Support Blog

We will be closed Monday Jan. 2 2006

We are now using the @connectto.net domain for all new customers. The connectto.net name is what our website name is so changing it from @gct21.net to connectto.net makes more sense. It helps us to get our name out there.

With cancer, a person may inherit a predisposition that helps set the process off, but it can take decades - even a lifetime - to accumulate the additional mutations needed to establish a tumor. That is why, scientists say, cancer usually strikes older people and requires an element of bad luck.

"You have to get mutations in the wrong place at the wrong time," Dr. Druker says.

Other genetic diseases may involve one or two genetic changes. In cancer, scores of genes are mutated or duplicated and huge chunks of genetic material are rearranged. With cancer cells, said Dr. William Hahn, an assistant professor of medicine at Harvard Medical School, "it looks like someone has thrown a bomb in the nucleus."

In other genetic diseases, gene alterations disable cells. In cancer, genetic changes give cells a sort of superpower.

We will be closed Monday Dec. 26th.

Merry Christmas and Happy Holidays to everyone!

The email server will be switched to a new server over the weekend. Customers may experience some mail issues while the upgrade is being done.

Numbers affected during this ticket :
- 9066962071
- 9062172071

We are aware of this issue and are working towards resolution.

This issue should now be resolved. If you experience any further issues in this area please let us know. We will explore any further problems on an individual basis.

We are aware of this issue and is working to resolve this as quickly as possible.

Numbers affected during this ticket :
- 4403440005

Pollution may be slowing global warming, researchers are reporting today, and a cleaner environment may soon speed it up.

Writing in the journal Nature, an international scientific team provides evidence suggesting that a reduction in haze from human causes may accelerate warming of the earth's atmosphere. The researchers said pollutants had held down the rate of global warming by absorbing and scattering sunlight.

"If people clean up the air, more warming will come blazing through," Jim Coakley, a professor of atmospheric sciences at Oregon State University in Corvallis, said yesterday in a telephone interview. Nature selected Dr. Coakley to write a commentary on the study.

The scientists, who work for government agencies in Britain and the United States, made the finding after adding satellite-based measurements of haze to computer models estimating the consequences of industrial emissions of aerosols, or airborne particles.

Haze scatters and absorbs some sunlight, keeping it from reaching the ground, and this cooling effect is stronger than many scientists had believed, the study says. The cooling offsets about one-third of the warming from the use of fossil fuels and other manmade causes, the study says.

WIKINDX is a single or multi-user research environment storing searchable bibliographies, notes and citations and integrated with a WYSIWYG word processor for the authoring of publication-ready articles automatically formatted to chosen citation styles.

Why would I want to use WIKINDX?
If you want an academic/research authoring system that...

1/ can manage all my bibliographic data allowing me to search through them with an accuracy and speed that cannot
be duplicated with index cards,
2/ enables me to store unlimited quotes, paraphrases and thoughts and to efficiently cross-reference them in a
searchable database,
3/ is free, stable and open source allowing me to cast off the shackles of commercial, licensed software,
4/ supports non-English multi-byte character sets,
5/ runs on all major operating systems (*NIX, OsX, Windows),
6/ runs not only on a desktop computer but also on a web server so I can access my bibliography from any
networked point or share my bibliography with my research team,
7/ allows multiple attachments for each bibliographic resource,
8/ can export my bibliography in various bibliographic styles (APA, Chicago, IEEE for example),
9/ allows me to edit or create bibliographic styles through a graphical interface,
10/ integrates a WYSIWYG word processor with easy importation of quotes etc. so that at long last I can write an
article, from draft through to publication, with automatic citation formatting entirely within the one software,
11/ at the click of a mouse button will reformat my article to another citation style whether that style uses
footnotes, endnotes or in-text citation,
12/ can import other bibliographic data in BibTeX or Endnote format,
13/ supports multiple users,

...then WIKINDX is all this and more.

A security research firm says McAfee's antivirus line is vulnerable to attack, the second such warning issued about antivirus software in two days.

A security research firm said Wednesday that McAfee's anti-virus line is vulnerable to attack, the second such warning issued about anti-virus software in two days.

Reston, Va.-based iDefense said that a flaw within a DLL used by a number of McAfee products could be exploited by attackers to write data to the victimized PC. In other words, the very software that was supposed to protect a PC could be turned against its user.

"There is some irony there," said Michael Sutton, the director of iDefense Labs.

This is the second vulnerability in anti-virus (AV) software made public in the last two days. On Tuesday, an independent researcher released information about a bug in Symantec's AV product line.

"This is relatively easy to exploit," said Sutton. "It takes some degree of social engineering -- the attacker would have to draw people to a malicious Web site -- but after that, there's no further intervention required. An attacker could leverage this to write to a file on the hard drive. And once you can write to a person's machine, you have full control."

Many Australian Lebanese Muslims say they are heading west to cool off, despite calls to return to Sydney's beaches.

"All the ethnic people have headed west to Georges River [National Park] and Cooks River," said Mohamad El-Chami, 29, president of the Australian New Muslim Association.

"The families, instead of going to do barbeques in Cronulla, they're going to these other areas."

Despite Premier Morris Iemma's claim that Cronulla is now safe after the riots, Mr El-Chami, a regular at the beach for 16 years, says he won't be going back for a long time.

"I love going to Cronulla Beach. This is my country and I can't travel to a place because of vilification."

Mr El-Chami rejects claims the riots were fuelled by young Lebanese men harassing women on Cronulla Beach.

"I'd say show us proof [of harassment]," he said. "If there is an issue we'd definitely guide these boys away from the wrong doings that they are carrying out."

The Cronulla Chamber of Commerce met yesterday to discuss ways to lure visitors back.

Vice-president and nightclub owner Stephen Fleming told smh.com.au: "It's not dangerous. We're multicultural down here.

HUNDREDS of human footprints dating back to about 20,000BC - the oldest in Australia and the largest collection of its kind in the world - have been discovered in Mungo National Park in western NSW.

They were left by children, adolescents and adults at the height of the last ice age as they ran and walked across a moist clay area near the Willandra Lakes.

Some people appear to have been hunting, with one very tall man sprinting at about 20kmh.

The first footprint was spotted by Mary Pappin Junior, of the Mutthi Mutthi people, two years ago and more than 450 more have been uncovered by a team led by Steve Webb of Bond University.

Professor Webb said the find provided a unique glimpse into the lives of those who lived in the arid inland. "It brings these people to life in a way no other archaeological evidence can. You can see how the mud squelched between their toes."

The traditional custodians of the area, members of the Willandra Lakes Region World Heritage Area Three Traditional Tribal Groups Elders Corporation, said they were very excited by the find.

Ms Pappin, a Mutthi Mutthi elder, said walking alongside the footprints was like "walking with a family group today. They're the same people".

She believed the prints had been revealed from under the sand dunes "to let the rest of the world know how clever our people really were, living and surviving in their environment".

Roy Kennedy, a Ngiyampaa elder, said the area had been a special meeting place for his tribe since the Dreamtime. "It was an oasis in the desert."

About 20,000 years ago the now dry lakes would have contained fish, mussels and crayfish.

The team estimated the height of the people from their foot size, and their speed from the distance between paces. Professor Webb has also recently excavated two 17,000-year-old skeletal remains found about six kilometres away. "They were athletic and very strong and fit. I assume some of the men on this site were very similar," he said.

Dave Johnston, chairman of the elders corporation, said the site was closed to the public to preserve it, and the elders were developing a management, conservation and tourism plan.

The team, including Matthew Cupper of the University of Melbourne and Richard Robins of the University of New England, have published results on 124 footprints online ahead of print publication in the Journal of Human Evolution.
FEET OF HISTORY

* 457 footprints, made by adults and children, found in Mungo National Park.

* Footprints 19,000-23,000 years old.

* Laid down in wet clay containing calcium carbonate that hardened like concrete, then covered in a layer of protective clay and sand.

* Prints between 13cm and 30cm (size 11) in length.

* One track of a man almost two metres tall running at 20kmh.

Internet search giant to pay $1 billion for 5 percent stake in AOL; Microsoft shut out of deal.
December 20, 2005: 6:59 PM EST

NEW YORK (Reuters) - Google Inc. and America Online Inc. Tuesday expanded their search and advertising alliance to include video and instant messaging, shutting out Microsoft Corp., which had fought hard for a deal with Time Warner Inc.'s AOL unit.

America Online said Google had agreed to invest $1 billion to take a 5 percent stake in AOL, as part of an enhanced pact where Google will move beyond text-based advertising to allow AOL to sell graphical ads to Google's fast-growing ad network.

The stake effectively values AOL at $20 billion, a key benchmark should Time Warner elect to spinoff or sell a part of its Internet unit in response to dissident shareholder Carl Icahn's proxy campaign to break up the company.

Terms of the deal call for AOL to make more of its Web sites searchable via Google search, including a plans to feature AOL's premium video services within Google Video, a way of searching for Web-based video programming.

They also said they had agreed, under certain unspecified conditions, to allow users of Google's recently introduced instant messaging system Google Talk to communicate with users of AOL's market-leading AIM instant messaging service.

Ahead of the announcement, analysts called the new agreement a major defensive win for Web search leader Google, depriving Microsoft (Research) of a major customer that would have jump-started its push to compete with Google in the online ad services market.

In a letter to Time Warner's board of directors released Monday, billionaire investor Icahn labeled the potential AOL-Google deal as "disastrous" because it may rule out potential future deals AOL might do with Google rivals such as eBay Inc. (Research) or Microsoft.

Shares of Google (Research) edged lower in after-hours trade on the Nasdaq Tuesday after closing at $429.74. Time Warner (Research) shares edged higher after the bell after closing over 1 percent higher at $17.74 on the New York Stock Exchange.

Two XSS vulnerabilities were identified in the Google.com website,=20
which allow an attacker to impersonate legitimate members of Google's=20
services or to mount a phishing attack.
Although Google uses common XSS countermeasures, a successful attack=20
is possible, when using UTF-7 encoded payloads.

The "good guy" in this case: the Sober.z worm, one of several November variants whose message claimed to be from law-enforcement agencies in the United States or Germany.

In a first, a worm has trapped a criminal rather than an innocent Internet user, a Reuters wire service report from Germany claimed Tuesday.

According to Reuters, a 20-year-old German man mistook a message bearing the Sober.z worm as a legitimate directive from German law enforcement, and turned himself in to Paderborn police. Paderborn is in northwestern Germany, about 75 miles east of Essen.

Sober.z was one of several November variants whose payload-bearing e-mail messages claimed to be from law enforcement agencies in the U.S. or Germany. The bogus messages said that police were investigating the recipient for having visited illegal Web sites. Messages written in German posed as mail from Germany's Federal Crime Office (Bundeskriminalamt, or BKA). The Sober.z worm has been called the biggest malicious code outbreak ever.

Paderborn police found child pornography on the man's computer when they later searched his home.

"We're used to explaining to people that there's no such thing as a good virus, but in this case it appears that Sober.z has accidentally scared an Internet pedophile into contacting the police," said Graham Cluley, senior technology consultant for U.K.-based Sophos, in a statement.

Ironically, added Cluley, the man would have gotten away with his crime if he'd bothered to run an updated anti-virus program to his computer.

"If he had been scanning his email for viruses he would never have received the message from the Sober worm," said Cluley. "If jailed he'll have plenty of time to reflect on whether he should have believed everything that was sent to him via e-mail."

Full Name: IM.GiftCom.All
Date Found: 12/19/2005
Threat Type: Worm
Variant Family:
Distribution Method: AIM, ICQ, MSN, Windows Messenger, Yahoo!

Risk Level: Med

Description: This worm broadcasts a URL out over IM clients which downloads an executable file, often named gift.com.

