Congressional Blunders and more Microsoft News

P2P snafu blows lid on secret Congress probes

A confidential memo from one of the most secretive panels in Congress was leaked on a peer-to-peer file-sharing network, publicly detailing sensitive probes involving more than 30 lawmakers and aides.

Microsoft to discontinue Office Accounting next month

Microsoft is killing off its small business accounting product, Office Accounting. The company will no longer distribute Office Accounting Professional or the free version, Office Accounting Express after November 16, 2009.

Windows 7: Giving credit where credit is due

Microsoft's ad campaign is a lie. Let's set the record straight about who really shaped the Windows 7 development process

Microsoft Strikes Back: The Microsoft Store in Scottsdale, AZ

Jumping on the coat tails of another high-end computer store we won't mention, the Microsoft store is clean, shiny and covered in gleaming screens. In fact, walking by you might confuse it for, well, that other high-end computer store we won't mention.

Top 10 Windows 7 Booster Apps

Windows 7 is a big improvement over Vista, and a pretty convenient OS in general—but it's by no means perfect. These 10 downloads improve Windows 7's looks, functions, and make it easier, safer, and more convenient to upgrade to.

No Windows Today

Hollywood wants share of Netflix's windfall

Wall Street and Netflix subscribers appear overjoyed with the direction that Netflix's CEO has the Web's top video-rental store pointed in. The only people who don't seem pleased with Netflix's success work in Hollywood. Just days before Netflix reported third-quarter earnings that jumped 48 percent from a year ago and subscriber growth of 28 percent during the same period, two executives from different studios told me they aren't getting their fair share. Is there no end to Hollywood's greed?

L.A. votes to "Go Google"; pressure shifts to Google and the cloud

Score one for Google and The Cloud. The Los Angeles City Council today voted unanimously to “Go Google,” approving a $7.25 million contract to outsource the city’s e-mail system to Google’s cloud and transition some 30,000 city employees to the cloud over the coming year.

Death of the DSLR Camera

Here's a news flash: Cell-phone cameras be damned, because a significant segment of the population is actually prioritizing sharp, well-exposed images over ultimate convenience. Since the introduction of the first Canon Digital Rebel in 2003, this quality-conscious segment has been turning to interchangeable-lens digital SLRs (DSLRs) to take the best possible photos.

Amazon.com rolls out shortcut for paying online

Amazon.com Inc on Wednesday announced the launch of "PayPhrase," a shortcut for making purchases on the Web, as the online retailer prepares for a rush of holiday season shopping.

Twitter Lists finally unrolled to the masses -- get your lists here!

Though Twitter seem to be having some stability issues, at the time of writing, almost every active Twitter user should now have access to the new Lists functionality

Internet Problems…and Some Solutions

Infected sites rising at alarming rate

The number of websites hosting malicious software, either intentionally or unwittingly, is rising rapidly, according to statistics to be released on Tuesday from Dasient.

Firefox 3.5.4 fixes critical memory flaws

Mozilla trotted out Firefox 3.5.4 yesterday, which patches 16 vulnerabilities - 11 of which were critical bugs. Interestingly, my Windows 7 notified my about the upgrade before Firefox did.

Mozilla releases SeaMonkey 2.0

Do you pine for the Netscape Communicator days with unified browser and e-mail software but want something more current? Mozilla on Tuesday released SeaMonkey 2.0, which combines Firefox and Thunderbird.

Official Gmail Blog: Gmail account security tips

As part of National Cyber Security Awareness Month, we recently posted about how to pick a smart password. Having a strong password goes a long way in helping to protect your data, but there are a number of additional steps you can take to help you keep your Gmail account secure:

Best Free CD / DVD Burning Software 

Despite the technology world’s efforts to eliminate moving parts in computers, optical mediums such as CDs and DVDs are still widely used and most average users still need to burn optical discs. Whether backing up data, preparing an audio mix CD, or creating a bootable Linux disc, finding the right burning software is essential.

