Kilo Seven

Get yer patches on ISO images, downloadable free from Micro$oft! Avoid Windows Genuine Advantage, while still protecting yourself! Give patches to your friends who don't have broadband! Support Aunt Minnie! Why? Well, the credible Brian Livingston reports ..Microsoft's in-house Windows Update routine is now likely to download marketing gimmicks such as Windows Genuine Advantage to your PC. I advised all Windows users, other than novices, to turn off Automatic Updates. And, InfoWorld's Ed Foster chimes in : ...the WGA false negatives are leading to increasing number of situations where customers run afoul of XP's product activation, leaving them to beg Microsoft and/or their PC vendor to help. "A Mr. Rajiv Malhotra with Microsoft's New Delhi office told me that installing software -- any software -- can trigger the activation process all over again. And that condition extends to third party software. A Mike Russell, also with Microsoft and somewhere in Eastern...

In the beginning, there was CONELRAD (which starred in the made-in-Portland CBS documentary A Day Called X , downloadable here and here ). It was replaced by the Emergency Broadcast System , then the current Emergency Alert System , but none of those can reach you if you are not listening to local radio & TV . Watching DirectTV or listening to Sirius satellite radio? You don't hear any notice. Also, believe it or not, EAS is *voluntary*. Yep. Local stations don't have to provide it, as you can read in the state plan . However, that may change, in the light of a presidential order last month . FEMA is developing an SMS text alerting system , with cooperation from major cellular carriers . But, this is a opt-out system, instead of opt-in like every other system. It also likely will send private messages to emergency responders as well as generalized alert messages to the general population. Multiple sites have allowed e-mail and SMS text message alerts for years, e.g., ...