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And bug reports from the one, the only....Bugman!

Bill Gates Sees Blue: During a demonstration of Windows 98 on national TV, guess what happened? Same thing that happens to Windows users around the globe. The sinister. The frightening. The Blue Screen of Death. "That's...err...um..that's why we're not releasing Windows 98 just yet..."

Beyond Page-Redirect: Two more potentially dangerous security bugs found in Microsoft Internet Explorer 4, the Freiburg text-viewing bug and the Buffer Overrun bug. The Freiburg bug allows any devious website to snoop your hard drive and read text files, view graphic files, etc on your computer, so long as they know the name of the file and where it is located. In the Buffer Overrun bug, any website containing an address that begins with "res://" can crash your computer or execute rogue (e.g. virus) code on your computer, by adding this binary code to the end of the URL. Specifically, the address is intentionally made longer than IE can handle, and everything beyond this maximum overruns the buffer into system memory, where it is executed by your CPU. Patches for both can be found at http://www.microsoft.com/ie/security.

Oh, a wiseguy, eh?? The funny part: In his recent trip overseas, Bill Gates was greeted with a pie in the face by someone who thought they were being incredibly amusing. (Well, I laughed my ass off...)  The not-so-funny part: Gates very nearly pressed charges for assault & battery. Way to go, genius. And same to you, pie-chuckers.

Beware the Intel Sneaks: In Intel's latest sinister plot, Website owners are paid by Intel to create pages featuring the Intel Pentium II processor. Specifically, companies get a large kickback from Intel if they feature a page bearing the 'Intel Inside' Pentium II logo, that is somehow coded to perform better on an Intel Pentium II processor and prominently states this on the page. This has brought up an important concern about the objectivity of many online editorials, since these Intel ad pages are often mistaken as editorials, and sometimes even marked as such.

New Pentium Bug: Intel has announced a workaround for a recently-disclosed bug that crashes Pentium and MMX-Pentium processors. This bug, which Intel calls the "Invalid Operand with Locked CMPXCHG8B instruction" (try saying that three times) erratum, causes the processor to lock up in an endless loop when certain 'illegal opcode/invalid instruction' errors occur. On the good side, illegal opcodes occur mostly in corrupted programs, ie. partially downloaded files, and not so often in retail software. On the bad side, Intel is not offering a fix--the workaround must come from the maker of your OS. A patch is already available for Linux, but Windows 95 users are S.O.L. for the time being.

A security bug has been found in Microsoft Internet Explorer 4.0. This bug, which Microsoft refers to as the Page Redirect Issue, allows a not-so-nice website to swipe authentication information such as your login and password for other sites. This bug affects IE 4.0 and IE 3.02. More info on the bug can be found here. A patch to fix it can be found at www.microsoft.com/ie/security.

One cup of proprietary Java, coming right up! It seems that Sun, the creators of the very-cool Java language/platform, is unhappy with Microsoft for its attempt to rewrite Java to run exclusively on Windows and thereby destroy its claim to fame, cross-platform interoperability. So unhappy, in fact, that it has filed suit against Microsoft for breach of contract and an attempt to dominate the language. This comes shortly after the release of Microsoft Internet Explorer 4.0, which uses this Microsoftized Java ripoff that is not compatible with other operating systems.

Closely related, PC Magazine has decided, in its infinite wisdom, to recommend IE4 as the best browser. This selection was based largely on Java performance, Microsoft's proprietary version significantly outperforming Netscape and others' 100% Pure implementation. The review of the browsers was biased, inaccurate, and generally not consistent with PC Magazine's ordinarily high journalistic objectivity. Is Microsoft twisting their arms, too? While PC Magazine has so far remained unresponsive to such inquiries, it is likely that this review was not as objective as it could be, Microsoft being one of Ziff-Davis' primary advertisers. If you would like to contact them yourself and ask about their decision, they can be reached at pcmag@zd.com. (  wrote a letter to this effect and sent it in to PC Magazine. Although highly edited, it was actually printed in the January issue.)

"Careful what you wish, you may regret it..." Ever since Internet Explorer 4.0 was released, newsgroups and techie-pages have been flooded with sad and horrific tales of woe. Since the new browser has to update your Windows shell before it will run, there are hundereds of things that can (and do) go wrong during the operation. Reports have been pouring in about messed-up fonts, corrupted Registries, and even computers that will not boot after installing IE4.0. An if you think installing was a bitch, just wait'll you try to reverse the process. You may be better off just reformatting the HD and reinstalling Windows. Our advice? Just say no to 4.0.

