Windows 7 Release Candidate Now Available

Windows 7 RC1 made available for download

Microsoft made the first release candidate of Windows 7 available for free download on Thursday. In an unprecedented move for the company, the software will run on a user's PC for more than a year.

Swine flu email scams circulating

Opportunistic scammers and spammers are actively exploiting the swine flu buzz across the web by spamvertising links to pharmaceutical scams, and bogus ‘Swine Flu Survival Guides’ using search engine optimization of typosquatted domains related to the outbreak.

Panda introduces cloud-based free antivirus

Panda Security, publishers of Panda Internet Security and Panda Antivirus, is set to take antivirus where it hasn't been yet: into the clouds. Panda Cloud Antivirus beta bets that nearly three years of development can pay off into a better protection system for users. To that end, Panda's willing to make the client free for personal use--even after it leaves beta testing.

FriendFeed rolls out redesign plus list-replacing email features

As you may know by know, I’ve been using the beta since it first rolled out. Now it has been released to the world. Friendfeed is used to aggregate all I do on the social media portion of the web.   I like it a lot

18 cool sites and apps that teach you about space

Few topics interest me more than space. Though I'll admit that I don't know nearly as much as I would like, it has always been my goal to learn about the universe. I bet I'm not alone. That's why I'm sharing this list of 18 space sites. They all offer something neat. And they're all informative.

Firefox, Star Trek, and Zimbra

One week later, Firefox updates again

Mozilla has updated Firefox again, just one week after its last update. Available for Windows, Mac, and Linux, Firefox 3.0.10 fixes a stability problem that also behaved like a security breach.

Windows 7 on a Netbook - My verdict

The author has been running Windows 7 on a Samsung NC10 netbook for some months. With the Windows 7 Release Candidate now leaked, it’s time for a verdict on whether Microsoft’s latest OS is suited to these tiny portable PCs.

Ten innovations inspired by Star Trek

In the latter part of the 20th century, budding scientists had Star Trek for inspiration. From warp fields to flat-screen TVs, Star Trek boldly took its viewers where no programme had taken us before. Among those fans, of course, were the inventors, scientists and all-round boffins of today.

How to Get In-Flight Wi-Fi - Features

Each of the major airlines is currently either running a trial of in-flight Wi-Fi or has already installed the service on many of its aircraft. Some airlines charge for the convenience, while others offer it as a complimentary service. Interested in using Wi-Fi on your next flight? We compare eight airlines in terms of Wi-Fi availability, Wi-Fi providers, bandwidth speeds, pricing, and future plans.

Zimbra Desktop

Yahoo! Zimbra Desktop 1.0 released for Linux, Mac and Windows. Is it time to dump Outlook or Thunderbird and get ALL your email in one place?

Your Windows 7 Questions Answered

Windows 7 Supersite

One of my favorite tech experts, Paul Thurrott, run the SuperSite for Windows. He has put together a list of everything you might ever want to know about Windows 7, including info on the New Windows 7 Release Candidate. Worth a view.

Windows 7 to have an 'XP mode'

For some time now, the company has been quietly building a "Windows XP mode" that uses virtualization to allow Windows 7 to easily run applications designed for Windows XP. According to sources familiar with the product, the application compatibility mode is built on the Virtual PC technology that Microsoft acquired in 2003, when it scooped up the assets of Connectix.

Channeling TV shows to the Web

Recent activity seems to suggest that cable companies and big media companies finally understand that the Web is their future. People want to watch what they want when they want. And the Internet provides an ideal way to connect people to their favorite content.

Netbooks: The New Norm for Laptops

Lance Ulanoff railed against netbooks as a marketing ploy, but that doesn't diminish the very real impact they've had on the computing market today and will have in the future. In fact, netbooks have so altered consumer expectations, it's unlikely things will ever be the same again. Is this a bad thing?

Getting started with podcasts in iTunes

I love podcasts. Not a day goes by that you won't catch me listening to episodes of my favorites in the car or while out exercising. And the most shocking thing about podcasts? They're free! Some of the best entertainment and journalism in the world is free for the taking, instantly available, and ready to take on the go.

