatch, Conquest (King of the
Hill), and Assault (an offense/defense situation where each force takes
turns at both options). The Conquest mode has teammates working together
to take over bases and strategic points on the map, while Assault mode
forces players to coordinate defensive strategies.
Both sides have their choice of three different ship types, each with
special weapons and skills. Flagships, like the Enterprise, are large
ships that pack a punch but are quite slow, while Bombers and Fighters
are faster but not as durable.
Combat is pretty straightforward (see enemy/shoot enemy), but there are
various power-ups to be found around the battlefield, sort of like the
question mark boxes in Mario Kart. One combat wrinkle I especially liked
was the escape pod. If your ship is destroyed, you are given the chance
to eject into a small, fragile escape pod. If you can make it out of
there in 8 seconds without getting shot, you get to "respawn" quicker
than you would otherwise, keeping some of your power-ups. Be warned:
with 12 players game play can definitely get pretty chaotic, so it might
be a good idea to get a little practice locally before stepping up to
online play.
The developers were not willing to share what "DAC" stands for, but they
hinted that if you play through the game, all would be revealed.
Star Trek: DAC will cost 800 Microsoft Points, or about $10.
Van Halen Confirmed for "Guitar Hero"
Activision Blizzard is releasing three new music-based video games this
year - "DJ Hero," "Guitar Hero 5" and "Band Hero" - and has confirmed
that "Guitar Hero: Van Halen" is on tap.
The company provided few details on any of the games. "DJ Hero," which
previously was confirmed, still doesn't have a full set list in place,
but the company has released new details about the controller. It will
be a single turntable device with three colored buttons similar to the
five fret buttons featured on "Guitar Hero."
"Band Hero" is positioned as a more family-oriented version of "Guitar
Hero," focusing on top 40 hits. "Guitar Hero 5" is expected to be
similar to all previous installments, but with the ability to "drop in
and out of songs and change band members, instruments and difficulty
levels on the fly."
The company confirmed the development of "Guitar Hero: Van Halen" to
video-game blog Joystiq. It is scheduled for release in the second half
of the year. No specific tracks were listed, but Activision said it will
include music from guest bands including Queen, Weezer, blink-182, The
Offspring and Queens of the Stone Age.
It's not clear which band members will appear as avatars within the game.
Leisure Suit Larry: Box Office Bust Review
Poor technical performance joins mindless, repetitive gameplay and a
truly atrocious sense of humor in the PlayStation 3 version of Box
Office Bust.
When the Leisure Suit Larry series was revived a few years back in Magna
Cum Laude, its bawdy, over-the-top humor and minigame-heavy action
seemed geared to capture a new generation of gutter-minded gamers.
Leisure Suit Larry: Box Office Bust seems geared to offend, bore, or
frustrate anyone who makes the mistake of playing it. The game's
shocking sense of humor has all but forsaken wit and cleverness,
choosing instead to inundate you with a constant stream of ham-fisted
innuendo and spray-and-pray vulgarity (if we say enough foul things,
some of it's gotta be funny, right?). Box Office Bust is an intensely
adult game, yet the depressingly simple gameplay features more
repetition than a children's television show. Despite their simplicity,
some of these tasks are actually difficult, thanks to poor platforming
and fighting controls. As if the aggravatingly dull action and
desperately perverse sense of humor weren't enough, the PlayStation 3
version of Box Office Bust has a number of visual problems that make
playing the game even more frustrating. On top of that, it costs 50%
more than the other versions. It's an inexcusable, insulting mess.
The star of Box Office Bust is Larry Lovage, the protagonist from Magna
Cum Laude and nephew of legendary lounge lizard Larry Laffer. Summoned
to his uncle's movie studio to help sniff out a saboteur, the young
Larry arrives in a flurry of disgusting and lewd comments. This storm
does not abate throughout the whole game, and you are subjected to a
wide spectrum of vulgarity, including (but not limited to) scatological
jokes, bestiality gags, and esoteric sexual slang. Most of the humor
tries to be shocking, but it just ends up feeling like someone spent a
few days on the Internet tracking down the nastiest stuff he could, and
then transformed it into a script. This isn't to say you won't be
shocked; Box Office Bust contains some of the foulest dialogue you'll
hear in a game. But most of it is far from entertaining, let alone funny.
