You’d think, given Facebook’s popularity, that they would have answered the inquiries from authorities, or at least responded to the complaints before it got to this point.

The social networking Web site Facebook has been warned that it could face a consumer fraud charge for failing to live up to claims that youngsters there are safer from sexual predators than at most sites and that it promptly responds to concerns, a spokesman for New York Attorney General Andrew Cuomo said Sunday.

“We expect an immediate correction eliminating the dangers exposed by our investigation,” said the spokesman, Jeffrey Lerner.

…

Lerner said Facebook’s contention of being safer than most sites was accurate when it started out as a closed site 3 1/2 years ago. But it’s now much larger, and the safeguards and apparently the response times for complaints aren’t what they once were, he said.

Then again, once you get as big as Facebook, even a little bad publicity seems to be a good thing, right? But how do you go about “securing” Facebook for young people? Seriously? I have yet to see a system where the young people didn’t “break out” or the pervs didn’t find a way in…

If they’re not careful some of the victims might start talking to a few Raleigh personal injury attorneys about the whole matter, then it could get even nastier for Facebook.

There was an interesting piece at PCWorld yesterday…

It’s self-serving, but a new study by McAfee Inc. and the National Cyber Security Alliance has found that 78 percent of consumer PCs in the U.S. are not protected (defined as having up-to-date AV, spyware and a properly configured firewall).

What’s interesting, though is how many people think they are protected: 93 percent according the survey, which is set to be released Monday.

“There’s… a troubling perception among the vast majority of consumers that they’re well protected. And they’re not. ” McAfee says. Translation: buy more of our products.
Maybe on Monday we’ll learn then what percentage of the people who are not protected *think* they’re safe.

I find it ironic that it’s McAfee that did the study, since, even with McAfee fully installed and updated, our systems at the office ended up infected far more often than with any other product before, or since.

I don’t think it matters how many products you buy from McAfee, to be honest.

I guess I can stop bashing my head on my desk, huh?

A couple weeks ago, my laptop from the day job had issues. I tried everything, and ended up perfroming a repair on Windows XP. Ever since then, I’ve had a hell of a lot of problems with the laptop, and Windows Update crashes on me.

A silent update that Microsoft deployed widely in July and August is preventing the “repair” feature of Windows XP from completing successfully.

Ever since the Redmond company’s recent download of new support files for Windows Update, users of XP’s repair function have been unable to install the latest 80 patches from Microsoft.

Now it all makes sense. Now I know why I was getting those error messages, and why nothing would update. What a piece of shit. I ended up re-installing the whole laptop, which in my eyes seemed a lot easier than putting up with the crap that was happening.

Bill Gates and company are doing a great job helping Steve Jobs sell Apples. That’s right, if this wasn’t my work laptop, and I didn’t need Windows on it, I would have shitcanned this thing and bought a mac.

I had a watch once, that had issues but worked just fine, but I tried to fix it. That was an adventure. Of course, it wasn’t a Patek Philippe or anything, but I should have left well enough alone.

My mother-in-law wanted to get these for our kids, but we didn’t want them having cell phones. Technology isn’t all that for those under 10, trust me.

The Walt Disney Co. will pull the plug on its branded cell phone service by the end of the year, the company said Thursday.

Disney said customers liked the product that allowed parents to determine the location of a child carrying a phone, but that it was having problems getting the phone into large retailers.

“We decided that changing strategies was a better alternative to pursue profitable growth in the mobile services area,” Steve Wadsworth, president of the Walt Disney Internet Group, said in a statement.

The company will end sales immediately and continue to service the handsets until the end of the year.

I’m gald we talked her out of it, or we would have been stuck with those things come the first of the year.

Ya know, Disney never should have been in the cell-phone market anyway, really. They should stick to doing what they do good, which of course, is pretty much undetermined at this point. So I guess it doesn’t matter, huh?

Oh joy.

Two long-awaited Microsoft releases are now available in trials. The Redmond, Washington-based company made the first release candidate of Windows Server 2008 available for downloading on Tuesday, following the start Monday of beta testing for Vista Service Pack 1.

The company said in a statement that the Windows Server 2008 release candidate indicates that “engineering, development, and beta testing are making significant advancements” and that the server code is entering final testing.

The new server features Internet Information Services (IIS) 7.0 and enhanced network and clustering technologies. One of the most anticipated new features is its virtualization technology, codenamed Viridian.

I can hardly wait. Two new products that will have end users completely confused. I can see the support calls now. Although, I do think it’s cool that Microsoft is finally going to release another Windows Server version (cough).

WordPress 2.3 has been released and this one is a biggie! So what’s new?

