Blog for "the-enabler" of the letsnet.org network

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Dear Cardholders,

We would like to inform you of a recent incident in which Internet hackers illegally attempted to obtain personal and account information from Discover® Cardmembers. This activity, called "Phishing," is when hackers imitate the e-mails of legitimate companies to entice people to share personal information.

If you received an e-mail from "Support@Discovercard.com" directing you to update your billing information at a web site "Billing Center," and if you did enter personal information at this web site, please contact Discover Customer Service at 1-800-DISCOVER (1-800-347-2683) immediately.





Discover Card does not ask for personal or Account information to be submitted via e-mail.


Any e-mail sent from Discover Card, including Discover Card newsletters, customer service e-mails, or notifications that your statement is available online, would require you to successfully log in to the secure Account Center at Discovercard.com before entering any Account or personal information.


If you ever receive an e-mail that appears to be from Discover Card asking you for personal information, such as your Social Security number or Account number, please do not respond directly to the e-mail and call us immediately at 1-800-DISCOVER (1-800-347-2683).





False Sense Of Urgency — Threatens to "close/suspend your account," or charge a fee.


Suspicious-Looking Links & Pop-Ups — Links containing all or part of a real company's name asking you to submit personal information.


Misspelled or Poorly Written — Helps fraudulent e-mails avoid spam filters.


Use this information and the safety tips found at Discovercard.com, to protect yourself from one of the fastest growing Internet crimes.




Security Measures | Prevent Identity Theft | Account Security Tips

Navigate The Web Safely | Shop Safely with Discover Card







IMPORTANT INFORMATION

This e-mail was sent to: "MY personnal was here info Deleted" for Account Number ending with "MY personnal was here info Deleted".

To reply to this e-mail or if you have any questions about your Account, simply click here to log in to the Account Center to contact us securely. This e-mail was sent from an address that cannot accept incoming mail.

To update your e-mail address or view your e-mail preferences, click here to log in to the Account Center.

©2004 Discover Bank. Member FDIC.



MY ADVICE endeavors at keen.com. The number is 1-800-275-5336 (800-ask-keen) + ext. 0329063 for tech stuff, 0329117 for running a small business, and 0329144 on investing. Want to CHAT, I use Yahoo's IM as the_web_ster. View me in the Friends & Family part of webcamnow.com, just click on "view cams", then in the Java window click on WebcamNow Communities drop down arrow & select Friends & Family. Under the live webcams look for & click on me "the_webster".

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Consultants

A man walks into a Silicon Valley pet store looking for a monkey. The storeowner points towards three identical looking monkeys in politically correct, animal-friendly natural mini-habitats.

"The one to the left costs $500," says the storeowner.

"Why so much?" asks the customer.

"Because it can program in C," answers the storeowner.

The customer inquires about the next monkey and is told that "That one costs $1500, because it knows Visual C++ and Object-Relational technology."

The startled man then asks about the third monkey.

"That one costs $3000," answers the storeowner.

"$3000!" exclaims the man. "What can that one do?"

To which the owner replies, "To be honest, I've never seen it do a single thing, but it calls itself a Consultant."



MY ADVICE endeavors at keen.com. The number is 1-800-275-5336 (800-ask-keen) + ext. 0329063 for tech stuff, 0329117 for running a small business, and 0329144 on investing. Want to CHAT, I use Yahoo's IM as the_web_ster. View me in the Friends & Family part of webcamnow.com, just click on "view cams", then in the Java window click on WebcamNow Communities drop down arrow & select Friends & Family. Under the live webcams look for & click on me "the_webster".

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Sep 10, 2004 (financialwire.net via COMTEX) -- (FinancialWire) Remember those "End of the World" signs? Well, Intel Corp. (NASDAQ: INTC) says it may be nearer than we think. Except the sign says "End of the World Wide Web."

It's a vision apparently shared by Cisco (NASDAQ: CSCO), Hewlett-Packard (NYSE: HPQ) and AT&T Corp. (NYSE: T), all of whom are working feverishly, either together or apart to save the World Wide Web, which Intel and others see as becoming so overloaded it will eventually break.

At Intel's technical conference, CTO Patrick Gelsinger said the Internet will begin to collapse as millions of new computer users from developing nations begin to sign on.

"We're running up on some architectural limitations," Gelsinger was quoted as saying.

Gelsinger's solution is to build a new network over the current Internet, that would monitor and direct traffic and better fight security threats or traffic surges.

It's PlanetLab, some 429 computer nodes in 181 sites around the world, is supported by 150 universities and corporate research labs, including Princeton, Cambridge, Hewlett-Packard and AT&T.