A Mostly Windows-Free Edition

Social Networking: Facebook Users Balk at New Dual-Feed Design

Many Facebook users are disgruntled over the latest design changes to the site. The home page now defaults to a News Feed containing items Facebook selects as most interesting, based on the attention they attract. To see the latest updates, users have to toggle to the Live Feed, which now includes a lot of extra notifications that many users consider junk.

Google's new Social Search surprisingly useful 

No, Social Search isn't yet another social network aggregator. It's a way for you to make your Google search results more relevant by adding a section dedicated to content written by your friends and acquaintances. Though limited, we think it's pretty useful thus far.

Google Voice Offers Voicemail Without a New Number

Want in on Google Voice's web-based, transcribed, custom-greeted voicemail, but you're not quite ready to adopt a new number? Starting tonight, Voice users can choose to keep their number and still get Google's upgraded voicemail features.

Adobe Releases Lightroom 3 Public Beta

A quick look at the highlights of Adobe Lightoom V3 beta. No word yet on a final version release date. The beta is free to download.

Results of the Windows 7 upgrade poll

Over the weekend, CNET ran an unscientific poll inquiring about the level of difficulty in your Windows 7 upgrade experience, and the response we received was undoubtedly strong. Nearly 11,000 people voted, and more than 50 percent of you said your Windows 7 upgrade experience was as easy as pie. (And who doesn't love pie?)

More Windows 7 Info for your Dining and Dancing Pleasure

Editors note: Got my Win 7 upgrade package yesterday and been installing it and my software since then (in between football games). It is going great…the speed is incredible and no problems at all with crashes or programs not working properly. Will keep you apprised. JRC

How to Prep for an XP-to-Windows 7 Upgrade: FAQ - PC World 

We're here to help lower your blood pressure with answers to your questions about how to get ready for tomorrow -- or later -- when you pull the trigger on Windows 7 and finally, finally leave XP fading in the rearview mirror.

Six free antivirus programs made for your Windows 7 system 

Hey, you just paid for an OS or a whole new computer -- why not save a few bucks if you can? The most important thing to remember when you go hunting for a Windows 7 antivirus program is to make sure it's fully compatible. You can get just about any old program to install under 7, but who knows if it's going to work the way it's supposed to?

Netbooks worth the upgrade to Windows 7? Heck yes!

There’s one place where an upgrade is definitely in order and it should probably happen sooner than later: Netbooks.

iPod: The device that changed everything

Eight years ago Apple introduced its first iPod. The world has never been the same

FolderSize Displays What's Eating Your Hard Drive Space

Windows only: Free portable application FolderSize quickly analyzes the contents of any hard drive or specific folder on your computer to help you hunt down your hard drive hogs and free up space

Free Panda Security Software – Today Only

Happy Windows 7 Release Day, everybody.

Panda Internet Security Free for 24 Hours on Oct 22

Panda will be offering a full 12 month license to their Panda Internet Security 2010 anti-virus program for 24 hours starting on October 22, the launch date for Windows 7.

Fake 'Conficker.B Infection Alert' spam campaign drops scareware

An ongoing spam campaign is once again attempting to impersonate Microsoft’s security team — the same campaign was first seen in April — by mass mailing Conficker.B Infection Alerts (install.zip), which upon execution drop a sample of the Antivirus Pro 2010 scareware.

The pros and cons of switching to Windows 7

After you wade through the Win7 marketing hype, you'll find a solid core of real improvements in the new release. There are many aspects of Windows 7 that cry out for adopting it and just a few that suggest sticking with Vista or XP.

Exclusive: Easing XP Netbook owners' path to Windows 7

After months of grappling with the issue of how to allow Windows XP Netbook owners to move to Windows 7, Microsoft is ready with its answer. Starting on Thursday, Microsoft is adding a tool to its online store that will allow those who buy Windows 7 to create a bootable USB drive with the operating system that can then be used to upgrade a Netbook.