This is fitting, however, because most of the game isn't fun. A lot of
your time is spent running around movie lots ad nauseam, and hijacking
the herky-jerky golf carts doesn't make it more fun, just faster. The
detailed environments have a brightly colored cartoony aesthetic
befitting a Looney Tunes game, which at least makes the endless running
hither and thither a bit more bearable. Unfortunately, the PlayStation 3
version has a lot of trouble loading these textures quickly, so you'll
often be treated to pixelated scenery that seems like a throwback to
Larry's mid-90s heyday. The frame rate is often choppy, and combined
with the abundant screen tearing, these visual issues really put a
strain on you. But the real strain kicks in when you attempt one of the
many aggravating platforming sections. Larry can jump, double-jump, and
wall-jump, and is forced to do so quite often. The controls are floaty,
so you'll have to be careful when setting up your jumps lest you send
Larry over a ledge to his doom. He also loves to grip onto walls,
preparing for a wall jump. More often than not, however, this gecko
imitation will mess up your intended jump, and you'll have to try again.
The ability to move the camera or switch into first-person view makes
jumping puzzles more manageable, but whether or not the camera will
respond in a given situation is a crapshoot.
When you're not struggling with this awkward platforming, you may be
forced to grapple with the awkward combat. Larry can punch, kick, and
block and can perform a magical-pirouette-knockdown attack, but again,
the controls aren't responsive. You may easily pirouette your enemies to
the ground, or they might gang up on you and make it difficult for you
to move. Standing your ground and duking it out is an exercise in
frustration, making the best strategy a combination of running around,
pirouetting, and kicking your enemies while they're down. There are also
some shooting and horse-riding sequences that aspire to mediocrity, and
they round out a suite of action elements that are boring at best and
infuriating at worst.
There are some mildly entertaining minigames, but they are relatively
scarce and come with their own set of problems. After you complete one
of the dream sequences in which Larry actually lives the movie he's
acting in, you get to direct the final scene. You do this by choosing
which of the three cameras to focus on as the scene is acted out.
Switching cameras in time with the action and dialogue cues is a neat
challenge, and the cameras will often reveal funny happenings just off
the set. The problem is, to do really well you have to listen to the
dialogue, which is a trial in and of itself. The other notable minigame
happens when Larry is trying to seduce one of the many women around the
lot. The dialogue here is some of the best (morbidly amusing) and worst
(absolutely atrocious) that the game has to offer. Though you can get
some good laughs out of these conversations, you'll have to endure some
pretty bad stuff. When you are successful (you literally cannot fail),
Larry takes the woman back to his skeezy trailer. Congrats?
Not really. Though Box Office Bust wears out the bottom of the dialogue
barrel by scraping it so vigorously, it barely scratches the surface of
sexual content. All you see during the much-ballyhooed act is the
suggestive rocking of Larry's trailer. Not that you'd really want to see
what is going on. All the women in the game are downright ugly, even by
cartoon sexy-lady standards. Weird eyeballs, disproportionate features,
and wonky shading effects wreak havoc on their faces, and many seem to
be smuggling overinflated rugby balls beneath their skin, which makes
them more freak show than pinup girl. This is bizarrely fitting, though,
because the idea of any woman bedding Larry after hearing his obscene
come-ons is truly frightening.
Perhaps the greatest peril you'll face when playing Box Office Bust is
that, after being so heavily bombarded with such repulsive dialogue, you
might find yourself tempted to repeat some of the things Larry says to
your friends or family. Don't. Keep your mouth shut and get rid of the
game ASAP. Leisure Suit Larry: Box Office Bust is a cesspool of foul
language and ugly personalities. The terrible gameplay is stretched thin
over hours and hours of redundant, repetitive quests, and the
PlayStation 3 version costs $29.99, while the other versions are only
$19.99 (do technical problems cost extra?). The one good thing you could
say about Leisure Suit Larry is that it aims high: by relentlessly
degrading men and women alike it transcends mere misogyny and insults us
all equally and without prejudice.
