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Microsoft has unveiled its highly anticipated security software suite - Windows Live OneCare.

Carrying the Windows Live branding, OneCare is an all round PC care service from Microsoft. It works quietly in the background on your computer, so you don’t have to worry about nasty interruptions from viruses, spyware, hackers, and other unwanted intruders. It also goes beyond security, regularly backing up all your important files and cleaning up and tuning up your PC to help keep it running at top speed.

• Protection Plus, with its antivirus and antispyware scanners and managed, two-way firewall, helps protect your computer from viruses, worms, Trojan horses, hackers, and other threats. It runs continuously in the background, but you can scan individual files and folders for viruses on demand simply by right-clicking them. You can even scan attachments you receive via Windows Live Messenger or MSN Messenger.
• Performance Plus regularly defragments your hard disk, removes any unnecessary files that can clog your PC, and helps make sure important security updates from Microsoft are installed efficiently and on time.
• Backup and Restore regularly copies your important files and settings to CD, DVD, or external hard disk.
• Instant Support provides online help anytime you need it, 24 hours a day, 7 days a week.

Link: Windows Live OneCare

First there was Blue Frog, a community antispam effort that stopped operating last week after Blue Security, the company that started the project, came under a withering denial-of-service attack.

Out of the ashes comes Black Frog, part of a project that is apparently willing to become a flag bearer in the fight against spam. The project, dubbed Okopipi, is developing the Black Frog antispam software as an open-source project, according to the group’s wiki.

“This project aims to become a distributed replacement of antispam software Blue Frog,” the Okopipi wiki states. The project merges two separate efforts–Okopipi and Black Frog–that arose after the demise of Blue Frog.

Blue Security waged a sort of do-it-yourself spamming campaign against the spammers. It said that more than 500,000 customers downloaded its Blue Frog software, which automatically sent replies back to mass e-mails. If all of these customers’ systems responded, the spammers’ systems would be overwhelmed.

But the Web sites of Blue Security and some of the company’s partners were knocked out last month by a massive distributed denial-of-service attack. In such an attack, scores of computers try to continuously log onto Web sites, in an effort to overtax the servers.

News source: Okopipi Wiki

News source: Cnet

After already announcing plans for an Ultimate edition of Windows Vista, Microsoft confirmed this week that it also plans an Ultimate edition of Office 2007.

The new retail package, which was not part of the Office 2007 lineup announced back in February, will offer nearly all the components available to large businesses in one $679 product. A Microsoft representative said on Thursday that the new entrant in the lineup was “created as a result of customer feedback,” but didn’t offer more details on its origins.

Office Ultimate is similar to the enterprise edition that is available only to large businesses, and includes standards like Word, Excel, PowerPoint and Outlook, along with Publisher, the OneNote note-taking software, the Groove collaboration suite, Access database and InfoPath forms software. Microsoft did not announce pricing for the enterprise edition, since it is only available for volume licensing customers.

News source: CNET News

I’ll be updating my site today. There will be a slight downtime since a lot of changes will be made. Changes include Wordpress core update, theme update and plugin updates.

Status update:

Wordpress core files has been updated to version 2.02. Most of the plugins have been installed and configured. Currently making changes in the theme to make it a little unique. The update took some time since I lost my DSL connection (and phone service) for a couple of hours. I also took a nap for a few hours to make up for the lack of sleep yesterday.

Microsoft has released the beta version of its Vista Upgrade Advisor software for download. It will let people know what hardware must be upgraded in order to get the best experence from Vista.

Link: Windows Vista Upgrade Advisor Beta

Microsoft has today made available the latest beta version of Windows Media Player, version 11.

WMP11 sports an improved UI, better performance and improved library features. The subscription based service, URGE, is intergrated into the client and offers quick and easy downloads of the latest tunes for $14.95 per month.

URGE is currently being offered as a 14 day trial for a limited period.

Microsoft hopes to attract more people into using WMP11 by offering additional features in the Vista client such as Media Center intergration.

Download: Windows Media Player 11 - 11.0.5358.4827

Link: Windows Media Player 11 Information

Intel on May 28 will launch its 65nm single-core Celeron D processors, based on a Cedar Mill core, and having a power consumption of about 65W, according to unspecified motherboard makers. The launch date will follow right after the scheduled May 23 launch of AMD’s AM2-compatible processors, the makers indicated.

The first 65nm Cedar Mill products, the Celeron D352 and D356 processors, will feature core speeds of 3.2GHz and 3.33GHz, respectively, 512KB of L2 cache memory and a front-side bus (FSB) of 533MHz, according to a November 2005 article, which already hinted that the introduction will come by the end of the second quarter. The Celeron D352 and D356 will be priced US$79 and US$89, respectively, in 1,000-unit quantities, the sources noted.

Intel will launch the 3.46GHz Celeron D 360 in the third quarter, according to the sources. Unit prices of the Celeron D 360 will be US$103, the sources added.

In the third quarter, dual-core Pentium D processors will also account for 47% of Intel’s overall CPU output for desktop OEMs, followed by single-core Pentium 4 processors with 38% and the Conroe segment with 15%, said the sources.

For next year, Intel expects dual-core processors to account for almost 85% of its total CPU shipments to desktop OEMs in the first quarter of 2007, and by the end of next year Pentium 4 CPUs will completely phased out while the Celeron D series will be the mainstream entry-level platform, according to sources familiar with Intel’s plans.

AMD’s upcoming AM2 processors will only be manufactured on a 90nm process technology. A 65nm AM2 version will not appear in the market until December, according to sources at Taiwan motherboard makers.

News source: DigiTimes