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SAN JOSE, Calif. (AP) - The next chief executive of Hewlett-Packard Co. will need to decide whether to stick with Carly Fiorina's two-pronged strategy of trying to beat the company's rivals in what they do best _ IBM in premium computers and services, Dell in business and consumer systems. Or the Silicon Valley icon could effectively concede defeat in its current multifront war and break itself apart into separate businesses that can focus their employees, management and research resources on specific markets. After showing Fiorina the door this week, HP's board made its near-term intent clear: It wants to keep...

Feb. 10, 2005 - Is Microsoft dying? Business reporters -- like, I suspect analysts and venture capitalists -- develop over time a set of diagnostic tools for analyzing the relative health of companies we encounter. This bag of tricks is mostly subjective, some of it no doubt unconscious, and we constantly test it against experience, most of it bad. That is, every time we get suckered into writing an upbeat story about an evil, incompetent or doomed company, we swear we will never make that mistake again -- then we scrutinize where we went wrong and what warning signals we...

... The health of established firms, especially great ones, is more difficult to diagnose. The balance sheet can give some clues, but, because it captures the recent past rather than the near future, it can fool you. Most veteran reporters look at more subtle clues, like the comings and goings of key employees, slippage in the release dates of new products (or missing features), and subtle shifts in the tone of company news releases, advertisements and executive speeches. But most of all, at least for me, there is the smell test: the faintest whiff of decay that comes from dying...

Core Security Technologies, has published a vulnerability in Microsoft's MSN Messenger, an instant messaging program currently used by over 130 million people worldwide. A patch for this had been issued on Tuesday. Core Security is a Boston, U.S.-based information security solutions company. Core researchers discovered that by selecting a specially-crafted graphic as the user's display picture in MSN Messenger, an attacker could trigger a buffer overflow vulnerability on the chat partner's computer and covertly take over machines running instant messaging software. The attack would travel through the established chat session and would pass unnoticed by firewalls, network intrusion detection systems...

Dubbed a "supercomputer on a chip," the Cell microprocessor has until now been long on ambition but short on specifics. At a technical conference in San Francisco, the three electronics giants described a chip that could provide ten times the performance of the latest PC chips and churn through many tasks at once. Aimed squarely at the "digital home" market highly sought-after by Intel Corp. (Nasdaq:INTC - news), the Cell initiative, which has been in development since 2001, is viewed by some as a formidable, if fledgling, competitor to the world's largest chip maker. While IBM showed off prototypes of...

Folks, I'm tired of lugging my laptop around and having to go to the doc for pain in my shoulder and back. I'm thinking about a handheld PC to do most of my "road work". I need recommendations and advice as this is a new area for me. Educational URLs are most appreciated. Requirements: (I MUST have these, without them the solution would not be viable) Sync with Lotus Notes WiFi and 56k modem capable Able to handle large complex spreadsheets Able to handle large PowerPoint files Able to browse the web VGA output for presentations (plug into projector @...

So about a year ago, the SO finally upgraded her Net connection to DSL, carefully installed the Yahoo! DSL software into her creaky Sony Vaio PC laptop and ran through all the checks and install verifications and appropriate nasty disclaimers. And all seemed to go smoothly and reasonably enough considering it was a Windows PC and therefore nothing was really all that smooth or reasonable or elegant, but whatever. She just wanted to get online. Should be easy as 1-2-3, claimed the Yahoo! guide. Painless as tying your shoe, said the phone company. She got online all right. The DSL...

Virus experts at Sophos have reported that a new worm demonstrates the ancient British art of gurning, the tradition of pulling a funny or scary face, as it infects computers. The Wurmark-F worm spreads via email, pretending to be from addresses such as easy_lay666@lovenet.com, sexy_guy88@aol.com and sexy_lil_thing@no-ip.com. Emails can have a variety of characteristics including: Subject: Hhahahah lol!!!! Message body: i found this on my computer from ages ago download it and see if you can remember it lol i was lauging like mad when i saw it! :D email me back haha... Subject: Rate My Pic....... Message body: Hi...

OKLAHOMA CITY (AP) -- Someone placed surveillance software on sheriff's office computers, apparently enabling unauthorized access to sensitive information about prisoner movements, confidential homeland security updates and private personnel files. Sheriff John Whetsel said Monday Spector Pro, monitoring software designed to track every detail of computer activity, was found last week on three computers in his office. Whetsel said he discovered the software on his own computer when he ran a spyware detector out of curiosity. A scan of all sheriff's computers also found the application on the computers of Maj. John Waldenville and Capt. David Baisden. Waldenville leads the...

