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. :)

Windows Media Player 11 for XP is available for download.

Windows Media Player 11 offers great new ways to store and enjoy all of your digital media. It's easier than ever to access all of your music, video, pictures, and recorded TV on your computer. Play it, view it, organize it, and sync it to a portable device for enjoying on the go, or share with devices around your home - all from one place. Windows Media Player 11 is designed to work with all versions of Windows XP with Service Pack 2, including Windows XP Home Edition and Windows XP Professional.

Download size: 24.6MB. This download requires that you are running a genuine copy of Windows and that it passes validation.

The Internet is just a fad

"MySpace Is So Last Year".Washington Post story, the Post uses the following quote as its story-ending clincher:

Evan Hansen, a sophomore at Falls Church High School, said he didn't buy into the MySpace hype and is waiting for the craze to die.

"Over time, people are going to get sick of talking to people on the computer," he said. "I just think people will want to spend more time with each other -- without the wall of technology."

You heard it folks, The Internet is just a fad. LOL

How-To make Tombstones for Halloween

Just in time... How To make Tombstones for Halloween.

Internet Explorer 7 Quick Reference Sheet

IE 7 is the latest browser from Microsoft. And here is an excellent Quick Reference Sheet of it. Here you will find all the General shortcuts,Tab shortcuts and Common tasks.

Internet Explorer 7 Quick Reference Sheet

Set Your Clock: It's the End of Daylight-Saving Time

Officially we will fall back to standard time at 2 a.m. Sunday, though most of us will change our clocks Saturday night.

This is the last time the change will come in October. Thanks to a law passed last year, daylight-saving time will start earlier and end later beginning in 2007. It will last from the second Sunday in March to the first Sunday in November.

Some states and territories don't observe daylight-saving time and won't have to worry about changing their clocks. Those are Arizona, Hawaii, Puerto Rico, the Virgin Islands, American Samoa, Guam and the Northern Marianas.

Daylight-saving time returns next March 11.

IE 7's heavily promoted security features

CNET News.com's Joris Evers and CNET.com's Robert Vamosi discuss IE 7's heavily promoted security features in this week's Security Bites. Click here to watch the video at Cnet's news.com

Firefox 2 due out tomorrow

For those of you who don't want to take the risk of installing IE7 of their machine, preferring instead to wait for the final release of FireFox 2 instead, well rejoice! PC Word has just announced that the new version of Mozilla's browser will be available for download on Oct. 24. Just 1 day left until we can finally get our hands on one of the most expected pieces of software of the year.

Internet Explorer 7 is Out

Just a quick post to let you guys know that IE7 was released just a few hours ago.

Some improvements over IE6 includes: New Interface, RSS Feeds, Phishing Filter, Protected Mode, Tabbed Browsing, and PNG support among many others.

Upgrade with confidence. Get downloads for Internet Explorer 7, including recommended updates as they become available. To download Internet Explorer 7 in the language of your choice, please visit the Internet Explorer 7 worldwide page

The setup is available from this location.

Windows Live Writer...Free Blogging App.

Microsoft has released a new beta version of its unexpected free Blogging app, Windows Live Writer. Writer 1.0 beta puts some more polish on the program, as well as a few new features, in particular support for tagging via several services including Technorati and del.icio.us (still no Ultimate Tag Warrior), support for the new Blogger Beta, and improved category handling. It also features faster start-ups and improved style detection for Blogs, and about a dozen other little improvements. On top of that, Microsoft has added a Writer section to Windows Live Gallery where you can download plugins for the app or submit your own. The selection is sparse just now, but it does have Firefox and IE "Blog This" plugins, an Event plugin (with hCalendar microformat support) and a Flickr plugin.

Public Service Announcement, Chanute, Kansas... Commodities

TEFAP Food Commodities For the Chanute area ( Neosho County Kansas ) will be distributed Monday September 25th, 9:00am - 4:00pm or until I am out of food at the Otterbein United Methodist Church 631 W. 7th, Chanute, KS. Entrance will be on the East side of the church under the canopy.
Foods will be available to individuals and families based on income. Please bring Identification, proof of Address and proof of income for all applicable family members.
Recipients of cash assistance, food stamps and general assistance are automatically eligible for Food Commodities with proof of current benefits.

Income Guidelines are:

Household size - Max Monthly Income

1 - $1062
2 - $1430
3 - $1799
4 - $2167
5 - $2535
6 - $2904
7 - $3272
8 - $3640

For each additional Family member Add: $369