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The following products are available:

On Sale Now: $271.99 - $279.99
View the latest prices for Creative Zen X-Fi (32GB)

Alluring price tag: The Zen X-Fi is priced to sell, with the 16GB going for $199 and the 32GB offered at $279–about half the price of the iPod Touch. There’s also an 8GB for $149, but it doesn’t include Wi-Fi.
Questionable construction: We think we’ve figured out where Creative might have cut corners to get that pricing out the door. During early testing, we have experienced issues with the faceplate sticking out from the bottom of the player.
Quality earbuds: The 16GB and 32GB versions of the Zen X-Fi come with Creative’s new EP-830 earphones, a $50 value on their own.
Features, features, features: The player includes the typical array of features found in the Zen line, but adds X-Fi audio enhancement options and wireless capability. It’s the first MP3 player we’ve seen that lets you create a chat avatar on the device itself.

On Sale Now: $78.15
View the latest prices for Creative Zen X-Fi (8GB)

After much anticipation, we’ve finally gotten our greedy little hands on the Creative Zen X-Fi. While we put the player through its paces for the in-depth review, we thought you’d appreciate a closer look. One thing we can tell you right off the bat: the Zen X-Fi is an incredible value given all the features, but we’re a bit disappointed that it’s encased in plastic rather than metal. The slideshow has more gory details, but here are some highlights to get you started:

(Credit:
CNET Networks/Corinne Schulze)

On Sale Now: $143.43
View the latest prices for Creative Zen X-Fi (16GB)

They say Yahoo has for some time been mired in bureaucracy and an embarrassing inability to respond to more nimble (though considerably larger) Google.

Nonetheless, Yahoo has rejected Microsoft’s offer and Microsoft has indicated it isn’t planning to give up. That means Yahoo employees should get used to distractions, at least for the time being.

Included in the filing was the mention of seven shareholder lawsuits against Yahoo over the administration’s handling of Microsoft’s offer.

“The review and consideration of the Microsoft proposal…have been, and may continue to be, a significant distraction for our management and employees,” Yahoo said in the company’s annual report filed with the Securities and Exchange Commission. Yahoo cautioned that the deal “may adversely affect our business.”

Full coverage
Microsoft’s big bid for Yahoo Click here for the latest on the software giant’s attempt to buy the Net pioneer.

Microsoft’s unsolicited $44.6 billion offer to acquire Yahoo has spooked workers because of the uncertainty surrounding the deal, Yahoo said. This may make it tough, according to Yahoo, for the company to retain and attract “key employees and hire new talent.”

The ironic thing about Yahoo’s claims is that the company appeared highly unfocused to many well before Microsoft came calling. Yahoo insiders, analysts, and others close to the company told CNET News.com just prior to Yahoo going public with Microsoft’s offer ,that the company was bogged down by ineffective group decision-making and a damaging aversion to taking risks.

Yahoo stated the obvious in its annual report on Wednesday by saying Microsoft’s bid to buy the company is distracting executives and employees.

Microsoft wants to take Windows in a new direction.

The software maker announced on Monday its plans for NavReady 2009, a customized version of Windows Embedded that’s specifically designed to power in-car navigation systems. The software is based on Windows CE, the slimmed-down version of Windows that is used for Windows Mobile.

Some GPS makers, such as Mio, already use Windows CE, though Microsoft says it is adding support for several new features with this navigation-specific release. New features include support for Live Search, Bluetooth, and MSN Direct, which allows real-time traffic and gas prices. NavReady 2009 should start showing up in devices starting this holiday season, Microsoft said.

This is not the first time Microsoft has tried to tailor its general-purpose Windows Embedded operating system to the needs of a particular market. Most recently, it created a version for cash registers. But even Windows Mobile itself was an attempt to tailor the generic operating system for a specific market.

The next version of the point-of-sale software, dubbed POSReady, is due out some time next year, Microsoft said Monday.

Previous postings on this blog, like any blog, have been narrowly focused. Sometimes it helps to look at the forest rather than the individual trees. To that end, I take a step back here for an overall cheat sheet to Defensive Computing.

Skepticism

Perhaps the most important aspect of Defensive Computing is something money can’t buy, skepticism.

