Apple patches 22 security holes in Mac OS X

A new security update released by Apple patches several exploits recently discovered in its Mac OS X operating system, including one widely publicized issue with its disk image software. Read more here at appleinsider.

PC PitStop market research

PC PitStop is in an interesting position, in return for a free Computer scan it gets to collect a lot of data about Personal Computers. Now they are giving the rest of us a look at some of that information, and it makes really interesting reading.

Here are some of the highlights:

AVG Anti-Virus is the market leader and is gaining serious ground. While trailing far behind, Microsoft is also gaining ground fast on the likes of Symantec and McAfee.

As more users use anti-spyware, there has been a decline in installed spyware.

Most popular anti-spyware apps are Ad-Aware, SpyBot S&D and Windows Defender.

WinZip is losing ground as the most popular compression tool (because they have started to become more aggressive when it comes to charging), WinRAR is gaining ground.

Windows Backup usage has increased 1% over the past year.

When it comes to browser toolbars usage, Google and Yahoo! are on the increase, with Microsoft and AOL are in decline.

Skype is by far the most popular choice for VOIP, up nearly 3% in the past year.

iTunes is on the way up, up over 5% in the last 12 months.

Most popular Office suite, Microsoft Office, followed by Microsoft Works, followed by Microsoft Works Suite. Way behind is Open Office.

Read the report here.

Watch the Video below for more info.

2 College Student's Sue Over Book Prices

In a first-of-its-kind lawsuit that could affect thousands of college students who think they are overcharged for textbooks, two Daytona Beach Community College students have sued the nation's largest collegiate-bookstore chain and their school. Read the story here.

Firefox, IE vulnerable to fake login pages

Mozilla's Firefox 2 and Microsoft's Internet Explorer 7 are vulnerable to a flaw that could allow attackers to steal passwords.

Dubbed a reverse cross-site request, or RCSR, vulnerability by its discoverer, Robert Chapin, the flaw lets hackers compromise users' passwords and usernames by presenting them with a fake login form. Firefox Password Manager will automatically enter any saved passwords and usernames into the form.

The data is then automatically sent to an attacker's computer without the user's knowledge.

Read more about this here

Happy Thanksgiving

USDA says 12 mln Americans faced hunger in 2005

More than 12 million U.S. households had trouble feeding themselves last year, but the rate of food insecurity did decline, the government said on Wednesday.

"It is simply unacceptable that after years of economic growth, 35.1 million people in this country face a constant struggle against hunger," said FRAC president Jim Weill. The group urged an expansion of the food stamp and school meal programs as well as a higher minimum wage.


Read the rest of the Article here

Happy Birthday

Just want to say Happy 19th Birthday to my son John. Hope you have a GREAT day. Love, Dad

Firefox 2's built in spell check

Now that Firefox 2 has a built in spell check, it still has one issue, it doesn’t automatically spell check all fields by default. The normal behavior is to only spell check multi-line text fields. If you want to have it always spell check all text fields you need to follow these three simple steps.

1. Go to about:config in your URL bar
2. Search for spellcheckDefault
3. Change the value of spellcheckDefault to 2

That’s it. Now Firefox will spell check all input boxes automatically.

Google Accidentally Sends Out Kama Sutra Worm to 50,000 members

Google accidentally sent out e-mail containing a mass mailing worm to about 50,000 members of an e-mail discussion list focused on its Google Video Blog, the company said Tuesday. You can read about this mishap here at PC World.

Been busy and Movies

Sorry I haven't posted in a while, I have been busy. I finally ordered two movies that I have not seen in a long time, Sharkys Machine, and Three Days of the Condor from Wal-Mart.com. I would have just rented them but our local rental place ( Movie Gallery) doesn't carry them, it seems like they only carry movies for young people, by that I mean 18-25 year olds. It is almost funny, every time my wife calls them and ask do you have this movie or that movie the answer is no we don't. Luckily the cost of buying them is not much more that the normal rental fees. My movies should be here by the end of the week, that will be nice.

We did rent three movies last weekend, "Click" which had a good concept but was full of sophomoric jokes tailored for teenagers, "Failure to Launch", which was not too bad. "Failure to Launch", is about a guy that does not want to move out of his parents house, apparently this is happening allot now in real life. When we were growing up we couldn't wait to move out and be on our own, not so nowadays. The last movie we rented was "the break-up", we will watch that one later this week.

In other news we did get our Flu Shots yesterday, I am glad that we got them early. When I had the flu last year I was sick with 103-104 fever and on the couch for a week feeling like crap. I don't want to do that again. Hope everyone has a great week and make sure you get out and exercise your right to vote today. :)