Special Edition – Swine Flu Epidemic

Swine Flu: Questions and Answers - ABC News

The situation with swine flu is rapidly evolving, but here are some answers to questions on the top issues. Get the latest from the U.S. Centers on Disease Control and Prevention here: http://www.cdc.gov/swineflu/

HOW TO: Track Swine Flu Online

This week, news broke of a new and fatal swine flu on the Mexico-U.S. border. It has quickly turned into a growing outbreak and possible pandemic. Knowing about these important and growing cases is vital to public health. Fortunately, there are several useful online resources that track health information and disease outbreaks.

Swine Flu - Google Maps

If you are concerned about the latest outbreak of Swine Flue, here is a Google Map showing the locations of where it has been detected

Is convenience worth a Google toolbar?

It will only work on Internet Explorer, and only in the U.S. right now, but if you're looking to extend the same timesaving search convenience of Google's mobile apps to your desktop, the new Google Toolbar from Google Labs will do it.

Tree Style Tab - Free Firefox Add-on

This provides tree-style tab bar, like a folder tree of Windows Explorer. New tabs opened from links (or etc.) are automatically attached to the current tab. If you often use many many tabs, it will help your web browsing because you can understand relations of tabs. Try it, you you may really like it.

Conficker Continues to Cause Problems

Conficker's estimated economic cost? $9.1 billion

In a recent blog post, the Cyber Secure Institute claims that based on their previous studies into the average cost of such malware attacks, the economic loss due to the Conficker worm could be as high as $9.1 billion.

Conficker infected critical hospital equipment

The Conficker worm infected several hundred machines and critical medical equipment in an undisclosed number of hospitals recently, a security expert said on Thursday in a panel at the RSA security conference. If IT people would do their normal security upgrades, this would have never happened. Heads should roll!

Photos: Mars500 project preps for spaceflight - CNET News

You don't have to travel all the way to Mars to get a sense of what it would be like to make that long, long trek. That's the premise of the Mars500 project, which this year is undertaking two studies of how a human crew would hold up in the close quarters of a flight from Earth to the Red Planet and back again.

6 music services compared: Who can bust the iTunes monopoly?

What does a monopoly look like? In 2009, you can get a pretty good idea by looking at Apple’s iTunes Music Store (iTMS). It has overwhelming market share with a hockey-stick growth trajectory, is designed to work exclusively with the enormously profitable iPod/iPhone family of hardware devices (another near-monopoly), and appears to be immune from pricing pressure.

AVG LinkScanner 8.5.289 (Windows) - Free

The most dangerous page on the web may be the one you are about to click on. AVG LinkScanner provides an advanced layer of security against fast-moving, invisible web threats, and hacked web sites. It verifies the safety of web pages you visit, and of links returned from web searches (Google, Yahoo! and MSN), so you know how safe/unsafe a page is at the time you attempt to click on it.

Our Government and Cyber-Security

DoD Gates: We're always under cyberattack

Defense Secretary Robert Gates said Tuesday that the United States is "under cyberattack virtually all the time, every day" and that the Defense Department plans to more than quadruple the number of cyber experts it employs to ward off such attacks.

White House takes control of cybersecurity

Speaking at RSA, Melissa Hathaway, who has been running a 60-day government-wide review of cybersecurity policy, left no doubt that the White House will take direct, top-down control of cybersecurity.

Watch out for the feds' proposed cybersecurity 'fix'

The proposed Cybersecurity Act of 2009 would give the White House and the Department of Commerce the power to shut down Internet traffic, disconnect critical infrastructure systems, and have access to network infrastructure data when needed on national security grounds.

Palm's WebOS lives up to hype, early developers say

Developers say the Web OS offers a user-friendly mobile service that is highly integrated with Web-based services

10 Services with Real-time Functionality

It seems like "Real-time" is a term that's getting a lot of usage lately and seeing a rise in terms of trends. Services that have some kind of real-time functionality surely receive more attention from users. The reason it gets so much attention is not just because it's trendy, in most cases it can simplify online work.

Windows 8???

Windows 8 starts to come into focus

Windows isn’t done when Windows 7 is released to manufacturing (most likely in late fall 2009). Windows 8 has been on the drawing board/planning stages for a while now.

Firefox 3.0.9 targets 12 security vulnerabilities

Mozilla released an update to Firefox 3 on Tuesday that patches 12 security vulnerabilities, four of which it rated as critical. Firefox 3.0.9, the Web browser's third update this year, fixes two critical vulnerabilities in the Firefox browser engine and two in its JavaScript engine, according to a security advisory posted Tuesday.