Obviously this applies to email messages, many of which are scams. A relatively new approach appeals to your patriotism - emails from people claiming to be soldiers stationed in Iraq who need help bringing money home. Yeah, sure. Skepticism is not only needed with the body of an email message, but also with the From address. Never trust it. Forging the From address is child’s play.

Did someone point you to a really interesting video that just happens to require installing new software before you can view it? Don’t do it.

Scams aren’t limited to email, read my introduction to voice phishing.

Web sites too, need a skeptical review. Are you a customer of AT&T’s CallVantage VOIP service? If so, be sure to go to callvantage.att.com rather than callvantage.com. The later is a phony website (for lack of a better term). Interested in public transportation in New Jersey? If so, go to njtransit.com rather than the phony newjerseytransit.com. Read the Wall Street Journal? Which of these domains belong to the newspaper: wsj.net, wsj.info, wsj.org, wsj.biz, wsj.us, wsj.ws? Some do, some don’t.* Does the website hope.net belong to Barack Obama? No, but a recent April Fools joke made it look like it did.

No software can protect the gullible.

Backup

Backup your important files to something you can hold in your hand. If they are very important, make two copies. Preferably, one copy should be a thousand miles away from the other copy.

Even having three copies of important files is not overkill. For example, I appear weekly on The Personal Computer Show on WBAI and we record three copies of the show. In the studio, we burn a normal audio CD, the radio station records all the shows all the time and I make my own recording at home from the over-the-air signal. More than once, we ended up with a single usable recording. Stuff happens.

Plan for the death of your computer

You wake up one day and your computer doesn’t work. Or, it was stolen. Plan for this now. Beside a new/borrowed/backup computer running the same operating system, you need to recover your applications and your data files. This is a large topic, but a word to the wise: disk image backups.

Some people find the importance of their computer sneaks up on them. If you really need your computer, you need two. Same for a printer. It’s like tires - a
car needs four, so every car carries five. If your computer is nice to have but not really important, this blog is not for you.

Keep Software Up To Date

View a web page, get infected with malicious software. It happens, and one reason is that your computer has old software with known bugs.

A few days ago, Brian Krebs posted a cheat sheet on the latest version of 12 popular programs. Needless to say, the posting became outdated a couple days later.

The difficulty in keeping software on a Windows or
Mac machine up-to-date is an industry disgrace. It happens because neither Microsoft nor Apple is motivated to help other companies, many of which they compete against, install bug fixes. Instead, every company handles software maintenance differently, big companies may even have more than one system for maintaining their software. In the Linux world there is more co-operation between software authors and thus hope for a single software update mechanism. That said, I’ve seen my share of Linux distributions that handled software updates poorly. A shout-out here to
Firefox, whose self-update mechanism is excellent (at least when running on Windows).

What to do? For Java, see my javatester.org website. For Adobe’s Flash Player, see their Flash tester page. Windows users with little technical background are best served by having Windows automatically install bug fixes. If you can however, I suggest installing Windows bug fixes manually a few days after they are released. For everything else, Windows users can run the excellent online Secunia Software Inspector. Mac users should nag Secunia for their own version.

There is a flip side to this though, when it comes newly released software, it is usually best to hold back. New software is always buggy, so waiting lets others find and report the problems and gives the software vendor time to fix them. In addition, newly released software may cause problems for other software on your computer. Waiting gives these problems time to sort themselves out.

Avoid Certain Companies and Software

Years ago, Jim Croce sang:

You don’t tug on superman’s cape
You don’t spit into the wind
You don’t pull the mask off that old lone ranger
And you don’t mess around with Jim

In that vein, there are some companies and software that are best avoided.

A couple weeks ago, I mentioned that I won’t install any software from Symantec on my computer or those of my clients. Although I use Windows XP, I avoid all other Microsoft software. Ed Foster’s Worst Vendor Poll offers some other opinions on companies you might try to avoid dealing with. Microsoft topped the list, by far.

File sharing software, such as BitTorrent, LimeWire and the like, is not something that belongs on a computer you care about or one that has files you consider sensitive.

I’m also not a fan of all-in-one security suites such as Symantec’s Norton 360 Version 2.0, McAfee’s Total Protection or Microsoft’s Windows Live OneCare. My point is not about these programs in particular (recently reviewed in the Washington Post) but the whole concept of a suite in the first place.

