Answer: I praise God that this virus, a worm specifically, is one that was pretty much a nonevent. By this time, everyone's probably heard about it, but it underscores the need to be sure that you have all your Windows Updates installed. The reason for that is that Microsoft actually closed the hole in Windows that this worm exploits back in October. They put out a patch that fixed the problem, and only those computers that didn't have the patch were vulnerable to it in the first place. Now this just goes to show how malware writers' tactics change over time. This particular worm would install a modified version of Microsoft's patch that was not only completely ineffective, but also designed to fool programs that checked whether the patch was installed. The program would show you to be patched, but you really weren't.
Cool Site: MediaFire.com: Moving large files from one computer to another has always been a problem. Storage capacities and speeds have increased over the years, but so have file sizes. Digital photos have gone from under a megabyte to seven megabytes or more, and the more megapixels, the more megabytes. We now have music and video files to share with friends and far-flung family. MediaFire lets you do this. You can upload your files for free, and you don't even have to create an account, although that's free, too. Of course, like many other services, they have a paid account that gives more features, but the free features are impressive: Organize your uploaded files into folders, which can also serve as image galleries. Keep private files private, even password-protected. You can share individual files or whole folders via email, instant messaging, or MySpace, blog or forum. So, if you have pictures to share, this is a really easy way to do it. The big drawback is going to be if you have dial-up. There really isn't anything you can do to speed up dial-up very much.
Cool Gadget: ClickFree Transformer: Well, we've talked about ClickFree's products before. In that case, it was DVDs that automatically backed up your pictures, or your music, or whatever. Most external hard drives have software that does backups for you, but I've seen it be time-limited, and sometimes it's difficult to use. Enter the ClickFree Transformer. This is a little pigtail of a device that you plug your external hard drive into. You next plug the Transformer into your computer and it automatically finds your files and backs them up onto that external hard drive. If you've already got other stuff on there, it won't erase it, and you can just take the Transformer-connected drive to another computer and plug it in and back it up, too. The software seems to know the difference between them and if you need to restore instead, well, just click restore before the backup starts -- you have a few seconds.
It's All "Geek" To Me: Tweet: Today's Geeky term is truly geeky: Tweet. Not what a bird does, but what a person does when they write a message on the micro-blog service Twitter. Twitter is at twitter.com, and when you set up an account, the messages you send are called Tweets. A tweet is simply a 140-character or fewer message that answers the question, "What are you doing?"
