Doesn't this mean that getting Netflix to work on Linux might be as simple as spoofing the user agent from a Chromebook? Especially if you were using Chrome, Netflix probably wouldn't detect that you're not actually using a Chromebook. Has anyone tried this?

Since Office 2013 includes a cloud service anyway, why not let subscribers get their app for free? The subscription fees are where they're getting their money in that model, not the app sales, and the only way to keep Apple from getting your money is to charge nothing for the app itself. It works fine for Carbonite, CrashPlan, Dropbox, Google Drive... Oh wait, I know why Microsoft won't do that. Because they've always been more motivated by profit than by making things convenient for their users. Say what you want about Apple, but they are extremely user-focused... except when they're convinced they know better than the user what the user *should* want. Sometimes that leads to great things, and other times it's bloody infuriating when they remove a feature people actually used.

If the system has an older version of Windows on it, this may be the most tactful way to broach the subject. My experience (15+ years) in freelance tech support tells me that when confronted with the knowledge that an operating system will no longer receive security updates soon (or worse, already doesn't), they are glad to upgrade in order to prevent security holes that might lead to someone stealing their data. This allows you to completely sidestep the issue of possible mismanagement of the old system and start fresh with (hopefully) input from all the board members on how things should go from there.

For reference, I mean when saying "it's demise" (sic), which should be "its demise". Saying "it's been", as in "it has been", is fine.

Come on. "It's" means "it is". The article should say "its" instead, since that is the possessive.

I realize I may be a bit of a stickler here, but Slashdot is a major news site (the only one I personally check with any regularity), and professionalism means not mangling the language. Especially not in ways that make already common mistakes look acceptable. Copy-editing is important.

The destiny of Earthseed is to take root among the stars. -Octavia E. Butler, 1993 The future is now, folks.

I was actually hoping to find out that there had been a "manned" mission to mars using a dog, complete with cute puppy pictures. God help me... social media has infected my brain.

Has anyone tried the link in the article above recently? Cause it's not working. I am so amused... either all of us visiting it has knocked it offline, or someone has successfully attacked the attackers.

Yes, in fact it does.

Much as I love Avira, it currently has a memory leak on Windows XP that can cause computers to freeze and icons to temporarily disappear (until reboot). You can get around it, though, by unchecking "Protect files and registry entries" under "Security" in its settings. In the most recent comparative, Avast did about as well as Antivir, and it's free also.

Ah. Very good point. I hadn't considered the jealous girlfriend / boyfriend angle.

Maybe I'm missing something here, but what's the problem with allowing the browser to remember logins for you if you don't ever allow anyone else to use your computer? I'm reasonably sure the way my account was hacked was when I stupidly logged into it on someone else's computer.

If someone steals your password, as I learned when my gmail account was hacked, the first thing they're going to do if they know anything is change both your password and your security questions. The only way changing your password will help is if the person who's stolen it is too dumb to do this, and that seems unlikely.

As anyone who's ever accidentally done it knows, installing more than one antivirus on your computer (assuming both have background scanning) is a great way to make sure your computer freezes, is slow, or develops weird errors. Microsoft's detection is not going to be flawless - certainly if it's the same as Windows Security Center's detection, which often reports the wrong information about whether or not an installed antivirus is working. This means users are going to be offered Security Essentials when they already have a working antivirus, and many of them aren't going to know enough to avoid installing it if they see it. I've had one client already who did this very thing.