Review and Comment Articles

1. With the death toll already topping 124,000 and mounting, last Sunday's tsunami tragedy continues to show nature's awesome power to strike without warning. But was the earthquake really a total surprise? Advance warning from several sources could have saved tens of thousands of lives, yet breakdowns in the lines of communications kept beachgoers in the dark until the fatal moments. When will technology make worldwide earthquake prediction reliable?

2. Lasers have made possible fantastic technological advancements and are integral parts of some of our favorite toys, yet the FBI is worried that terrorists are probing for ways to use powerful lasers to cause mass casualties, including blinding commercial pilots in flight.

3. Aging server software has been blamed for Comair's holiday collapse that left thousands of travelers stranded.
Comair last week said that winter storms had affected its computer systems responsible for scheduling flight crews. At the time, however, the carrier - a subsidiary of Delta Air Lines - did not say exactly how inclement weather had brought down its boxes. It now turns out that a dinosaur of a system was only capable of handling 32,000 scheduling changes in a month (a result of the 16-bit conundrum). Snow storms caused an unusually high number of changes to be made and brought Comair's computers down (From TheRegister.com by Ashlee Vance in Chicago.)

4. A Giant Shrinks With Age -- Once the premiere manufacturer of computers in the world, and still the largest overall, IBM is soon to become smaller. Announcing Thursday that it was selling its personal computer division to Chinese company Lenovo Group, Big Blue revealed that said division had not garnered a profit in 40 months. (From Bloomberg News via The New York Times Technology page.

5.SEATTLE POST-INTELLIGENCER: FBI Probes lasers aimed at plane cockpits

6.NYT Times: Internet Use Said to Cut into TV Viewing and Socializing

7.USA TODAY: The year according to eBay

8.Senior Journal: Internet Growth Driven by Senior Citizens

9.USA TODAY: Lowes hacker gets nine years

10.COMPUTERWORLD: CAN-SPAM law seen as ineffective

11.Express Computer Online: Canning Spam

12. USA TODAY: Officer's injury raises concern over Taser use

13. EWEEK: EU Slap down wouldn't be worst thing for Microsoft

14. MICROSOFT WATCH: A Peek Under Microsoft's Secret 'Bigtop'

15. E WEEK: eBay to Drop Passport, .Net Support

16. E WEEK: Microsoft: Passport Contracts to be Phased Out

17. USA TODAY: Tech advances make car-sharing programs simple

18. USA TODAY: Police say cameras will help them monitor Dallas neighborhood

19. WIRED NEWS: LAPD: We Know That Mug

20. WIRED NEWS: Cheap Cell Calls Have a Price

21. WIRED NEWS: Red Cross Tsunami Website Crashes

22. WIRED NEWS: How Did Animals Escape Tsunami

23. WIRED NEWS: You, Too, Can Be a Podcaster

This Week's Guests

For the 8:30 segment, a return visit from Ted Werth, CEO of PlumChoice, a remote computer support and repair company.

PlumChoice Computer Help is the leading online computer support company for the home and small business. Based in Bedford, MA, with remote offices throughout the U.S., the company offers both virtual on-site (online) and physical on-site computer support.
PlumChoice's extensive online service offering is available to home and business PC users, business travelers, telecommuters, persons with limited mobility and any PC user with Internet access. Due to the virtual/web-based nature of the company's online computer support service, customers now have a more affordable, more convenient and easier computer support option at the click of a mouse.
Founded in 2001 by eighteen-year industry veteran and entrepreneur Ted Werth, PlumChoice Computer Help is a privately-held corporation.

Family Technology Issues

1.Washington Post: New Computer? Six Steps to Safer Surfing

2.ProtectKids.com: Recent Statistics on Internet Dangers

Business and Security Subjects

1. CNET NEWS: Trojan Horse threatens latest Windows XP

2. Computerworld: Microsoft fixes 'critical' XP firewall issue

3. CNET: 'Phishing' attacks rocket in November

4. EWEEK: Google Patches Desktop Search Flaw

5. E WEEK: Three Serious Windows Vulnerabilities Surface

6. E WEEK: Holiday Attacks Target IE Browser, PHP Servers

7. E WEEK: New 'Santy' mutant offers 'help'

8. Washington Post: It's been a Day-to-Day Battle with Intruders

9. Washington Post: The Year in Technology

Definitions

war driving n. A computer cracking technique that involves driving through a neighborhood with a wireless-enabled notebook computer and mapping houses and businesses that have wireless access points. Also: wardriving, war-driving.