An Illinois school’s computers were infected with an Obama worm. The worm is considered as low-threat. It does not do much except post a small image of the current president of the United States on an infected computer’s desktop.

“Given that Conficker source is probably not available, and if no one else ends up reporting this, there’s some chance one of your students wrote it. Find your smartest, geekiest, dweebiest kid, and look hard at him,” writes AVG’s Roger Thompson.

Source: The Register

A human error has been made at Google. Early today, each search result returns a warning that each of the site listed in the reults may harm the searcher’s computer. If a user clicked on a search result, a Google webpage will show up which gives a warning and it also prevents the user on reaching the result’s URL.

Two screen shots are included in The Register’s article. The first shows a sample of a search. The other shows the warning once a user clicks on any of the result links.

Source: The Register

It was initially my intention to write my first article about hard drive data recovery. Sometimes, though, a battle plan doesn’t survive the initial encounter. It so happens I read Tim Biden’s excellent blog post about online backup, the same day I had a situation with a client involving hard drive failure. I screwed up, and here’s what we can learn from it.
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It seems Google is having serious problems today as every single link in their directory is marked a malware. Even if you chose the “Let me view this site anyway” option, Google would get a 502 error.
It seemed to have effected all search terms in all languages.

The issue has since been fixed but this is what it looked like:

Students and faculty members cannot install Windows 7 according to various tech sites.

“UIS does not support Windows 7 — UIS typically does not support beta versions of any software unless otherwise stated, so UIS will not provide any support of any kind if you choose to install it and encounter any of the above mentioned problems. In fact, Microsoft has stated that it will not even support Windows 7 Beta,” states the University’s Information Services department.

“Installing any beta version of software is extremely risky,” it added.

Source: InformationWeek

PC users may be forced on choosing whether they want to use Internet Explorer or another web browser when they set up their machine according to a The Register article.

The order may be made by the European Commission. If this ruling passed, then OEMs will be required to install other browsers as well as Internet Explorer.

In January 2008, Opera alleged Microsoft of not following web protocols by tying IE to Windows.

Microsoft warned its shareholders that it may be hit with a “siginifant” fine by the Commission.

Source: The Register

In my many years of dealing with computer repair clients, I occasionally get asked questions where I have to justify my prices. I have a handful of responses that I use to answer these questions and I would like to share them with you in case similar questions arise for you.
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These days, online backup companies are popping up all over the place. They are an affordable and convenient backup solution. So why do I have reservations about using them as my only backup solution? Please allow me to explain.
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The first release candidate for the next major update to Internet Explorer has been announced by Microsoft earlier today. It does not have a timetable for its final release.

There is a 32-bit version for Windows XP and a 32-bit and 64-bit versions for Windows Vista.

Internet Explorer 8 ships with Windows 7 and it offers an improved rendering engine, security features, and browsing aids.

The most important feature in RC1 from Beta 2 is in the InPrivate Browsing feature. It is separated from another privacy feature in RC 1.

Source: PCMAG.com

Microsoft announced that it will stop on offering downloads of Windows 7 Beta on February 10. Users who are downloading during that time have time to complete the download by Feb. 12.

Patrick DeRosier, who is the CTO of CPU Guys, said that overall system performance and usability improved.

Those who are TechNet and MSDN subscribers could download the beta until August 1 when the testing period expires.

“The biggest complaint our customers had about Vista was that nothing [in the user interface] was where they expected it to be,” said Steve Bohman of Columbus Micro.

Source: ChannelWeb