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More Sony batteries are recalled

If you are still counting, Sony has had to recall over 7 million, yes 7 million, laptop batteries. This has affected Dell, Apple, Lenovo/IBM, and Toshiba. According to ZDNet and CNet , Sony's stock has dropped 8.2% since the first battery recalls in the Dell laptops. Of course the stock drop also takes into account the long delay to the PS3 game console. Analyst Masahiro Ono from Morgan Stanely: Sony's battery business is expected to have an operating profit margin of about 5 percent in the current business year to March. That compares with Sony's own estimate of its overall operating margin of 1.6 percent for the year. This seems a bit odd with the battery problems -- perhaps there are some financial creativity to handle the expenses related to the recall. I know that the techies, such as myself, pay attention to this stuff, but it will be interesting to see how big of an effect the battery recall and PS3 delay has on Sony's overall business. On top of this, we hea

The patch of all patches for Internet Explorer

Today ZDNet and other news agencies reported yet another security hole found in Internet Explorer. For only the third time, a third-party has provided an immediate fix, so that users do not have to wait on Microsoft. Microsoft expects to release the fix as part of their monthly "patch Tuesday" distribution, which occurs the second Tuesday of every month. Do not forget we have another patch that is the patch of all patches -- Firefox .

Safer Browsing

Recently I posted about another security issue with Internet Explorer -- Microsoft has since released a patch -- a rare case for Microsoft to release a patch outside their monthly "patch Tuesday" cycle. I also push Firefox fairly hard as an alternative to Internet Explorer. To be fair, Firefox has had as many issues as Microsoft, but it still is a better alternative for two reasons: 1) Firefox does not have the same tight integration to Windows as Internet Explorer, therefore the problems are typically not as severe; 2) Firefox releases fixes much faster than Microsoft. All that aside, if your machine gets a virus, spyware , or other malware from browsing, it is more difficult than ever to remove. So of course you need to be diligent in keeping your browser and operating system (OS) up-to-date, as well as your security applications. If your system is compromised, you might as well just plan on re-installing your OS -- a very time consuming effort -- and consider yoursel

Internet Explorer Security Issues Affect More Than Just Internet Explorer

As yet another security issue is found in Internet Explorer, it is a good time to remind you that Internet Explorer is used for more than web browsing. A few months back I pointed out how Microsoft Project had problems due to the ActiveX security settings I had set too high. Another such program is Outlook and Outlook Express. With the latest issue, you could receive an email with embedded code that would exploit your computer. This problem is big enough that Microsoft may actually release it outside their normal monthly patch cycle -- they have only done this once -- to fix a problem with their DRM. This problem is big enough, you can actually get a fix from a third-party . Perhaps a better fix, in addition to using Firefox (or Netscape) instead of Internet Explorer, use an alternate email program such as Eudora or Thunderbird (from the makers of Firefox).

Discover Free Music on the Internet

Contrary to what you might hear, there is a lot of free music available on the Internet. A good place to start is with podcasts. There are a few different licenses available to podcasters, such as Creative Commons . Podcasters are often also granted rights to play music from smaller labels. In some cases, because the podcaster is not in the U.S., they can also play artists that would never be approved for play within the U.S. Here is three to get you started: The Roadhouse Raven n Blues IndieFeed Another option is to try services such as Pandora or Blogmusik . With Pandora, you can suggest an artist or sing that you like, and Pandora will play it. From there, Pandora will play other songs that they believe you will like based on your selection and others before you. This is a great way to discover new songs and new artists. With Blogmusik, you can search on artist or song, and it will return sources for you to select and listen to. Both services play the music through Flash , making i

iTunes : Movie Studios : Wal-Mart

The New York Post reported September 22nd that Wal-Mart has threatened movie studios if they sell movies through the iTunes store. Consumers want to see several improvements in the online movie distribution business: Quality needs to go up DRM removed (or the same DRM across all platforms) The ability to watch a video without going to the store Access to a larger selection I think Wal-Mart's position works against the consumer and is giving the movie industry one more reason to continue to be scared of online distribtion. The fact is, we are a long way away from having the quality through digital download that you can get off of a disk, because bandwidth limitations. And for DRM consitancy, that will take even longer. Did I mention people are getting a larger selection ofmovies and other entertainment without going to the store, than ever before? So what is the big deal Wal-Mart? Seems like there is a more logical approach -- make a better offer to consumers. Instead of bullying t

Internet Explorer: Security Fix Breaks Applications, Again

Yesterday my organization announced that they are still unable to get a fix from Microsoft for the security patch MS06-042 from August 15 that broke our ClearQuest web interface for creating queries. The August 15 patch was actually the third release of the MS06-042 patch from Microsoft, as each time they have introduced new problems. The original release of the patch actually introduced security problems . This is the recommendation from my company to fix the problem, "Internet Explorer is the only browser impacted by the Microsoft security patch. The only known workaround at this time is to use one of the other supported browsers; Firefox version 1.5 is suggested ."