An interesting item appeared a couple of days ago in newspapers about the virus, known as Stuxnet, which attacked Iranian nuclear facility computers last week. One of the reasons attributed to the virus’ vast and relatively easy spread was because Iran’s facility was using computers with illegal copies of Windows installed.

When our repair shop was open, we regularly saw people who brought their machines in that were running cracked versions of Windows. For the most part, these downloaded cracked versions already contained a slew of viruses that came built in to the illegal software. Unsuspecting cheapskates would load up these bogus versions and then get angry when they stopped working or were so stripped down that they were easily infected by another virus, which brought their computer to a screeching halt.

From Breitbart:

A computer virus dubbed the world's "first cyber superweapon" by experts and which may have been designed to attack Iran's nuclear facilities has found a new target -- China.

The Stuxnet computer worm has wreaked havoc in China, infecting millions of computers around the country, state media reported this week.

Stuxnet is feared by experts around the globe as it can break into computers that control machinery at the heart of industry, allowing an attacker to assume control of critical systems like pumps, motors, alarms and valves.

It could, technically, make factory boilers explode, destroy gas pipelines or even cause a nuclear plant to malfunction.

The virus targets control systems made by German industrial giant Siemens commonly used to manage water supplies, oil rigs, power plants and other industrial facilities.

"This malware is specially designed to sabotage plants and damage industrial systems, instead of stealing personal data," an engineer surnamed Wang at antivirus service provider Rising International Software told the Global Times.

"Once Stuxnet successfully penetrates factory computers in China, those industries may collapse, which would damage China's national security," he added.

I recently got a letter from Cox telling me my phone bill was going up again. It lit a fire under my rear-end to find a VoIP solution and tell the phone companies to bug off.

I went to get a Magic Jack, but saw that there were quite a few other solutions available on the shelf. One of them was Ooma. I hadn’t even considered Vonage as their monthly rates seem almost as outrageous as a regular phone company!

I researched it and found that they let you port your existing telephone number, offer 911 service, voicemail, email notification of missed calls / voicemails, and bluetooth. Oh, and it plugs directly in to your router, so you don't have to have a computer on in order to use it.

For 6 months you get their premier service for free, after that it's $9 / month and has a ton of cool features, most notably 2nd line, 3 way calling, Voicemail-to-Text, and blacklisting.

The setup was easy on their website and in no time had a working VoIP phone. The quality is superb and the voicemail system is awesome. The only downside... you have to shell out $190 for the advanced unit (Telo) and pay the $3 / month in federal taxes. But, compared to Vonage which charges almost as must per month as Cox, QWest, and other telco's, this seemed like a logical decision. I should break even after 5 months.

I think the final selling point of this product was that it plugs into the router and not the computer. Everyone has a router that’s on 24/7, but bot a lot of people have a computer that is.

In 3 weeks I should have the phone number ported and then no more $38 / month phone bills!

Twitter became the latest target for hackers today when a security hole in their “re-tweet” method was sending users who moused-over the links to everything from hardcore adult sites to online games and Google Adword clicks.

Thousands of users, potentially tens of thousands, were affected by the hack which automatically sends out a re-tweet when moused over. Twitter currently has over 145 million users.

"We expect the patch to be rolled out shortly and will update again when it is," the San Francisco-based service said a brief statement on its website.

The bug thankfully only affected people logged on to Twitter.com, and not any third party or link software. The infected links look like regular messages, or "tweets," but contain lines of random computer code or are completely blacked out like a message that has been redacted.

If your a user of Facebook , you’ve undoubtedly heard of Farmville. The game allows members of Facebook to manage a virtual farm by planting, growing and harvesting virtual crops and trees, and raising livestock. It seems like a simple harvest and build model that has been around forever in PC gaming, and still seen today in popular games like Starcraft 2, but this game adds a nice social element. Other players can visit and tend your farm if needed. In return, you can also tend to their farm by watering crops or taking care of animals. It brings “it takes a village” to a whole new level.

FarmVille has become the most popular game application on Facebook, with over 61.6 million active users and over 24.1 million Facebook application fans in June 2010.

The game is based around the "market," where seeds, trees, animals, buildings, decorations, vehicles, and more land can be purchased using "farm coins," the generic money of FarmVille, (Farm Coins are earned by selling crops) or "farm cash" (which the player earns at a rate of one dollar per experience level below 100). A player can choose to buy FarmVille coins or cash from Zynga. The player plants seeds, which grow into crops, which can be harvested to earn farm coins.

Animals and trees can be purchased and harvested for profit. The player earns experience points (XP) by purchasing items, and plowing, planting and harvesting. Earning XP increases the player's level, unlocking more items. Most items can be bought with farm coins, although some (e.g., certain decorations and buildings) must be purchased with farm cash. Of course it wouldn’t be on Facebook if there wasn’t a little something in it for the owners of the company. One way to get bonus cash for your farm is to buy or subscribe to things via Facebook like NetFlix and such.

If your into Facebook, then you should check out this awesome guidebook for Farmville. It’s the Internet’s best seller and is the definitive player’s bible when it comes to Farmville management.

I was a little reluctant to install Google’s new (well, new to me) browser, Chrome. The reason was that I already have a desktop clogged with Internet Explorer and Firefox. For years they have served us well in testing and usage determination. One thing I’ve noticed, though, over the last couple of years is that both IE and Firefox have become so cluttered with toolbar’s and extensions that they become slow and unresponsive when flying from one website to another.

I have various SEO and Google analytics toolbars installed, and a Recycle Bin full of other toolbars that were installed as part of other software installations trying to take advantage of the reseller / marketing paybacks enjoyed by successful toolbar installation.

Like other Google sites and tools, Chrome has a remarkably minimalist interface. There is no full-scale menu bar and no title bar. All controls are buried beneath two icons to the right of the Omnibar (as Google refers to its address bar): a page icon for managing tabs and using Google Gears to create application-like shortcuts from your desktop to a Web site; and a wrench for history, downloads, and other browser options.

First impressions: One of the things I kept hearing about Chrome, mostly from Google, was that it was streamlined and fast… and they’re right! It is a stripped down, browser only type of utility that removes a lot of the redundant fluff that you find in Firefox and IE. Now, I realize that I have only been using it a week, and over time it may get a little more cluttered, but for now I can say that it is in fact a lot faster than IE or Firefox were when freshly installed.

Need to know: One thing I want to test over time is how well Chrome handles some of the fancier and more technical aspects of HTML, Flash, and Javascript. So far so good, and if what I’ve been reading on other boards is any indication, there shouldn’t be any problems. As you can tell from our site, and other sites we’ve developed, we don’t have the most cutting edge web eye candy. We try to stay a revision behind so as to ensure maximum visibility from users with older browsers or OS’s. So from our standpoint, not being on the bleeding edge of whiz bang web browsing capabilities is fine by us.

One of the ‘Cons’ that PC World listed for this browser was the fact that it lacked add-ons, which to me is the perfect reason to get Chrome! If you take the time and browse the available add-ons for IE and Firefox, the list can be staggering. But take a close look at that list and you soon realize that most of the items listed are time wasting junk or poorly written add-ons published by every web venture wannabe out there.

Recommended extensions:

Docs PDF/PowerPoint Viewer (by Google)

Resolution Test by Ben Beckford

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