=~=~=~=
A-ONE's Headline News
The Latest in Computer Technology News
Compiled by: Dana P. Jacobson
FTC Looks at Google-Apple Board Ties
The U.S. Federal Trade Commission has launched an inquiry into whether
the ties between the boards of Apple Inc and Google Inc violate
antitrust laws, the New York Times reported on Monday.
The FTC has already notified the companies of the inquiry the report
said, citing people briefed on the matter.
Google Chief Executive Eric Schmidt and former Genentech CEO Arthur
Levinson are directors of both companies. Under federal antitrust law, a
person is not allowed to sit on the board of two companies if it
decreases competition between them.
Both Apple and Google declined to comment.
The two companies compete directly or indirectly in a number of areas,
the most obvious being the fast-growing smartphone market.
Apple's iPhone has been a huge hit for the company and is key to its
future growth prospects. Google's Android operating system is used on
T-Mobile's G1 smartphone.
In addition, the companies are both major rivals of software giant
Microsoft Corp.
Separately, the U.S. Justice Department is also making inquiries about a
class action settlement that Google reached giving it the right to
digitize and sell entire libraries, according to experts on digitization.
Last week, U.S. President Barack Obama appointed Schmidt to the
President's Council of Advisors on Science and Technology, a 20-member
group that will help formulate policy on areas where understanding of
science and technology is important.
North Dakota Supreme Court Upholds Internet Provider Probe
North Dakota's Supreme Court says the attorney general may continue a
probe into the marketing practices of an Internet service provider.
Simple.net Inc. of Mesa, Ariz., has tried to block investigations by North
Dakota and other states. It contends the investigations are barred because
of a settlement between the company and the Federal Trade Commission.
In a unanimous ruling, the North Dakota Supreme Court says the FTC
agreement does not prevent the North Dakota attorney general from
looking into Simple.net's business practices.
Attorney General Wayne Stenehjem got complaints about Simple.net because
the company was sending out incentive checks.
When customers cashed the checks, they started getting billed almost $20
a month for Internet services. Stenehjem says the sales pitch was
misleading.
Sun Micro: We May Have Broken US Anti-Bribery Law
Sun Microsystems Inc. may have broken anti-bribery laws with its actions
in an unspecified location outside the United States, a revelation that
would-be acquirer Oracle Corp. knew about before inking its $7.4 billion
takeover deal.
It's unclear what Sun's admission Friday will mean for the company.
Sun said in a regulatory filing that it found "potential violations" of
the Foreign Corrupt Practices Act, a law that prohibits U.S. companies
from bribing foreign government officials to drum up business.
Sun wouldn't say what happened or where it happened, only that it "took
remedial action" and alerted the Justice Department and the Securities
and Exchange Commission, both of which are investigating.
If a violation is found, the punishment can range from a fine to
criminal charges to even a ban on working with the U.S. government. The
government is a major source of Sun's revenue. Sun declined to comment
beyond the filing.
Oracle said in its own filing with regulators that it learned of the
possible violations before signing its agreement to buy Sun last month.
The deal is expected to close this summer and shouldn't face antitrust
objections because the companies have very little overlap. A takeover by
Sun's previous suitor, IBM Corp., which Oracle beat out in bidding for
Sun, would have been more complicated.
Oracle wants Sun because it's trying to assemble its own one-stop
technology shop, similar to what IBM and HP have, to sell services,
software and hardware.
Microsoft's Windows 7 Test Implies Holiday Launch
Microsoft Corp. has released a near-final version of the Windows 7
operating system that adds a few new features, including a way to run
Windows XP applications.
The Windows 7 "release candidate" was made available to a large group of
technology-savvy testers Thursday and will be ready for anyone to
download and try out starting Tuesday. The release candidate is
typically the version used by Microsoft's corporate customers to test
how the new system will work for them. Software developers, hardware
makers and other partners also base their next-generation products on
this version because they trust that it's stable and close to finished.
Microsoft published the Vista release candidate about five months before
the final version went on sale to consumers. If Windows 7 were to follow
the same trajectory, it could be available by the start of October.
