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Are you having trouble getting ahold of friends or business associates in the USA using email?

Well if this story is true it could be that they're using the wrong ISP.

While Verizon's clever spam-fighting strategy may be devilishly effective, I somehow think that the cure might be more trouble than the complaint.

We must, of course, remember that the veracity of this story is yet to be established.

Now have your say Got something to say about today's column, or want to see what others think?  Visit The Forums While you're here, why not visit the Aardvark Hall of Shame and perhaps make your own nomination.

Microsoft's new strategy for raising the public's perception of its ability to produce secure systems has been slowly unveiled in recent weeks.

Rather than focus on producing a secure operating system and browser like other vendors have, Microsoft seems to be focusing on producing a suite of utilities that will detect and deal-to any malware that appears on a user's PC.

When you think about it, this is very smart -- if only from a PR perspective.

Why create a rock-solid OS and browsing platform that, by virtue of its sheer effectiveness, nobody will notice working when instead, you can simply come up with a bunch of programs that alert you ever time Window's/IE's ankle-high parapets are overwhelmed by some script-kiddy's exploitation of the latest in a raft of vulnerabilities?

Users of Microsoft's new anti-spyware/trojan/virus programs will constantly be reminded what great folks Bill and his boys are for alerting them to the fact that their machines have (or could have) been compromised.

Meanwhile, Apple and Linux users will just have to carry on using their computers, uninterrupted by "You've got new Malware" messages -- poor buggers.

And speaking of Bill, how embarrassing it must have been for him when, during a presentation at the International Consumer Electronics Show, his much touted Windows Media PC software crashed and burned.

Later, during the same presentation spot, another bit of Microsoft software also crashed -- this time treating the audience to the wonderful "blue screen of death" (BSOD) we've all seen far too often on our own PCs.

Now if Microsoft could just sell that BSOD space to advertisers they'd have a whole new business model.

Lighten Up
Do you fully understand how to get the best from your car and what all those knobs and levers do?

If not, then you need to check out The Shenjingbing.com Driving Guide for some invaluable extra information.

Aardvark Forums
The forums are back up at: www.aardvarkforums.co.nz/forums, have your say on today's column

Unfortunately you'll have to re-register because we're starting the new year with a complete reinstall.

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