The FBI's failure to roll out an expanded computer system that would help agents investigate criminals and terrorists is the latest in a series of costly technology blunders by government over more than a decade. Experts blame poor planning, rapid industry advances and the massive scope of some complex projects whose price tags can run into billions of dollars at U.S. agencies with tens of thousands of employees. "There are very few success stories," said Paul Brubaker, former deputy chief information officer at the Pentagon. "Failures are very common, and they've been common for a long time." The FBI said...

Burlington woman has became the first in Vermont to be charged with a bizarre computer crime. The alleged high-tech caper involved identity theft, harassment, and an attempt to make a co-worker look like a lunatic,according to police. "Yeah, I think, you know, people thought I was off my rocker for a while," said Jeanne Landau, the alleged victim. She says she was shocked and scared last fall when friends accused her of sending threatening e-mails to a co-worker.

Jeffrey Lee Parson, the Hopkins teenager who unleashed an Internet worm that infected an estimated 48,000 computers and caused more than $1 million in damage, should be sentenced to 37 months in prison, according to a formal recommendation made by federal prosecutors Tuesday. Parson's sentencing is scheduled for Friday in U.S. District Court in Seattle. Parson, 19, who was arrested during his senior year at Hopkins High School, pleaded guilty in August to releasing the widely publicized Internet virus. "Parson's worm was not an aberrant moment in a young person's life, but instead was just the latest in a string...

i just got this computer. xp. i'm the only one using it, so i'm the administrator. problem--i want to copy an essay to my cd, but xp won't let me, saying that i don't have access to the d folder, ask my administrator. i am the administrator! there must be a simple fix. thanks

ARMONK, N.Y., November 16, 2004— IBM, along with representatives of the world's leading science, education and philanthropic organizations, today launched World Community Grid, a global humanitarian effort that applies the unused computing power of individual and business computers to help address the world's most difficult health and societal problems. World Community Grid will harness the vast and unused computational power of the world's computers and direct it at research designed to help unlock genetic codes that underlie diseases like AIDS and HIV, Alzheimer's and cancer, improve forecasting of natural disasters and support studies that can protect the world's food and...

An emailed New Year photo of naked people contains a nasty shock - a worm that will turn off security protection and harvest email addresses Antivirus companies have unearthed a computer worm that hides behind an image of naked people. According to antivirus company Sophos, the naughty New Year photo message contains a mass-mailing worm, dubbed Wurmark-D, that is programmed to disable security software on host computers and send itself to email addresses stored there. "Once activated, this worm will harvest your computer hunting for other email addresses to send itself to and try and turn off antivirus software," said...

I've done something and don't know how to reset it. I'm sure the answer is very simple but it's eluding me. One day last week I noticed that when I begin a new email message it types in light yellow (so pale it cant be read) type. Each time I have to go up to the Big A(font color) and select automatic. Then it'll type in black What did I do and how can I set it go back and default it to type in black automatically? Thanks

SAN FRANCISCO (Reuters) - Apple Computer has sued a popular Macintosh rumour Web site for allegedly distributing trade secrets, the latest in a string of lawsuits the company has filed to stop Internet leaks of details of upcoming products. The latest suit also lends credibility to recent rumours about a Macintosh computer without a display and an office productivity software suite that surfaced in the run-up to Apple's annual trade show held here next week, where CEO Steve Jobs typically unveils new products. Apple, in the complaint filed on Tuesday, sued Web site Think Secret and other unnamed individuals, claiming...

JANUARY 05, 2005 (IDG NEWS SERVICE) - Spyware legislation that would allow fines of up to $3 million for makers of software that steals personal information from a user's computer or hijacks its browser will get a second look after the U.S. Congress failed to pass the legislation in 2004. Rep. Mary Bono (R-Calif.) reintroduced an antispyware bill yesterday that passed the House of Representatives last year but failed in the Senate. The Securely Protect Yourself Against Cyber Trespass Act, or SPY ACT, defines most functions performed by so-called spyware as unfair business practices subject to U.S. Federal Trade Commission...

I have decided to upgrade my 4 y/o comp, and am looking for a >$250 motherboard and a >$150 AGP graphics card (budget is $450, and I'll need new memory). It has to be an mini-ATX MB. C'mon Freeper Techies... give me the info I crave.

The last 12 months have seen a dramatic growth in almost every security threat that plague Windows PCs.The count of known viruses broke the 100,000 barrier and the number of new viruses grew by more than 50%. Similarly phishing attempts, in which conmen try to trick people into handing over confidential data, are recording growth rates of more than 30% and attacks are becoming increasingly sophisticated. Also on the increase are the number of networks of remotely controlled computers, called bot nets, used by malicious hackers and conmen to carry out many different cyber crimes. Teenage kicks One of the...