AOL to drop USENET: USENET, the discussion groups that were an important part of the Ineternet Experience before Blogs will no longer be carried by AOL. AOL claims only 1000 users regularly use their USENET section. This is probably more a commentary on the poor job AOL did of maintaining its USENET service and its lame job of censorship than a lack of interest. Luckily Google provides USENET access for free. And actually the more targeted, moderated discussion boards (like those of PHP-NUKE) remove the noise, scams, spam and chain letters of USENET. One such Php-Nuke board is here (on cellular phones).

Even more scoops here: Apple has sued a web site for releasing information it would rather have kept secret. I see more secrets (Apple's and others) revealed on engadget. How about the secret on how to hack TiVo's new TiVoToGo's encryption? It's just hard to keep secrets in a free society.

Better late than Never: Microsoft, literally three years late, has come up with an answer to the problem of Spyware attacking Windows Systems. This has been a major problem for three years now, with systems being ground to a running stop by nasty Spyware (Kazaa, Comet Cursor, Gator, etc and other programs installing myriad program secretly that mess up ones computer).

Microsoft has made available for Free, a download of a "beta" of its Spyware detection and removal software, and based upon preliminary testing, it's EXCELLENT.

I highly recommend every Windows System user download it, install it, and run it. I like it because it will automatically update, automatically run, and proactively catch spyware.

FOLLOWUP 1/23/05 - The Spyware checker is so good, it catches Microsoft's spyware, so far its' found them in MS Money, and MS Media Player 10 installer.

THUNDERBIRD - I finally got around to using Thunderbird, the new FREE email client from mozilla.org; and I like it. Good thing too, as I was just about forced to use it after my MAIL program from Apple OSX decided it wouldn't pop email from Earthlink anymore. Dont know if I had too many messages in it (3500), or its a glitch with OS 10.3.7; or just my copy got corrupted, but now I don't need to find out.

Go to Jail for exercizing free speech in France: Turns out in France, a software security researcher published his findings about a buggy antivirus program. As a result he's been sued and threatened with jail. Am I liable to go to jail in France now for reporting on the report?
The French Court will issue a final ruling on March 4, 2005.

Vanity can cost you - Literally - CNN reports that if one goes to Google and searches on "Ken Lay", former head of Enron, a paid hit for his personal page (telling Ken's spin on things ("kenlayinfo")) is produced, and if one clicks through, Ken Lay is charged by Google. So now his oponents in Houston are going to Google.

Engineering for prosperity Many manufacturing firms (whether it be automobiles or computers) only support a new model for 3 or 5 years (answer questions from users), and parts availability has a defined lifetime also. See one such notice from IBM here. This is done to encourage customers to buy the newests models to assure continued sales and profitability. After all Earth Shoe stores went out of business when they didn't get enough repeat customers because their product lasted too long. And 53 years ago there was a great movie about a product that would last forever and what the consequences could be. So it's no great suprize the the folks runing "The TUBE" in London are trying to find the pieces/parts they need for 20 year old computer equipment on ebay as a last resort.

Managerial coverup : In Great Britain a major crash of the computer system controlling one major banks' Cash Machines that left them unavailable for 24 hours, has been labeled as due to a "Glitch". More likely a system upgrade performed at the wrong time, without fall back procedures in place with a shrunken staff due to "right-sizing".