Software utilities

Poor poor thing. I almost feel like singing him a lullaby and rocking him ever-so gently ‘til he falls asleep with his thumb in his mouth and a drool a mile long.

But I won’t.

‘cos …well….I think he’s got a gazillion million millions stuffed in his pillow for comfort.

You made the decision to leave, Billy Boy, so what’s with the choked-up speech and the misty eyes? You’re not dying, you’re just leaving, moving on. Change is necessary as you very-well know, Billy. All you have to do is look at all the different versions of Windows, Office, yadda-yadda-yawn, you’ve piled out to know that what I’m saying is true. One minute, it’s Windows 2000, then it’s XP, then it’s Vista. If we can live through those dramatic versions/changes, then you, my friend, can live with the almighty big one you’re about to embark on.

Imagine all the things you’ll have more time to do now. You could go on a holiday. Ever heard of that, Billy Boy? Hol-i-day?

No, not the song by Madonna, dufus.

Well, a holiday is when you jump on a plane (erm, in your case, I guess it would be one of your private jets) and go to a place where you can leave the world behind, relax, reflect and have fun. I heard the mangoes are really good in the Caribbean. Greece is heaven on earth. And Brazil will make you smile all over.

So how about it, Billy Boy? Go on a holiday and thank the heavens that you still have enough of your life (and your money) to enjoy the journey ahead (whichever path you choose to take).

It’s not the end, old man - it’s just the beginning.

You’ll be fine, Billy Boy. We’ll miss ya, but you’ll be fine.

Just fine.

.

I do my own bit in terms of minimising the impact my use of technology may have on the environment. I do realise I still have a way to go to reach the optimum level of green usage, but as technology gets faster and faster, I do feel I have to consider the part I have to play in all of it and what I can possibly do to give (back) rather than deplete.

The printer manufacturer, Hewlett-Packard, is doing its own bit, too. Last Thursday, it launched a green ‘initiative’. Part of that initiative was the release of a new ‘green’ printer (the HP DeskJet D2545 - retailing at around $45). It’s mostly made from recycled plastic, including the ink cartridges.

HP has also developed a ‘printing assessment service’ that measures their consumers’ energy usage (usage of printing paper, ink, carbon emissions, etc). But they won’t just assess the consumer’s energy consumption and leave it there – they will also offer advice on how it can be reduced. In my opinion, I feel the latter is needed more than anything as a lot of businesses and individuals might genuinely want to cut down on their energy usage, but might not know how to go about doing it.

Carrying on with the spirit in which they created their latest green printer, HP has also promised to triple the quantity of recycled materials used in its inkjets by 2010.

This is all well and good. HP’s to be commended as it’s adopting an initiative that a lot of other companies (and governments) might be dragging their feet about. However, only time will tell if they’ll reach that goal. I hope they do.

Whether global warming is fact or myth, I’m not willing to risk finding out. There are ways for the world to continue to use and make advances in technology, while still ensuring we have a planet (left) to make those advancements in.

Following on from my previous post about hackers, this is more like it. In the US, 38 spammers and hackers were charged on 65 counts this past Monday for taking part in a large scamming ring in which social security numbers, credit card details and other personal information were siphoned off unsuspecting people and financial institutions.

The ring’s base was in Romania, with rackets operating internationally including the United States, Canada, Portugal and Pakistan.

Similar to what hackers got up to in the last post, these hackers were sending emails with attachments which, when opened, downloaded spyware. The spyware would then read personal information and forward it on to a third party.

Another thing they’d apparently do was pretend to be a financial institution such as Wells Fargo, Citibank or Paypal. I’m sure we’ve all had one of those types of spammy emails, haven’t we? Typical scenario: you receive an email telling you that your Paypal account has been suspended and that to reactivate it, you need to click on a link. Now, some people instantly panic and click on the link – some people don’t.

With this one scam racket alone, thousands of Americans and hundreds of financial bodies were targeted. From their Romanian base, credit and debit card details, once obtained, were sent to their US-based scam cell and copied onto magnetic cards which could be used to withdraw funds from poor Mr X’s bank account (whom, I suspect, would be oblivious to what was going on ’til it was too late).

The article I read doesn’t mention how much they scammed off people but with the amount of people that were involved in the operation, it’s bound to be a lot. I mean, why would any of them get involved if there wasn’t the promise of a significant amount of money?

You know those guys that got arrested the other day for breaking into a woman’s apartment and stealing her MacBook (and other stuff)? You know, the ones who got ‘caught on camera’ (quite literally)?

Well, what those guys did seems to pale right into the background when compared to hackers who seem to be capitalising on the recent China disaster.

There’s an email going round the Internet with a Word document attached to it. The body of the email reads:

BEIJING, May 20 (Xinhua) — The death toll from the earthquake in southwest China’s Sichuan Province has risen to 34,074 nationwide as of 2 p.m. Saturday, while 198,347 people were injured, according to the Information Office of the State Council. Pay attention to attachment for more.

Whatever you do, DO NOT OPEN THE ATTACHED WORD DOCUMENT as it’s infected with a Trojan virus (MalDoc-Fam Trojan).

Opening the attachment downloads the trojan onto your computer and if you have a vulnerable Windows PC, then you’re kinda f*cked as that’s its favourite food of choice.

Unfortunately, this isn’t the first (and it unfortunately won’t be the last) time hackers get up to no good – they did the same thing when the July the 7th bombings happened in London and when Hurricane Katrina came. I bet they’re just rubbing their hands and brains with glee waiting for the next disaster to come hurtling (hurting) along. I wonder what makes someone do something like that – what are they hoping to achieve? To think there are probably circles out there where it’s cool to do stuff like that, where there are rule books and 10-point guidelines to follow to be ‘in with the hacker clique’.

I wish them well.

Really.

Once Karma’s had its wicked way with them, that is.

Aaagh! What is up with Microsoft? Do they perhaps need a technical equivalent of a shrink? No sooner did they withdraw their billion-dollar takeover bid for Yahoo, and now they go ahead and change their minds. On Sunday afternoon, they announced that they’re putting in a fresh bid for Yahoo, but apparently this time, it’s not for all of Yahoo’s assets, just some (whatever that means).

How is Microsoft to be taken seriously with the back-and-forths? I wouldn’t. Especially as they were the ones that pulled out of the negotiating table in the first place.

Maybe it’s best for different parts of Yahoo to be owned by more than one company, anyway. It might be healthier that way. I hear Google are working on a deal with Yahoo (for Yahoo to utilise Google search ads on their network).

In other news, did you know that a fifth of Americans, over 20 million of them, have never used email? Ever?

I find that amazing.

Maybe it’s ignorant of me as I’m so used to using the web / emailing, but I do find the findings intriguing especially coming from a developed country, an apparent super power.

My immediate hunch was that age plays a factor in this. And I was right. According to the survey, half of those surveyed were over 65 years old. Education also comes into play with 56% not having gone beyond high-school level. (It’d be interesting to find out the breakdown of the other 50%.)

There were other findings such as 30% of Americans never having created a document on a computer before.

I expect that a lot of this isn’t necessarily down to age and education. Some people who’ve never touched a computer or have never been online might simply be scared of the unknown.