However, Cisco controls most of the routers and switchers comprising the current web, and it may have other ideas.


FinancialWire is an independent, proprietary news service of Investrend Information, a division of Investrend Communications, Inc. It is not a press release service and receives no compensation for its news or opinions.



MY ADVICE endeavors at keen.com. The number is 1-800-275-5336 (800-ask-keen) + ext. 0329063 for tech stuff, 0329117 for running a small business, and 0329144 on investing. Want to CHAT, I use Yahoo's IM as the_web_ster. View me in the Friends & Family part of webcamnow.com, just click on "view cams", then in the Java window click on WebcamNow Communities drop down arrow & select Friends & Family. Under the live webcams look for & click on me "the_webster".

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SAN FRANCISCO (Reuters) - Intel Corp. (Nasdaq:INTC - news) on Thursday outlined its vision of the Internet of the future, one in which millions of computer servers would analyze and direct network traffic to make the Web safer and more efficient.


Intel plans to play a major part in developing a new Web infrastructure based on computer servers running on its chips.


The current Internet, based on technology developed in the 1970s, will begin to buckle under the weight of millions of new computer users from developing nations, Chief Technology Officer Patrick Gelsinger said at a company-sponsored technical conference.


"We're running up on some architectural limitations," Gelsinger said.


Rather than replace the existing infrastructure of hardware and software code, Gelsinger called for an entirely new network to sit atop the existing Internet, one that could support new Web services, adapt to security threats, and work around sudden bursts of traffic to particular Web servers.


The new second layer would act as a monitoring and directing force that would make better use of the current technology which sends packets of information around the Web.


A model of such a network already exists in the form of PlanetLab, a collection of 429 computer "nodes" in 181 sites around the world. PlanetLab, which is funded by Intel, has won support from 150 universities and corporate research labs, including Princeton, Cambridge, Hewlett-Packard Co. (NYSE:HPQ - news) and AT&T Corp. (NYSE:T - news).


Such a vision of a new network that relies on Intel-based servers is admittedly self-serving for Intel and not necessarily the same notion held by companies like Cisco Systems Inc. (Nasdaq:CSCO - news), whose routers and switches form the backbone of the current Web.


Cisco, for instance, is introducing more intelligent features into its current infrastructure products.


"If the Net grows to 100 billion devices connected to it, our goal is to have a piece of Intel inside in every one of those hundred billion," Gelsinger said, when asked about Intel's business interests in the PlanetLab initiative.


"Plus," he added, "the billions of computers and routers, etcetera, that need to service those hundred billion connections. To us, the continued vital growth of the Internet is our business."




MY ADVICE endeavors at keen.com. The number is 1-800-275-5336 (800-ask-keen) + ext. 0329063 for tech stuff, 0329117 for running a small business, and 0329144 on investing. Want to CHAT, I use Yahoo's IM as the_web_ster. View me in the Friends & Family part of webcamnow.com, just click on "view cams", then in the Java window click on WebcamNow Communities drop down arrow & select Friends & Family. Under the live webcams look for & click on me "the_webster".

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Of later he's been looking thing other than computers, and that why I've not been posting anything from him. Unless you want to read on Cell phones. And if you do, go find someone else to read on Cell phones. I've can't, I don't know anything on them.
I love this time of year, and I'll do better a posting as soon as the weather gets back to less than great and there's no election coming up and friends and client go home and stop "dropping" by. Not that I don't love, I do.



MY ADVICE endeavors at keen.com. The number is 1-800-275-5336 (800-ask-keen) + ext. 0329063 for tech stuff, 0329117 for running a small business, and 0329144 on investing. Want to CHAT, I use Yahoo's IM as the_web_ster. View me in the Friends & Family part of webcamnow.com, just click on "view cams", then in the Java window click on WebcamNow Communities drop down arrow & select Friends & Family. Under the live webcams look for & click on me "the_webster".

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By John Leyden
Published Wednesday 8th September 2004 16:30 GMT

McAfee is promising to release a signature updates to its AV software later today in order to prevent a popular ISP connection manager programme from been mislabelled as Trojan horse code.

The false positive meant that some versions of ISPWizard, an internet setup program wizard, was labelled as the BackDoor-AKZ Trojan by users running the latest update of McAfee's AV software. The error was introduced with a McAfee AV update released on 1 September and only affected end users running the latest McAfee update and older versions of ISPWizard.
END

And yes I've change off of McAfee to Norton and yes I've just changed off Norton to Grisoft's AVG Anti-virus software . And it free. You'll have to really LOOK to find the link to the FREE verion, but it's there. And it's free for life. IF you've put a router in front of your computer or LAN, you can make this change.


