Ouch, that’ll leave a mark.

Seriously though, don’t get up caught up in the “Macs are better PCs” or “PCs are better macs” games… Computers are productivity tools it doesn’t matter whether you use a PC or Mac, if you can accomplish everything you need to accomplish with it that that’s all that counts.

I’ve used both PCs and Macs, they both have they’re own strengths and weaknesses… All I’ll say is that out of the box Macs include a better set of tools for basic everyday computing tasks than Windows does.

Windows 7 runs surprising well on on my old HP DV4155cl with a 1.6Ghz Pentium M processor and 2GBs or RAM… Overall my first impressions of Windows 7 are favorable, I’m far more likely to migrate my production systems from Windows XP to Windows 7 than I ever was Windows Vista.

The CD contains drivers needed to use the frame as a USB monitor on systems running Windows XP.

Amazon.com has posted an advisory for it’s customers:

Greetings from Amazon.com.

We have recently learned that Samsung has issued an alert affecting its SPF-85H 8-Inch Digital Photo Frame. Our records indicate that you have purchased one of the digital photo frames through the Amazon.com website and are therefore affected by this alert.

The alert involves the SPF-85H 8-Inch Digital Photo Frames w/1GB Internal Memory, designed to work with Windows-based PCs via a USB connector. They were sold between October and December 2008 for about $150.

The alert concerns discovery of the W32.Sality.AE worm on the installation disc SAMSUNG FRAME MANAGER XP VERSION 1.08, which is needed for using the SPF-85H as a USB monitor. If you are using Vista or a different version of Frame Manager, this issue does not affect you. Read the rest…

This isn’t the first time something like this has happened and it won’t be the last. Fortunately, the W32.Sality.AE is a fairly old virus that should be detected by any up to date anti-virus program.

Computerworld has more on the story here.

On a related note Mozilla and Opera Software both released updates for their respective web browsers today.

After 4 years and 2 months, Julie Amero is now free.

You’ll recall that Julie Amero was convicted of 4 felony counts, each count carrying a maximum of 10 years, for exposing school children to pornography.

The reality is that Julie, a 40–year old, pregnant substitute teacher, found herself in a storm of popups and didn’t have any idea as to what was going on, or how to fix the situation.

There were numerous technical errors made during the trial, and I led a team of forensic investigators into analyzing a copy of the hard drive. We ultimately published a report which was used in Julie’s original conviction being overturned, for a new trial last June (I am seeing if I can get the report published).

This afternoon, at an empty Norwich Superior Court, Julie pled to the misdemeanor charge of disorderly conduct, in a deal negotiated by her pro-bono attorney, William Dow.

Her fine was a $100 charge, and her Connecticut teaching credentials are revoked (Julie told me she really doesn’t care, that she has no plans ever to teach in that state again).

Brain Krebs has background on Julie’s case here.

The fact the Julie was convicted of anything is sad testament to judicial system. She was put into a no win situation by a school system that failed to take the most basic risk mitigation steps and by investigators and prosecutors who don’t understand technology or malware. If not for the efforts of Mr. Eckelberry and others in the anti-malware industry Ms. Aremo would undoubtedly be in prison today.

October 31, 2008 (IDG News Service) Three of the biggest laptop computer makers are recalling certain batteries because of a risk they may overheat and catch fire. Sony Corp. made the batteries. The recall mirrors, yet appears a lot smaller, than a similar one that occurred two years ago.

This time, around 100,000 batteries are affected, a fraction of the 9.6 million recalled in 2006. Dell Inc., Hewlett-Packard Co. and Toshiba Corp. have already issued recalls for the batteries that were used in their products, and the U.S. Consumer Product Safety Commission said “consumers should stop using recalled products immediately.”

The batteries in question were manufactured between October 2004 and June 2005, and there have been about 40 incidents reportedly worldwide of overheating to date, Sony said today.

Most of the incidents are believed to be the result of manufacturing-line adjustments made during the period that may have affected some batteries, Sony said. In addition, some may have been caused by raw material flaws.

Of the 100,000 batteries affected, around 35,000 were used in laptops shipped in the U.S. By far the greatest number, about 32,000, were shipped with HP laptops. Read the rest…

Detail about the effected batteries and the recall programs can be found at:

• HP Notebook PC Battery Pack Replacement Program
• Toshiba Sony Battery Pack Recall Programs
• Dell Battery Recall

Update: engadget.com is reporting the recall also includes Li-ion batteries used in some Acer laptops as well as those from HP, Dell and Toshiba.

Personally, I don’t put much stock in much of what Consumer Reports says but I have to admit I mostly agree with their surveys findings on tech support. I’ve had good and bad experiences with tech support from Adobe, Microsoft, HP and others over the years but Apple has consistently been the easiest to deal with… I won’t say they’re perfect but in my experience Apple’s tech support is significantly better than what passes for average these days.

In other tech news:

Computerworld is reporting that Windows XP Service Pack 3 (SP3) may cripple some systems with endless reboots. The problem seems to be confined to systems with AMD processors. More information and suggested workarounds here…

My biggest complaint with Windows Vista is the User Account Controls feature, it annoys the hell out of me. If I’m logged in as an administrator and performing administrative tasks I shouldn’t have to click through a confirmation dialog to confirm that I actually want to perform the task that I just elected to perform.

But aside from the aforementioned annoyances Vista Business SP1 is stable, and does what I need it to do. That doesn’t mean I’m going to be abandoning Windows XP Professional or Office 2003 though. I’m happy with both and they do what I need to do well enough that I don’t see a compelling reason to upgrade.

That said Windows Vista Business SP1 looks pretty solid and with sales of Windows XP scheduled to end on June 30th Vista Business looks like an acceptable replacement.

I’m not going to beat up on the pilot or the TSA they seem to have handled the incident properly. What I am going to do use this as chance to beat the Safe Hex drum.

What bothers isn’t that laptop containing confidential was apparently stolen, that happens more often than  anyone would like it to. What bothers me is the apparent lack of encryption. If you’re carrying around a laptop that contains confidential information you should be using some type of encryption to protect that information. No technology is fool proof or 100 percent effective but using products like PGP whole Disk Encryption greatly reduces the chances that the bad guys will be able to exploit the data on a stolen laptop.

It doesn’t matter whether it’s your personal financial information or pass codes for airport security checkpoints you need to take steps to protect it. Making sure your laptop requires a user name and strong password* to log on is a good first step. Adding encrypting, whether it’s whole disk encryption or just file encryption is an important second level of protection that all to often over looked.

*A strong password should be at least 8 characters and include letters, numbers, mixed capitalization and at least one special character. It should also be easy to remember but hard to guess.