When this file is executed, it hides itself and scans the registry, file system, and internet cache. By operating as a rootkit, the process is hidden from all tools and anti-virus software. It also attempts to shut down anti-virus software and makes several networking calls. Also it does keystroke logging and may attempt to propagate itself over IM clients.
Prevention Steps: IMlogic customers running RTTPS were protected immediately at the first detection of this worm. IMlogic customers running IM Manager 7.0 or later are now protected via auto-update. Others can block this threat by using Content Filtering in IM Manager. Also administrators should ensure they have the latest signature updates from their anti-virus provider.

More Information: This threat was first reported by the IMlogic Threat Center. We have alerted our Threat Center Partners of this information and will reference any information they discover when it becomes available.

The bug, which could result in a completely compromised machine, remains unpatched although Symantec has issued an advisory.

By Gregg Keizer
TechWeb News

Dec 20, 2005 05:06 PM

Symantec's line of anti-virus software is vulnerable to attack, a prominent security researcher revealed Tuesday. The bug is currently unpatched, although Symantec has issued an advisory.

The vulnerability, which was discovered and reported by Alex Wheeler, is in how Symantec's AntiVirus Library, part of all the Cupertino, Calif.-based security giant's anti-virus products, handles RAR compressed files. RAR files are created by the WinRAR compression utility, developed and sold by RarLab.

The bug, labeled as "Highly critical" by Danish vulnerability tracker Secunia and "High" by Symantec itself, can cause a heap overflow, which then may let an attacker execute additional code. Bottom-line: the bug could result in a completely compromised machine.

"The issues can be leveraged remotely to gain complete control over the affected system," Symantec wrote in an alert Tuesday morning to customers of its DeepSight Threat Management System.

All editions of Symantec's Norton Internet Security and Norton AntiVirus, including AntiVirus for the Macintosh, are at risk, as are other products which include the Library. Those include such enterprise-specific lines as AntiVirus Corporate Edition, Brightmail Anti-Spam, Client Security, and Gateway Security.

Symantec has not issued a patch for the vulnerability, but the DeepSight alert recommended that users disable scanning for RAR archive files.

Wheeler is well known among researchers for his probing of security software weaknesses. Earlier in 2005, he disclosed a slew of vulnerabilities in software from major vendors like McAfee, Kaspersky Labs, F-Secure, and Trend Micro. All the bugs he has discovered involve how the various anti-virus scanning engines handle compressed files.

This is the second scanning vulnerability Wheeler has uncovered in Symantec's product line. In February, while working with Internet Security Systems, a Symantec rival, he announced a bug in how Symantec's scanning engine could be hacked as it sniffed through UPX-formatted files.

**This is an important message and that is the reason it has been posted in our system message page.

The Dasher.b worm attacking Windows machines still vulnerable to a bug patched in October has infected at least 3,000 systems so far, security company Symantec said Friday.

Dasher.b, the first worm to successfully attack the MSDTC flaw disclosed and patched Oct. 11, was detected Thursday by honeypot PCs, with several security vendors rushing out alerts that same day.

According to Symantec, once Dasher.b has infected a PC, it first contacts a central command and control server located at IP address 222.240.219.143. In turn, that server then via TCP tells the compromised computer to download a malicious payload from a remote FTP server at 159.226.153.2.

"One of the FTP servers used by Dasher is reporting that over 3,000 hosts have connected to it, which serves as a good estimate of affected hosts," Symantec said in a warning issued to customers of its DeepSight Threat Management System (TMS). "TMS data corroborates this infection estimate," the alert continued.

*Sorry this was posted so late.

At 5:07 p.m. on Dec. 21 a year ago this week, the Santy worm arrived at Kaspersky Lab in Moscow via an E-mail message. It was immediately assessed, categorized, and routed to a virus analyst. By 6 p.m., the analyst had dissected the worm and generated a binary signature that the lab's antivirus software could use to block it.

But such a quick response to malware is becoming difficult, and in some cases even an hour may be too long. Fast-propagating malware has been on the increase in recent months, and companies that develop and sell software to stop new forms of damaging code admit they're having difficulty keeping up.

Numbers affected during this ticket :
- 9789230101

A DS3 issue in MA
We are aware of the issue and are working towards resolution at this time.

We had a server issue yesterday which caused email delays and bounced mail. The issue has been resolved and we will be adding a new mail server over the weekend. The new server will be a huge improvement over the old one and will help to keep these issues from happening.
**If you experience email server issues over the weekend more than likely it will be due to the new server upgrade. Please be patient while we make these improvements.
We apologize for any inconvenience.

To find access numbers please go to-
http://ns3.gct21.net/~access_numbers/index.php?acctname=gct

Sign in with your dial up username and password.
Then, enter the area code(s) you want numbers for.
You can download the numbers or write them down so you can enter them manually when you get to your destination.

Please keep in mind if you download them for automatic set up the last number you add will become your default connection.
If you still want to use your original connection you will need to go to Internet Options, Connections and change the default connection back to the one you want until you go on your trip.

Use these same steps if you are moving to another area and need a different access number.

*We have posted it in system message because we get so many calls for this. ;)

Dallas, TX area are currently having an issue that results in server timeouts for the end users (error 718). We are aware of the problems and have a tech on site. CO building had a power outage. The power is restored at this time. This is a temporary patch and the fix for the power will happen in the morning.

Numbers affected during this ticket :
- 2147649439
- 8175509439

YIKES!

Major site owners oppose 2-tier system

AT&T Inc. and BellSouth Corp. are lobbying Capitol Hill for the right to create a two-tiered Internet, where the telecom carriers' own Internet services would be transmitted faster and more efficiently than those of their competitors.

The proposal is certain to provoke a major fight with Google Inc., Yahoo Inc., Time Warner Inc., and Microsoft Corp., the powerful owners of popular Internet sites. The companies fear such a move would give telecommunications companies too much control over a fast-growing part of the Internet

The honor of being the world's tallest now belongs to the Stratosphere Giant, an ancient redwood in Humboldt County's Rockefeller Forest whose towering height of 369.5 feet was first discovered by a Santa Rosa man in 2000.

Since Atkins' discovery, Stratosphere Giant also has grown. It was remeasured in fall 2004 at 370.2 feet.

For comparison, that's about five stories higher than the Statue of Liberty in New York.

The Stratosphere Giant is not marked, nor will it be, just like the Mendocino Tree, state park officials say. Arborists fear the tallest-tree designation will draw too many people, who could damage one of nature's true wonders.

WinServices is an enhanced Windows Service Manager, that allows you to start/stop services, and view them by their current status (color coded), as well as sorted by dependency or service type. Also you can view and change all service data such as name or description. The program allows you to create a snapshot of the current services, and later compare it with a new configuration, to see which services have been changed, added or removed. If you are domain administrator you can manage your network machine services in the same domain. Also this program can detect on-line if the state of the running services change and save a LOG with all changes.

If the Walt Disney Company has its way, McDonald's Happy Meal toys could be replaced with portable media players that hold Disney movies, music, games or photos, according to a pending patent application. Users could add files to the devices by earning points with food purchases.

The plan could work something like this: A customer enters a restaurant and buys a meal, receiving the portable media player and an electronic code that authorizes a partial download of a movie, video or other media file, which can be downloaded while in the restaurant, according to a United States Patent and Trademark Office application filed by Disney. Then, with each subsequent return, the customer earns more downloadable data, eventually getting an entire movie or game.

An unspecified vulnerability has been reported to exist in Microsoft Excel. The vulnerability was announced on eBay. The discoverer was offering to sell the vulnerability details until the auction was terminated by eBay. According to the auction description, it is possible to have a large value passed to "msvcrt.memmove()" through data fields in an Excel .xls file. The discoverer has claimed that code execution is possible.

This entry will be updated as more details become available.

**UPDATE (Dec 9, 2005): Microsoft has confirmed that this vulnerability exists. See eWeek link in reference section. The original listing on eBay has been pulled.

NOTE: Anything connected to your phone line, as well as the integrity of your phone wiring can affect your modem. This can include alarm service devices or medical lifeline services that use your phone line. Gill from the UK writes "I have Redcare connected to my phone line as part of my security system. My old v.90 modem connected with no problems, but new v.92 modem would only connect very occasionally at very slow speeds 9-16k bps." His alarm company sells a "modem compatibility device" which solved the problem.

***********
This part of "modem tweaking" is easy! Sometimes something connected to your phone line - another telephone, fax machine, cordless, etc. - will cause your modem performance to suffer. Sometimes something in your wiring - a rusty/loose phone jack, poor connection or routing, etc. - can do the same.

Easy: Unplug everything from the phone line except the modem. Dial your ISP. Does the modem work faster or better?

The easiest way to check the wiring in your house - and at the same time eliminate any other devices plugged into the phone line as a source of trouble - is to connect your modem directly to the Telephone Network Interface. This is a telco-provided box, usually on the outside of your premises, and is also known as the 'demarc' - it is the point where the telco's wiring responsibility ends and yours begins. Modern telco Network Interfaces have a standard line jack with a modular cable inserted. Unplugging this cable will disconnect all of your inside phone wiring.

**This is an old article but worth reading.

One of the requirements listed on at least one brand of 56k modems is "A 56k-compatible line" - without defining what such a line is.

Pretty slick. It's true that some telephone lines/facilities will prevent 56k from working, but there is no way for the average user to easily determine whether his line is '56k-compatible'! (If you have a 3Com/USR modem, there is an easy way of determining if your line will support 56k connections - the A/D Conversion Check.)

If you get a 56k modem, and you get 56k connections, you can safely say that you (presently) have a 56k-compatible line. However, if you don't get 56k connections, you cannot correctly assume that your line is not '56k-compatible'.

Possible reasons for not getting a 56k connect can include:
The firmware in your modem isn't working properly for your line conditions
The firmware in your modem isn't 'compatible' with the firmware in the server modem you are calling
The firmware in one of the modems isn't 'compatible' with the digital portion of the telephone network being used
Your line is not '56k-compatible'

In some of the above circumstances, you would be able to achieve a 56k connect with a different modem, or calling a different V.90 server.

56k Modem manufacturers have generally defined a '56k-compatible line' as being one that has only 1 D/A conversion (or 1 A/D conversion), and your local loop is less than 3½ miles. You may be able to get an answer - not always correct - if you ask your telco for the loop length and if your line has more than 1 A/D conversion. There is no 'requirement' or standard procedure for getting this information from a telco. But, even if you find you have only 1 A/D conversion (a '56k-compatible line'), you may still not be able to get a 56k connect with any 56k modem if your telco introduces certain types of digital impairments.

If you don't have a USR modem, you can do a somewhat less reliable test with the USR Linetest

When most of us think of boomerangs, we imagine somebody (quite possibly a cartoon character) throwing a banana-shaped stick that eventually turns around and comes right back to the thrower's hand (possibly after hitting another cartoon character in the head). This idea is simply amazing, and as children, our first reaction to such a device was: This stick is obviously possessed with magical powers! Of course, the person or people who discovered the boomerang hadn't actually found a magical stick, but they had come upon an amazing application of some complex laws of physics.

In this article, we'll break down the physical principles that make boomerangs work, see what happens as a boomerang flies through the air and find out the proper way to throw a boomerang so that it comes back to you. We'll also delve a little into the history of boomerangs to see how they came about in the first place. Boomeranging is an amazing demonstration of scientific principles as well as a terrific sport you can enjoy all by yourself.

http://www.artsmia.org/world-myths/artbyculture/

Welcome to Cooking By Numbers, are you ready to cook?.....Get clicking on what you've got and we'll show you what you can cook.....Don't worry, Skills By Numbers will make you look great in the kitchen..... Can't make up your mind about what to cook?