According to an unverified report to alt.os.windows95.crash.crash.crash, 56-bit encryption has been cracked. This resulted from a contest in which the first person to successfully crack the code received $100,000. More information is available at http://www.geocities.com/CapitolHill/7823/prelease.htm.

There is a petition to remove the MS Internet Explorer logos from Compaq, Gateway, and Micron computers. The details are available at http://users.aol.com/machcu/petition.html.
 
Microsoft a monopoly? Naaah... Well apparently, the government has finally caught on to the fact that Microsoft is out for complete domination the software and browser markets. A news report on November 20 indicates that Microsoft is being investigated for issues such as the giveaway of their Internet Explorer browser. Additionally, Microsoft is being held in contempt of court, and being fined $1 million per day, starting from a court order  in 1995.
 
More Intel woes: The FTC is currently investigating Intel citing anti-competitive business practices. The primary focuses of this investigation are Intel's hefty rebates to companies that display the 'Intel Inside' logo, the complete redesign of processors (including the Slot 1 design) that forces computer makers to redesign their motherboards to be incompatible with competitors' chips, and Intel's brutal backlash against Digital in retaliation for its lawsuit.
 
Annoyed to no end by blinking text? During a meeting of the World Wide Web Consortium (W3C), it was overheard that the blinking text attribute, used heavily by people who want to annoy you, may be unsupported in future versions of web browsers.

Mac users, beware! You, too, will be assimilated. Microsoft recently announced some sort of partnership with Apple Computers. The scary part is that a large sum of money is involved. The scarier part is that this may be heading in the direction of a merger or even buy-out. The scariest part is that Apple was desperate enough to accept!

Speaking of Apple, Mac OS 8 has finally been released. Features include multithreading, protected memory, and a new 3D look-and-feel officially known as Platinum. It's also PowerPC native, which means it will run significantly faster than previous versions.
 
New Pentium Bug--Update:  The bug has been confirmed. Named Dan-0411 after its discoverer, this bug apparently causes the wrong flags to be set when an overflow occurs during a 32- to 16-bit integer conversion, sometimes with very undesired results.  The bug affects the Pentium Pro and Pentium II microprocessors.  The classic Pentium and MMX variety do not appear to have this problem.
 
Both Digital Equipment and Cyrix Corp. are suing Intel claiming infringement of copyrights and trade secrets, etc. Digital is pushing at least ten different suits, some claiming the Pentium II's design was based largely on their Alpha chip.
A more recent development is the possibility of a math bug in the Pentium II and possibly MMX processors. You may remember the infamous FDIV bug in the classic Pentium long ago. Well, from the looks of things, here we go again. For more on these and other Pentium problems, check out www.x86.org for the latest Intel news and blunders.

Things we have heard so far:
 
• Microsoft Windows 95, when you first install it, will say it's detecting your hardware when in fact it is mainly looking for pirated Microsoft products on your computer and counting the number of non-Microsoft programs you have. This information is transmitted to Microsoft corporation during 'Online Registration'. Don't believe it? If you noticed, hardware detection said it would look for your hardware and if hard drive activity stops for a while, you need to reboot. Hard drive activity? Yeah, you're really gonna find my new faxmodem there...
• And if you still don't believe it, look in your Windows directory for a file called 'reginfo.txt' . Open it. Go ahead, we dares ya. Or just click this button and we'll do it for you. 
• We've received word that when you access Microsoft's Web site it does the same thing: search your computer for pirated stuff. They also use HTTP Cookies to track you. If your browser has the option to show an alert before accepting a cookie, turn it on. Access www.microsoft.com and hit one of the buttons (preferably 'cancel') whenever a cookie warning pops up. By the twentieth cookie or so you will begin to wonder whether Bill Gates or Famous Amos is the real head of the company.
• Finally, while we were wondering why nobody sells computers with the Pentium-outperforming Cyrix or AMD processors, a release from Intel confirmed our worst fears: It seems the Wintel conglomerate has been refusing to do business with any company caught selling competitors' chips. Maybe this should go under 'Conspiracies'?

What is Web Response Pay Per Incident (PPI)?
Web Response PPI allows you to submit support incidents to Microsoft engineers over the World Wide Web on a pay-per-incident basis using your credit card.

How much will I pay for a support incident?
See Pricing Information for Support Offerings for more detailed information.

Feel like revenge? Click me, I dares ya!
 (Click on the Micro Softie to enter the Bill Gates Fun Page....)

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