Bluetooth SIG adopts 3.0 spec

Bluetooth 3.0 is finally official. As we mentioned a few weeks ago, Tuesday, April 21, was the day the Bluetooth Special Interest Group would officially adopt the Bluetooth 3.0+High Speed specification.

Microsoft exec outlines Windows 7 security

Video: At the RSA Conference in San Francisco, Microsoft's Scott Charney explains how it will be safer, easier, and faster to sign in remotely to a business network. It’s a bit techy, but you may find it of interest.

PCPhoto - Classic Black & White Photos

Tips and software for making beautiful monochrome images digitally.

Latest Info on Windows 7

Should I upgrade to Windows 7?

How I answer the question depends on the type of user asking me, because each market segment has different requirements. Let’s look at three kinds of user, starting with the home user, and consider how they should approach Windows 7.

Living with the limits of Windows 7 Starter Edition

If you’ve read anything about Windows 7 Starter Edition, your first reaction was probably the same as mine: Is Microsoft nuts? This ultra-cheap edition is intended for use on netbooks, but its biggest restriction sounds like a complete deal-breaker: it only runs three applications at once.

As economy plummets, cable, satellite TV bills are on the rise

When the country fell into a severe recession in the second half of 2008, prices dropped nearly across the board in response to consumers becoming reluctant to spend money on anything beyond basic necessities. But according to a new study conducted by research firm Centris, the cable/satellite TV industry was one of the rare ones where consumers paid more than they did in the sunnier times of 2006 and 2007.

The Pirate Bay Verdict Won't Affect File Sharing

If you use BitTorrent to download-ahem-content, then you've likely been following the Pirate Bay trial. Pirate Bay uses BitTorrent to enable downloads-without hosting anything. Now this band of wacky Swedes has been convicted. Reviews czar Dan Costa says that even if Pirate Bay does go away for a few years, the course of file sharing will remain unchanged.

FBI Has Its Own Spyware

FBI spyware used to nab hackers, extortionists

The FBI has used a secret form of spyware in a series of investigations designed to nab extortionists, database-deleting hackers, child molesters, and hitmen, according to documents obtained by CNET News.

Has online piracy reached a tipping point?

For years, digital technology and the Internet have provided a virtual buffet of digital content from which millions have feasted for free. Whether it be downloading movies illegally found with the help of the Pirate Bay, ripping a movie rental from Netlix to a computer hard drive, republishing an unauthorized copy of a news photograph to the Web, or sharing music on peer-to-peer services, the people who create this content have begun to send a message: "no more free lunches."

Windows 7 Release Candidate due date is May 5

Looks like Microsoft’s March slip-up that pinpointed the next milestone delivery date was correct. The Windows 7 Release Candidate (RC) — the one and only public RC — is set to be available on May 5.

The Embarrassment of American Broadband

The Internet was born and raised in the United States. Yet--thanks to slow speeds, inconsistent availability, and bandwidth caps--we now lag the rest of the world when it comes to broadband Net access.

10 things you should look for in a netbook

Who saw this coming? In the day and age of quad-core CPUs, 17-inch laptop displays, and terabyte hard disks, who’d have thought small laptops with slow CPUs and little storage would set the world afire. But that’s just what’s happened.

Pirate Bay Update and Music’s Future – Related?

Court jails Pirate Bay founders

A court in Sweden has jailed four men behind The Pirate Bay (TPB), the world's most high-profile file-sharing website, in a landmark case.

Do major record labels have a future?

Record stores are fading fast, the big labels--EMI, Sony/BMG, Universal, and Warner--are on their last legs, and commercial radio stations rarely play new music. The big music retail chains: Tower, Virgin, and HMV are all gone. People still listen to music, it's how they hear it and find it that's changed. Oh, and they don't want to pay for it.

New Net taxes amid taxing times?

A growing number of states are considering laws to tax digital goods, such as iTunes songs, Amazon MP3s, or electronic books. Yet at a time when governments say they want to encourage broadband adoption and the development of a low-carbon economy, opponents say taxing digital goods sends exactly the wrong message.

Top 13 Twitter Don'ts

Want to keep your Twitter followers happy? Avoid these microblogging faux pas.

Nine more Firefox add-ons to try

Can't get enough Firefox add-ons? Neither can we. As long as developers keep making them, we'll keep singling out the ones we deem worthy. Here are nine new favorites we enjoy.