You do not need to reinstall if you forgot the admin password.

There is a boot disk you can download at:
http://home.eunet.no/~pnordahl/ntpasswd/

That will let you reset the password of any account on NT4, Windows2000 or XP.

Just follow all the default settings which are for the admin account. Used it many times with great success.

They also have a bootable CD image you can download.

*Info from- http://www.onecomputerguy.com/windowsxp_tips.htm#forgot_password

* 4 tablespoons (1/2 stick) unsalted butter, melted
* 2 teaspoons chopped garlic
* 1/4 cup minced scallions
* 1/2 cup coarsely chopped white button mushrooms (about 2 mushrooms)
* 1/2 teaspoon salt
* 1/2 teaspoon freshly ground black pepper
* 2 tablespoons canola oil
* 1 pound large shrimp (about 24), shelled
* 1 cup fresh bread crumbs (from about 3/4 slice white bread processed in a food processor)
* 1/4 cup dry white wine

Mix the butter in a large bowl with the garlic, scallions, mushrooms, salt, pepper and 1 tablespoon of the oil. Add the shrimp and toss to mix well. Divide the mixture among four individual gratin dishes with about a 1-cup capacity, or spoon into one large gratin dish or shallow baking dish.

In another bowl, toss the bread crumbs with the remaining 1 tablespoon oil, so that they are lightly coated but still fluffy. Sprinkle the crumbs over the shrimp mixture and pour the wine on top.

About 30 minutes before serving time, heat the oven to 425°F. When the oven is ready, place the gratin dishes or dish on a cookie sheet and bake for 10 minutes, or until the topping is nicely browned and the shrimp are just cooked through. Serve immediately.

Emily is your everyday cat who enjoys lounging around, being petted, and spending time with her owners at their home in Milwaukee, Wisconsin. But Emily apparently also likes to travel.

In late September, Emily went missing from her home. Her owners, the McElhineys, were worried, but could not find her anywhere. On October 24, the McElhineys got a call from Emily's veterinarian. Emily had been found—in France.

Emily had found her way into a large cargo crate at a paper distribution company near her home. The company was shipping that crate to another paper company in France known as Raflatac. The crate went first by truck to Chicago then by ship to Belgium, before Raflatac employees in Nancy, France, finally discovered Emily. They called her veterinarian whose phone number was listed on Emily's identification tags.

Once word of Emily's travels to Europe got out, Continental Airlines offered to fly her home in Business Class—one of the fanciest ways to travel by air. After spending an additional month in France just to make sure she had no illnesses, Emily flew first to Newark, New Jersey, and then home to Milwaukee.

A spokesperson for the airline said Emily turned down a meal of peppered salmon fillet and instead "opted for her French cat food" and some water.

Continental Airlines cargo agent Gaylia McLeod traveled with Emily from Newark to Milwaukee. "I know it's close to the holidays," she said. "I'm happy to be part of reuniting Emily with her family."

Once Emily arrived in Milwaukee, Gaylia handed her over to Nick, her 9-year-old owner. He and his family were happy to have Emily back.

"She's bigger and heavier than before," he said. But after eating all that French food, you can understand why.

Today, nearly 400 animals are listed as threatened or endangered in the United States. Many are at risk of becoming extinct, or disappearing permanently. Unless efforts to save these vulnerable animals succeed, many of the country's greatest creatures will be lost forever. From the facts listed under each question mark, guess which animals are endangered.

American Crocodile

* American crocodiles are about 12 feet long. They live on land and in shallow water, swamps, and marshes.
* American crocodiles like to float in the water with only their eyes and nose above the surface.
* American crocodiles eat mostly small animals, which they grab with their strong jaws and razor-sharp teeth.
* American crocodiles lay eggs. They hide their eggs under twigs and leaves, or bury them in the sand.
* Some crocodiles help their young hatch, then carry them to the water in their mouth.

Habitat
Southern Florida, Mexico, Central and South America, Caribbean islands

Why It's Endangered
Overhunted for its hide
Habitat destruction

Elham stands tall, all three feet of him, to read a lesson from his book in front of his fourth-grade class. His gleaming blue eyes pass quickly over the pages.

Class takes place inside a tent with no seats or desks. A washed-out blackboard stands in the corner. A square was cut in the tent to create a window overlooking mountains and a fast-flowing river.

Elham attends School Number One, in the northeast province of Badakhshan, with about 3,000 classmates. He can say, "What is your name?" and "My name is Elham," in English. He writes his name in Dari, an Afghan language, and his teacher praises his handwriting.

The blue-green streaks of a swallowtail butterfly's wings are more than just beautiful. They're also a lesson in physics.

Swallowtails that belong to a group called Princeps nireus actually have fluorescent wings. This means that when the wings absorb a special type of light, called ultraviolet light (or "black light"), they give off a bright blue-green glow. The glow that they give off has a longer wavelength than the ultraviolet light they absorb.

Physicist Peter Vukusic of Exeter University wanted to figure out why the wings are unusually bright. So, he took a close-up look.

Butterfly wings are covered with hundreds of thousands of colored scales, like tiles covering a roof. The scales are made of cuticle, a material that is similar to human fingernails. Vukusic and his colleagues used highly sensitive microscopes to look at individual scales.

As part of its monthly Patch Tuesday cycle, Microsoft gave advanced notice of updates it plans to release on Tuesday next week. The company will issue two security updates, with one deemed critical - Microsoft’s highest risk rating.

In addition, Microsoft will issue to high-priority updates through Windows Update and Software Updates services, as well as additional three high-priority updates through Windows Server Update. The nature of the updates wasn’t disclosed.

Microsoft also plans to deliver an update version of the Windows Malicious Software Removal Tool that detects and cleans common malicious code.

The Microsoft Security Response Center alerted customers on Thursday about its patching plans for the month of December as part of the Microsoft Security Bulletin Advance Notification program.

Microsoft said it will host a Webcast about the new fixes on Wednesday at 11 am PDT.

Intel is trying to eliminate the human factor when dealing with root-kits detection by developing a new hardware-based technique to discover and notify users when they are downloading unintentionally a root-kit to their computer.

According to Intel, their new project involves placing a small chip on a PC’s motherboard to monitor constantly programs that might be affected of a malicious attack. Travis Schluessle, a researcher with Intel, said that the project goal is to detect when unnecessary memory modifications are made to programs or system services.

"We need to connect the computers directly to the data, so the human beings don't have to be the I/O channel, and elevate the role of the human being to a more supervisory role," said David Tennenhouse, director of research at the company.

Intel doesn’t expect its project to replace various protection software, but it believes it could enhance them. According to Schluessle, the project would provide a back-up for the anti-virus software, which is usually the first target to be shutdown by malicious code.

Intel’s latest initiative was presented during an open house for journalists and analysts in Folsom, California. The project is scheduled to become part of Intel's products around 2008 or 2009.

In this two-part series, Edd Dumbill examines the various ways forward for HTML that Web authors, browser developers, and standards bodies propose. This series covers the incremental approach embodied by the WHATWG specifications and the radical cleanup of XHTML proposed by the W3C. Additionally, the author gives an overview of the W3C's new Rich Client Activity. Here in Part 1, Edd focuses primarily on two specifications being developed by WHATWG: Web Applications 1.0 (HTML5) and Web Forms 2.0.
HTML isn't a very good language for making Web pages. However, it has been a very good language for making the Web.

HTML's ease of learning and the view source capability for browsers has bootstrapped the Web's popularity in an amazing way. The World Wide Web Consortium's (W3C) involvement in standardizing HTML has ensured that Web browsers all implement the same dialect, more or less. The emergence of CSS, and the corresponding growth of standards-based Web design as best practice has also averted HTML chaos and led to a better Web experience for users and developers alike.

This much you probably know. The resulting Web has probably made a positive impact on your life or business. Yet the fact remains, HTML isn't a very good language. Why, for instance, does HTML have headings H1 through H6? Who ever seriously used a six-level-deep heading hierarchy? And why, in this era of 3D-accelerated graphics cards and sophisticated user interfaces, are Web pages limited to clunky text boxes and radio buttons for user input?

No surprise then, that various groups are pushing again to develop HTML in a way that lets Web publishing and Web applications use more of the technology that's available in modern user interfaces. Who are these people? Broadly speaking, they fall into three groups. The first are those who use today's technology to make a difference. This is what the Asynchronous JavaScript and XML (Ajax) buzz is about: using JavaScript and the browser's XMLHttpRequest object to create dynamic user interfaces. The effects can be wonderful, but this is not a standard way to move forward.

First Sober variant was found in October 2003. Since then, we've found over 20 different variants.

Most of these variants contain a routine that activates the virus at later date. After this the virus will try to periodically download and run a file from several websites. This is the way most new Sober variants are distributed: the author uploads a new version and all the infected machines will suddenly get infected with the new variant.

A security vendor says in an alert about the Internet Explorer vulnerability that it's detected thousands of sites connecting to a malicious URL that's "actively exploiting this vulnerability to execute malicious code."

A still-unpatched Internet Explorer vulnerability that's been used by attackers since late November to compromise Windows PCs is now being used by large numbers of malicious Web sites to plant spyware and adware, a security company claimed Thursday.
San Diego-based Websense said in an alert that it's detected thousands of sites connecting to a main malicious URL that's "actively exploiting this vulnerability to execute malicious code," according to the warning.

All it takes is a visit to one of the sites with Internet Explorer running on Windows 98, Windows Me, Windows 2000, or Windows XP, to compromise a computer, the warning noted. A bogus warning that the machine is infected with spyware appears and a so-called "spyware cleaning" application launches. That app then prompts the user to enter a credit card number.

What's actually installed, however, is real spyware, which then connects to a URL in the .biz domain to download and run more than 10 other programs that install without the user's consent.

According to Websense, the .biz domain Web site is real, but has been compromised by hackers. It's hosted in the U.S., and currently still online.

There is no patch for the bug, which was originally reported to Microsoft in May. The bug was found nastier than first thought in November by U.K.-based security vendor Computer Terrorism Ltd. Microsoft has said it's working on a fix, but has not committed to a release date for the patch. The next regularly-scheduled patch day is Tuesday, Dec. 13.

Microsoft, however, has issued a security advisory which outlines several steps users can take to protect themselves, including disabling IE's Active Scripting option.

Although only a relative few spyware and adware purveyors are using rootkits today, the newest malware coming out is relying on the technique. Security vendors expect to see even more rootkits being used over time.

The sharp rise in rootkits--sneaky software used to conceal malicious code from security programs--is due to spyware and adware purveyors trying to prevent their wares from being easily uninstalled, security experts said Thursday.
Finnish-based F-Secure, which has integrated its BlackLight rootkit scanner into its security suite, claimed that since October, the most common rootkit in the wild is the one used by the Apropos spyware program.

Apropos uses a silent installer to disguise its planting on the hard drive, and a kernel-mode rootkit to hide from detection, said F-Secure. The rootkit starts automatically early in the boot process--to avoid detection by security software, which typically loads later in the boot-up procedure--and can hide files, directories, registry keys, and Windows processes.

Once on the drive, Apropos collects system information and data on the user's browsing habits, then sends the data to servers at ContextPlus, which uses it to deliver targeted pop-up ads to the PC.

Don't forget to check out our webpage on ROOTKIT REMOVAL TOOLS! You can click here to check it out

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Click here to go to our home page to vote!

Each machine connected to an IP network (such as the Internet) is addressed using a unique 32 bit number, the IP address.

Many machines will have more than one IP address - for example a machine running virtual websites will have an IP address for each website they host.