Windows users are best served by avoiding Vista, if for no other reason than it will suffer from more hardware and software incompatibilities than XP for quite a while. If you don’t install any extensions/add-ons, you are safer with Firefox than Internet Explorer. Likewise, Thunderbird is safer than either Outlook or Outlook Express.

Technical Support?

If you call the tech support department of a company, take their advice with a grain of salt. Perhaps two.

In the last couple days I’ve been told many things by techies at Comcast and at ATT CallVantage (a VOIP phone service) that were not true. This is arguably the rule, rather than the exception. The entire tech support industry is broken. You are likely to be talking to someone who is not well trained, not well paid and reading from a script they are not allowed to deviate from.

Someone I know, who works from home, used to depend on AOL for email, both personal and business. This person had a huge email address book and depended on it. One day, there was a problem with the AOL software and AOL’s tech support turned a small problem into a big one by wiping out the email address book.

Good tech support is so expensive that many people will probably never experience it. You may get lucky, someone reading from a script, much like a parrot, may solve your problem. But talking to a really experienced person with a good understanding the product in question is all but unheard of. The best tech support I ever experienced was with mainframe software. If I said how much the software cost, some of you wouldn’t believe me. But, that’s what it takes to get good tech support.

Learn From The Experiences Of Others

A couple days ago, I wrote about how a Comcast cable installer removed a crucial component of the VPN software on my computer. Take stories like this as a heads up. If someone comes to install a broadband Internet connection, realize they may not have much computer training. Watch what they do on your computer like a hawk. Make the installer explain what they are doing and why, especially if they change something. If you run Windows, make a Restore Point before the installer arrives. If it is a cable connection, there shouldn’t be a need to install any software.

Anti-Malware

Stating the obvious: install anti-malware (malicious software) software and learn how to check that it’s updated regularly.

Windows users, of course, need antivirus and anti-spyware software. These product categories are blurring though and some software does both. No matter what software you use however, the protection it provides is limited, the bad guys are just too motivated (see Anti-Virus Firms Scrambling to Keep Up).

Whether Mac users need anti-virus software is debatable and I don’t know enough about it to have an opinion.

Windows XP users should install the free DropMyRights program. I blogged about this extensively back in August.

Firewalls

All computer users need firewall software - without exception. A firewall program that runs on your computer is called a “software” firewall. The term is used to distinguish it from a firewall program that runs outside your computer but still between you and the outside world. Consumers and small businesses typically run across these external “hardware” firewall programs in their routers. The best protection is provided by using both a hardware and a software firewall.

Bad software firewalls, such as the one in Windows XP, only provide inbound protection, better programs also provide outbound protection. Outbound protection is a nuisance to setup initially, but you are safer with it than without it.

For Windows users my preference is the free ZoneAlarm firewall. It’s far from perfect, but a big step up from the firewall built into either XP or Vista. A big plus for ZoneAlarm is simplicity. Because it’s just a firewall, configuring it is relatively simple. Perhaps most importantly, when it issues warnings and alerts, the language is simple, to the point and devoid of techie terminology. Even non-technical users have a good chance of understanding the issue at hand.

Initially, the Leopard version of the Mac OS shipped with the firewall turned off, an inexcusable design decision and one that Microsoft corrected years ago. It was also buggy and poorly designed. There have been fixes to it since then, but according to this article at ArsTechnica, it still leaves something to be desired.

There are many websites that let you test your firewall defenses, a good thing to do periodically. My favorite, from Sygate, was assimilated by Symantec and no longer exists. The first such site however, is still going strong, Shields Up! from Steve Gibson. It’s a bit techie though.

And…

If you use a router to share a single Internet connection, be sure to read my March 8th posting, Defending your router, and your identity, with a password change, about changing the password.

While staying at a hotel, whether using a wired or a wireless Internet connection, alway use a VPN. This also applies to public WiFi networks too.

And, finally, read this blog for a steady stream of Defensive Computing tips.

Update. April 25, 2008: Added advice to wait before installing new software.

*Only wsj.net and wsj.us belong to Dow Jones.

See a summary of all my Defensive Computing postings.