GhostNet – Global Electronic Espionage

GhostNet: Why it's a big deal

The Tibetan Government in Exile asked the Information Warfare Monitor consortium to investigate allegations of cyberspying. It appears they’ve found evidence of spying plus a whole lot more and that should concern all of us.

Report: AT&T's exclusive hold on iPhone may end next year

As the exclusive purveyor of the iPhone in the U.S., AT&T has a stranglehold on those who covet Apple's handset; if you want to buy an iPhone, you're going to have to deal with them. But that Faustian bargain may soon come to an end. A report in Tuesday's Wall Street Journal says that AT&T's exclusive deal with Apple ends next year, and the wireless provider's executives are scrambling to try and extend the contract.

For draft, NFL goes deep on social media

For serious football fans, there is likely no bigger single event--except the Super Bowl--than the annual amateur draft. And as the NFL gets ready for two days of hysteria over where dozens of pro prospects end up, the league has deployed its deepest roster ever of social media tools to ensure that fans' thirst for even the most minute news is quenched.

Getting started with iTunes playlists

I am a big fan of iTunes as it has organized my music not only on my computer, but on my iPod. In the following video and slideshow tutorial, CNet shows you around the iTunes standard playlist feature.

ContactHelp Gets You Through to a Human Being

Customer service calls are frustrating. Don't just sit there pounding the 0 button, hoping you'll eventually reach a real live person—use ContactHelp to get to a human being. ContactHelp is a database of tricks for bypassing the customer service carnival and getting to a real human.

Interesting Articles for your Perusal

All-in-one NetTops resurrecting desktop market

Just a year ago, this category didn't exist. But after several Atom-powered all-in-one PCs debuted at CES in January, it's officially the hottest grouping of desktops on the market.

Facebook Users Get Worse Grades in College

Facebook users have lower overall grades than non-users, according to a survey of college students who also ironically said the social networking site does not interfere with studying.

The 25 Golden Rules of E-Mail

Electronic mail is older than tweets, blogs, SMS texts—older even than the entire Internet. Why is it so many people still don't get it right?

LaCie's rugged external hard drive gets bigger

If you own a compact Rugged All-Terrain external hard drive from LaCie, you know how tough the device is. It has a rubber bumper, and the scratch-protected aluminum case can take a serious beating. Now the same drive has evolved to a bigger physical size with larger storage capacity.

13 Great Free Backup Programs for Windows, Mac, and Linux

Making sure you've got a reliable backup solution is a must for any user - and more so for an administrator. Why? Well, mostly because your users probably aren't very good at remembering to back up their own files. And so it falls to you to provide the right software for the job! Backup software is a difficult category to tackle nowadays as the distinction between backup and synchronization apps has become a little blurred. Prices being what they are, my personal choice is to use external or removable hard drives for my backup chore

Patch Tuesday and Skype

Patch Tuesday heads-up: 8 bulletins, 5 critical

Microsoft plans to ship 8 security bulletins next Tuesday (April 14, 2009) to fix remote code execution and denial of service vulnerabilities affecting Windows, Office and Internet Explorer. According to the company’s Patch Tuesday advance notice, five of the bulletins will be rated “critical,” meaning they can be exploited by hackers to take complete control of Windows machines.

Overcoming My Fear of Skype

Hard to believe, but up until recently I had never effectively used the Skype free voice and video over IP service. Then in the space of just a few days I got a crash course, and found myself wondering how I'd ever lived without it. Follow my little tale to learn why you may want to start using Skype today.

Skype Call Recorder 0.5.2.1 (Windows), from VOIP Call recording

Free Skype Call Recorder is irreplaceable program for everybody who is using Skype to make voice calls. Conversations are stored in space efficient, widely used, convenient mp3 format. It is easy to store, easy to share and cast you nothing to record. Skype Call Recorder seats in system tray and starts recording automatically.

CompUSA 2.0

Though presumed to be dead since it went bankrupt more than a year ago, CompUSA is showing signs of life. There are 30 new retail outlets bearing the CompUSA name in the U.S. that are trying a new retail strategy that includes computers available for customers to do price matching on the Web sites of CompUSA's competitors. Is this a preview of retail stores future?

Battle of the multicolumn Twitter clients

There was a time, not long ago, when the power Twitter users were gaga for Twhirl. This Air app gave (and still gives) you quick access to different views of your Twitter network, as well as your FriendFeed stream. But Twhirl didn't last as the go-to client once the Twitterati discovered TweetDeck.

