Life's Great Expectations!

Can you trust the NSS Labs report touting the benefits of IE8? by Steve Ragan - Mar 23 2009, 16:15 NSS Labs report used to tout the benefits of Internet Explorer 8. Image: Microsoft. On Thursday, as Microsoft pushed out Internet Explorer 8 to the masses, a report by NSS Labs was making the rounds in the news. The report says that Internet Explorer 8 blocks two to four times as many malicious Web sites as any of the other browsers on the market today. Yet, the news online surrounding this report is misleading to say the least, and the report itself appears biased and questionable at best. According to an IE8 press releases, Microsoft said: “...91 percent of adults in the U.S. are concerned about online fraud and identity theft in today’s economic climate, and 37 percent are less likely to shop online because they would have to give their personal information. Internet Explorer 8 offers the best security protections among leading browsers: a study released today by NSS Labs indica...

By Lee Wei Ling Someone e-mailed me an article from the San Francisco Chronicle titled 'Singapore blooms as lush as Eden itself', by Linda Watanabe McFerrin, about our city in a garden. 'Unfortunately, what most Westerners know about Singapore,' she notes, 'is limited to the restrictions imposed on its citizens by a repressive government that dictates the mix of races; regulates reproductive matters, public housing and other seemingly personal matters; bans chewing gum, canes kids and keeps a stranglehold on the media.' I read the article with amusement and recalled the day Michael Fay saved me from being thrown into jail in New Hampshire. For those too young to remember Fay, let me relate his story. In 1993, the then 18-year-old and his friends damaged 18 cars in a 10-day spree of vandalism and mischief. Stolen road signs and Singapore flags were also found in his home. Fay was caught, charged and pleaded guilty. The judge sentenced him to six strokes of the ca...

Microsoft proud of its first 'post-Gates' OS, Ballmer says Gates' departure allowed executives to take new leadership responsibilities while developing Windows 7 By Elizabeth Montalbano 20 Mar 2009 NEW YORK, 19 MARCH 2009 - Windows 7 is the first Microsoft OS developed away from the watchful eye of Bill Gates, and the technical leaders who built it had to adjust to life at the company without its cofounder and former chief software architect, CEO Steve Ballmer said Thursday. "We have a lot of people who are stepping up and growing in new ways," Ballmer said, speaking at the McGraw-Hill 2009 Media Summit in New York. "There's no question about that. I'm growing in some new ways. Some of the senior technical guys are growing in new ways. " Windows 7, which is expected to be out later this year, is a product of some of the changes that have taken place since Gates left, and Microsoft is proud of the result, he said in an on...

State of the CIO 2009 By FmMonteverde Created 12/03/2009 - 2:46am By Chee Sing Chan and Emily Chia | Mar 12, 2009 | The CIO role by nature will always be dynamic and evolving. Technology itself develops at a searing pace leaving slowmovers cliaging to the coattails of pioneers and groundbreakers. As such CIOs must be constantly re-evaluating their priorities and objectives to ensure they are delivering the maximum value that technology can deliver to the business? So what does it take to be a successful CIO today? Is the role being diminished as som e argue or has it in fact been elevated to another status, one which finally lays to rest the perception of a back office cable-pulling software programmer. According to a recent report by CIO Connect, a professional peer network for CIOs, "CIO leadership is all about keeping ahead of executive and user demands." The report further adds that for modern and relevant CIOs, "it is all about drivin...

By Hugh Cumberland In the wake of the alleged $50bn Madoff and $8bn Stanford ponzi schemes, I have to announce that I have uncovered one that’s a tad larger. A ponzi scheme is defined as one where current withdrawals are funded by current receipts. So it would seem that the UK central and local government pension schemes with unfunded liabilities of £750bn is indeed a ponzi scheme. In fact so worried about this are they, the UK government has apparently taken legal advice on the possibility of reneging on these massive liabilities. UK politicians in the form of Westminster MPs are of course beneficiaries of these copper-bottomed, gilt-edged, feather-bedded arrangements, so there is no real possibility of default. As long as our politicians benefit from these generous arrangements, there is no real incentive for them to preserve the interests of those in funded and often un-guaranteed schemes. That would be the majority of us, by my reckoning. The sooner unfunded, guaranteed pension ...

Skimming is one of the financial industry’s fastest-growing crimes, according to the U.S. Secret Service. Also, the worldwide ATM Industry Association reports over $1 billion in annual global losses from credit card fraud and electronic crime associated with ATMs. Skimming is a relatively low tech crime. It can occur in a few different ways. The most common is when a store clerk takes a wedge card skimmer and runs your card through and skims the information off the magnetic strip. Once the thief has the credit or debit card data they can place orders over the phone or online. They can also rip the data from the wedge and burn to blank “white” cards. These white cards are effective at self checkouts or when the thief knows the clerk and they “sweetheart” the transaction. These white cards can also be pressed with foils to look like a legitimate credit card. Then there is a more sophisticated skim. Thieves actually place a hard device on the face of the ATM that looks like the ATM. I...

11 Mar 2009 This timeline provides a daily update on who's buying who, collapses within the global financial markets as well as national and international rescue plans. The information here is based on news sources including the BBC website and the Financial Times. Malaysia unveiled a large M$60bn (US$16.2bn) stimulus package, amounting to 9% of GDP, to prevent the export-dependent economy from sinking into a deep recession over the next two years. The package will include guaranteed funds for businesses, equity investments to boost the stock market and tax breaks in addition to increased state spending on infrastructure projects. Chinese exports plunged 25.7% in February compared with a year ago, as the global economic crisis began to take its full toll on the country’s export sector. China’s exports have decreased for four months in a row. Iceland nationalised Straumur-Burdaras , the last of the four biggest banks in the country to remain independent. 10 March Pri...