Initial information suggests that Internet attacks on Georgian Web sites over the last two weeks are the work of kids, according to one researcher, while another says the intensity of these attacks is short-lived when compared with attacks in Estonia last year.

In an e-mail to CNET News, Gadi Evron, founder of the Zero Day Emergency Response Team, said that “although the impact on their Web sites is clear, I believe this may end up being just some kids who got overexcited, with Georgia being ill-prepared to say the least. ”

Posting on CircleID, Evron wrote that there are botnet attacks against .ge Web sites, but the Internet infrastructure doesn’t appear to be directly attacked. “Not every fighting is warfare,” wrote Evron. “While Georgia is obviously under a DDoS attacks and it is political in nature, it doesn’t so far seem different than any other online aftermath by fans. Political tensions are always followed by online attacks by sympathizers.”

In May 2007, the Baltic nation of Estonia was attacked online and its Internet infrastructure crippled.

On Tuesday, Jose Nazario of Arbor Networks offered in a blog more information on the strength and duration of the attacks. “Compared to the May 2007 Estonian attacks, these are more intense but have lasted (so far) for less time. This could be due to a number of factors, including more sizable botnets with more bandwidth, better bandwidth at the victims, changes in our observations, or other factors.”

Nazario also said that there is evidence that the Georgians had responded by attacking a Russian newspaper Web site.

The 7- and 9-inch models.

The postman brought us a late-afternoon present on this rainy (here in NYC, at least) Friday–the much-anticipated new 9-inch version of the Asus Eee PC netbook-style laptop.

At first glance, it’s easy to mistake this for the popular 7-inch version, as the two share a nearly identical footprint. The 9-inch is bigger by maybe a quarter inch, and weighs 2.2 pounds, compared to the original’s 2.04 pounds. Opening it up, you can see the display now fills more of the available space, moving the speakers away from the side of the screen.

As we mentioned a few weeks ago, the Eee PC 900 will be available in the U.S. starting May 12 for $549 in both Linux and Windows XP versions. We got the Windows version, which has 12GB of solid state hard drive space (as opposed to 20GB for the Linux version).

We’re currently running the 9-inch Eee PC through its paces and will report back with a full review early next week.

The demise of the HD DVD format has been bad news for both bargain hunters and at least one big-time technology company.

Prices for Blu-ray players had been dipping down to around $300. Just last week, Sony Electronics President Stan Glasgow said that the company would be “at a $300 rate” through this year–and would even hit the $299 mark in 2008. Apparently, though, retail outlets haven’t gotten that message just yet. (Glasgow also allowed that the price might reach $200–next year.)

In the three short weeks since Toshiba announced that it was pulling the plug on the high-definition technology, prices for standalone players using the rival Blu-ray format have been headed north. In fact, as noted by PriceGrabber.com, Blu-ray prices are at their high point for the year, at an average of about $400 apiece for the devices. The Sony BDP-S300, for instance, was just a small mocha latte above that level, at $403 as of Wednesday.

The Sony BDP-S300

But if you’re still buying Blu-ray today and ruing having to shell out a few extra bucks, imagine how Toshiba feels. The consumer electronics giant, a leading backer of HD DVD, could see a whopping $986 million loss in its high-def DVD business for its current fiscal year, according to Japan’s Nikkei business daily. Correction: This sentence initially had a “b” instead of an “m” in the dollar value of the loss. The expected loss is $986 million.)

If you’re a penny-pincher who’s of a mind to buy technology on the endangered species list, you could of course go out and buy a $99 HD DVD player.

(Credit:
CNET Networks)

You might also do well to heed the advice of TGDaily, which in musing about the Blu-ray price increases is also looking ahead to later this year when Blu-ray players gain some advanced features and the ability to connect to the Internet: “Many of the current Blu-ray manufacturers have announced new players that will support BD Profile 2.0, so my advice would be to buy a
PS3 or wait for the next-gen players.” (The PlayStation 3 game console offers Blu-ray and Internet connection already. But don’t go looking for Blu-ray on the Xbox 360.)

It’s amazing how much pain we’ll endure to save a few pennies. I’m switching back to POTS.

Guess what? I don’t believe you. I’ve used Skype, Comcast Digital Voice, Vonage, a commercial service my company uses, and it’s all rubbish. The problems vary, but one thing is clear:

Yes, I know. You probably have a VOIP provider that works. All the time.