Is Our Internet Infrastructure Safe? And Free Hubble Wallpaper

Our fancy Internet infrastructure operates on a wire and a prayer

The fiber-optic outage—actually sabotage—in the Bay Area on Thursday reveals a dirty little secret: Our infrastructure is ridiculously vulnerable and it only takes a few vandals (or terrorists) to bring communication to its knees.

Microsoft to start pushing IE 8 to existing IE users

Microsoft already has pushed via Auto Update the final version of Internet Explorer 8 (IE 8) to customers who had installed the beta version of its latest browser. Starting next week, the company plans to begin delivering IE 8 via Automatic Update to users with older versions of IE installed.

Windows 7: 83% Of Businesses Won't Deploy Next Year

The success of Windows 7 will depend a great deal on if large businesses will finally upgrade. New data shows that the vast majority of corporate IT departments won't touch Microsoft's next OS until at least 2011.

Free Music Archive: Free MP3s, and yes, they're legal

Do you like free music? Who doesn’t? If you’ve been downloading music illegally because you’re just too strapped for cash to go out and buy the record — because that’s the only reason you would do that, right? — then there’s a new solution for you.

Hubble Site - Wallpaper for your Computer

The Hubblesite.org Website offers a ton of free wallpaper for your computer. And it comes in various sizes for different monitor settings. Chose the one that is right for you. If you like images from far off places, check this out.

Has Our Electrical Grid Been Compromised?

The U.S. electrical grid: How big of a cyber target is it?

Spies have reportedly been probing the U.S. electrical grid for months and planting software that could be activated at a future date, according to a Wall Street Journal. The report highlights the latest vulnerabilities facing U.S. power infrastructure.

AT&T and Apple needlessly shackle Skype users

Skype versus AT&T and Apple, a duopoly I like to call Ma iPhone. Since Skype put its app on the App Store, more than 2 million downloads have been recorded because people want to make cheap Skype calls with their iPhones. Go right ahead, says Ma iPhone, but you can only make those calls via Wi-Fi, not 3G.

Windows 7 HomeGroup: Networking Made Easy

Microsoft has been trying for a long while to make home networks easy to use, with automatic connections and ready access to shared files and folders. With the Windows 7 feature known as "HomeGroup," the company seems to have succeeded.

Hands On: Acer's New 11.6-Inch Aspire One Netbook

(This new netbook looks like a winner, if the price is right) Acer raised the stakes Tuesday night by launching the first netbook with an 11.6-inch screen, a version of the Acer Aspire One. Perhaps most importantly, the 11.6-inch Acer Aspire One is long enough to accommodate a full-size keyboard, while the majority of netbooks have ones that range between 89 percent to 92 percent of full size. That, together with Acer's aggressive pricing strategy, could solidify the One as the premier netbook in the United States.

Gadwin PrintScreen 4.4 (Windows) - Free

Gadwin PrintScreen allows much more flexibility with that Print Screen button at the top of your keyboard. This is a good one!!

The New FriendFeed – I Love it

New FriendFeed: Simpler, Faster, Better (Maybe Too Fast)

FriendFeed is taking the next step in its evolution with a complete redesign and lots of new features. We were able to see a demo of the new site last week and have been testing it over the weekend. Our opinion: the new FriendFeed, which launches into beta today, is simpler, faster and better than the old FriendFeed.

Mixed reactions to FriendFeed overhaul

From what it looks like, the fresh, real-time streaming redesign of social aggregator FriendFeed is getting some accolades from already-avid users--but might not sway the masses.

Conficker wakes up, updates via P2P, drops payload

The Conficker worm is finally doing something--updating via peer-to-peer between infected computers and dropping a mystery payload on infected computers, Trend Micro said on Wednesday. Researchers were analyzing the code of the software that is being dropped onto infected computers but suspect that it is a keystroke logger or some other program designed to steal sensitive data off the machine, said David Perry, global director of security education at Trend Micro.

Olympus: 12 megapixels is enough

Olympus has declared an end to the megapixel race

BumpTop: Software toy or useful desktop replacement?

If you're tired of that flat desktop, BumpTop is a 3D desktop interface you're going to want to try. What could be better than 'organizing' your space by flinging, stacking, and fanning icons and photos? Read on to find out we like and what still needs work.