100+ Places for Free Books Online

This is a listing of 193 sites that legally offer free books (eBooks) for download or for online viewing. Also included are free audio books for downloading.

Firefox, Email, and More Windows 7 Stuff

Microsoft exposes Firefox users to drive-by malware downloads 

Remember that Microsoft .NET Framework Assistant add-on that Microsoft sneaked into Firefox without explicit permission from end users? Well, the code in that add-on has a serious code execution vulnerability that exposes Firefox users to the “browse and you’re owned” attacks that are typically used in drive-by malware downloads.

E-mail Isn't Dead—But it Is Broken

E-mail isn't going away anytime soon, but it will need to evolve to be useful. And so will we.

Windows 7 - Reviews, News & Information

Here is PC Magazine's central location for news and information about Windows 7. Some excellent stories here.

Google Chrome 5, Not 4, Will Support Windows 7

Google is not in any rush to adapt its open-source browser to the latest iteration of the Windows client. While Mozilla has already tailored the first Beta development milestone of Firefox 3.6 to Windows 7, the Mountain View-based search giant will not make the current Stable and Beta development milestones play nice with Windows Vista’s successor.

Kill desktop clutter

This freeware app helps you create flexible boxes, or "fences" on your desktop that help you cleanly organize your shortcuts. You can rename these fences easily, and drag and drop shortcuts in and out of them. Works for XP, Vista, and Windows 7.

Implementing Windows 7

Windows 7 is only three days away now.  So, I thought I would share with you how I plan to implement my upgrade to this new operating system.

If you have read my blog posts, you know I really like this upgrade and am excited about moving my entire computer operation over to it.  It will be like having a brand new computer for me as Windows XP is really showing its age.

Having downloaded and installed the the Release Candidate, I know it works very well on my computer.  If you are not sure if it will work on yours, just download the Windows 7 Upgrade Analysis software and it will analyze your system.

Assuming your computer will handle Windows 7, how should you install it?

First of all, whatever you do will require a clean install…you cannot do an upgrade to XP and you must do a special work-around to upgrade Vista. But, all experts agree that you should always do a clean install anyway…even if you are running Windows 7 Release Candidate like me.

Doing a clean install requires reformatting your hard drive.  So, say goodbye to everything on your computer (of course you will backup your data). 

But there is a better way…repartition your hard drive and set up a dual boot.

I did this when I set up Windows 7 RC…and, I am going to keep this new partition and dual boot setup so I can keep running XP for as long as I need it.  I recommend you also do this.  Get yourself a free disk partitioning utility like Aeseus Partition Manager.  Then, set up a new partition, perhaps calling it “Win7” or something similar. 

Then, when you start to install Win 7, tell it to install on the new partition.  It will automatically set up a dual boot screen so when you turn on your computer, it will ask which operating system you wish to run.

After installing Win 7, I will begin installing some of my most important programs, like Office, Photoshop, Lightroom and several others (I have already made a list). Then before I get started really using Win 7, I will do a disk image of it to one of my external hard drives.  So, if my hard drive dies and I must reinstall, I do it from the backup image, saving myself many hours, perhaps days, of work.

The good news is Windows 7 includes a disk imaging program as part of its Backup program. Itwill also make a bootable DVD or CD so you can boot up and reinstall your operating system.  Make sure you do this (even if you buy a new computer with Windows 7 installed)!!!

For more good information, here is an excellent article from Tech Republic that gives you a realistic approach to upgrading to Windows 7:

http://www.wxpnews.com/9LH8QB/090908-WinXP-to-Win7

Weekend Bonus Edition

At the start of my recent vacation, I was in Flagstaff and wanted a good cup of coffee. I was passing a Barnes and Noble so I pulled in, got a cup, then went to get a book to browse. I grabbed a just-released book called “Windows 7 Secrets,” by Paul Therrott and Rafael Rivera. Paul is the chief editor of Winsupersite.com and does a weekly podcast with Leo LaPorte, so I am very familiar with him and was aware of the book.

