So, maybe some of you have heard that MS said they would be putting out a Windows Update that would check Windows 7 Installs for known Activator exploits and alert you the user if your copy wasn't legit.  Top that off, they also said that they wouldn't force this update down our throats (not yet anyway) and we could even un-install the update if we got it on our system accidently.  So far they are living up to their word.

Windows Update KB971033 went live last night and true to their word, you can choose not to install it if you are one of those that just doesn't have Windows set to auto download everything and install.

So, if you are worried about this update giving a false positive and bugging the snot out of you, avoid or uninstall update KB971033.  Word on the street however, is that you can expect this updates and an addon to kill the activator exploits to be contained withing the upcoming ServicePack 1 for Win7.  So enjoy it while you can.

So many of us know that USB 3.0 is starting to show up just about everywhere but here in the USA.  Granted some high end motherboards now have it that we can get, but, that's about it.  Granted again, who is able to get anything that uses it just yet?  But let's face it, we all want to be ready when it gets here and right now, that's not an option.

It is now.  Belkin has brought out a USB 3.0 PCIe add on card for your desktop, Express-card adapter for your laptop and some nice USB A-B & mini-B cables to use with them.  This is great right?  Sure, save that Belkin seems to think that being first to market also means first to pillage.  The PCIe card will run you $79.99, the Express-card will hit you for $79.99 and the pack of 4ft cables will run you $39.99. 

Lets face it, we are used to high prices for new tech, really we are, but there are limits.  Enjoy it while you can Belkin, as soon as a few others bring their horses to the race, the markup will have to come down a tad.

That being said, anyone with deep pockets that wants to send one of those to us for some testing, would be greatly thanked.

As most of you know, Techography uses the Geeklog CMS/Weblog system.  A new security release came out last month and I finally got a chance to take care of that today.  As always, if you see anything that your don't think is working right, please leave me a comment on this article.

For those of you that were still watching cartoons while some of us found the internet back in the 90's, there was a great idea that came about.  It was the mid 90's and the internet was really just starting to gain momentum. Web pages were all rage since very few knew how to make them and even fewer had the resources to host them or have them hosted.  Hosting companies were a new thing as well.  Everything was new and alien.

Out of all of the came a hosting company called Geocities.  It was one of several that would host your site for free.  They also charged a small fee to shorten the URL to your site, a bit more web space and some extra web tools.  I, like millions of other fledgling internet users flocked to Geocities and started learning how to code in HTML

Those days are long gone now and I've also just gotten word that Yahoo!, who purchased Geocities some years ago, is shutting the project down and scrubbing all the site contained within.  I have to admit, I was actually saddened a bit by the news. Then I had to wonder if my old site was still there.  Sure enough, I punched in http://www.geocities.com/~calimus  and there it was.  A archived leftover from somewhere between 1996-1997.  That was the last time I can remember doing anything with the Geocities site.  The code that was there was made even well before then.

So for now, you can still get to the site.  I've made sure to save a copy of it for myself.  I'll add that to my digital scrapbook.  It's been a long time Geocities, and I hate to see you go even though I haven't visited for at least 12 years.  You were a big part of my life where I honed some of my earliest skills.  So long old friend.

Looks like bloggers will have to be a bit more carefull starting Dec 1.  If your a blogger and you plug a product on your site, or twitter, or facebook, or even myspace (is that place still alive?), and you were payed by the manufacturer in any way to review or plug said product, you had better tell everyone you got payed.  Fail to do so and it can result in a $11k fine.

It sounds much worse then it is really, but it's still a bit of a PITA legality.  For a better understanding, check out what the fine folks of at Arstechnica have to say.

Well, looks like Verizon isn't going to sit back and continue to wait for a deal with Apple on the iPhone any longer.  Today the announcement was made that Verizon and Google have made a deal.  This means Andriod based phones should make their way to the Verizon stores in as little as a few weeks from what the PR guys are saying.

Should be interesting to see what they come up with together.  Currently, I'm a BlackBerry Storm user, but maybe I could be swayed.

If you haven't heard about Google's new communications project called Wave, don't worry, you arn't the last to know.  This cat is still only half out of the bag.

Seems that the code monkeys over at Google have really been working some overtime. Wave will possibly be the next generation in on-line communications and is also looking to bump the current system of e-mail off the map as well.  it's kind of like, IM client meets, e-mail client, meets online forum, meets collaboration client and a few other tools tossed in for good measure.  While this is very interesting, I'm not sure if I like this idea.

However, I'm still learning about it and you should as well.  Ars Technica has this article on what they have seen from Wave as well as a nice breakdown of how it works.  So this article does a great job of explaining what Google's ideas is, but does get a bit technical along the way.  Even if you arn't the technical kind of person, read the article.  The super geeky part isn't very long but the rest will provide a lot of information.

Just sending out a nice Happy Birthday to bloodspite.  I've already texted him, but I figured this was in order as well.

Happy Birthday buddy, have one on me.

Does your windows OS have your down?  Mac OS not doing it for you?  Have you been thinking about giving one of the many flavors of Linux a try?  Well, if you have, Tech Radar has 25 tips for Windows switchers.

It covers questions such as "what is a distribution", "what is a live CD", "getting a grip on the file system" and several other really good topics.  This isn't an end all be all guide to Linux, however, for those that might be interesting in making the switch or taking it for a test drive, it's a great primer to get your foot in the door.

Much like Apple's "There's an App for that" iPhone campaign, it seems these days the script kiddies of the world should have one called "There's a Trojan for that".

Now Skype, that great VOIP and vid conferencing application now gets a trojan of it's own.  Symantec has recently said that it's identified Trojan.Peskyspy and have also found it's source code out on the internet.

The virus itself once on a system with Skype recrods conversations and then uploads to servers in the wild to be reviewed by whomever.  The real problem is that since the source code is out there, there is a great potential for the code to be modified to do far more.