Microsoft has been ordered to pay $290m to i4i, following a long-running patent spat with the firm over an XML – or extensible mark-up language – custom editor present in some editions of MS Word.

Microsoft only has until 11 January to remove the custom XML functionality – just five months on from the original August 2009 ruling.

Microsoft released the following patch in October:

2007 Microsoft Office Supplement Release (October 2009)

Microsoft has released a supplement for Office 2007 (October 2009). The following patch is required for the United States. The patch will work with all Office 2007 languages.

2007 Microsoft Office Supplemental Release (October 2009) .img 12.9 MB

After this patch is installed, Word will no longer read the Custom XML elements contained within DOCX, DOCM, or XML files. These files will continue to open, but any Custom XML elements will be removed. The ability to handle custom XML mark-up is typically used in association with automated server based processing of Word documents. Custom XML is not typically used by most end users of Word.

The important thing to remember is that this patch is only required for the US and the ruling only affects Office users in the US. The ruling will not affect Australian users of Office even though Microsoft says that most users wouldn’t use the functionality that is impacted by this verdict, so breathe easy your Word is not getting taken away from you.

Yet another amazingly stupid comment from a security firm in regards to Windows safety… found via Slashdot.

"Security firm Trend Micro has accused Microsoft of giving malware writers a helping hand by advising users not to scan certain files on their PC because ‘they are not at risk of infection.’ Trend Micro warns that by making such information available, Microsoft is effectively creating a hit list for malware writers. ‘Following the recommendations does not pose a significant threat as of now, but it has a very big potential of being one,’ the company’s researcher, David Sancho, writes on the Trend Micro blog."

Well I must say that I would have expected nothing less from the now scared and on the run security firms that build there business on the back of the worlds biggest software company. Its seems to me that ever since Microsoft came out with its Security Essentials  that the traditional anti-virus companies have had the dagger out them. The latest comment is just as nonsensical as the last, this time stating that because Microsoft says you don’t need to scan these files that Malware writers are going to specifically use those files to exploit your system.

Now as I sit here and check my McAfee installation I can see that there is a default list of files to scan which ISNT a full scan, I know all the security companies have a default list of files to scan and while yes you can set it to all files, its never the default. So Why pick on Microsoft specifically for this? The answer, why not. They have a big enough target on there backs and the security firms are all unhappy that they have a free competing product, so why not try and bring them down?

If your worried that your not getting a complete scan, just load up Microsoft Security Essentials and go to settings and make sure the following are blank

Now that you have taken a look at the stats, and yes it does indeed show that  Firefox 3.5 has overtaken IE7 as the most popular browser, but IE8 was running neck and neck for a couple of months and I’m sure will jump up again after Christmas.

The thing that I found most fascinating was that Safari 4 is only edging out Opera in terms of the big 5, and the “Other” browsers have more then double the market share then Safari. Which if you have watched or listened to most tech podcasts would be a surprise because Apple is golden on those shows.

Also notable with its absence is Chrome, unless its being counted in the “Other” browsers.

My guess it that is just a case of a company looking for its 5 minutes of fame by stating something that they know the tech industry is going to crazy over and nothing more.

Its taken me a little while to get around writing this, but I thought that its worth noting that the recent claims that Windows Bit Locker encryption has been cracked are more about hype then truth.

For a start, the encryption has not been cracked, your PC is as save today as it was yesterday or last week, and that the key statement, “save today as it was yesterday”

The news isn’t even ground breaking, the way they “cracked” the encryption is that they managed to dump the password from the ram of a running system. When you boot up an encrypted computer, it keeps your password in memory, this is to stop the machine to repeatedly asking for authentication. This is something we want, we don’t want to be continually annoyed by a password prompt, but the flaw is that if someone can get a hold of your running, logged in machine, the encryption may not help you. Remember if someone has physical access to your running, logged in machine you should consider all bets off regardless of other types of protection being used.

The article is in the typical Microsoft haters style, claiming that the company is to blame, incompetent and completely insecure, the problem with that is, this has been a known attack method for hackers, crackers, and anyone after your data regardless of if its running Bit Locker or True Crypt or any other type of encryption software, but you know it doesn’t make the news until someone mentions Microsoft.

Just be careful with your computer equipment and never think its totally secure no matter what your software your using, because someone will always find a way

Microsoft has released a security article about this issue.