Officially, Microsoft expects to start selling Windows 7 by the end of
January 2010, but has said this week that it is possible it could launch
in time for the holiday shopping season.
The software maker is counting on Windows 7 to win over businesses that
put off upgrading to Vista, which got off to a rough start because it
didn't work well with many existing programs and devices.
And Microsoft drew criticism from consumers when many computers
advertised beforehand as "Vista capable" were actually too weak to run
Vista's highly touted new interface and other features. People who
wanted to upgrade Windows XP computers found their graphics cards and
other components weren't up to the task.
The new system is already set up for a smoother debut because it shares
much of Vista's underlying technology, which means hardware and software
makers have had more than two years to catch up to a more demanding set
of requirements. And Microsoft has pushed the notion that the high-end
version of Windows 7 will run on many more computers than Vista,
including tiny, low-powered laptops called netbooks. Today, Microsoft
sells Windows XP, a much less profitable version of its operating
system, to PC makers like Dell Inc. and Hewlett-Packard Co. to install
on netbooks.
On Thursday, Microsoft revealed that the basic requirements for running
a high-end version of Windows 7 aren't much different from those needed
to run the bulkier versions of Vista. However, critics said the Vista
requirements for memory and other components should have been set
higher, and Microsoft says Windows 7 is better at managing memory and
not bogging down less-powerful machines.
Microsoft unveiled a few new features in the release candidate that
didn't exist in the January beta, including something called "Windows XP
Mode." The feature, available for the release candidate as a separate
download, will let people run many XP-era programs from a Windows 7
computer.
The release candidate also adds a way for people to access music and
other media files stored on their home PC over the Internet from other
Windows 7 machines.
Windows 7 Raises Complaints from Rivals
Microsoft Corp's next version of Windows is stirring fresh complaints of
anticompetitive behavior from rivals who say the new version of the
operating system gives unfair advantage to Microsoft's Internet Explorer
browser, the Financial Times reported.
"Our initial review suggests this is a blatant use of the Windows
operating system to change the market dynamics of browser usage,"
Mitchell Baker, chairperson of Mozilla, developer of open-source Firefox
browser, told the paper.
No-one at Microsoft could immediately be reached for comment.
Opera, the Norwegian browser company, echoed Mozilla's complaints about
Windows 7, the paper said.
Microsoft had earlier said users will be able to turn off key programs
like Internet Explorer, making it easier to use other browsers.
Microsoft is scheduled to respond to European Union antitrust regulators
in a hearing next month on charges it sought to thwart rivals by tying
the company's Web browser to its Windows operating system.
Hackers Taking Advantage of Windows 7
Microsoft said Thursday that cybercriminals are already hawking
booby-trapped versions of just-released Windows 7 operating system
software.
"It's so important for customers to get their copies of Windows from a
trusted source," Joe Williams, general manager, Worldwide Genuine
Windows at Microsoft, said in an interview posted at the company's
official website.
"In the last few days we've seen reports of illegitimate distributions
of the release candidate of our latest Windows operating system, Windows
7, being offered in a way that is designed to infect a customer's PC
with malware."
A nearly-final version of Windows 7 made its world debut on Tuesday,
giving people a chance to tell Microsoft what they love or hate about
the new-generation operating system.
Microsoft is making Windows 7 Release Candidate (RC) available as it
puts finishing touches on the operating system that will replace Vista.
The US software colossus has touted anti-piracy protections it built
into Windows 7 to thwart the spread of illegal copies of the operating
system.
Windows 7 anti-piracy guards build on technology built into Vista,
according to Williams. For example, pop-up boxes will warn people when
unauthorized copies of software are spied on computers.
"With Windows Vista, we made significant strides in reducing the threat
pirated copies posed to customers, our partners and Microsoft software,
and we anticipate we'll do even better with Windows 7," Williams said.
Microsoft decried software piracy as a pervasive problem that costs the
world economy more than 45 billion dollars annually and exposes users to
risks of identity theft, system crashes, and data loss.
Williams said Microsoft research shows that as many as a third of the
company's customers worldwide may be running counterfeit copies of
Windows.