MY ADVICE endeavors at keen.com. The number is 1-800-275-5336 (800-ask-keen) + ext. 0329063 for tech stuff, 0329117 for running a small business, and 0329144 on investing. Want to CHAT, I use Yahoo's IM as the_web_ster. View me in the Friends & Family part of webcamnow.com, just click on "view cams", then in the Java window click on WebcamNow Communities drop down arrow & select Friends & Family. Under the live webcams look for & click on me "the_webster".

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Peter Galli - eWEEK

Microsoft Corp. is facing growing pressure from open-source software across every segment of its business—a competitive threat that could have significant consequences for its financial future going forward, the software maker said in its latest 10-K filing to the Securities and Exchange Commission (news - web sites) this week.

"We continue to watch the evolution of open-source software development and distribution and continue to differentiate our products from competitive products, including those based on open-source software. We believe that Microsoft's share of server units grew modestly in fiscal 2004, while Linux (news - web sites) distributions rose slightly faster on an absolute basis," the filing reads.

Increase in Linux distributions reflected some significant public announcements of support and adoption of open-source software in both the server and desktop markets in the last year, company officials said.

Among those recent wins are the Allied Irish Bank, one of Ireland's largest banking and financial services groups, which said in June that it was set to transition its branch-dependent applications and migrate about 7,500 desktop users off Windows and onto Sun Microsystems Inc.'s Java Desktop System over the next year or so.

Microsoft, of Redmond, Wash., recently has lost other business from European customers. In June, officials of the Norwegian city of Bergen said the city plans to move 100 schools and 32,000 users away from its proprietary Unix (news - web sites) and Microsoft Windows applications platform to Linux by the end of this year, while Munich has also committed to Linux and open-source software.

Microsoft also again used its latest 10-K filing to float the possibility that it would have to lower the prices of its software products, with officials saying that "to the extent open-source software products gain increasing market acceptance, sales of our products may decline, which could result in a reduction in our revenue and operating margins."

While Microsoft often mentions Linux and open-source software as a potential threat to its business, it seems to be treating the threat far more seriously and describing it as more pervasive than in previous official filings.

In a lengthy section of the filing that deals with competition, Microsoft officials noted that while the software business is intensely competitive and subject to rapid technological change, evolving customer requirements and changing business models in every segment means that the company was facing significant competition across all areas of its business.

"Our direct competitors include firms adopting alternative business models to the commercial software model. Firms adopting the noncommercial software model typically provide customers with open-source software at nominal cost and earn revenue on complementary services and products, without having to bear the full costs of research and development for the open-source software," said Microsoft officials in the filing.

Company officials also again warned—as they had in February 2003—that "while we believe our products provide customers with significant advantages in security and productivity, and generally have a lower total cost of ownership than open-source software, the popularization of the noncommercial software model continues to pose a significant challenge to our business model, including recent efforts by proponents of open-source software to convince governments worldwide to mandate the use of open-source software in their purchase and deployment of software products," officials said.

Next Page: Upgrades struggle to compete with current software versions.

In the latest 10-k filing, Microsoft said that global software piracy was further depriving the firm of "significant amounts" of annual revenue. It also admitted that future versions of its products were competing with the current versions licensed to its installed base of customers.

"This means that future versions must deliver significant additional value in order to induce existing customers to purchase a new version of our product," it said.

Microsoft also gave a detailed list of factors that could possibly affect its competitive position going forward, with Unix, Linux and other open-source software at the top of that list on the client side. "Competing commercial software products, including variants of Unix, are supplied by competitors such as IBM, Hewlett-Packard [Co.], Apple Computer [Inc.], Sun Microsystems and others.

"The Linux operating system, which is also derived from Unix and is available without payment under a General Public License, has gained increasing acceptance as competitive pressures lead personal computer OEMs to reduce costs," Microsoft officials said, adding that the Microsoft Windows operating systems also faced competition from alternative platforms, as well as innovative devices that could reduce consumer demand for traditional PCs.



Click here to read about the open-source community's attempts to defend the GPL against SCO's attacks.

With regard to the competitive threat on the server and tools front, Microsoft officials said in the 10-K filing that "nearly all computer manufacturers offer server hardware for the Linux operating system. IBM's endorsement of Linux has accelerated its acceptance as an alternative to both traditional Unix and Windows server operating systems.

