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Dear Rovio,

I really wanted to love you, I did.  Your wifi enabled webcam, your omni-directional steering, your programmable web interface.  You were going to be my little remote sentry to keep an eye on my lair and keep me company on a long winter’s night.  Alas, it just wasn’t meant to be…

(hit “read more” for the rest of the story)

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Security is always a huge concern in the IT community.  We make huge efforts to maintain firewalls, encryption via SSL, VPNs, encrypted wifi signals, program and operating system updates but the biggest security vulnerability time and time again are the passwords that people choose.

There is an article that I recently came across written from the perspective someone trying to break into a secure system.  The top 10 most used passwords list reads like a list of lazy choices from people that just don’t want to think about security:

1. Your partner, child, or pet’s name, possibly followed by a 0 or 1 (because they’re always making you use a number, aren’t they?)
2. The last 4 digits of your social security number.
3. 123 or 1234 or 123456.
4. “password”
5. Your city, or college, football team name.
6. Date of birth – yours, your partner’s or your child’s.
7. “god”
8. “letmein”
9. “money”
10. “love”

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There’s been a lot of talk about Windows 7 since it’s launch, most everything has been positive (which certainly wasn’t the case after Windows Vista launched).  In this tough economic client people are asking themselves, “Why should I upgrade and what benefits will I see if you do?”  I’ve been running Windows 7 since August with their Release Candidate and installed the full version as soon as Technet offered it and I’ve found many improvements over previous versions.

(Be warned, this is a long post.  I wanted to get as much information in as possible.  The short story is if you’re getting a new computer definitely get it with Windows 7, if your computer is less than 2 or 3 years old I would recommend the upgrade).

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Microsoft put out a series of patches today for all versions of Internet Explorer from 5 to 8 for every operating system from Windows 2000 to Windows 7 to address a huge security vulnerability .

The vulnerability was used in the cyber attacks against Google, yahoo and others over the last couple weeks. If you’re running any versions of Internet Explorer please install any updates from Windows Update that are pending on your system or grab the update manually from Microsoft’s site.

Microsoft Security Bulletin MS10-002 – Critical

I love having multiple monitors. It makes working in multiple application so much easier. Most of the time I’ll have several browser windows, email, a couple servers, some windows explorer windows and other various things open and dual monitors makes switching between the programs much more fluid. What do you do if you don’t have the room (or budget) for a second monitor? Adding virtual desktops gives you almost the same functionality, for free!

What is the benefit of multiple virtual desktops?  For me, when I’m working on several projects at once virtual desktops allow me to segment the windows into groups and makes it so that I only see the windows that I don’t get lost in the shuffle of open apps.

I’m a big fan of a program called Dexpot.  It’s compatible with all modern verisons of Windows (XP, Vista, and 7) and allows you to have up to 20 virtual monitors (the default is 4) with alpha transparency, fast screen switching options and the ability to move windows back and forth between different virtual desktops.

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Like many people, you may have received a new computer for the holidays.  If you’re already an avid user you know how to set it up, install your favorite apps and get to work/play.  But if you’ve just moved to a new operating system (Windows 7, OS X or even Linux) you may be a little lost as to the new functionality in your new toy.  Luckily lifehacker has put together a great list of tips and tools for whatever system you’re baffled over.  Take a look at this list and let me know if you have another cool trick you’d like to share.

image from bolti22 on flickr

That’s right, my fellow Blackberry addicts, after the short outage on Dec 17th it looks like there’s another Blackberry internet and email outage.  And this one looks like it might last a while.

Reports are coming in from all over the internet but there’s been no confirmation so far from Research in Motion about how long this service interruption will last.  Hopefully everything will be up and running by tomorrow but this certainly isn’t a great early x-mas present for the email junkies out there.

Photo from malyousif on flickr

If you’re like me you have a ton of icons on your desktop, but they’re all over the place and sometimes difficult to keep track of. There’s a great free application that you can use on any version of Windows XP and up (XP, Vista and 7) called Fences by Stardock.

Fences allows you to group your icons within individual…well…fences. Each fence is re-sizable, movable as a group of icons and has it’s own label. All you need to do to create a fence is right click and hold and drag a box around the icons you wish to group together, like in the video below.

The free version allows for an unlimited number of fences, quick hide abilities, auto scaling of fences for when you change resolutions and the ability to save configurations before you makes changes and revert if you don’t like your new setup.  They offer a paid version that gives you the ability to automatically grab files by extension, date, name, etc, set different opacity levels for different fences.

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Apparently there’s a newly released exploit in Encapsulated Postscript Files (.eps) files that can allow malicious code to run (i.e. viruses and the like).  Why don’t I find this to be particularly horrible news?  Because this shouldn’t affect anyone who’s paying attention anyway.

Zero-day Adobe bug overshadows impending Flash fix – The Register

There are viruses that can infect your computer through dozens of file types, among which are .avi, .pdf, .doc, .xls, .zip files (holding .exe’s) .scr, .pif, .bat and many more and through web technology such as Active X controls, Flash videos, Javascript, sql injection, xss, etc.

Just take a look at a top 20 list of Internet security problems, threats and risks

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One of the worst things about starting fresh with a new reinstall of Windows (or a new computer) is that you have to hunt down updated installers for the software that you use.  I just stumbled across this great site which streamlines looking for software and installing it into one super quick process.

There’s really not too much to say about it honestly.  You go to their website, put a check mark next to the applications you want to install, hit the “get installer” button and then a small app runs (doesn’t even install itself on your computer)

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