Mostly Microsoft News

End nears for XP, Office 2003 support

Microsoft will drop mainstream support for Office 2003 on April 14--the same day that the retirement process begins for Windows XP. Although mainstream support for the Office 2003 applications suite will come to an end, Microsoft has the product scheduled to remain in "extended support" until April 8, 2014.

Skipping Vista

Despite the fact that Windows 7 is almost cooked, a leaked Microsoft memo suggests that XP may live on past its May 30, 2009 retirement date.

Paul Thurrott's SuperSite for Windows: Windows 7 Product Editions: A Comparison

Even at this early stage, I believe these tables will help you pick which Windows 7 product edition makes the most sense for you, based on your needs and wants. Let's dive right in.

Microsoft's intelligence security report: The top 5 takeaways

Microsoft on Wednesday will unveil its sixth Security Intelligence Report and the tome—all 184 pages of it—has a lot of interesting data points culled from the software giant’s antivirus applications. Microsoft concludes that rogue security software is a big threat, lost and stolen equipment is a bigger issue than hacking and PDF and Office extensions are leading vectors.

BumpTop: Software toy or useful desktop replacement?

If you're tired of that flat desktop, BumpTop is a 3D desktop interface you're going to want to try. What could be better than 'organizing' your space by flinging, stacking, and fanning icons and photos? Read on to find out we like and what still needs work.  Free download.

More on Newspapers and Other News

Survey: Credit card fraud a top concern in U.S.

This should come as no surprise to anyone, but people in the U.S. are worried that as the economy worsens, the chances for identity fraud, particularly with regard to credit card data theft, will increase.

Google helps, not hurts, newspapers: executive

Google Inc helps newspaper websites make money through online advertising and does not misappropriate their content, a lawyer for the search engine said on the company's blog on Tuesday.

AP cuts newspaper rates, moves to protect web news

The Associated Press unveiled rate cuts on Monday to help member newspapers reeling from declining advertising revenue and said it would sue websites that use its members' articles without permission.

Changes to Apple's iTunes prices take effect

he era of one-price-fits-all-songs on iTunes came to an end Tuesday as Apple Inc., the Internet's dominant digital music store, began selling some of its most-downloaded songs for $1.29 apiece.

Power Twitter- Firefox Add-ons

Free Firefox Ad-on adds more features to your Twittering: search and recent searches -search scoped to a specific user -status history peeking on mouseover -Facebook status updates -inline YouTube, Flickr, TwitPic, Google Maps, song.ly, and more

Special Edition – The Death of Newspapers

As a university journalism graduate, I am more than interested in what is happening to our nation’s newspapers.  In short, many are dying; many more will die in the near future.  What does that mean for all of us?

There are many reasons for this trend, too many to name here.  One is TV news.  If that is to be our main source of news, God help us all.  CNN and Fox are a joke when it comes to news.  Their version of news is about entertainment, not news.  Same with most local TV stations. Ratings, ratings, ratings.    

Another reason is Craigslist.  We all use Craigslist now for our want-ads, thereby killing a huge revenue stream for newspapers.  And, of course, the rise of news on the Internet is still another reason for the end of traditional newspapers.  I suppose I could go on, but the bottom line is that print media may have outlived its usefulness in today’s digital world.     

If you do a search on “Death of Newspapers,” you will find hundreds, if not thousands of recent articles on the subject.  I have selected a handful here, many focusing on the digital world and how it may replace newspapers.  I hope you will find it of interest.

Jim

The future of newspapers | Who killed the newspaper? | The Economist

“A GOOD newspaper, I suppose, is a nation talking to itself,” mused Arthur Miller in 1961. A decade later, two reporters from the Washington Post wrote a series of articles that brought down President Nixon and the status of print journalism soared. At their best, newspapers hold governments and companies to account. They usually set the news agenda for the rest of the media. But in the rich world newspapers are now an endangered species. The business of selling words to readers and selling readers to advertisers, which has sustained their role in society, is falling apart.

Death of newspapers

The real problem isn't that newspapers may be doomed. I would be severely disheartened if I was forced to abandon my morning ritual of sitting on my deck with a coffee and the papers, but I would no doubt get used to burning out my retinas over the screen an hour earlier than usual. As Nation columnist Eric Alterman recently argued, the real problem isn't the impending death of newspapers, but the impending death of news -- at least news as we know it.