Other times a pool of IP addresses is shared between a number of machines - eg on a dynamic-IP dialup connection your machine will be allocated a different IP address each time you connect.

These addresses are usually written in Dotted Quad notation, as a series of four 8 bit numbers, written in decimal and separated by periods. For example 151.196.75.10

Each number is in the range 0 to 255 - so if you ever see something that looks like an IP address with numbers outside those ranges it's not a real address.

The leftmost number is the most significant, and the rightmost the least.

Blogger for Word is a free add-in for Microsoft Word that lets you save a Word document as a post to your Blogger blog with just a few clicks, and without even opening up a browser. Blogger for Word makes it even easier to express yourself online, save your documents to the web, and edit your work both online and off.

Windows Live Safety Center is a new, free service designed to help ensure the health of your PC.

Check for and remove viruses
Learn about threats
Improve your PC's performance
Get rid of junk on your hard disk

Use the full service scan to check everything, or turn to the scanners and information in the service centers to meet your specific needs.

LONDON - Scientists have discovered how cancer spreads from a primary site to other places in the body in a finding that could open doors for new ways of treating and preventing advanced disease.

Instead of a cell just breaking off from a tumor and traveling through the bloodstream to another organ where it forms a secondary tumour, or metastasis, researchers in the United States have shown that the cancer sends out envoys to prepare the new site.

Intercepting those envoys, or blocking their action with drugs, might help to prevent the spread of cancer or to treat it in patients in which it has already occurred.

A survey of home PC users found 81 percent lacked at least one of three critical types of security, but the number of consumers using firewalls and updated antivirus software is improving, according to a report released Wednesday.

The vast majority of consumers surveyed were found to lack at least one of three types of critical security--a firewall, updated antivirus software or anti-spyware protection, according to a report by America Online and the National Cyber Security Alliance.

Of this group, 56 percent had no antivirus software, or had not updated it within a week, while 44 percent did not have a firewall properly configured, according to the report. Meanwhile, 38 percent of survey respondents lacked spyware protection.

A survey of home PC users found 81 percent lacked at least one of three critical types of security, but the number of consumers using firewalls and updated antivirus software is improving, according to a report released Wednesday.

The vast majority of consumers surveyed were found to lack at least one of three types of critical security--a firewall, updated antivirus software or anti-spyware protection, according to a report by America Online and the National Cyber Security Alliance.

Of this group, 56 percent had no antivirus software, or had not updated it within a week, while 44 percent did not have a firewall properly configured, according to the report. Meanwhile, 38 percent of survey respondents lacked spyware protection.

Click here to read the entire article

Winpooch is a watchdog for Windows that helps you increase the security of your computer.
Winpooch can prevent suspicious programs from doing dangerous actions such as writing to system directories or sensible registry keys.
It acts as a powerful anti spyware and anti trojans, and if you have ClamWin installed, you can tell Winpooch to scan every program before it runs.

A date found embedded in recent variants of the Sober worm provides a clue as to the timing of the next planned attack, a security firm said Wednesday.

The next big Sober worm attack is scheduled to take place January 5, 2006, a date probably picked because it's the 87th anniversary of the founding of a precursor to the Nazi Party, a security firm said Wednesday.
January 5, 2006, was the date embedded in the most recent Sober variants, said Ken Dunham, a senior engineer with Reston, Va.-based VeriSign iDefense, a security intelligence firm.

"We did reverse engineering on the variants, and found this date in the code," said Dunham. "The way this works is that at a pre-determined time, computers already infected with Sober will connect with specified servers and download a new payload, which will likely be spammed out in the millions, as was the last version."

Scammers have gotten so good that it is becoming increasingly difficult to tell the difference between legitimate and scam e-mail, according to a new security survey.

The growing sophistication of phishers has left the majority of Americans unable to tell the difference between legitimate and scam e-mail, a survey released Wednesday showed.
Nearly a quarter of online people in the United States have found themselves the target of the online con artists, and roughly one in five knows a friend or family member who has been duped, according to the second annual survey by America Online Inc. and the National Cyber Security Alliance.

Pointing to the effectiveness of phishers, 70 percent of U.S. consumers receiving scam e-mails believed they might be from legitimate companies.

“Phishers are getting more adept at tricking consumers into revealing their bank account and personal financial information, and most Americans can't tell the difference between legitimate correspondence and the growing flood of scam e-mails that can lead to fraud and identity theft." Tatiana Platt, senior vice president and chief trust officer for AOL, said in a statement.

This new address has system messages on the log in page. If anyone is interested just go to http://webmail.connectto.net to check it out.
We will continue to use the current webmail address as well so using the new one is not required.

Update- This issue has been resolved

There is currently a router down in the area that is currently being worked on. There is not yet an ETR available.

SYMPTOMS
When you open a Web page, one or more pictures (graphics or images) may not be displayed. Instead, a red X, or a placeholder, may appear in place of the images.
CAUSE
This behavior can occur if one of the following conditions is true:
• The Web page includes an image type that is not supported by Internet Explorer.
• The Show Pictures check box is not selected on the Advanced tab of the Internet Options dialog box, or the Toggle Images.exe Web accessory was used to disable images in Internet Explorer.
• The image is displayed based on a script, ActiveX control, cookie, Java applet, or HTTP referral information, and your computer or network is configured to block one or more of these features. For example, you may have Internet Explorer or Symantec Corporation's Norton Internet Security (NIS) or Norton Personal Firewall (NPF) 2002 configured to block one or more of these features.
• Internet Explorer cannot determine the character set (also called code page or encoding) that is used by the Web page, or a file or registry key required to display the Web page with the appropriate character set may be missing or damaged. By default, Internet Explorer uses the character set that is specified in the HTTP content type that is returned by the server, the character set specified by the meta element in the Web page document, or your Encoding preference if no HTTP content type is returned by the server and no meta element is specified in the Web page document.

RESOLUTION
To troubleshoot this issue, follow these steps. After each step, check to see if the issue is resolved. If the issue still occurs, continue troubleshooting with the next step:
1. Right-click the red X or placeholder for the image, and then click Properties. Verify that the image type is supported by Internet Explorer by examining the Type or Address (URL) values in the Properties dialog box. For example, a Graphics Interchange Format (GIF) file will list GIF Image for Type and the Address (URL) ends with .gif. Internet Explorer displays images with an .art, .wmf, .emf, .png, .mov, .xbm, .avi, .mpg, .gif, .jpg, .mpeg, and .bmp extensions.
2. Start Internet Explorer.
3. If you have the Toggle Images.exe Web accessory installed, click the Toggle Images.exe link on the Links toolbar to turn on images.

Note If the Links toolbar is not visible, right-click a blank area of the toolbar and verify that there is a check next to Links. If the Toggle Images.exe link is not visible on the Links toolbar, click the arrow with two angle brackets on the far right-side of the Links toolbar.
4. Verify that Show Pictures has not been turned off in Internet Explorer:
a. On the Tools menu, click Internet Options.
b. Click the Advanced tab, and then verify that the Show Pictures check box is selected under Multimedia.
c. Click OK.
5. Make sure scripting, ActiveX controls, cookies, and Java applets are enabled in Internet Explorer. To do so, follow these steps:
a. On the Tools menu, click Internet Options.
b. Click the Security tab, and then click Default Level (if it is available) for the zone which contains the Web page (for example, Internet).
c. If you are using Internet Explorer 6, click the Privacy tab, and then click Default (if it is available).
6. If you are using a third-party Internet security, firewall, or cookie blocking program, contact the manufacturer of the program for information about how to enable scripting, ActiveX controls, cookies, Java applets, advertisements, and HTTP referral information. For example, if you have Norton Internet Security (NIS) or Norton Personal Firewall (NPF) installed, see the following Symantec Corporation Web sites for additional information about the various settings in these products that might cause this behavior:
• http://service1.symantec.com/SUPPORT/nip.nsf/33e52197341bf25988256a9b007e63c2/8b2c15e3ae1d62b985256b79007f9839?OpenDocument (http://service1.symantec.com/SUPPORT/nip.nsf/33e52197341bf25988256a9b007e63c2/8b2c15e3ae1d62b985256b79007f9839?OpenDocument)
• http://service1.symantec.com/SUPPORT/nip.nsf/docid/2001021911022836 (http://service1.symantec.com/SUPPORT/nip.nsf/docid/2001021911022836)
• http://service1.symantec.com/SUPPORT/nip.nsf/docid/2000031311301136 (http://service1.symantec.com/SUPPORT/nip.nsf/docid/2000031311301136)
If you access the Internet through a local area network (LAN), contact the administrator of your LAN to verify that scripting, ActiveX controls, cookies, Java applets, advertisements, and HTTP referral information are not blocked by a firewall or other security features on the network.
7. Start Internet Explorer.
8. On the View menu, point to Encoding. If a check does not appear next to Auto-Select, click Auto-Select.
9. On the View menu, point to Encoding, and then click the appropriate language for the Web page that you are trying to view. For example, if the Web page is in English (United States), click Western European (ISO) or Western European (Windows). If the required language is not available on the View menu, follow these steps to add it:
a. On the Tools menu, click Internet Options.
b. Click Languages, and then click Add.
c. Click the appropriate language, and then click OK.
10. If the problem is not resolved, a file or registry key required to display the Web page with the appropriate character set may be missing or damaged. To resolve this problem, restore Windows from a complete system backup or reinstall (or repair) Windows. If you are running Microsoft Windows Millennium Edition or Microsoft Windows XP, you may be able to resolve this issue without restoring or reinstalling Windows by using the System Restore utility to return your computer to a previous working state, For additional information about how to use System Restore in Windows Millennium Edition, click the following article number to view the article in the Microsoft Knowledge Base:
267951 (http://support.microsoft.com/kb/267951/EN-US/) Description of the System Restore Utility in Windows Millennium Edition
For additional information about how to use System Restore in Windows XP, click the following article number to view the article in the Microsoft Knowledge Base:
306084 (http://support.microsoft.com/kb/306084/EN-US/) HOW TO: Restore the Operating System to a Previous State in Windows XP
Note that in some cases you may also be able to resolve this problem by manually editing the registry. For example, if the28591 String value is missing from the following registry key, a Web page that is encoded for the Western European (ISO) code page might not display any images:
HKEY_LOCAL_MACHINE\SYSTEM\CurrentControlSet\Control\Nls\CodePage
The value for this registry key should be set to the name of the appropriate code page file in your Windows\System or Windows\System32 folder. For the Western European (ISO) code page, this value should be either Cp_28591.nls (Windows 98, Windows Millennium Edition) or C_28591.NLS (Windows NT 4.0, Windows 2000, Windows XP). For additional information about the character sets that are supported by Internet Explorer, visit the following Microsoft Web site:
http://msdn.microsoft.com/library/default.asp?url=/workshop/Author/dhtml/reference/charsets/charset4.asp

Online shoppers now have tools to help them maintain their anonymity on the Web and protect themselves from cybercriminals and marketers hunting for personal information.

Just in time for the online holiday shopping season, Anonymizer Inc. last week introduced versions of its software products that let users surf the Web anonymously and protect their PCs from spyware. The company does this by creating secure tunnels between the Web and its customers' PCs, which shields users' IP addresses.

IP addresses, credit-card numbers, and other bits of information can be very valuable to marketing companies, which use that data to create a better picture of a person's preferences and buying habits. "If you've shopped online, it's likely your IP address has been correlated with your behavior," says Pam Dixon, executive director of the World Privacy Forum, a nonpartisan organization that researches and analyzes technology and privacy. "You leave digital cookie crumbs that create a very real trail wherever you go."

A user's IP address can give marketers and other online entrepreneurs, not to mention criminals, access to information about the type and version of Web browser on a user's PC, the PC's operating-system version, and even the user's general geographic location.

