General software updates

[Gary]

Or an office suite without so many vulnerabilities.

Sebby skulking about in his Mac again? I was told about Office types like that  

[Sebby]

[Rik]

Don't get me started, I used to use them when I was at work.

[Rik]

Security firm BitDefender has launched a tool that will help you remove the Conficker worm from an infected PC.

Conficker, also known as Downadup, was estimated to have infected nearly nine million PCs within days of it first hitting the internet back in January.

BitDefender's free tool to remove the worm is available to anyone and not just customers of the Romanian security firm.

The company also said that it had seen a new variant of the worm this week. It was more aggressive and more resistent to disinfection techniques, it said.

"BitDefender Labs has been seeing an increase in worms, like Downadup, that have a built-in mathematical algorithm, generating strings based on the current date," said Vlad Valceanu, BitDefender's senior malware analyst.

"The worms then produce a fixed number of domain names on a daily basis and check them for updates. This makes it easy for malware writers and cybercriminals to upgrade a worm or give it a new payload, since they only have to register one of the domains and then upload the files," he continued.

Get the tool here.

[Baz]

just tried that tool, just in case and it changed all my colour scheme, start menu layout, fonts 

needed a re boot to re set them all

[Rik]

Thanks for the warning, Baz.

[Baz]

no probs. will be interesting to know if it happens to any one else.surely its not supposed to do that 

[Rik]

It might not if you have the worm, of course.

[Baz]

 

[Ray]

no probs. will be interesting to know if it happens to any one else.surely its not supposed to do that 

Same here, Baz, messed up my colour scheme etc. fine after a reboot though.

[Simon]

I think I'll skip that one! 

[trophymick]

Just done mine, it seemed OK first time So I tried it again, and it made the start menu all funky
All's well after a restart

[Gary]

I think I'll skip that one! 

I will to Simon, anything that does that worries me, and hopefully Kaspersky should detect it anyway  the new malicious script emulator which does a great job of finding dodgy iframes etc should help as well.

[Glenn]

Songbird 1.1 has been released

[Rik]

Is that the Eva Cassidy version?

[Glenn]

She released Version 1.0

[Glenn]

Here you are http://www.getsongbird.com/

[Rik]

It was a great album.

[Sebby]

iTunes 8.1 released.

iTunes 8.1 is now faster and more responsive. You will enjoy noticeable improvements when working with large libraries, browsing the iTunes Store, preparing to sync with iPod or iPhone, and optimizing photos for syncing.

In addition, iTunes 8.1 provides many other improvements and bug fixes, including:

- Supports syncing with iPod shuffle (3rd generation)
- Allows friends to request songs for iTunes DJ
- Adds Genius sidebar for your Movies and TV Shows
- Improves performance when downloading iTunes Plus songs
- Provides AutoFill for manually managed iPods
- Allows CDs to be imported at the same sound quality as iTunes Plus
- Includes many accessibility improvements
- Allows iTunes U and the iTunes Store to be disabled separately using Parental Controls

A worthwhile update, it would seem. I'm all for better performance on Windows - iTunes is a bit of a dog at present!

[Rik]

Updated last night. I'm not sure what to do with the DJ Genius as yet.

[Ann]

AdMuncher has just autoupdated.  For anyone who doesn't let it auto, the build is 4.73 beta 30615/2283.

[Rik]

Thanks, Ann. 

[Sebby]

Updated last night. I'm not sure what to do with the DJ Genius as yet.

Apparently, it's just a new name for the "party shuffle" playlist.

[Rik]

Ah, something else I won't be using then.

[Sebby]

Nor me.