It is a large book, over 1,000 pages, and weighs about 5 pounds. But as I sipped my coffee and browsed the book, I quickly knew I had to have it.  I was amazed how much I did not know about Microsoft’s latest operating system. I didn’t buy it then, but did shortly after my return to Tucson.  It is now my daily reading material out by the pool every morning.

The bottom line for me is there are many new things that are not in Windows XP, and, that are not obvious. I recommend if you move to Windows 7 via the forthcoming upgrade…or when you buy a new computer…you think about getting this, or another book to learn more about what this great new operating system can do.  There are a lot of new things here that you might overlook.

Paul’s book lists for $49.95, but is available at Amazon.com for $31.49 with free shipping.

Windows 7 nears the finish line

Here is a central depository of all Windows 7 stories and information, by ZDNet.

Amazon, Wal-Mart battling over book pricing

Wal-Mart Stores is waging an online book pricing war against Amazon.com, The Wall Street Journal reported Friday morning.

Is Quicken at the end of the road?

Conventional wisdom is that Intuit's acquisition of the personal finance Web service Mint will mean the end of the line for the company's standalone software app, Quicken. Upstart Mint, which is being acquired by Intuit for $170 million, has a personal finance product more in line with the times, with a younger demographic, a working business model, and a passionate CEO, Aaron Patzer, who's slated to take over the Quicken product line at Intuit once the acquisition closes. It doesn't look good for the old desktop app, Quicken.

Windows 7 Videos to Help You Learn

Editor’s Note: As the official release of Windows 7 is only a few days away, I will be focusing much of my editorial duties to bringing you some of the latest information about this new operating system. Whether you’re upgrading or buying a new computer after 10/23/09, you will need to know how it works and how it differs from what you have been using.

Windows 7 in action: Search tools

One of the best things about Windows 7 is its updated search mechanism. This short video shows how easy it is, how it works, and some of the new things you can do with it. Recommended.

Windows 7 in action: do more with the taskbar and Jump Lists

Here is a closer look at the new taskbar, which represents a striking departure in form and function from its predecessors. Its design is clearly intended to make it easier to manage large numbers of programs and open windows.

Windows 7 in action: A smarter way to manage windows

You’ve no doubt heard about Aero Snap and Aero Shake. Here’s a chance to see these features in action.

Windows 7: Windows Backup Overview

Another major improvement in Win 7 is its built-in backup. Windows Backup allows you to make copies of data files and also create a system image which includes your system settings, programs and files. In Windows 7, you can choose your custom location for the data backup and whether or not to include the system image during backup.

Hulu Desktop Integration Brings Hulu to Windows 7 Media Center

Now that sites like Hulu have become a viable destination for free TV, Hulu integration seems only natural, and Hulu Desktop Integration makes it simple for users to jump between Windows 7 Media Center and Hulu Desktop. Media Center is included as part of Windows 7 Home Premium Edition.

Some Updated Security Information

Probably the Best Free Security List in the World

This outstanding list has been compiled by one of our senior security editors, Antti Koponen. The products are listed with the best products first, as judged by Antti. The products are almost exclusively free with some exceptions.

AVG Free 9 offers speed, lacks etiquette 

AVG Free 9 introduces few new features, with improvements focused on performance, including claims of faster scan and boot times. AVG is claiming that scans are 50 percent faster compared with AVG 8.

New Ad-Aware offers behavioral detection

Lavasoft has updated its popular malware and spyware detection and removal tool Ad-Aware. Rather than a dramatic redo, version 8.1 builds on the improvements made in the previous version. The new version is faster, has better removal abilities, and introduces a behavioral detection engine.

Optical storage: RIP

TDK recently demo’d an impressive technical achievement: a 10 layer 320 GB optical disk - using standard Blu-ray (BD) drive technology. Too bad it will never be a commercial success. Optical is at the end of the line.