Asa Dotzler, who has been working at Mozillia since 1998 has come out with a short but scathing retort to the CEO of Google, Eric Schmidt’s comments on web privacy on his blog

If you have something that you don’t want anyone to know, maybe you shouldn’t be doing it in the first place. If you really need that kind of privacy, the reality is that search engines — including Google — do retain this information for some time and it’s important, for example, that we are all subject in the United States to the Patriot Act and it is possible that all that information could be made available to the authorities.

That was Eric Schmidt, the CEO of Google, telling you exactly what he thinks about your privacy. There is no ambiguity, no "out of context" here. Watch the video.

And here’s how you can easily switch Firefox’s search from Google to Bing. (Yes, Bing does have a better privacy policy than Google.)

Aliens vs. Predator banned in Australia

I was going through the news and found this interesting quote from game developer Rebellion, and to be perfectly honest, I agree. I’m a gamer and it bothers me that we have no R rating for games in Australia. I am also a father of 2, and both my wife an I exercise our rights as parents to monitor what our children watch and what games they play.

The battle in Australia over an R rating has been going on for years and the SA Attorney General is the only hold out on it, but we are also the country that wants to censor the net, so I guess the politian’s know best right?

While this game wasnt one I was going to play, thats not the point, the point is that for being a 1st world country, we seem to be looking more and more backwards in regards to technology. The people in power dont seem to think that the internet is important and  that video games are just for kids. Give me a break!!

When Microsoft originally released the tool, it was found to have violated several GNU General Public License terms, which when pointed out to Microsoft from Rafael Rivera, they promptly pulled the tool from download to investigate and amend the situation.

After a couple of weeks, its been re-released the tool under GPL v2 on Microsoft’s Codeplex.

The Windows 7 USB/DVD Download tool allows you to create a copy of your Windows 7 ISO file on a USB flash drive or a DVD. To create a bootable DVD or USB flash drive, download the ISO file and then run the Windows 7 USB/DVD Download tool. Once this is done, you can install Windows 7 directly from the USB flash drive or DVD.

 
The ISO file contains all the Windows 7 installation files combined into a single uncompressed file. When you download the ISO file, you need to copy it to some medium in order to install Windows 7. This tool allows you to create a copy of the ISO file to a USB flash drive or a DVD. To install Windows 7 from your USB flash drive or DVD, all you need to do is insert the USB flash drive into your USB port or insert your DVD into your DVD drive and run Setup.exe from the root folder on the drive.

 
Note: You cannot install Windows 7 from the ISO file until you copy it to a USB flash drive or DVD with the Windows 7 USB/DVD Download tool and install from there.

 
The copy of the ISO file that the Windows 7 USB/DVD Download tool creates is bootable. Bootable media allows you to install Windows 7 without having to first run an existing operating system on your machine. If you change the boot order of drives in your computer’s BIOS, you can run the Windows 7 installation directly from your USB flash drive or DVD when you turn on your computer. Please see the documentation for your computer for information on how to change the BIOS boot order of drives.

Microsoft has finally released the Windows 7 Family pack in Australia, but only for a limited time.

When Microsoft launched Windows 7 the US was privileged to get a family pack, which was 3 upgrade licenses for the price of one, but Australian Windows users wanted to know “why not us too?”

Well Microsoft has finally decided to release the family pack to Australians, but don’t celebrate too much, cause its only in limited supply. While the limited supply doesn’t make much sense and its clearly a response to Apple’s Family pack for Snow Leopard, it is nice to know there is acknowledgement that Windows 7 is just too damn expensive.

The Windows 7 Home Premium Upgrade Family Pack is $249 and will only be available at the following participating Australian retailers, while stocks last: Betta Electrical, Bing Lee, David Jones, Dick Smith, Harvey Norman, JB Hi Fi, Myer, Officeworks, Retravision, The Good Guys, WOW Sight and Sound.

CentrumXP was the first to release the box art for Windows 7 earlier this year.

Office 2010 is currently in beta with a full release by June 2010. In the first 2 weeks of public beta, there were more then 1 million downloads of the software. The beta version is set to expire in Oct 2010.

The four flavours of Office 2010 are pretty standard:

Office Home and Business 2010 – Word, Excel PowerPoint, OneNote and Outlook.

Office Home and Student 2010 – Word, Excel PowerPoint and OneNote.

Office Professional Academic 2010 – Word, Excel PowerPoint, OneNote, Outlook, Publisher and Access.

Office Professional 2010 – Word, Excel PowerPoint, OneNote, Outlook, Publisher and Access.