Anonymizer's Anonymous Surfing version 6.0 alerts users to spyware-infested sites before their browsers take them there. The software also can disable scripts running on malicious sites that download executable programs onto users' PCs. The software also is designed to prevent Web surfers from visiting known phishing and pharming sites. It does this by routing user Web-page requests through Anonymizer's Web-site directory rather than through the one hosted on the user's PC, which can become corrupted by malware and trick users into visiting fraudulent Web sites.

Spyware Shield
Anonymizer's Anti-Spyware version 3.0 features ActiveX Shield, which keeps Web-based software from being installed on users' PCs. This latest anti-spyware software also eliminates spyware that's already present, even in the Windows Registry and other areas where spyware tends to be particularly stubborn to delete.

Together, Anonymizer's latest software releases are designed to give an advantage to people who want their identities protected in the tug-of-war with marketers who want as much information from consumers as possible, says Lee Itzhaki, Anonymizer's director of product management.

Once a user's system in infected, the bot reportedly sends new messages to the user's buddy list that appear to come from the infected user, instructing the recipients to download the malicious content.

The IMlogic Threat Center has issued a warning on a new breed of malicious IM bots which dupe users into activating their IM worm payloads.

Once a user's system in infected, the bot reportedly sends new messages to the user's buddy list that appear to come from the infected user, instructing the recipients to download the malicious content.

One troubling aspect of this new attack, which has been broadcast over the AOL Instant Messaging network in a version called IM.Myspace04.AIM, is that the infected users can't see the messages the worm is sending out on their behalf, according to IMlogic. In the case of the IM.Myspace04.AIM IM bots, when recipients of the bot's messages reply, the bot sends a follow-up message that says, “lol no its not its a virus” or "lol thats cool."

This attempt at interactive communication with its targets to simulate a live user represents a shift in bot attack behavior, according to IMlogic, which could increase infection rates.

The IMlogic Threat Center is instructing administrators to make sure they have the latest updates from their anti-virus provider, and content filtering can also block this threat.

This is being posted on our system messages as well as security so more people will be aware of this worm.

A new memory-resident worm is making the rounds disguised as a holiday card. It propagates through an IM network by sending itself to other users listed on the infected user's buddy list.

Akonix Systems Inc. today said it has identified a new instant messaging worm named W32/Aimdes.E, that disguises itself as a holiday greeting card.

Holiday greetings present a vulnerable avenue of attack and Akonix warns that this method will most likely be used throughout the month of December. The Akonix Security Center has classified the worm as low risk and immediately pushed updates to its customers for protection against this threat.

Aimdes.E is downloaded once a recipient opens the greeting card. Upon execution, the memory-resident worm propagates through an IM network by sending the following message to other users listed on the infected user's buddy list:

"The user has sent you a Greeting Card, to open it visit: http://g{BLOCKED}aol.com/index.pd?source=christmastheme?my_christmas_card.com"

When a recipient clicks the link, the worm automatically installs itself on the affected system. The worm also has backdoor capabilities, Akonix warns. It opens random ports and comes with a built-in Internet Relay Chat (IRC) client engine, which enables it to connect to an IRC channel and wait for several commands from a malicious user.

MediaMax Version 5, which Sony uses to restrict how many times a CD can be copied, installs a file folder in the computer that could allow a guest user to gain unauthorized access. A patch is available online.

LOS ANGELES (AP) -- Sony BMG Music Entertainment said Tuesday some 5.7 million of its CDs were shipped with anti-piracy technology that requires a new software patch to plug a potential security breach in computers used to play the CDs.
The security vulnerability was discovered by online civil liberty group Electronic Frontier Foundation and brought to the attention of Sony BMG, which has been under fire in recent weeks over security issues with an unrelated CD copy-protection plan.

The company said Tuesday it brought the issue up with the MediaMax software maker, SunnComm Technologies Inc., which has developed a software patch to fix the problem.

Windows startup programs directory.

Webzila.com currently offers more than 29000 unique dll and OCX files for download.

QUICK LINKS

Overview
Common errors and how to fix them
Basic software troubleshooting
Basic hardware troubleshooting
Back to online help

OVERVIEW

The following steps are our recommended steps to try when troubleshooting any software and hardware related issue. All of these steps are a great way to begin troubleshooting and/or to try when other solutions have not resolved your issue. When trying these steps most users will either have their issues resolved or be able to find the next best step for troubleshooting their problem.

The Internet is a computer network made up of thousands of networks worldwide. No one knows exactly how many computers are connected to the Internet. It is certain, however, that these number in the millions and are growing.

No one is in charge of the Internet. There are organizations which develop technical aspects of this network and set standards for creating applications on it, but no governing body is in control. The Internet backbone, through which Internet traffic flows, is owned by private companies.

All computers on the Internet communicate with one another using the Transmission Control Protocol/Internet Protocol suite, abbreviated to TCP/IP. Computers on the Internet use a client/server architecture. This means that the remote server machine provides files and services to the user's local client machine. Software can be installed on a client computer to take advantage of the latest access technology.

An Internet user has access to a wide variety of services: electronic mail, file transfer, vast information resources, interest group membership, interactive collaboration, multimedia displays, real-time broadcasting, breaking news, shopping opportunities, and much more.

The Internet consists primarily of a variety of access protocols. Many of these protocols feature programs that allow users to search for and retrieve material made available by the protocol.

Some of the topics are:

Using and Searching the Web
BASIC INTERNET
A Basic Guide to the Internet
A brief discussion of the Internet and its components
Understanding the World Wide Web
A discussion of the major protocols that make up the Web, the makeup of URLs, browsers and plug-ins, multimedia, Web programming languages and more

RESEARCH GUIDES
Checklist of Internet Research Tips
A collection of tips in a cogent format, with an emphasis on the use of subject directories and search engines
Conducting Research on the Internet
Advice on using e-mail discussion groups, Usenet news, and basic recommendations on the use of subject directories and search engines with tips on conducting searches
Evaluating Internet Resources
Strategies for evaluating resources found on the Internet
SEARCH ENGINES, SUBJECT DIRECTORIES & THE DEEP WEB

Welcome to 'the mother of all security online-tests'. Online since 1998!
.This test checks for many security problems and i.e. if your computers shares may be unexpectedly accessible to intruders via the Internet.This threat exists not only for hosts permanently connected but also and perhaps, particularly for those temporarily logged into virtually any provider's dial-in pools via telephone or ISDN. We have proved that it is possible to scan those pools for active connections then compromise a connected computer over those phone lines. We have even been able to recognize when previously scanned computers are connected and expose them to automated attacks with particular files based on previously gathered information. We could then analyse the information gathered while the target system itself is not on line.(See also the responses on TV, c't article and DuD 6/98)

Want a quick console utility to display the hardware specifications of a PC including :
Number of Processors, Processor Type and Speed
Operating System and Service Pack Version
Physical and Virtual Memory plus Memory Load
Network Card, MAC Address, IP, DNS, Gateway and WINs Addresses
Logical Drive information including Volume Size, Serial Number, Label and Free Bytes
Video Card Type
Hard Disk and CDROM Information
Installed Printers
Unlike a GUI based program, the output can be piped to file for quick storage and/or later appraisal. Likewise it can be used in conjunction with BeyondExec to get details of remote computers.

Want a small command line utility to view, kill, suspend or set the priority and affinity of processes, perhaps from a batch file? . . Has a virus disabled your Task Manager? . . or perhaps your Administrator has?

The Command Line Process Utility will function even when the task manager is disabled and/or the dreaded "Task Manager has been disabled by your Administrator" dialog box appears.

Works on remote machines with the Microsoft Telnet Server (tlntsvr) found on Windows 2000 and XP or with BeyondExec for Windows NT4/2000/XP.

What is protonic.com?

protonic.com is an online community that provides technical support to computer users for free. We prefer to call our users "Clients," because we have the philosophy that, despite our service being free, you should still receive the highest quality technical support.

Each protonic.com support Technician is a volunteer. We have been featured in many media publications including USA Weekend, Yahoo! Internet Life and .net magazine.
If you have a computer problem - anything from hardware to HTML problems - then submit your question to us for help! We support nearly everything: PCs, Macs, Unix and PDAs.

Is your PC acting sluggish? Are strange windows inexplicably popping up on your screen? Do you have to reboot your computer because of errors and lockups? Our free computer checkup and diagnostics can help you detect and fix many common computer problems! Our full PC tune-up should be your first stop to get the computer help you need.

We've all heard it: "Backup, backup, backup." Do you know why you need to back up? Yes, being prepared for the unknown is important, but this is actually a known fact: MOST HARD DRIVES WILL BE DEAD WITHIN 3-5 YEARS, and many do fail within the first year. Read that again. Now think about your 3 year-old PC... that hard drive is a ticking time bomb of pain just waiting for the most inopportune time to die or even just corrupt the data that is on there (which is just as bad or even worse from a data standpoint).

But how many of us actually do back up our data and how often? From my personal experience, very, very few people have backups that were made within the past month or three, if anything at all. But still, everyone acknowledges that they need to backup.

The Registry Guide for Windows, formerly RegEdit.com, provides an extensive range of registry tweaks, tricks & hacks for optimizing, enhancing and securing the Windows XP, 2000, NT, 98, 95 and Windows Me operating systems. Get started with our registry insight or by exploring the categorized tweaks.

This exhibition of Maori weaving features a new generation of artists who have entwined the textile traditions of the past with the creativity of their own imaginations.

The Eternal Thread features the work of more than 40 leading Maori weavers. Exhibits include kakahu (cloaks), whariki (mats), taniko (tapestries), tukutuku (wall panels), piupiu (skirts) and kete (baskets).

The Grateful Dead, the business, is testing the loyalty of longtime fans of the Grateful Dead, the pioneering jam band, by cracking down on an independently run Web site that made thousands of recordings of its live concerts available for free downloading.

Please go to the Members Home Page to vote!
http://members.connectto.net/

BBN Technologies, a defense contractor responsible for some of the Internet's technical underpinnings, wants to bring keyword search to spoken content through Podzinger.com, the company's podcast search engine.

The proliferation of podcasts poses a problem: How can people find their desired content among the 25,000 audio and video podcasts in Apple's iTunes Music Store, not to mention other podcast and video repositories?
Categorizing audiovisual content by subject matter is a popular strategy, as it once was with text-based Web pages. But on the Internet, keyword search technology has proven to be more effective for finding relevant text than category-based directories.

BBN Technologies, a defense contractor responsible for some of the Internet's technical underpinnings, wants to bring keyword search to spoken content through Podzinger.com, the company's podcast search engine.

The browser upgrade, which has been in beta since August and has gone through three release candidates this month, will be available for free download later Tuesday from the Mozilla site.

Mozilla Corp. will release the latest version of its open-source Firefox browser Tuesday afternoon, the company said.
Firefox 1.5, which has been in beta since August and has gone through three release candidates this month, will be available for free download in editions for Windows, the Mac OS X, and Linux later Tuesday from the Mozilla site.

The first major upgrade since the Nov. 9, 2004, debut of the browser, 1.5 includes a new automatic update feature, faster back and forward page viewing, drag-and-drop tab reordering, and new support for Web standards, including JavaScript 1.6 and cascading style sheets CSS2 and CSS3.

The free tool relies on Really Simple Syndication to help users find the latest information on their favorite sites.

SUNNYVALE, Calif. (AP)--Looking to gain another edge on its rivals, Internet powerhouse Yahoo Inc. on Wednesday will begin testing a new e-mail folder designed to make it easier for people to track the latest information posted on their favorite Web sites.
The free feature relies on Really Simple Syndication, an increasingly popular technology that can compile content from a wide array of Web sites catering to a user's personal tastes.

