on Life and Livingness – by Tom

The Energizer battery company is warning customers to clean out their systems following the discovery of a malware infection in its USB battery chargers. http://www.itnews.com.au/News/169172,energizer-warns-of-malware-in-battery-chargers.aspx

Over half the world’s largest companies infected. http://www.itnews.com.au/News/168630,spain-busts-hackers-for-infecting-13-million-pcs.aspx

Less than a quarter of people who have registered domain names have given fully accurate information, according to a report for domain name register operator Icann. http://www.itnews.com.au/News/167670,domain-registration-rules-could-be-tightened.aspx

Norwegian technology company Bach is to launch a new digital music file which will have additional content including lyrics, news updates and images embedded. http://www.itnews.com.au/News/165394,latest-music-file-could-succeed-the-mp3.aspx

Gmail, Yahoo! Mail and Hotmail “completely vulnerable” by default. http://www.itnews.com.au/News/164576,corporate-spy-risks-from-free-email.aspx

David’s got some very good observations in his article.\ http://www.nytimes.com/2010/01/03/weekinreview/03carr.html

Wow, take a look at what a young Indian genius does when he starts looking at everyday objects – like a computer mouse. http://articles.mercola.com/sites/articles/archive/2009/12/12/Genius-Level-Innovations-in-Computing.aspx

Symantec warns of flaw in Acrobat that allows pdf attachments to harm your computer. http://www.itnews.com.au/News/162996,new-adobe-zero-day-threat-discovered.aspx

iTnews editor Brett Winterford laments lost data. http://www.itnews.com.au/News/162817,opinion-my-holiday-tip—backup-your-data-now.aspx

Fake Anti-Virus scams have already cost users $164m. http://www.itnews.com.au/News/162804,fbi-warns-of-scareware-threat.aspx

Scams use Google brand to lure victims. http://www.itnews.com.au/News/162414,google-names-and-shames-sites-that-prey-on-users.aspx

Pets, cars and buildings become data destroyers. http://www.itnews.com.au/News/161908,kroll-ontrack-dishes-out-top-ten-data-disasters.aspx

The zero-day flaw is unreliable, but Symantec expects reliable exploits in the ‘near future’ The zero-day flaw is unreliable, but Symantec expects reliable exploits in the ‘near future’

The standard account can help protect your computer by preventing users from making changes that affect everyone who uses the computer, such as deleting files that are required for the computer to work. We recommend creating a standard account for each user.

When you are logged on to Windows with a standard account you can do almost anything that you can do with an administrator account, but if you want to do something that affects other users of the computer, such as installing software or changing security settings, Windows might ask you to provide a password for an administrator account. http://co1piltwb.partners.extranet.microsoft.com/mcoeredir/mcoeredirect.aspx?linkId=12881948&s1=d617d442-ca04-f51f-7ac0-8f05d80dfcd8

Close applications you are not using. Having too many application open takes up unnecessary resources. Build yourself a habit of closing each application whenever possible. Minimised and idle applications still takes up CPU power therefore slow the application on which you are working.

Windows 7 has a new feature, it lets you have a quick peek of your desktop. Hold down the Windows key then hit the spacebar whilst still holding the Windows key down. You should see all your applications minimised, revealing the desktop. Let go the Windows key and all previous on screen applications will appear again.

32 patches for critical flaws released. http://www.itnews.com.au/News/160281,apple-unveils-massive-patch-update.aspx

Websense warns of highly targeted attack. http://newsletter.itnews.com.au/cgi-bin16/DM/y/hByoW0En4rp0PTM0SIfv0Eo

Internet hotspots are everywhere. Unfortunately, most of them aren’t very secure. Learn how to protect yourself when you connect in public. http://www.symantec.com/en/au/norton/products/library/article.jsp?aid=caution_hotspots&Om_em_cid=hho_email_clubsym_sep09_apac_au

A lot has changed over the last 10 years. What computer technology of today will become redundant over the next decade? http://articles.mercola.com/sites/articles/archive/2009/10/20/8-Common-Computer-Technologies-That-Will-Be-Surprisingly-Replaced-in-10-Years.aspx