New, tips, and more
From eWeek:
Microsoft is giving security administrators a day off next Tuesday.
One month after releasing a whopping dozen bulletins to cover 17 security flaws in a range of products, Microsoft Corp. announced that there would be no new advisories this month.
While IT administrators will get a reprieve from patching, a company spokesman said it is likely that an updated version of Microsoft’s malicious software removal tool will be rolled out for Windows users.
I was connected to a computer with Remote Desktop, and I realized that the CD-ROM drive was open and I wanted to run something off the CD. I couldn’t figure out how to close the drawer. There is a context-sensitive menu item that allows you to eject the drawer, but not one to close it. I did a search for a utility that would help me do this, and I found NirCmd:
NirCmd is a small command-line utility that allows you to do some useful tasks without displaying any user interface. By running NirCmd with simple command-line option, you can write and delete values and keys in the Registry, write values into INI file, dial to your internet account or connect to a VPN network, restart windows or shut down the computer, create shortcut to a file, change the created/modified date of a file, change your display settings, turn off your monitor, open the door of your CD-ROM drive, and more…
I was able to successfully close the drawer. The utility also does over 40 other things as well. The main program page has a nice listing of a lot of its uses. Check it out at http://www.nirsoft.net/utils/nircmd.html
… and get your free ice cream 
For a nice timeline of Yahoo!, check out http://blog.searchenginewatch.com/blog/050228-142842
I’ve been a WinZip user for years (ever since I paid for the product). I received this email yesterday afternoon:
We are pleased to inform you that we have introduced a new product,
WinZip(R) Companion for Outlook(R).
WinZip Companion for Outlook makes it easy for users of Microsoft(R) Outlook to zip and encrypt attachments to outgoing e-mail messages.
Zipping attachments saves transmission time, conserves space in Outlook mailboxes, and saves disk space for both the sender and recipient of the e-mail message.
The Companion can be configured to automatically zip your attachments, to ask whether or not you want them zipped, or to let you zip and attach files manually with just a few mouse clicks. Toolbar and menu items allow you to control the Companion’s functionality on a message-by-message basis.
For more information regarding WinZip Companion for Outlook, and to download the evaluation version for a 45-day trial, please visit:
http://www.winzip.com/prodpagewzcou.htm
I don’t have a need for this sort of utility, but I’ve had people email asking for recommendations of utilities that do this. I haven’t tried this (and don’t really plan on it), but knowing the quality of the WinZip products, it is probably quite good.
There is a new commercial by Zellers with a catch tune and I wanted to find out if it was a real song, or a jingle written for the commercial. A quick search of the Internet brought me to AdTunes.com
‘What was the song used in that television commercial?’
Now you can find the answer at Adtunes.com - the weblog of information on music from TV ads, film trailers, and more.
A quick search of the forum showed me that someone else had the same question, but there has been no answer yet.
The Freeware SIW is a Read-Only / Display-Only System Information tool that gathers detailed information about your system properties and settings.
A utility that includes detailed specs for Motherboard, BIOS, CPU, Devices, Memory, Video, Drivers, Ports, Printers.
It displays information about Operating System, Installed Programs, Processes, Services, Serial Numbers, Users, Open Files, System uptime, Users, Network, Network Shares, and more, as well as real-time monitors for CPU, Memory, Page File usage and network traffic.
SIW also displays currently active network connections, Passwords hidden behind asterisks, installed codecs, and more.
A standalone tool that does not require installation.
I haven’t tried it myself but plan to.
From the Toronto Star:
If you’re a young student who gets into trouble for doodling during class, you should probably read this. And after you’ve read it, you should clip it out, laminate it, punch two holes in the top, loop a string through those holes, and wear it to school like a necklace.
This story is about your new hero, a guy who doodled a lot as a kid then landed one of the sweetest gigs in the world because of it.
From CNet:
The Free Software Foundation is calling on developers of open-source software to put their efforts into creating a free version of a crucial but obscure piece of software used in personal computers.
The Boston-based FSF wants to foster the broader development of free BIOS software for standard PCs. The BIOS, or basic input-output system, is a little-known application that acts as a go-between for a PC’s hardware and operating system. It enables many advanced hardware features–power management for extending notebooks’ battery life, for example.
Right now most BIOS software on PCs or computer motherboards is developed by a PC manufacturer or a BIOS specialist such as Phoenix. That manufacturer typically decides when and how the BIOS software is updated, if it’s updated at all. The Free Software Foundation’s effort to foster a free BIOS–meaning a BIOS that costs nothing and could be installed and used freely–would put control of BIOS more in the hands of end users, foundation President Richard Stallman said in a speech last week in Brussels, Belgium.
From VNU Network:
Nearly 13,000 new phishing emails and more than 2,500 phishing websites were spotted last month, the Anti-Phishing Working Group (APWG) has reported.
Phishing uses emails designed to lure internet users to counterfeit websites which attempt to trick them into divulging personal financial data such as credit card numbers.
By hijacking the trusted brands of well known banks and online retailers, phishers are able to convince up to five per cent of surfers to respond and leave themselves open to identity theft and financial loss, the APWG warned.
From eWeek:
Dell Inc. considered building PCs with chips from Advanced Micro Devices but now aims to keep Intel Corp. as its sole supplier, Dell’s chief executive said on Wednesday.
The comments from chief executive Kevin Rollins dashed expectations that Dell would eventually use both Intel and AMD chips in its personal computers. AMD shares lost as much as 4 percent, before closing down just over 2 percent.
“That’s looking like ‘No’,” Rollins, speaking at an investor conference in Phoenix, said of the company’s consideration of using AMD chips. “For a while it was looking like ‘Yes.’”
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