Millions of people have signed up to receive automatic feeds on everything from the international news to family recipes since Yahoo first began providing its RSS service last year, said Scott Gatz, the Sunnyvale, Calif-based company's senior director of personalization products.

Until Wednesday, Yahoo relied on Web pages as its RSS hub. RSS feeds will still be accessible through Yahoo's Web site.

The technology used for decades by law enforcement agents to wiretap telephones has a security flaw that allows the person being wiretapped to stop the recorder remotely, according to research by computer security experts who studied the system. It is also possible to falsify the numbers dialed, they said.

Someone being wiretapped can easily employ these "devastating countermeasures" with off-the-shelf equipment, said the lead researcher, Matt Blaze, an associate professor of computer and information science at the University of Pennsylvania.

"HE'S ready to die a good death," said the lawyer Lex Lasry of his client, Nguyen Tuong Van.

Mr Lasry stood outside Changi Prison yesterday after seeing Nguyen, whom he described as composed, resolute and strong.

Mr Lasry said Nguyen, 25, "continues to make us proud", adding: "He believes he has led a good life for the last couple of years … he's dealt with what he's facing and he's ready to face it."

Nguyen, a convicted heroin smuggler, is due to be executed tomorrow in Singapore.

For Nguyen's mother, Kim, the grief is compounded by the refusal of the Singaporean authorities to let her hold her son one last time before he dies.

Exploits and proof-of-concept samples for two recently disclosed critical Microsoft vulnerabilities are circulating among hackers, security experts warned Tuesday. Users who have not yet patched their systems should do so immediately, several security organizations recommended.
Microsoft is aware of both exploits, but doesn't see a threat. "[We are] not currently aware of active attacks utilizing the exploit code," Microsoft spokesperson Kjersti Gunderson said. According to Microsoft's security research center, neither exploit can be used to install or execute code remotely.

On November 10, the Senate unanimously passed a resolution designating 2006 as the
"Year of Study Abroad." The resolution, introduced by Senator Richard Durbin (D-Ill.) and
Senator Lamar Alexander (R-Tenn.), encourages initiatives to promote and expand study abroad
opportunities. The resolution was also co-sponsored by Sen. Larry Craig (R-ID),
Sen. Norm Coleman (R-Minn.), Sen. Russ Feingold (D-Wisc.), Sen. Daniel Akaka (D-HI)
and Sen. Thad Cochran (R-Miss.).

****
Give the gift of studying abroad!
An educational trip is an ideal present for everyone,
and is guaranteed to create lifelong memories.

A large alphabetical list of lighthouses in the US with pictures.

WASHINGTON: The US Supreme Court yesterday allowed a Californian man to be sentenced to spend a day outside a San Francisco post office wearing a sandwich board stating: "I stole mail. This is my punishment."

Shawn Gementera pleaded guilty to mail theft after police arrested him in 2001 for stealing letters from several mailboxes in San Francisco.

He was sentenced in 2003 to two months in prison.

His release conditions required Gementera to spend four days at a post office observing patrons inquire about lost or stolen mail, to write letters of apology to the victims of his crime and to wear the two-sided sign for a day.

Reuters

MUMBAI: Daredevil 67-year-old Indian tycoon Vijaypat Singhania claimed a world altitude record at the weekend by flying a hot air balloon to the boundary of space, climbing nearly 70,000ft.

The amateur aviator lifted off at dawn from a racecourse in the western Indian city of Mumbai serenaded by a band.

Mr Singhania, who used one of the largest nylon balloons ever built, said he wanted "to do the country proud" and added he was "very proud of making the flight at this stage of my life", when many people are drawing their pensions.

The hot-air balloon enthusiast had dubbed his flight, in which he travelled in a pressurised capsule through sub-zero temperatures, "MI 70K -- Mission Impossible 70,000."

PRISTINE Rowley Shoals Marine Park -- three tiny coral atolls off Western Australia's Kimberley coast -- is under threat from illegal fishing and could become a marine desert unless action is taken to protect it, fisheries officials have warned.

Concerns about the shoals have been spurred by sightings of illegal Indonesian fishing boats in the area.

West Australian fisheries officials fear the shoals, 300km west of Broome, could face the same fate as Scott Reef, further to the north, where fish stocks have been destroyed by illegal fishing.

THE Great Barrier Reef could be wiped out by global warming in less than 50 years, sounding the death knell for Queensland's booming tourism industry, an expert has warned.

Professor Ove Hoegh-Guldberg, director of the University of Queensland's Centre of Marine Studies, said today forecasts indicated global warming could heat the water wonderland and bleach and kill all its coral by 2050.

"Many projections say that we'll be without coral on the Great Barrier Reef by as early as the middle part of this century and that of course has everybody worried," he said.

QUEENSLAND scientists have discovered a new species of potentially fatal box jellyfish that invades the outer regions of the Great Barrier Reef near areas of coral popular with divers and snorkellers.

Unlike the types of box jellyfish found near coastal areas during summer, the new jellyfish is ocean-born and is found on outer regions of the reef about 10 days after each full moon.

It had previously been thought that tourists could enjoy the outer reef without having to worry about box jellyfish. The discovery of the new species means that divers, snorkellers and fishermen will have to monitor the threat.

Which of this summer's newest toys are the best? To answer this question, we designed an experiment.

First, we packed a room with toys. Super Soakers, blobs of goo, wind-up robots, toy cars, light sabers, bubble blowers, action figures...you get the idea. We had a lot of toys.

Ralph and Norton can grow to be 40 feet long and live in a tank as large as a football field. What are they? They’re the only two whale sharks on display at a North American aquarium.

Scientists have discovered the fossil skull of a 135-million-year-old "sea monster" and nicknamed it Godzilla.

The large skull was found in southern Argentina in an area that was once part of the Pacific Ocean.

The creature, named Dakosaurus andiniensi, is an entirely new kind of ancient crocodile. Scientists believe that the giant animal belongs to the crocodyliforms (crock-oh-DILL-uh-forms), a group of animals that includes today's crocodiles and their extinct relatives.

Unmasked E-mail addresses received over 6,400 spam messages, while only one spam message reached masked E-mail addresses. Masking is the practice of altering an E-mail address so that it's readable by people but not by machines.

Trickery and technology both play key roles in managing spam, according to a study released yesterday by the Federal Trade Commission.
The agency looked at three aspects of spamming and efforts to control it: the automated harvesting of E-mail addresses on public areas of the Internet; using E-mail address masking to reduce address harvesting; and the effectiveness of spam filtering by Internet Service Providers.

To conduct its five-week study, the FTC established 50 test E-mail accounts at each of three separate ISPs; two used spam filters and one didn't. It also posted 50 E-mail addresses on various Web sites, chat rooms, message boards, USENET groups, and blogs.

NGUYEN Tuong Van's legal team has not completely given up hope that an unexpected twist might save their client from the gallows, although pessimism is setting in.

This was reflected by nothing so much yesterday as a heartfelt plea from senior counsel Lex Lasry for the 25-year-old Australian to at least be able to kiss his mother goodbye.

"I think everybody is appalled at the prospect that Van and his mother would have to say goodbye to each other through glass," he said of the hanging scheduled for dawn on Friday.

One in every 14 E-mail messages passing through the filters of U.K.-based Sophos carried the Sober payload, with the worm accounting for 85% of all malicious code detected.

Sober.x, the year's biggest worm outbreak, showed little signs of slowing Monday, a security company reported.
One in every 14 e-mail messages passing through the filters of U.K.-based Sophos carried the Sober payload, with the worm accounting for 85 percent of all malicious code detected.

The sheer rate at which this worm is spreading proves that the devious tricks work," said Graham Cluley, senior technology consultant at Sophos, in a statement.

The greatest I.T. security threats to businesses may be targeted attacks aimed at a single company. But old-fashioned worms can still have their day, as last week shows.

A new variation of the long-running Sober worm last week was using extremely effective scare tactics to trick users into infecting their PCs, including posing as messages from the FBI and the CIA.

Sober.w--called Sober.x by Symantec and Sober.z by Sophos and F-Secure--spread rapidly. Symantec raised its warning to a "3" on its 5-point scale, the first time since the Zotob outbreak in August that it put a worm at that level.

Sober.w is the most recent example of the 2-year-old Sober family, and it shares important characteristics with other variants: It's bilingual, since messages arrive in English or German. The worm also uses address hijacking and involves mass E-mailing.

The issue is an AVG issue, not a gct support issue. If you are using an email client such as Outlook Express and you are getting error messages with the name AVG in it please go to AVG support for the resolution. Until you get it resolved you can use webmail to send and receive your email.
http://newwebmail.gct21.net

Here is a link to the AVG help for the email issue along with some of the information about the problems.

http://free.grisoft.com/doc/5/lng/us/tpl/v5/nid/752#5463

Problems with sending/receiving e-mails after AVG program update 7.0.322

If any problem appears with receiving e-mails after the AVG 7.0.322 program update, the likely reason is that the AVG Personal E-mail Scanner is conflicting with another program that checks e-mails automatically (for example Symantec). We recommend that you do not run two such programs concurrently, or at least disable the e-mail scanning function in one of these programs.

Problems with sending/receiving e-mails after AVG program update 7.0.322

If any problem appears with sending/receiving e-mails after AVG program update 7.0.322, it could possibly be caused by your computer firewall, especially ZoneAlarm or McAffee. Your firewall automatically blocks communication via AVG Personal e-mail scanner (AVG EMS) and does not ask if you would like to allow it. Because the AVG EMS component has been updated, your firewall does not recognize its updated content and behavior.

The problem is caused by your firewall, not by the AVG program. It typically appears with ZoneAlarm or McAffee firewalls installed. Some of the firewalls that either do not have such problems or that correctly detect the updated component include:

* AVG plus Firewall Edition
* Kerio
* Sygate

To solve the problem you have to remove AVG EMS from the configuration of your firewall, and then add it once again. For detailed instructions on how to configure the AVG program with different firewalls please refer to the Grisoft website, Downloads/Documentation section.

7-Zip Free software distributed under the GNU LGPL

FreeZip

ICEOWS

Description:

As of November 24, 2005 at 2:34 am (Pacific Standard Time, GMT -8:00), TrendLabs has declared a Medium risk alert in order to control the spread of WORM_MYTOB.MX. TrendLabs has received several infection reports indicating that this malware is currently spreading in Eastern Europe, Germany, France, Spain, and Austria.

Two teams of physicists have measured the capacitance of a Josephson junction for the first time. The methods developed by the two teams could be used to measure the state of quantum bits in a quantum computer without disturbing the state.

A Josephson junction consists of two superconducting layers separated by a thin insulating layer. Brian Josephson of Cambridge University won the Nobel prize in 1973 for predicting, while he was still a PhD student, that the Cooper pairs in the superconducting layers would be able to tunnel through the insulating layer without losing their superconducting properties. Josephson junctions are widely used in many electronic devices, including logic circuits, memory cells and amplifiers. Superconducting quantum interference devices (SQUIDs), also rely on the junctions to measure extremely small magnetic fields.

MADISON, Wis., Nov. 17 - As three men sat nervously on a stage, preparing to recount their nightmarish journeys through a justice system that had sent them away for crimes they had not committed, the moderator had a plea for the crowd in an auditorium here.

In Mr. Avery's home county, Manitowoc, where he was convicted in 1985, his release prompted apologies, even from the sexual assault victim, and a welcoming home for Mr. Avery. Elsewhere, the case became Wisconsin's most noted exoneration, leading to an "Avery task force," which drew up a package of law enforcement changes known as the Avery Bill, adopted by state lawmakers just weeks ago.

