"Spam King" Arrested

"Spam king" arrested in Seattle
Seattle man is charged with mail fraud, identity theft, fraud, and money laundering

By Nancy Gohring, IDG News Service May 31, 2007

A Seattle man was arrested Wednesday morning for illegal spamming activities. The arrest follows an indictment by a federal grand jury in Seattle last week.

The indictment charges Robert Alan Soloway and his company, Newport Internet Marketing Corp., with fraudulently selling broadcast e-mail products and services that amounted to spam. The U.S. attorney's office for the Western District of Washington refers to Soloway as a "spam king," for the volume of unsolicited commercial e-mail his company produced. He is charged with mail fraud, identity theft, fraud, and money laundering.

Soloway advertised a mass e-mail service that sent messages to an opt-in list of addresses, but didn't actually use such a permission-based list, the indictment said. He also sold software products that customers could use themselves to send out mass e-mails. However, the product often didn't work and if it did, it sent e-mails using forged headers. He also failed to offer promised support services, according to the court documents.

In addition, when customers complained, Soloway threatened additional fees and referral to a collection agency.

http://www.infoworld.com/article/07/05/31/Spam-king-arrested_1.html

Toshiba to use AMD ship in Laptops, ends exclusive Intel deal

Toshiba to use AMD chip in laptop PCs
Toshiba says it will buy microprocessors from AMD, ending its exclusive ties with Intel for it supply of chips.

By Reuters -->
Published: May 28, 2007, 10:35 PM PDT

TOKYO--Toshiba said it would buy microprocessors from Advanced Micro Devices, ending its exclusive ties with Intel for its supply of chips, and sending its shares higher.

Toshiba, the world's fourth-largest laptop PC maker, said Tuesday it expects to put AMD processors in about 20 percent of the notebooks it sells in the United States and Europe.
The move follows an announcement last year by Dell, which had been procuring microprocessors only from Intel for more than two decades, that it would begin using chips from AMD.

Intel is AMD's far larger rival with a market share of around 80 percent.

"With PCs becoming commodity products, there seems to be a new way of thinking that competition should be introduced even in procurement of such core parts like processors as long as there are no major differences in product specifications," Macquarie Securities analyst Yoshihiro Shimada said. "This could be a message that an era in which Intel took the lion's share of microprocessor profits as the king of PC chips is over."

Complete article here.

Podcast: Blackberry Curve (David Pogue, NY Times)

Blackberry Curve Review: Podcast David Pogue nytimes.com (May 11, 2007)

This is a great review/podcast of the new Blackberry Curve. Gives a lot of the great features and some of the small few downsides.

NYT: David Pogue for 05/11/2007

Enjoy!

Blackberry 8800 Available for T-Mobile Customers

The sleek new Blackberry 8800 is available for T-Mobile customers. It's already available for Cingular customers.

Here's more info from the T-Mobile website.

and... more info from Blackberry on the 8800.

Watch the video on the 8800!

It's a new device that wil take just a couple days to get used (the new trackball) to but it's excellent with new features et al.

More on XP Freezing and Fix for svchost.exe and updates

Here are the necessary steps to fix the Windows Update freezing svchost.exe processor issue. This is direct from MS Support.

It is a 2 step process:

Issue:

932494 When you use Automatic Updates to scan for updates or to apply updates to applications that use Windows Installer, you experience issues that involve the Svchost.exe process
http://support.microsoft.com/default.aspx?scid=kb;EN-US;932494

To resolve this issue you need to do two things:

First apply this hot fix927891 You receive an access violation error when you try to install an update from Windows Update or from Microsoft Update after you apply hotfix package KB916089
http://support.microsoft.com/default.aspx?scid=kb;EN-US;927891

Second apply the appropriate version of the WUA Client: Link here

Thanks Craig! Microsoft Product Support Services Security Team

PC Locked Up? MS Update fix available

Microsoft Update Feature Locks Up User PCs
May 11, 2007 7:51 p.m. EST

Geoffrey Ramos - AHN Staff Writer

Redmond, WA (AHN) - A Microsoft update that was intended to fix flaws in the software company's products kept users from using their computers because of a long-standing bug in the update system itself.

Shortly after releasing seven security updates on Tuesday, Microsoft support boards was flooded by angry users complaining that their computers had locked up because of a bug in the Windows Server Update Services (WSUS). Until Friday, some users were still having problems.

The problem, which has plagued Microsoft users for months, causes the Windows Automatic Update feature to lock up. A component of the software, svchost.exe, eats up 100% of the computer's resources, during the update and renders the entire system unusable. Users need to reboot to get their computers running again.

A fix was released by Microsoft on Thursday. The hotfix can be downloaded and installed manually on Windows XP and Windows Server 2003 systems. The patch will be available as part of the Microsoft Update bulletin late this month or in June.

To completely fix the bug, users are urged to download and install a new stand-alone WSUS version 3.0 client.

"It's important to keep in mind that the new WSUS client is only a partial solution and clients must have both KB927891 and the new 3.0 client installed for a full solution," the WSUS team said in its blog.

Full article.

BlackBerry Curve: Unveiled Today

BlackBerry Curve Unveiled TODAY:

Take a peak... should be out later this year... camera included, full QWERTY keypad and more...

http://www.blackberrycurve.com/

Read more at PCPro: Full article here.