"We see many cases of customers who wanted to buy genuine software and
believed they did, only to find out later that they were victims of
software piracy," Williams said.
Windows operating systems are used in about 90 percent of the world's
computers, according to industry figures.
Spam Down But "Zombie" Armies Growing
Hackers appear to be beefing up armies of "zombie" computers to recover
from a major hit scored in the battle against spam email, according to
software security firm McAfee.
A McAfee report said that during the first three months of this year,
nearly 12 million new computers were added to the ranks of machines
infected with "malware" that lets cybercriminals use them to spew spam.
The ominous news came with word that the amount of spam dropped 20
percent during the same period, evidently as a result of the elimination
of a "McColo" spam-generating operation late last year.
The rate of spam email dropped from an average 153 billion daily last
year to 100 billion a day in March, according to the McAfee report
released Tuesday.
"Seems the bad guys are attempting to recover from last November?s
takedown of a central spam-hosting ISP by rebuilding their army,"
researchers said in a McAfee Threats Report for the first quarter of 2009.
The United States unseated China as the country with the most
"botnet-infected" computers, accounting for 18 percent of the world's
"zombie machines" as compared with China's 13.4 percent, according to
McAfee.
Australia "rocketed" to third place on the list with 6.3 percent of the
world's zombie computers after not even being it into the Top 10 list at
the end of last year.
"The Land Down Under is proving to be fertile ground for zombie
recruiting," McAfee researchers wrote.
Despite the international nature of botnets, spammers seem to prefer
sending the unwanted email from the United States, which McAfee said was
the source of 35 percent of the messages as compared to 7.3 percent from
second-place Brazil.
Cybercriminals are also increasingly rigging legitimate websites to
sneak viruses onto visitors' computers, according to McAfee.
Threat researchers reported discovering in March more than 800 new
versions of a Koobface virus tailored to attack users of hot
social-networking website Facebook.
"Servers hosting legitimate content have increased in popularity with
malware writers as a means for distributing malicious and illegal
content," McAfee reported.
Cybercrooks have "deeply compromised" computers at key Russian and
Eastern European corporations and government agencies, according to McAfee.
"The Internet knows no geographical boundaries," researchers said in the
report. "It is now apparent that cybercriminals will attack any target
of opportunity they can find."
Spam levels are the lowest the world has seen in two years, but are
expected to rise.
"The question is not whether spam will return to previous levels, but
rather when it will return," McAfee said. "There is data regarding new
zombie and botnet creation that suggest the time may not be too far in
the future."
Mini Monitor Can Be A Useful Desktop Annex (Review)
When you're surfing the Web, editing photos, listening to MP3s and
tweeting, it's easy to run out of real estate on your computer display.
If only you had a little extra screen - like a digital kid brother -
that could show an auxiliary program like a Twitter application.
Now you do. All hail the mini monitor.
These diminutive displays are quite helpful with everyday computing
tasks but take up less desk space than a full-sized monitor you might
use as a second screen. And you don't need a special slot in your PC to
connect the miniature displays. A basic USB connection handles it.
I tried a $130 model from Nanovision Co. called the Mimo UM-710. The
unit's display is 6 inches by 3 1/2 inches - 7 inches diagonally - and
sits on a small, adjustable stand. It can be oriented to a vertical or
horizontal position, depending on what best suits what you're using it
for.
Unlike an iPhone and some other devices, the Mimo does not automatically
detect whether you've put it into a horizontal or vertical setting. You
need to adjust that yourself in the on-screen preferences for the
device, but it takes only a couple of clicks.
Once it's in place, you can just drag items onto the mini-monitor from
your main computer display. So if you set the little display as an
extension of the right side of your desktop, then you can just pull a
program window to the right edge of your big screen and it will appear
on the Mimo. (Using it as an extension on the left, top or bottom of the
main screen is also possible.)
To get started I installed the little monitor's drivers from the
included CD, then plugged the Mimo into a USB port on my desktop
computer running Windows XP Home. The unit also works with Windows Vista
and Mac OS X.
A small Mimo icon soon appeared in the bottom right-hand corner of my
desktop, in the taskbar, to let me know the unit was ready for use.