But last week, back in rural Manitowoc County, back at his family's auto salvage yard, back at the trailer he had moved home to, Mr. Avery, 43, was accused once more.

Four women wept in Changi prison yesterday as they kissed Nguyen Tuong Van goodbye by pressing their lips to his against the glass security screen that keeps him from visitors.

Each friend kissed Nguyen in turn after he asked them to give him a final, parting farewell gesture of affection.

Nguyen and his Melbourne friends had promised they would not cry, but when the tears started he told them: "OK, we can all cry together."

It is believed Nguyen, 25, first learned of his December 2 execution date while watching the TV news in his cell last week.

The creator of software used by millions of computer owners to download movies agreed on Tuesday to prevent his Web site from linking to illegally available movies online, the latest result of a bid by Hollywood to gain control of a growing piracy problem.

Bram Cohen, the 30-year-old founder and chief executive of BitTorrent, held a news conference with Dan Glickman, chairman of the Motion Picture Association of America and chief lobbyist for the movie industry, to announce the agreement, which is aimed at choking off illegal movie traffic exchanged on peer-to-peer networks.

"Up to now, we'd get a written notification" of a posted link to illegal content, which would then be removed from the site, Mr. Cohen said. "Now it will be expedited."

His blogger pen name is Shtreimel, the Yiddish word for the round fur hat that a Hasidic man wears on Sabbath.

He styles himself a heretic, a Brooklyn Hasid with beard and earlocks who does not believe in God, sneaks away to snack on Yom Kippur and sometimes grabs a hamburger that isn't kosher at McDonald's. On three blogs that he has kept - changing them like safe houses out of fear of exposure - he has confided his spiritual misgivings and mused about hypocrisies he sees among Hasidim, like a willingness to beat up adherents of a rival sect.

Within his community, he scrupulously keeps up appearances because, he said, if he were ever identified as an iconoclastic blogger he would be ostracized and might lose his wife and children.

A fast-spreading variation on the long-running Sober worm is using extremely effective tactics to trick users.
By Gregg Keizer
TechWeb News

A new variation of the long-running Sober worm uses extremely effective tactics to trick users into infecting their PCs, security companies said Tuesday, including posing as messages from the FBI and CIA.
Sober.w -- called Sober.x by Symantec, and Sober.z by Sophos and F-Secure -- is spreading rapidly, said security experts, fast enough for vendors to have amplified their threat levels Tuesday. Symantec raised its warning to a "3" in its 1 through 5 scale, the first time since the Zotob outbreak in August that the Cupertino, Calif.-based anti-virus vendor has taken a worm to that threat level.

"The rate of its spread is quite high," said Sam Curry, vice president of Computer Associates’ eTrust security group, who also called the raw number of infections "still relatively low, but growing."

In the meantime, the company's advisory offers up several steps users could take to prevent an attack, including disabling active scripting and requiring IE to prompt before running active scripting.
By Gregg Keizer
TechWeb News

Microsoft late Monday responded to reports of a critical zero-day vulnerability in Internet Explorer with a security advisory that promised a fix but not a timeline.
Initially, the vulnerability was thought to only crash the browser, but new information, said researchers, point to a greater risk: that an attacker could run malicious code remotely on a compromised PC by luring users to a malicious Web site. The bug was labeled "extremely critical" by one security vendor Monday.

IE 5.01, 5.5, and 6.0 are open to attack, said Microsoft, even when running on up-to-date editions of Windows XP SP2, Windows Server 2003 SP1, and Windows 2000 SP4. The advisory offered up several steps users could take to prevent an attack, including disabling Active scripting and requiring IE to prompt before running Active scripting.

The flaw is another example of IE incorrectly initializing certain objects, a security firm says; machines can be hijacked by hackers who entice users to a malicious Web site.
By Gregg Keizer
TechWeb News

A unpatched flaw in Microsoft's Internet Explorer browser that first surfaced in late May was upgraded Monday by a security firm to "extremely critical" status after proof-of-concept code for a working exploit hit the Web.
Originally, vulnerability researcher Benjamin Tobias Franz detailed a bug in IE 5.01 and 6.0 editions could result in a denial-of-service (DoS) attack; now, however, security vendor Computer Terrorism Ltd. said that the flaw could be used by an attacker to install and remotely run his own code on a compromised PC. The bottom line: machines could be hijacked by hackers who enticed users to a malicious Web site.

Symbols.com contains more than 1,600 articles about 2,500 Western signs, arranged into 54 groups according to their graphic characteristics.

THOUSANDS of Aboriginal skeletons and body parts taken over the past 200 years by museums and private collectors are to be returned to Australia to be given a dignified burial.

More than 10,000 sets of remains in Australia and overseas are unidentified, and many of the bodies were illegally supplied to museums and medical schools overseas by grave-robbers who sold skeletons for "scientific purposes".

In some cases, Aborigines were murdered so their skeletons could then be sold to European museums.

A LOS Angeles taxi driver distinguished himself by his honesty after finding a pouch filled with diamonds worth $US350,000 in the back of his cab, police said overnight.

At first, Afghan immigrant Haider Sediqi, 40, paid little attention when he found the small brown pouch in the back of his car after dropping off a fare at Los Angeles airport on Wednesday.

But later in the day, Sediqi's jaw dropped when he opened the pouch to discover a series of clear plastic boxes filled with a fortune in cut diamonds, carefully mounted in Styrofoam.

WHILE Singapore has an unwavering policy of hanging drug mules such as Australia's Nguyen Tuong Van without mercy, it has for years been one of the strongest backers of Burma, the world's second-biggest producer of heroin.

Despite the pariah status of the military junta-controlled country as a flagrant breacher of human rights and the engine-room of the notorious opium golden triangle, Singapore has long been one of its key trading partners.

In the 10 months to October, Singapore - Burma's second-biggest source of imports - shipped more than $650 million of goods to the country. By comparison, Australia's exports to Burma last year were valued at $27 million or 0.01 per cent of total exports.

RESEARCHERS have discovered a way of predicting which women are likely to suffer miscarriage - a finding that could ultimately lead to a treatment to prevent it.
A study of almost 400 women found those who miscarried had a significantly lower level of a protein that regulates the growth and development of the placenta.

About 20 per cent of pregnancies end in miscarriage, while 5per cent of women will suffer two miscarriages or more.

Scientists from the Monash Institute of Medical Research and Sydney's St Vincent's Hospital, who identified the link last year, have confirmed the protein damages the pregnancy.

"We took a blood test from 400 women between six and 12 weeks of pregnancy," said Associate Professor Euan Wallace, director of Monash's centre for women's health.

"About 200 women had a miscarriage and about 200 women had a normal pregnancy.

SINGAPORE last night dug in its heels to resist Australian attempts to save Tuong Van Nguyen as his mother and brother saw him face to face at Changi prison.
Federal Government lawyers were yesterday looking into the mechanics of mounting a challenge in the International Court of Justice, though behind the scenes advisers held out little hope.

"We're working on this as a matter of extreme urgency," Federal Justice Minister Senator Chris Ellison said yesterday. "We have a time limit and we're doing everything we can."

Singapore has so far ignored pleas from Prime Minister John Howard, campaigns run by international pressure groups and emotional appeals from the convicted drug smuggler's family.

As of November 21, 2005 2:20 PM Pacific Standard Time (PST, GMT -8:00),
TrendLabs has declared a Medium Risk Virus Alert to control the spread of
WORM_SOBER.AG. TrendLabs has received several infection reports indicating that
this malware is spreading in the USA, Belgium, Canada, Brazil, and New Zealand.

This memory-resident worm propagates by attaching a copy of itself to an email
message, which it sends to target recipients using its own Simple Mail Transfer
Protocol (SMTP) engine. Since it's email propagation does not require any user
intervention, the user is often unaware that this worm is sending out email
messages.

The email it sends out has the following details:

From: {Email address generated by this worm}

Subject: (any of the following)
• hi,_ive_a_new_mail_address
• Mail delivery failed
• Registration Confirmation
• smtp mail failed
• Spam: Registration Confirmation
• Your Password
• Your IP was logged
• Paris_Hilton_&_Nicole_Richie
• You visit illegal websites

Message body: (any of the following)
hey its me, my old address dont work at time. i dont know why?!
in the last days ive got some mails. i' think thaz your mails but im not sure!
plz read and check ...
cyaaaaaaa

---

This is an automatically generated Delivery Status Notification.

SMTP_Error []
I'm afraid I wasn't able to deliver your message.
This is a permanent error; I've given up. Sorry it didn't work out.
The full mail-text and header is attached

---

Account and Password Information are attached!
***** Go to: http://www.{random}.com
***** Email: {random}.com

---

Dear Sir/Madam,

we have logged your IP-address on more than 30 illegal Websites.
Important:
Please answer our questions!
The list of questions are attached.

Yours faithfully,
Steven Allison

*** Federal Bureau of Investigation -FBI-
*** 935 Pennsylvania Avenue, NW, Room 3220
*** Washington, DC 20535
*** phone: (202) 324-3000

---

Account and Password Information are attached! ---

The Simple Life:
View Paris Hilton & Nicole Richie video clips , pictures & more ;)
Download is free until Jan, 2006!
Please use our Download manager.

Attachment: (any of the following)
• mailtext.zip
• mail.zip
• reg_pass.zip
• mail.zip
• reg_pass-data.zip
• question_list.zip
• list.zip
• downloadm
• mail_body.zip

The attached .ZIP file contains the copy of this worm using the following file
name:
File-packed_dataInfo.exe

When executed, it displays a fake error message box in order to trick a user
into thinking that the file did not properly execute.

This worm searches the process list of the affected system for mrt.exe, the
Microsoft Windows Malicious Software Removal Tool process. If found, it
terminates the said process thus making the system more vulnerable to malicious
attacks.

TrendLabs will be releasing the following EPS deliverables:

TMCM Outbreak Prevention Policy (Beta) - 187 (Released)
Official Pattern Release - 2.957.00 (ETA: 1.5 hrs)
Damage Cleanup Template - 678 (Being created)
Network Virus Wall - 10232 (Being created)

For more information on WORM_SOBER.AG, you can visit our Web site at:
http://www.trendmicro.com/vinfo/virusencyclo/default5.asp?VName=WORM_SOBER.AG
You can modify subscription settings for Trend Micro newsletters at:
http://www.trendmicro.com/subscriptions/default.asp

Think pink—and orange?

With their bright feathers and strongly hooked bills, flamingos are among the most easily recognized waterbirds. Their pink or reddish color comes from the rich sources of carotenoid pigments (like the pigments of carrots) in the algae and small crustaceans that the birds eat. The Caribbean flamingos Phoenicopterus ruber ruber are the brightest, showing their true colors of red, pink, or orange on their legs, bills, and faces.

One of the world's oldest living animals, Harriet the tortoise, reached the grand old age of 175 on Tuesday.

Harriet has spent the past 17 years at Australia Zoo near Brisbane, but her keepers say the Giant Galapagos Land Tortoise had a famous previous owner.

A baby gorilla has been born at a wildlife park in Florida.

The primate's arrival caused a lot of drama at Busch Gardens zoological hospital on Friday.

After an examination of his mum Kishina, 33, vets were worried about the baby's welfare and was delivered by "a very rare" emergency caesarean.

The yet to be named 4lb 10oz ape is being cared for by Busch Gardens veterinary care staff until Kishina can be re-introduced to her son.

**The Propel issue has been resolved, we are sorry for the trouble.

Some people are having problems logging into propel this morning. We are aware of the issue and working on a resolution. Watch this blog for updates.

