The Conficker Worm is back and scheduled to attack Windows based computer systems on tomorrow April 1st! Microsoft is so desperate that they are offering $250,000 to anyone who can stop the spread of this virus. If the worm infects your computer it creates a “zombie computer” which can be controlled by the virus’s creator. Once the virus is on your computer it supposedly will prevent your computer from being able to access websites that provide security updates such as Windows Update. Rick Ferguson, Senior advisor at Trend Micro, when asked if this computer virus might be a prank said, “The people behind this worm are very skilled programmers and very well informed, these are very skilled cyber criminals.”

About two months ago a co-worker and friend of mine told me about a news article I’m sure most of you have read by now, about a 13 year old girl who sent over 14,000 text messages in one month. I will admit at first I brushed it off and thought, “big deal that’s what kids do these days”. But recently I began dwelling on it, thinking how out of control it was. 14,000 text messages? Wow can you say carpal tunnel syndrome in the making? She must have even texted people that were right next to her or in the same room. Just thinking about this story made me wonder about the generation that it is right after mine, the “millennials”.
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Today, I came across an article from TechCrunch reporting that 94% of
Facebook users do not like the Twitter-like interface. Personally, I
find that the new interface is too focused on status messages, which
sometimes can be very interesting and insightful but other times can be
annoying.

I will occasionally come across status messages such as “I’m sick this
morning. I must have eaten the wrong burrito! ” They are funny the first
time around but become stale very quickly.

It will be interesting to see if Facebook keeps the new layout or gives
users the option to use the previous layout if preferred (best option).

Apple Insider reported on today’s announcement from Apple Computer Inc. on the upcoming iPhone 3.0 update that is scheduled to be released later this summer. The iPhone update includes the long awaited MMS and copy & paste features. The update will be free for iPhone users, while iPod Touch users will have to pay a $9.95 fee to download.

Apple has posted the complete presentation online in Quicktime format.

Soon to be iPhone competitor, Sprint Palm Pre is scheduled to be released this spring.

Recently I was having a discussion with a fellow web developer on what is becoming a classic argument, as a web designer/coder is it taboo to use Adobe Dreamweaver? The guy that I was discussing this with is one of those, “I’m a web designer who codes from scratch with amazing standards and breaths awesomeness from my nostrils, blah blah” type person. You know the type of person who was hit with some magic wand and now knows everything about web design, past, present, and future. My biggest concern came when a family friend who is still in college (studying information systems) sat with us listening to our whole debate.
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Over the past month, I have been using Mint.com, a personal financial management service, and I have been very pleased thus far.  Read more »

A few years ago I found out about a Windows based file compression tool called Alzip back in 2007. Alzip is a zip utility that handles almost every compression file format known to man. After downloading an installing Alzip I was allowed to say good bye to popular zip tools like WinZip, WinRar, and yes “Stuffit”. In my experience Alzip has also made the compression size for Zip files smaller than that of WinZip or even Microsoft Windows’ built in utility. But wait, the magic of Alzip doesn’t stop there you can also compress and decompress files that are in disk image formats such as .iso and .bin.

Recently Altools, the company responcible for developing Alzip has dropped AlZip 7.0 beta which offers built in anti virus detection especially for zipped files, password recovery for zip files, and a tool that will allow users to automate repetitive zipping task.

If you haven’t done so already, be sure to download Alzip from its website or download.com today, trust me you’ll thank me later

I am really hoping that this isn’t a rumor but Digitimes has posted an article stating that the new Apple touch screen netbook computers could be released as soon as the 3rd quarter of this year. If this is indeed true all I have to say is, about time!

Every now and then we at Miracle World Media like to take two similarly designed software applications, developed for the same purpose and put them head to head in a no holds bard death match to see which one is left victorious. This time we have chosen two economically friendly image editing tools that we affectionately call ICAPS(I Can’t Afford Photoshop). The softwares being compared are Pixelmator and Gimp. We will be of comparing the fore mentioned on 6 key points, platform compatibility, usability, selections tools, filters and effects, retouching tools, and pricing. First lets briefly discuss each software’s history.
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Last week, Facebook founder Mark Zuckerberg announced a homepage redesign and rollout of a new feature where celebrities and organizations can send real-time updates via a “public” profile to an unlimited number of “friends” all across the world. Also, Facebook is giving users more control over their home page and is giving the ability to share information in real-time with their friends. The “real-time web” concept is similar to the micro blogging site Twitter, which allows users to send updates to “followers”. Read more »