Voice-over-IP (VOIP) has long promised to significantly disrupt the telecommunications market. And so it has. Never before have so many people paid so little for technology that doesn’t work.

commentary

Plain old telephone service (POTS) may be pricey, but at least it works. All the time.

Open XML will now be subject to more scrutiny on a technical level and people can feel less apprehensive about any possible legal entanglements from writing software based on the specification, he said.

“A lot of people continue to believe that Microsoft hasn’t changed its modus operandi and the onus is on Microsoft to very clearly demonstrate a track record,” O’Kelly said. “It’s not like 1998. They really are enlightened about the importance of standards.”

Some issues raised in the long-running debate seem intractable.

A representative from Standards Norge, Norway’s standards body has lodged a complaint over how the voting was conducted but a reversal to a “no” vote does not look like it will affect the overall result.

IBM executives lobbied heavily against the standards bid, arguing that Open XML was redundant with the OpenDocument Format (ODF) standard, technically flawed, and not sufficiently “open.” A spokesperson declined to comment before the official ISO announcement.

On a technical level, changes proposed during the standardization process will need to be incorporated into Open XML, which is now the default document format in
Microsoft Office 2007.

A few days before national standards bodies were to submit their votes, the Free Software Foundation issued a legal analysis saying that the legal protections on Open XML were not to be trusted.

The company’s bid–started in 2005–to make the Open XML file formats international standards has succeeded, barring any last-minute changes. The ISO (International Organization for Standardization) is scheduled to issue the official communiqu? on Wednesday.

The episode has also stirred up intense anti-Microsoft sentiment.

In the near term, that means Microsoft, Novell, and other companies that have software that works with the file formats will need to update their products. As the specification evolves in the future, these companies are expected to conform to the changes.

Standards expert and ODF advocate Andrew Updegrove predicted on Tuesday that there will be a thorough review of the entire process.

One of the most common complaints was that Microsoft and Ecma–the standards body that controls the specification–sought ISO status through its accelerated Fast-Track process, which made thorough examination of the 6,000 specification challenging.

Microsoft executives and others have said that different “standards” suit different purposes, while others claim that multiple standards for the same purpose is wrong.

Not buying it

But many people committed to standards, including open-source advocates, are certain to be dismayed by the ISO ratification.

It’s all over except the press release. But in other ways, it’s just the beginning.

Once final, ISO/IEC certification means that development of the specification, officially called Draft International Standard (DIS) 29500, will be done by members of the ISO, an international organization with representatives from over 100 countries.

“Clearly some changes need to be made in how the process works, so that the next time such an important and commercially strategic standard is processed, the process works better than this,” he said.

A number of national standards bodies voted “no” in the Open XML vote or abstained even after a Ballot Resolution Meeting (BRM) in February, which was meant to resolve technical issues. The tally shows that 75 percent voted to approve with 14 percent voting against.

Asked what impact the ISO status would give Open XML, standards expert Jan van den Beld who now works for the pro-Microsoft industry group CompTIA, said “not much at the very moment.”

There remains distrust of Microsoft’s efforts to promote interoperability between its products and others, including open-source software. But ISO ratification is a significant step towards Microsoft’s pledge to support standards, said Peter O’Kelly, an analyst at the Burton Group.

The editor of the ODF specification, Patrick Durusau, lobbied for Open XML ISO approval to improve interoperability with ODF. At one point, he said that businesses opposed to Open XML were operating with “spite as a business strategy.”

After a document appeared on Tuesday showing that Office Open XML (OOXML) gained enough votes to be ratified as an ISO standard, Microsoft on Tuesday confirmed the result.

Government customers and large corporations that favor certified standards now have a choice, he said. “It certainly is one less barrier to doing business in an environment that otherwise would be difficult,” van den Beld said.

This new model is smaller and less expensive, but it’s missing a couple of features included in the 740, like the Webcam. Look for a full review of the UM-720S soon. Until then, check out these shots.

Shots: Mimo UM-720S

We recently got the Mimo UM-720S in. If you remember, we reviewed the UM-740 a few months back.

Yep. Mimo makes it.

(Credit:
Eric Franklin/CNET)