Murdoch says papers should charge on Web

Rupert Murdoch, whose media company News Corp owns one of the few U.S. newspapers that makes people pay to read its news on the Web, said more papers will have to start doing the same to survive.

The future of newspapers: print v. digital

Five articles worth reading that relate to journalism as it transforms.

Newspaper Death Watch

This web site describes itself as "Chronicling the Decline of Newspapers and the Rebirth of Journalism." Might be worth a view

Readers share some advice for Starbucks

Even though this story is only partially about technology, I found it very interesting and thought you might also. Pay particular attention to the part Starbucks might play in replacing newspapers.

Weekend News and a Free Book

Texas Tells Microsoft's Vista To Mosey on Out of Town

Texas government shouldn't be Vista country, according to its state Senate. That legislative body approved earlier this week a rider to the state budget that would prevent governmental agencies from using the Microsoft Vista operating system without approval from a legislative board.

PC Failures, PC Fixes: Troubleshooting Mysterious Problems

Has there ever been a truly trouble-free PC? We've gotten a lot closer to it in recent years, thanks to better diagnostics and improved software and hardware engineering -- but sometimes, every now and then, things fall apart and the center cannot hold in a big country way.

Lifehacker - Top 10 Home Office Hacks

Whatever kind of work you do at home, your office is one place you want to spend the time to make comfortable and convenient. Take 10 of our tips on organizing, fixing, and streamlining that space.

After the Software Wars by Keith Curtis (Free Book)

Keith Curtis, an 11-year veteran of Microsoft, takes a programmer’s approach in “Software Wars,” attempting to systematically build a case that free software can help pave the way for a 21st-century renaissance in many fields ranging from artificial intelligence (cars that drive themselves) to the human journey into space (space elevators). For Mr. Curtis, free software is all about leveraging our collective intelligence." Book is free to download

Digsby - Free Software

Digsby helps you manage all your IM, e-mail, and social network accounts from one easy-to-use application.

News and Free Software for Wednesday

Readers share their Security Baseline nominees

Windows Secrets readers have been giving me their feedback loud and clear: they hate Norton all-in-one products and love standalone antivirus, antispyware, and firewall apps.

Microsoft Rules Netbooks Now, Linux Lurks

Microsoft today sits comfortably atop the growing netbook market with Windows garnering 90 percent of netbook sales in November, December and January.  Can Linux survive?

Gmail: Expect bigger changes in next 5 years

Some thought Google's e-mail service an April Fools' joke when it arrived a half-decade ago. Look for Gmail's differences to increase in the next five years.

Recuva 1.25.409 (Windows)

Recuva (pronounced "recover") is a freeware Windows utility to restore files that have been accidentally deleted from your computer. This includes files emptied from the Recycle bin as well as images and other files that have been deleted

Xobni 5342 beta (Windows), from Xobni Corporation - Free!

Xobni is the Outlook plug-in that saves you time finding email conversations, contacts and attachments.

Browsers, Worms, and Intel’s New Killer Chip

Installing Internet Explorer 8--photos

Installing IE 8, it turns out, is an involved process, and one that will reboot your computer. This is a good time to make a phone call, brew some coffee, or begin a calisthenics routine.

My painfully poky week with IE 8

In the interest of broadening my horizons, I promised Microsoft I'd give Internet Explorer 8 a fair shake by trying the browser as my default for a week. And, boy, am I glad that week is over.

Find the right Firefox add-ons

If you're a Firefox user, chances are you've been using add-ons to extend its functionality. But if you haven't, or if you're looking for new add-ons, I've found 20 for you to try. But since installing all 20 will probably slow your browser to a crawl, I've broken them into four categories. I have grouped the add-ons into "packs" for business professionals, shoppers, social-network fanatics, and students.

The "no bull" guide to Conficker

I get the feeling that while there’s a lot of hype surrounding this latest bit of malware, actual infections are much lower than some would want you to believe. However, over the past few days the number of enquires I’m getting in relation to Conficker has skyrocketed, so to try to answer people’s questions, and calm people’s fears, I’ve put together a quick “no bull” guide to Conficker.

Test Center: Intel's Nehalem simply sizzles

Intel's new Nehalem Xeon CPUs, which are being introduced in countless one- and two-socket servers and workstations today, have already generated a lot of heat. While introducing the new processors to technical journalists in February, Nick Knupffer, Intel's global communications manager, boasted that "Nehalem represents the biggest performance jump we've made since the introduction of the Pentium Pro."