E mail is running slow this morning

Description Published: Sunday, November 20, 2005
Description Modified: Sunday, November 20, 2005

Type: Trojan
Category: Win32
Also known as Troj/Bdoor-ML (Sophos), W32/Brepibot (McAfee), W32/Brepibot.D (F-Secure), Backdoor.Naninf.B (Symantec), Win32/OutsBot.W!Trojan, WORM_SDBOT.CQV (Trend), Backdoor.Win32.Breplibot.h (Kaspersky)

Each week, CA Security Advisory Team tabulates the top 5 malware threats based on reports received from around the world by CA's VIRTUE ™ virus sample processing system.

Arovax Anti-Spyware: a standalone application for Home and Corporate users designed to keep your PC system clean of all forms of spyware, adware, trojan horses, keystroke loggers, security disablers and other malware. The program works under Microsoft Windows 98/Me/NT/2000/XP and does not interfere with other applications installed on users PC.

For Windows (98/ME/NT/2000/XP) as well as Linux / FreeBSD / Solaris

K1 is a system utility for Windows XP/2K/2003.
It retrieves system and hardware informations.

K1 has also some options to manage your computer:

- Shutdown, reboot, log-off or lock computer.
- Start, stop or delete a service.
- Change Windows elements color.
- Kill or change a processe's priority.
- A registry tweaker (optimize registry + services).
- A cleaner (delete IE cookies, IE temporary Internet files, recent documents, all recycle bins on all drives, Log files, Backup files, Applications history files, Windows temporary files and clean "Prefecth" folder).
- A password generator.
- A shortcut maker.
- A QuickLaunh accessible via the systray.
- Enable, disable, launch your screensaver.
- Show/Hide Windows's elements (systray, traywnd, start up button, desktop).
- Possibilty to stop Internet connection.
- A Whois query + TCP/IP Analyzer via http link.

Lastly you can backup your computer configuration.

This is a standalone CD/DVD/ISO/AUDIO burner, and ISO creator that is quite easy to use, is small, no installation is needed, just one single file, and it has its own ASPI layer build in. It also has a powerful search tool. This burner is under constant developement and all users are invited to join in with suggestions, corrections and translations to new languages.

Google Inc. on Friday launched a program that gives ad publishers the option of displaying an "advertise-on-this-site" link that takes advertisers to the search engine.
The initiative is an extension of Google's site-targeted advertising program AdSense, which launched this year. The link takes potential advertisers to a page where they can create an ad that's target to the publisher's site.

Ads created through Onsite Advertiser Sign-Up would compete in the same auction as all other Google ads, including keyword cost-per-click text and image ads, and site-targeted cost-per-thousand impression. Ad publishers would be entitled to a portion of the revenue.

Ad publishers can customize the destination page for links with their own logo, color scheme and site description.

The Open Educational Resources Archive is a collection of educational content including coursework, study guides, exercises, and recorded lectures. It is meant for students, teachers, and self-learners at all levels.

We are experiencing a loss of routing in Richmond and Greensboro. Users may experience difficulty routing and authenticating. We are working to restore service as soon as possible.

WASHINGTON (Reuters) - Special prosecutor Patrick Fitzgerald said in new court filings that the ongoing CIA leak investigation will involve proceedings before a new grand jury, a possible sign he could seek new charges in the case.

"The investigation will involve proceedings before a different grand jury than the grand jury which returned the indictment" against Vice President Dick Cheney's chief of staff, Lewis "Scooter" Libby, Fitzgerald said, according to filings obtained by Reuters on Friday.

Thursday November 24th is Thanksgiving and we will be closed for the holiday. We will be available on Friday November 25th.

MILAN - Playing an Internet video one evening last year, an Egyptian radical living in Milan reveled as the head of an American, Nicholas Berg, was sawed off by his Iraqi captors.

"Go to hell, enemy of God!" shouted the man, Rabei Osman Sayed Ahmed, as Mr. Berg's screams were broadcast. "Kill him! Kill him! Yes, like that! Cut his throat properly. Cut his head off! If I had been there, I would have burned him to make him already feel what hell was like. Cut off his head! God is great! God is great!"

Archaeologists and forensic experts in Guatemala have made a grisly discovery among the ruins of an ancient Maya city, Cancuén.

In explorations during the summer, they found as many as 50 skeletons in a sacred pool and other places, victims of murder and dismemberment in a war that destroyed the city and, it seems, served as a beginning of the collapse of the classic period of the Maya civilization. The precipitous decline of the Maya is one of the enduring mysteries of American archaeology.

As the scale of the massacre became apparent, the archaeologists called on Guatemalan forensic investigators for their experience with mass burials of modern war. The team, established in 1996 to excavate the mass graves from Guatemala's civil war, has also analyzed sites in Bosnia, Kosovo and Rwanda.

Scientists working with mice have found that by removing a single gene they can turn normally cautious animals into daring ones, mice that are more willing to explore unknown territory and less intimidated by sights and sounds that they have learned can be dangerous.

The surprising discovery, being reported today in the journal Cell, opens a new window on how fear works in the brain, experts said.

The security advisory gave out few details of the vulnerability, saying that it was a flaw in the RPC component and could result in a denial-of-service attack that would crash affected computers. No patch is available.

Microsoft late Wednesday warned Windows users that proof-of-concept code was in circulation that could be remotely and anonymously exploited on Windows 2000 machines. Windows XP SP1 is somewhat less vulnerable, said Microsoft.

The security advisory gave out few details of the vulnerability, only saying that it was a flaw in the RPC (Remote Procedure Call) component, and could result in a denial-of-service attack that would crash affected computers.

A number of Web sites have been found that are capable of attacking PCs left vulnerable after users tried to uninstall a rootkit embedded in Sony's copy-protection software. While the sites could have wreaked havoc, the security firm that discovered them said the intent of the person behind these particular sites seems to be more about making a point than doing harm.

The impact of Sony BMG's now-withdrawn copy-protection scheme spread even farther Wednesday. A security company said it had spotted malicious Web sites ready to attack PCs left vulnerable after users tried to uninstall a rootkit Sony used to hide its digital rights management (DRM) software.
San Diego-based Websense said that it had found "a few" Web sites designed to attack computers by exploiting a leftover piece of Sony's ActiveX rootkit uninstaller.

WASHINGTON, Nov. 17 - The partisan furor over the Iraq war ratcheted up sharply on Capitol Hill on Thursday, as an influential House Democrat on military matters called for the immediate withdrawal of American troops and Republicans escalated their attacks against the Bush administration's critics.

Representative John P. Murtha of Pennsylvania, a Vietnam combat veteran who voted for the Iraq war, said that after more than two years of combat, American forces had united a disparate array of insurgents in a seemingly endless cycle of violence that was impeding Iraq's progress toward stability and self-governance. He said the 153,000 American troops in Iraq should be pulled out within six months.

WASHINGTON, Nov. 17 - The executive editor of The Washington Post said on Thursday that if other reporters at the newspaper independently discovered the identity of Bob Woodward's confidential source in the C.I.A. leak case, the newspaper might decide to publish the source's name.

WASHINGTON, Nov. 17 - The fight over the Supreme Court nomination of Judge Samuel A. Alito Jr. spilled out from the Senate to the national airwaves Thursday as liberal and conservatives groups began running commercials presenting radically different images of the same judge.

A coalition of liberal groups began an advertising campaign portraying Judge Alito as a darling of conservatives like Patrick J. Buchanan and Rush Limbaugh. They asserted that he had condoned the strip-search of a 10-year-old girl, voted as a judge to ease safeguards against employment discrimination and advocated overturning Roe v. Wade.

The remains of a brewery in the southernmost settlement of an ancient Peruvian empire appears to provide proof that women of high rank crafted chicha, a beerlike beverage made from corn and spicy berries that was treasured by the Wari people of old as well as their modern day descendants. Decorative shawl pins, worn exclusively by high caste women, littered the floor of the brewery, which was capable of producing more than 475 gallons of the potent brew a week.

"The brewers were not only women, but elite women," says Donna Nash of the Field Museum in Chicago, a member of the archaeology team studying the Cerro Baúl site where the ruins were found. "They weren't slaves and they weren't people of low status. So the fact that they made the beer probably made it even more special."

Not really free software but a nice alternative.

With web2ftp.com, you can access any FTP account through a Web interface - no matter whether there is a firewall or not. You can use www2ftp for the complete administration of your homepage, downloading files or just making small changes.

Excuses for when you need to get off the phone!

Before You Ask

Before asking a technical question by email, or in a newsgroup, or on a website chat board, do the following:

1.

Try to find an answer by searching the Web.
2.

Try to find an answer by reading the manual.
3.

Try to find an answer by reading a FAQ.
4.

Try to find an answer by inspection or experimentation.
5.

Try to find an answer by asking a skilled friend.
6.

If you are a programmer, try to find an answer by reading the source code.

The Rasterbator is a web service which creates huge, rasterized images from any picture. The rasterized images can be printed and assembled into extremely cool looking posters up to 20 meters in size.

An acronym is a label formed from the beginnings of words (Greek: acro [head] and nym [word]) -- or very rarely, from letters in the middle of words. There is no requirement that an acronym be pronounceable as a normal word (this is a curious myth perpetuated by American dictionaries): IBM is just as much an acronym as LASER.

Internet Lesson 101: Always check Google before asking a question.

A funny web page

60,000 Humans (homo sapiens) are limited to Africa and number around 10,000.

50,000 Humans, running from drought have left Africa, taking a coastal route to India and then to Australia.

35,000 Some people from Africa migrated inland to Central Asia, and their descendants have branched out, one branch to Europe another to East Asia.

30,000 In Europe, Neanderthal's have become or are becoming extinct.

Dedicated to Students, Educators and all who enjoy History!

For people who make websites.

You’ve done all the right stuff, but your site doesn’t look or work as it should in the latest browsers.

You’ve written valid XHTML and CSS. You’ve used the W3C standard Document Object Model (DOM) to manipulate dynamic page elements. Yet, in browsers designed to support these very standards, your site is failing. A faulty DOCTYPE is likely to blame.

This little article will provide you with DOCTYPEs that work, and explain the practical, real–world effect of these seemingly abstract tags.

Customers dialing into 440 541 0002 may experience problems in authenticating. We are aware of this issue and working to have it resolved ASAP.
Unfortunately we have no ETR at this time.

A 500-strong rally in central Adelaide today called United States Defence Secretary Donald Rumsfeld a war criminal and demanded he go home.
With strict security precautions in place there was little prospect that any demonstrators could get near any venue in which Mr Rumsfeld or US Assistant Secretary of State Robert Zoellick were present.

However, they made do with a rally on the steps outside Adelaide's Parliament House where a series of speakers addressed the crowd.

Protesters chanted that Mr Rumsfeld was a war criminal and should return to the United States.

Australia is not only home to venomous snakes, spiders and jellyfish, now scientists have discovered that its lizards are venomous too.

For instance little bearded dragon lizards that cruise around the suburbs have classic rattlesnake venom, scientists report in the journal Nature.

One of the oldest-known cookbooks in the country has left historians in a stew over its obscure recipes.

Her Cookery Book, written in 1742 by Mary Swanwick, includes a range of unknown dishes such as squichanary pye and Stoughtons drops.

The book, which also includes instructions for stewed calf's head, was donated to the Derbyshire Record Office by an anonymous Stockport man.

At 2pm yesterday Kim Nguyen - the Vietnamese refugee who came to Australia full of hope 25 years ago with baby twins in her arms - opened a registered letter containing crushing news written in cold officialise.

She was informed that one of her two boys, Nguyen Tuong Van, would be hanged in Singapore early on the morning of Friday, December 2, despite an international campaign to save him.

"The Australian high commission in Singapore could have been notified, the Australian Government could have been notified," her irate lawyer, Lex Lasry, said.