Our business clients can sleep well tonight: Dell has announced that they will be offering XP Professional on systems past June 30. They’re using a “feature” in the Windows Vista license which allows for the licensee to downgrade their OS to XP. For some models, this is a no-cost option; for their lower-end systems (Vostro, etc) there will be a nominal charge.
When signing up for a free email account, you’ve probably encountered a CAPTCHA verification: it’s a graphic with characters partially obscured by random lines. The idea is that only humans can make out the text behind all the scribbles.
Unfortunately, malware has been spotted in the wild which has a fairly good success rate at reading these symbols, paving the way for spammers to generate thousands of accounts a day. From these accounts, they can blast out many messages before getting caught. And antispam services which depend upon identifying high-risk sources of spam are powerless against messages that come from reputable sources like Hotmail.
The battle might be waged on several fronts – with CAPTCHA using different approaches for validation, and webmail services starting to filter outgoing mail. Perhaps they will detect and shut down repeated attempts at account generation from the same computer.
The net of this for the average user is that they can expect their mailboxes to continue to be filled with spam for some time.
Check this blog entry for more information.
Back in 07, Google acquired Postini, one of the top mail security companies. We’ve been offering their antispam service for over a year and have been very happy with it. It works by intercepting mail, quarantining viruses and spam, and forwarding only legitimate mail onto the client’s server.
Google proceeded to take their offerings and severely undercut Postini resellers with rock-bottom pricing:
Online backup services have become very popular over the past few years, with companies like iBackup, Carbonite, and EMC providing offerings that promise to whisk-away your data to storage hidden deep within the Internet. If something happens to your computer, not to worry – you’ll be able to restore your data without missing a beat.
And to be sure, online if effective – but like any service, it’s not flawless. Here are some things to look out for when finding a solution that works for you.
A security company has released the results of a yearly content pitting popular operating systems against hungry hackers. The grand price is $20,000 as well as the compromised computer.
In a cruel announcement, Microsoft announces that XP will be available for manufacturers for the next two years – but for Home only, not Professional. The thinking is that Vista won’t be suitable for all the ultraportable, low cost PCs that are flooding the channels.
If you haven’t noticed, spammers have gotten trickier over the past few months - most of us have seen an uptick in the amount of spam that’s getting through the filters.
For those interested, here’s a good analysis of how they’re getting past the electronic guards.
A client was nice enough to forward a warning that Quickbooks 2006 must be at the latest patch level before it will work with Microsoft’s updated Internet Explorer 7 browser. This posting mentions that QB2005 users don’t have a patch yet (if ever?)
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Here’s an interesting chart from Consumer Reports regarding laptop reliability. According to their findings, it doesn’t matter what you buy, there’s a good chance it’s going to break.
Even though Vista’s release is just around the corner, you might need a new PC right away. But how much will that jump to the Vista operating system cost you?
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