Kindle versus Sony Reader Pocket Edition

E-book readers are starting to become really popular and may be one of the hottest items for the upcoming holiday season. And the prices are starting to fall. Here is a good comparative review of the two hottest readers available today. Personally I am looking strongly at the Sony.

A Different View of Windows 7 and a Google Chrome Tour

Windows 7 restores balance to the universe

No longer will software outpace hardware, thanks to Windows 7's respect for The Great Moore's Law Compensator. It's a term I coined more than a year ago to describe the process whereby each successive Windows release effectively gobbles up the latest gains in PC hardware performance. The net result is an environment that performs roughly on par with the one you're upgrading from.

Adding Up Six Years of Microsoft Patch Tuesdays

Six years = about 745 vulnerabilities across almost every Microsoft product. About 230, or more than half, of the bulletins addressed security vulnerabilities that were described by Microsoft as "critical."

Snow Leopard bug deletes all user data

Several posts on the Apple Support forums (1, 2) dating back to 12 September indicate that some users have been losing all their data due to a nasty bug in Snow Leopard, a.k.a. Mac OS 10.6.

RIAA and MPAA Can’t Stop BitTorrent, Study Finds

For years RIAA and MPAA members have hired companies to attack popular BitTorrent swarms in an attempt to interfere with their downloads. According to a recently published paper by New York University researchers, these attacks are highly ineffective. At best, they slow downloads for a few minutes, something most users don’t even notice.

Google Chrome Blog: A guided tour for new Google Chrome users

Did you, or someone you know, recently switch to Google Chrome and wonder, "Where's the file menu?" "What happened to the search box?" "How do I bookmark a page?" To address these initial questions and help people settle into the browser, we created the "New to Google Chrome?" guide.  Editor’s Note: I have been using Google Chrome for a few months now as a second browser and am impressed.

A Sad Story for Sidekick Cell Phone Users

Sidekick Users See Their Data Vanish Into a Cloud

A server meltdown over the weekend wiped out the master copies of personal data -- including address books, calendars, to-do lists and photos -- accumulated by users of T-Mobile's formerly popular Sidekick smartphone.

Apple versus Microsoft: The top 20 stolen ideas of the OS wars

Steve Jobs once said that Microsoft stole Windows from Apple, but both sides have snatched plenty of ideas over the years.

Hate Twitter spam? Now you can report it with one click

The head honchos at Twitter have decided to take action against the site's growing problem with spam accounts by giving users some new options to file spam reports. You'll see a new "Report as spam" link on the sidebar of each user's Twitter page, and a "Report as spam" action available from your followers and following lists.

Growth of Facebook leaves MySpace in dust

Social networking is definitely seeing a reshuffling of its top players. Facebook and Twitter are in, MySpace is out, according to Experian Hitwise.

Quicken 2010: Smoother money management?

With Quicken 2010, Intuit strives to make its classic money management application easier to navigate and simpler to understand in less time, thanks to spruced-up visuals. Although a solid balance-keeper and financial assistant, Quicken needs every boost it can get.

Patch Tuesday and Office Suite News

Monster Patch Tuesday on tap: 13 bulletins, 34 vulnerabilities

Microsoft is planning a bumper Patch Tuesday next week — 13 bulletins covering 34 security vulnerabilities in a wide range of products. Eight of the 13 bulletins will be rated “critical,” Microsoft’s highest severity rating.

Adobe exploit puts backdoor on computers

A new zero-day exploit targeting Adobe Reader, as well as 9.1.3 and earlier versions of Adobe Systems' Acrobat, drops a backdoor onto computers using JavaScript. The best solution is replace Reader with Foxit Reader.

Microsoft to put stripped-down Office on new PCs

Microsoft will abandon its Works entry-level suite and instead offer for free Office Starter 2010, which includes Word and Excel but drops PowerPoint and OneNote.