1. Native tagging support allows you to use tags in addition to categories on your post, if you so choose. We’ve included importers for the Ultimate Tag Warrior, Jerome’s Keywords, Simple Tags, and Bunny’s Technorati Tag plugins so if you’ve already been using a tagging plugin you can bring your data into the new system. The tagging system is also wicked-fast, so your host won’t mind.
2. Our new update notification lets you know when there is a new release of WordPress or when any of the plugins you use has an update available. It works by sending your blog URL, plugins, and version information to our new api.wordpress.org service which then compares it to the plugin database and tells you what the latest and greatest is you can use.
3. We’ve cleaned up URLs a bunch in a feature we call canonical URLs which does things like enforce your no-www preference, redirect posts with changed slugs so a link never goes bad, redirect URLs that get cut off in emails on similar to the correct post, and much more. This helps your users, and it also helps your search engine optimization, as search engines like for each page to be available in one canonical location.
4. Our new pending review feature will be great for multi-author blogs. It allows authors to submit a post for review by an editor or administrator, where before they would just have to save a draft and hope someone noticed it.
5. There is new advanced WYSIWYG functionality (we call it the kitchen sink button) that allows you to access some features of TinyMCE that were previously hidden.

Oh yeah, and there are 351fixes. Wow. I’ll be busy upgrading over the next couple days…

Find out more at the WordPress Development Blog.

I wouldn’t mind purchasing a couple of these, one for my kids and one for a needy child somewhere else, if I was given the choice of where that “needy” laptop would go. What do they use as their priority for sending a laptop to a child? Why would their choice be any more beneficial for a child than mine? Just askin’.

Inexpensive laptop computers designed for students in developing countries will be sold to the public in a buy-one, give-one scheme, the non-profit organization behind the project said Monday.

The “100 dollar laptops” — which currently cost nearly twice that amount — will go on sale for two weeks starting November 12, One Laptop Per Child (OLPC) said in a statement.

The non-profit group was organized by Nicholas Negroponte, a co-founder of the Massachusetts Institute of Technology (MIT) Media Laboratory, who came up with the idea of providing low-cost computers for students in underdeveloped countries as key step to promote education.

The sales program is designed to give the overall OLPC project more publicity, and to encourage open-source software developers to write programs for the laptop’s operating system, the non-profit said.

At $100 a pop, it definitely isn’t running the Apple or Microsoft operating systems. So what is it running? According to this site, it’s operating system is based on Linux. Duh.

It’s about time the networks jumped on the streaming bandwagon. Many more people would “tune in” to their shows if they offered both, streaming and downloads, for free. There is no reason they can’t offer both, with embedded advertisements.

US television networks believe they have found the business model needed to profit in the digital age – streaming their hit shows over the internet as opposed to selling them to consumers as digital downloads.

This season they are gearing up to stream unprecedented amounts of programming with embedded advertisements on their own websites and via those of distribution partners.

They are embracing streaming video after recent experiments eased concerns that it would cannibalise traditional broadcast audiences and undermine business models. Instead, many TV executives are confident that putting programmes online will build greater awareness among consumers and increase audiences. The networks have also been encouraged by advertisers, who are rapidly shifting their budgets to the internet to reach young consumers.

Most of the shows I watch are recorded on the DVR long before I actually sit down to watch them, and I really don’t think there’s any difference if I record it on my DVR or if I download it. It sure would be nice to be able to take my television shows with me, no matter where I went. One thing for sure, there would be nothing like kicking back by the pool at Tropicana Las Vegas or on the beach in Panama City, Florida watching my favorite shows.

Mozilla has released alpha 8 of Firefox 3 and there is finally something worthwhile to mention.

Mozilla Corp. updated the preview of Firefox 3.0 to alpha 8 Thursday, unveiling for the first time to users several security features it’s talked up for months.

Among the security provisions debuting in the new alpha of “Gran Paradiso,” the code name for Firefox 3.0, are built-in anti-malware warnings and protection against rogue extension updates, according to documentation Mozilla posted to its Web site.

Wow. After all the talk it’s finally here. Of course, it’s still alpha so I won’t be touching it for a while, but wow. Just think back a few years and you’ll realize how far web browsers have come in such a short time.

Heck, if this were a few years ago, I would prefer running the alpha over Internet Explorer anyday. Nothing said you enjoyed a good colon cleanse like powering up the older versions of Internet Explorer.

Where have I been? I didn’t even realize the eDonkey servers were still out there.

The music industry claimed another legal victory in its battle against illegal file sharing in Europe on Friday, but the win may not last long.

Seven servers that were part of the eDonkey file-sharing network were shut down this week in Germany after a court granted injunctions, said the International Federation of the Phonographic Industry (IFPI), a recording industry trade group.

…

That action, as well as other recent shutdowns of eDonkey servers in the Netherlands and France, has disabled use of the network to one million users, about a third of the total number of users, IFPI claimed.

But research analyst Jonathan Arber of Ovum said more servers are likely to pop up to replace shuttered ones. Legal actions against eDonkey users now are “kind of like shutting the gate a few years after the horse has bolted,” he said.

When it comes to P2P networks, any attempt to close them down only results in another alternative pooping up soon afterward. People have always traded files and they will continue to find ways, no matter what the music industry or anyone else wants.

Maybe eDonkey should find an island or some land for sale and decalre themselves their own country, then they would be immune from all this, right?