It was fun to launch various applications to see which ones would
benefit from the Mimo's extra patch of LCD.
First up was Adobe Photoshop, something I use daily. I'm constantly
revealing and hiding palettes that let you work with images, and I hate
when these tools encroach on the picture I'm editing. Mimo was a great
place to stash these items, though I found it best to keep the Mimo
close to the main display so my eye didn't have to travel long distances
from the palettes to the image.
Another Adobe product that worked well with the Mimo display was
Premiere, my favorite video editing software. It wasn't practical to put
either of the two video preview panels on the Mimo, as it would take
them away from the timeline where the details of the editing take shape.
But the Mimo was a good place for the audio mixer and effects controls,
which see less activity.
The Mimo display also worked well as a holder for Windows Media Player.
I could play an album and see my music library on the Mimo screen
without encroaching on my Internet activity.
Perhaps the best use of the mini monitor was serving as a holder for
Twitter applications such as Tweetdeck and Twhirl, which organize
Twitter dialogues. I'm usually multitasking while tweeting, so the Mimo
monitor provided the perfect compliment.
Other nifty uses for the Mimo are to have it serve as the poker table
for the FullTilt.com game app or to display Yahoo Widgets such as an RSS
reader or clock and
calendar.
Here are some things that are not practical for the mini-monitor annex:
your e-mail client, a Web browser, a word processor. There's just not
enough room to make good use of it.
The Mimo is available at the company's Web site,
http://www.mimomonitors.com. This year D-Link Corp. is introducing a rival
called the SideStage, with similar specs, though no price has been set.
Twitter Co-founder Says Company Not for Sale
The popular micro-blogging and social networking service Twitter is not
for sale, one of the company's founders said on TV on Wednesday.
Biz Stone made the declaration in an appearance on the ABC show "The
View."
When host Barbara Walters - mentioning rumors that Google Inc,
Microsoft Corp and Apple Inc might be interested in acquiring the
company - asked whether Twitter is for sale, Stone answered, "no."
"We're just getting started as I've said. The company is two years old,
we have so much to do, so much product stuff to fix, and so much growing
to do."
Twitter has been the subject of takeover speculation since the company
turned down a $500 million acquisition offer by social networking
heavyweight Facebook.
Twitter is a free service that allows people to send short,
140-character text messages to their network of friends. It has become
something of a cultural phenomenon, with politicians, celebrities and
athletes all signing up to send messages, or "tweets," to a growing
audience of followers.
According to Nielsen Online, which measures Internet traffic, Twitter's
website had more than 7 million unique visitors in February, compared to
475,000 in February 2008.
The company, based in San Francisco, California, is focusing on
monetizing its service this year.
New Web Site for Michigan Seniors Is Launched
Michigan seniors can visit a new Web site to find information ranging
from a guide to nursing homes to how to avoid scams.
State Attorney General Mike Cox on Monday announced the launch of
http://www.seniorbrigade.com.
His office spent two years creating the site, which has the support of
the AARP and the Area Agencies on Aging Association of Michigan.
"We want seniors to be empowered to defend themselves," Cox said during
a news conference at the Tri-County Office on Aging.
Cox said the goal is to give seniors one place where they can learn more
about health care, financial issues, consumer protection, veterans
affairs and local events.
"There are 100 different Web sites that have information that helps
seniors. But there's no one place where seniors can go for specifically
consumer protection," said Mary Ablan, director of the Area Agencies on
Aging Association of Michigan.
The Web site's home page features a video message from Cox, a Republican
who is planning to run for governor in 2010. People who use the site can
increase the font size if they have trouble reading the text. Cox said
Michigan's population of seniors is expected to double by 2030.
The project along with billboard advertising was paid for by Microsoft
Corp., Wal-Mart Stores Inc. and the Foundation for a Stronger Michigan,
a nonprofit originally formed by Cox in 2003 to fund the PayKids
initiative with corporate donations. Billboards were posted along
highways to warn parents who owe child support that Cox's office was
cracking down.
Billboards also will be used to get the word out about the senior Web
site. Using private donations is helpful at a time of state government
budget cuts, Cox said.
=~=~=~=
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