Office suites in the cloud: Microsoft Office Web Apps versus Google Docs and Zoho

A spreadsheet in your browser? A word processor on the Web? These days, SaaS (software as a service) is all the rage, and the success of Web-based upstarts like Salesforce.com has sent vendors searching for ever more categories of software to bring online. This multi-page article gives you a critical comparative look at the Big 3 on-line office suites.

What Is Twittering - Twitter Explained (Free e-book)

What is Twitter? Well, where have you been? Twitter would have to be one of the fastest growing sites on the web today. It is taking the internet by storm and there are around 10,000 new users per day signing up to articipate in this internet revolution.

Weekend Lightweight Edition

Ridiculous hardware hacks

Sometimes high-tech problems require low-tech solutions. Not all of these hacks are useful or even safe, but they all exhibit a certain creativity and can-do spirit. Funny stuff.

14 Extremely Useful Firefox Add-ons

My affinity for Firefox comes as much from the fantastic community of addon developers as it does from the program itself. Now, I'm sure you will have heard of some of these before: good Firefox addons tend to spread like wildfire. I hope I've managed to include some that you might have missed.

Ralph Lauren admits it needs Photoshop lessons

A recently produced Ralph Lauren ad seemed to feature a model who last ate in 2004 and clearly enjoyed the attention of a plastic surgeon whose diet consisted entirely of mushrooms from the magic department of his local supermarket.

How To Choose and Use Strong Passwords

The recent password compromises of Hotmail, GMail and (from other reports I've read) Yahoo! Mail make this a good time to revisit the issue of passwords.

How to Buy a Printer

The first order of business in shopping for a printer is figuring out what type of printer and what features best meet your needs. We walk you through some key questions to consider.

Microsoft Releases Security Essentials

Hello, everybody.  I’m back in Tucson after my six state adventure that lasted almost four weeks.  It was a great time with lots of new wilderness adventures, photographs and great memories.  Some of those photos will be showing up shortly on my “Postcards” blog. But, I must admit, I am delighted to be back in Tucson.

Frankly, I didn’t think about technology very much on this trip as I had no Wi-Fi access much of the time.  But, when I got back to civilization in the SF Bay Area, I found Microsoft had released its much anticipated FREE anti-malware software, appropriately named “Security Essentials.”

During its beta testing period, the software received excellent pre-release notices. The final version was much-anticipated and was released at the end of Sept. All the post-release reviews I read are also excellent and according to them, its malware detection rate during laboratory tests were terrific. 

But, the one review I really wanted to hear is from the security expert I rely on the most…Steve Gibson of Gibson Research Corporation.  As I’ve mentioned here before, he discovered “spyware” and gave it its name. He is into computer security big time and is a fanatic on details.

Steve gave a semi-quick review on his “Security Now” podcast with Leo LaPorte (an in-depth review is coming in a few weeks). He also gave it a rave review saying it is now the one security software he now recommends. He pointed out it has a smaller footprint on your system than most other programs and uses less system resources. That is good. 

He did point out one thing that was interesting…the scan time is slower than other security packages. But, that is intentional as the method Microsoft chose to use pretty much eliminates any false-positive results that have plagued other programs. Personally I would prefer that method, even if it is slower.

I installed it on my XP laptop while on the road as I wanted to try it out right away. It’s clean and easy to install (make sure you remove your current anti-virus/spyware software first). It automatically gets the latest definitions then does a quick scan.  I did not notice the slower scan times that Steve Gibson mentioned. On my laptop, it found two Trojans that AVG missed.

Yesterday, my first day back, I installed it on Windows 7. It installed even easier than my XP laptop. The quick-scan revealed no issues, but I ran an in-depth scan overnight and it found one questionable item.  This weekend, I will install it on my desktop’s Windows XP partition.

Bottom line…I also give it a good review and it is now my security software of choice. Be sure to remove your old anti-virus/spyware software before installing Security Essentials…and be sure to run an in-depth scan ASAP (have it run overnight).

This is a major software release by Microsoft and should have other anti-virus/spyware software companies worrying about their future. Remember, it is free and is available on the Microsoft Web site.