Good News for Microsoft?

• Microsoft Zunes Committing Mass Suicide
  


• At 2AM all Microsoft Zunes were rendered inoperable by SkyNet
  


• Other headlines:
  

  I woke up this morning and my Zune was gone - CNet
  The Day Zune Music Died - CRN
  The day Microsoft's Zunes stood still - Scientific American
  Microsoft plague threatens 30GB Zune extinction - Register, UK
  Z2K9?: Zunes everywhere freeze at midnight - National Post, Canada
  Midnight mystery crash - Detroit Free Press
  Zunes crash en masse - Computerworld
  Worldwide Zune suicide? - MLive.com
  Y2K returns 9 years later to disable Zunes? - Dallas Morning News
  I sense a disturbance in the force - Newmobilecomputing.com
  Zunes Going Tango Uniform Worldwide - Overclockers Club
  Zune Swoon: MP3 player hit with mass glitch - WTOP, DC
  Happy New Year from Microsoft - Associated Content
  The Zune Screen Of Death - TechCrunch

Windows 7

• Report Accuses Microsoft of Purposefully Leaking Windows 7 Beta
  


• Windows 7 beta ISO the hottest download on the net?
  

Blocks in Objective-C

Mike Ash has written a post on blocks in Objective-C that has quite a few people buzzing in the Mac development world.

Compare it with an article by David Stes written about ten years earlier: Objective-C Blocks.

This feature isn't available to all just yet, but it is kind of interesting to see how this concept is actually added.

Winter Driving

We spent a few days in Portland over Christmas. The snow/ice covered streets* were difficult to navigate even for those driving SUVs (hated by so many of the progressive left). Of course having a vehicle that can handle the conditions often gives a false sense of security....


For graphs of other behaviors/interactions see: GraphJam

*The snowfall was the most since 1950 or 1980, depending which news story you wanted to believe.  Regardless, their city government didn't know what to do with 10-12" of snow.

Microsoft Vulnerabilites

• New Kernel Vulnerability Discovered in Vista
  


• Critical Vulnerability In Internet Explorer Found, Patch on the Way
  


• Microsoft issues patch for latest IE vulnerability

This is truly frightening:

• MS Windows XP in Control of Royal Navy Nuclear Powered Sub fleet
  

Microsoft News

• Microsoft: Big Security Hole in All IE Versions
  


• Internet Explorer 7 Attack in the Wild
  


• IE zero-day vulnerability awaits patch
  Computer users are advised to switch to an alternative internet browser, such as Firefox or Google Chrome or Safari to be certain to avoid hackers who have so far corrupted an estimated 10,000 websites.
  


• Vista To XP Upgrade Triples In Price, Now $150
  


• Performance Tests Show Early Windows 7 Build Beats Vista
  


• Microsoft Releases Its First-Ever iPhone Application

First Snow

Finally got our first snow, about two inches. It's going to be cold, so it will be staying around.

The forecast for the coming week:


A comparison with last year:

• November 2007
• 3.2" rainfall for 13 readings.
  
• Low temperature: 20 degrees on the 2nd, 3rd, and 14th
  
• High temperature: 66 degrees on the 4th.
  
• 8" snowfall for four readings.
  


• November 2008
• Total 4.5" rain fall for 19 readings.
  
• Low temperature: 18 degrees on the 23rd.
  
• High Temperature: 64 degrees on the 13th.
  

Some Microsoft News

• Microsoft: Internet Explorer 8 Slips to 2009
  
• Windows market share reaches new low - 89.6%
  
• Vista SP2 Beta released: Does the public care?
  
• Windows Vista SP2 beta now publicly available
  

Windows 7 News:

• Windows 7: the Five Most Talked-About Features
  
• MS Says Windows 7 Will Run DirectX 10 On the CPU
  

Miscellaneous:

• Windows XP, Vista, and security
• Microsoft cleans fake antivirus tool from 994,061 PCs
  
• Microsoft's Ballmer Must Answer Questions in Lawsuit

The Internet Life?

From Geek And Poke

Cyberchondria: Too Much Bad News

Cyberchondria: Too Much Bad News

According to the New York Times, health-related Web searches are making us unecessarily anxious. A Microsoft study released on Monday reveals that search engines often lead people to fear the "worst about what ails them." Web searches for medical problems are "as likely or more likely" to lead people to pages describing serious conditions as benign ones, even though the more serious illnesses are much more rare.

Slashdot has a similar post: Microsoft Researchers Study "Cyberchondria", which links to Microsoft's paper.