"Linux's competitive position has also benefited from the large number of compatible applications now produced by many leading commercial software developers as well as noncommercial software developers. A number of companies supply versions of Linux, including Novell [Inc.] and Red Hat [Inc.]," the 10-K filing reads.

Microsoft also competed in providing enterprisewide computing solutions with several companies that provided competing solutions as well as middleware technology platforms. IBM and Sun led a group of companies focused on the Java 2 Platform Enterprise Edition. Commercial software developers offering competing server applications for the PC-based distributed client/server environments included Oracle Corp., IBM and Computer Associates International Inc., Microsoft officials said.

But Microsoft has not been sitting idly by as the Linux and open-source software threat has grown, It has started reaching out further to the open-source community with offers of joint development and testing.

It has been actively lobbying governments around the world to shun open-source applications and Linux. To that end, Microsoft in January 2003 announced a new global initiative to provide governmental agencies with access to Windows source code under its Government Security Program, designed to "address the unique security requirements of governments and international organizations throughout the world."

And this January, Microsoft also launched a new advertising campaign, referred to as "Get the Facts," that aims to give customers information about the advantages of using its Windows operating system versus Linux, its open-source competitor.

Click here to read more about Microsoft's Get the Facts campaign.

On the information worker front, the dominant Microsoft Office System also faced many competitors, including Apple, Corel Corp., IBM, Oracle, Sun, and local application developers in Europe and Asia. IBM and Corel had significant installed bases with their office productivity products, and both hade aggressive pricing strategies, Microsoft said in the filing.

Next Page: Supporting older versions vs. encouraging upgrades.

"Also, Apple and IBM pre-install certain of their application software products on various models of their PCs, competing directly with our applications," the filing reads. "Corel's suite and Sun Microsystems' StarOffice are aggressively priced and attractive for OEMs to pre-install on low-priced PCs.

"The OpenOffice.org project provides a freely downloadable cross-platform application that is gaining popularity in certain market segments. In addition to traditional client-side applications, Web-based offerings such as SimDesk provide an alternative to Microsoft Office System products," company officials said.

Microsoft also addressed the tightrope balance it is walking between meeting the needs of the installed base that is running older versions of its products and the need to encourage them to upgrade. Company officials cautioned that revenue would be unfavorably impacted if customers reduced their purchases of new software products or product upgrades because new product offerings were not perceived as adding significant new functionality or other value to prospective purchasers.

Microsoft also cautioned that any pullback in customer renewals for its controversial Licensing 6 and Software Assurance program, which became effective in July 2002, could also adversely affect the company.

"A significant number of customers purchased license agreements providing upgrade rights to specific licensed products prior to the transition to Licensing 6.0 in July 2002. These agreements generally expired throughout fiscal 2004 and will largely be expired by the end of the first fiscal quarter in 2005. The rate at which such customers renew these contracts could adversely affect future revenue," the filing said.

But the company is facing pushback from volume licensees whose three-year Licensing 6.0 and Software Assurance plans are about to expire. Many of the company's volume license customers, whose contracts have expired or are set to expire, are questioning the value they got from the programs and whether they should renew.

Microsoft's licensing program, Upgrade Advantage, also reached the end of its life in July when the last customer contracts expired. Those customers can continue to use the software they acquired under the program, but they will not get further product upgrades and will now have to pay for full versions of Microsoft products or sign up for Software Assurance.

In the latest filing, Microsoft officials said they now expect to renew just 10 percent to 30 percent of the expiring Upgrade Advantage program revenue through conversions to Software Assurance or migration to Enterprise Agreements.

While Microsoft was also making significant investments in the next release of the Windows operating system, code-named Longhorn, it warned that if this system was not perceived as offering significant new functionality or value to prospective purchasers, "our revenue and operating margins could be adversely affected."

While the filing said the development of software products was a complex and time-consuming process, "significant delays in new product releases or significant problems in creating new products, particularly any delays in the Longhorn operating system, could adversely affect our revenue."

Just a week ago, Microsoft officials announced that the company would be scaling back the feature-set for Longhorn so that it could meet shipping deadlines of 2006 for the client and 2007 for the server. That move was not well-received by some developers and enterprise customers and is seen by some as giving Linux the boost it needs.


MY ADVICE endeavors at keen.com. The number is 1-800-275-5336 (800-ask-keen) + ext. 0329063 for tech stuff, 0329117 for running a small business, and 0329144 on investing. Want to CHAT, I use Yahoo's IM as the_web_ster. View me in the Friends & Family part of webcamnow.com, just click on "view cams", then in the Java window click on WebcamNow Communities drop down arrow & select Friends & Family. Under the live webcams look for & click on me "the_webster".