Four updates are scheduled to be released during the Patch Tuesday of this month according to The Register. This batch will include fixes for Windows Media Player, Media Encoder, Office, and for various Windows operating systems including Vista.

The malicious software removal tool will also be updated. The fix for Media Player was supposed to be released last month but there were last minute quality issues.

Microsoft will post more details about these patches when they released it on Tuesday, Septermber 9. This batch is much smaller than last month’s updates since there were 11 updates that were released last month.

Source: The Register

Those who bought Spore, a video game published by Electronic Arts, reported that they could not login online into EA’s UK servers. The error messages that they encounter include “invalid login” and “you do not have the proper spore.com privileges to use this product’s online features” according to The Register.

An EA representative wrote on the Spore forum which says, “We are aware that many of you are having login problems with Spore. This is being investigated so please bare [sic] with us.”

Gamers could still play the game offline but they would not be able to upload their creations at the moment due to this issue.

Source: The Register

A product has been released which lets applications run properly when a user is running under the ‘least user privilege’ conditions. The product is called Privilege Guard which was developed by a UK-based startup company.

“It creates a token based on the user’s token, but with administrator rights,” said Mark Austin who is the Avecto chief technology officer.

“We’re trying to keep it simple at first,” he added in response to the issue that they are planning to integrate it with a software called Active Directory.

This software is developed for Windows XP, Vista, as well as Windows Server 2003 and 2008. It costs £20.

Source: Vnunet

Dell Inc has started to sell a new line of laptops which comes with Windows XP. Each of them are powered by a 1.6 GHz Atom processor according to Computerworld. The cheapest version for an XP system costs $399 and it has an 8.9-in display with a 512 MB of system RAM. The hard drive of this model is 8 GB. A customer could also order a system with a Ubuntu operating system instead of XP.

These systems, Inspiron Mini 9, can be purchased by visiting Dell’s online store. If you are from the U.S., you can get a Mini 9 for only $99 if you buy an XPS M1530 or XPS M1330 laptop.

Source: COMPUTERWORLD

A new product has been released which is designed to enhance the productivity of Windows XP and Vista operating system users.

Some of the features are Screen Capture and Desktop Recorder, Extended Windows Explorer, and PDF Converter.

“Extensions for Windows is meant to enhance the typical Windows user’s experience. One of our primary goals is to work with the Windows user community and act on their behalf, bringing more features, usability and value to the operating system that so many of us use every day,” says the product manager of the software.

Many people thought that this is the next Windows OS when they viewed the software on Youtube.

Source: MarketWatch

Two issues about redirections were discussed on a Sophos blog entry recently. They are blog site redirection and image hosting site redirection.

The author notes that there was an aggressive Facebook spam campaign a few weeks ago which entice the email reader to visit a blogging site. Another blog site redirection example is about a site which sells online medications. The email consists of one sentence and one link.

The image hosting site redirection issue is about SWF files that are hosted on a a free image hosting service. If a user clicks on the link in the spam message, a security warning would pop-up and the user is given a choice to either run, save, or cancel the file.

Source: Sophos

Sophos notes that there was a malware campaign with the subject “Statement of fees 2008/09″.

It consists of three sentences that are separated into three different paragraphs. The first statement tells the reader that there is an attachment of a statement of fees that the reader requested. The second sentence notes that the sender passed the user’s request to another section.

The attachment was detected as Mal/EncPk-ES. Richard Cohen who is the author of the blog entry about this issue notes that users should not open the attachment if they did not order anything that is related to the email such as tickets or a package.

Source: Sophos

Computerworld has reported that Microsoft made an announcement regarding the compatibility of Windows Live Mail with Internet Explorer version 8 beta 2. The company said it made a mistake when they labeled their email software as incompatible with the latest beta version of their web browser.

“This was actually an inaccuracy on our end that has since been fixed. Live Mail will work just fine for IE8 Beta 2 users,” said a spokeswoman for Microsoft.

The other incompatibility warnings are correct including problems with Hotmail, Netflix, and Skype. The article at Computerworld describes what will happen when these programs are used with IE8 beta 2.

Source: COMPUTERWORLD

There is a bug in Internet Explorer version 8 beta 2 that affects Windows XP SP3 users. The bug occurs when the user make the following procedure:
1. Install IE8 Beta 1
2. Install Windows XP SP3
3. Install IE8 Beta 2

When a user follow these instructions, he or she cannot uninstall either Windows XP SP3 or IE8 at a later time according to the article at TG Daily.

Jane Maliouta of Microsoft said, “If you chose to continue, Windows XP SP3 and IE8 Beta2 will become permanent.”

“You will still be able to upgrade to later IE8 builds as they become available, but you won’t be able to uninstall them,” she added.

Source: TG Daily

The second beta version of Internet Explorer version 8 has been released earlier today.

One of the new features in IE8 is “smart address bar” which can be used by users to search for sites that they visited previously by typing in phrases or words in the bar.

James Pratt who is part of the browser’s development team demonstrated the new functionality by searching items in Amazon.com. Not only did the search show item results, it also showed artwork and prices.

Both consumers and business users are encouraged to download this new beta version. The browser can be downloaded on the Download Center of Microsoft’s website.

Source: COMPUTERWORLD