This week sees a new addition to GMails ever growing bag of tricks, AIM compatibility! AIM, AOL’s popular instant-messaging service has been intergrated into Gmails Web-based e-mail client. This integration was possible due to the Open AIM SDK Library. So now when you open up your GMail you’ll be able to sign into your AIM Account by clicking Settings-Chat. Your AIM buddies will appear on the contact list in most frequent order and then you can hover over and get some basic buddy info.

So basically, now when people are using Gmail, they can see if the people they’re sending e-mail to are available for live chat on AIM (now possible directly in the Gmail interface) instead. A useful feature that’s sure to make a difference in many peoples lives if they frequently use both GMail and AOL Instant Messenger.

More info available here.

In case you haven’t heard, there’s a new internet security threat in the last few weeks that is sure to strike fear into any music fan.

An mp3-eating worm/virus has been unleashed recently. It copies itself to all drives on the infected computer and searches for mp3 files which it then proceeds to delete. In fact it’s main aim is to delete all mp3 files from all drives on the compromised computer!

It’s name is W32.Deletemusic. Thankfully, so far, it’s been given a low risk factor by the major antivirus companies, but apparently it’s not the first threat of this kind. Are more such threats on the way? Now you have an even better reason (as if you didn’t already) to make sure you have up to date antivirus protection.

Read the full story from Yahoo here and the Symantec page for it here

If you wanted the means of creating your own RSS feeds from the convenience of your desktop, then this software may just do the trick for you. For the uninitiated RSS stands in common IT parlance refers really simple syndication; a means for publishing frequently published material. So in case you have a website and wish to update your some section quite frequently; RSS feeds are what you should be looking at. To make things life easier for you this elegant piece of software does most of the hard work for you. Best part is that it is an WYSIWYG tool and even if you do not know the basics of XML, you can still have your RSS feeds up and running on a regular basis.

The software installs itself like breeze and has a neat interface which has a default off light brown background. So what all you need to place to get your RSS feeds out. Not much; just place the title and link info and start typing in the workspace. The tools also allows for insertion of images in your feeds. Once you have created the RSS feed you can actually see a preview how the feed would appear with the help of the preview option. So in case you need make any changes, you need go back and make the necessary editions. Among other functionalities features like upload support via the means of a FTP transfer and seamless conversion of HTML in to RSS feeds add to its reputation.

RSS fee creator 2.4 manages to live up to expectation by allowing seamless RSS feeds to be generated from your desktop with effortless ease. It a tool many webmasters would love using quite often. Even those are running their personal blog or family sites will find great value in this product.

(More info and Download)

The Sans Internet Storm Centre has warned of an email scam that lures users with the promise of a free iPhone.

One e-mail claims you have ‘won a new iPhone’. Clicking on the link however brings you to a page that attempts to exploit a number of well known Internet Explorer vulnerabilities and then downloads a malicious executable ‘sys—-.exe’. This executable installs itself as a service and upon review appears to be a spam bot.  Anti virus coverage was very spotty this morning but has improved during the day. 

Another scam aims to convince readers they need to go and buy an iPhone on what appears to be an Apple site (faked using a browser helper object). Naturally the site does not belong to Apple and you end up paying someone in Latvia. Sunbelt has a great writeup on this here. Thanks to roseman for the link.

(via Sans Internet Storm Centre)

Experts are warning of a bogus Microsoft security bulletin that contains malware designed to take control of the user’s PC.

The emails contain the header ‘Microsoft Security Bulletin MS07-0065’ and come with Microsoft logos and a layout very similar to the Microsoft web page.

Recipients are told that a zero-day flaw in Outlook has already been exploited to infect over 100,000 machines, and the email contains a link to the ‘patch’ for the problem.

“Security bulletins from Microsoft describing vulnerabilities in its software are a common occurrence, so it comes as no surprise to see hackers adopting this kind of disguise in their attempt to infect Windows PCs,” said Graham Cluley, senior technology consultant at Sophos.

“The irony is that, as awareness of computer security issues and the need for patching against vulnerabilities have risen, social engineering tricks which pose as critical software fixes are likely to succeed in conning the public.”

The link in fact downloads the Behav-112 Trojan, which allows the computer to be operated remotely to send spam or take part in distributed denial-of-service attacks.

The emails have been widely spammed out over the past few days. (more…)

Hackers have begun cashing in on the Virginia Tech university tragedy by spamming out malware-infected emails purporting to offer cameraphone footage of the attack which resulted in more than 30 deaths.

Email messages carry a photograph of gunman Cho Seung Hui and claim to link to a Brazilian movie website carrying footage of the campus shootings. But clicking on the link downloads a malicious screensaver file which installs a banking spyware Trojan. (more…)

Microsoft plans to offer a $3 stripped-down package of Windows, Office and other software to people in developing countries.

The Microsoft Unlimited Potential programme, due to be announced in Beijing today by Microsoft chairman Bill Gates, is part of an ongoing global expansion by the software giant. Microsoft aims to double the number of PC users worldwide to two billion by 2015. (more…)

TVU Player is a free program that enables Internet users to watch streaming live Television programs around the world which which they may not normally be able to get on their real television. It promises to feature hard-to-find special-interest TV channels, international sports, lifestyle, news, and your favorite channels from around the globe as well as user-generated content.

You can switch between multiple TV channels just like on a TV. TVU Player is extremely simple to use, you just double click on the tv channel of your choice, wait for it to buffer, and start watching.

Thanks to the improvement of broadband connections, watching channels on your computer is now possible like this, some of the available channels are Fox, Fox News, NBC, ABC, Animal planet, Bloomsberg, Nasa TV, some sports channels, Comedy Central, Sci Fi, Nickelodeon, BBC News 24 and many more.

Check out Vidoo.com which also has a support forum and the tv channels daily program schedule and of course to download it.

MySpace.com has filed a federal lawsuit against a man who allegedly sent millions of spam “bulletins” advertising Web sites where users of the popular online social network could buy ring tones, polo shirts, and other products and services.

MySpace, owned by News Corp., sued Scott Richter Friday in U.S. District Court in Los Angeles. The suit seeks a permanent injunction barring Richter and affiliated companies from the online community. It also seeks unspecified monetary damages.

The latest spam suit is not the first against Richter. Microsoft and then-New York Attorney General Eliot Spitzer sued Richter in 2003, when the defendant was known as one of the top spammers in the world, according to Microsoft. Richter and his company OptInRealBig.com LLC agreed to pay $7 million in a settlement reached two years later.

via Information Week

There’s a lot of RSS reader programs around. Here’s one that caught my attention. It’s called GreatNews and has an impressive array of features. GreatNews is optimized for the fast and efficient reading of all your favorite web feeds. You can choose from various different view styles, including a newspaper view, that one allows you to read a group of feeds arranged in newspaper-style page layout without the hassle of having to click through individual feed items.

It also supports custom labels, email and blog integration as well as custom keyword alerts (news watches) so you can automatically find articles of interest to you and have them available in a special category. Other features include import/export feeds from/to OPML and XML files, the automatic cleanup of old items, browser integration with popup blocking and more.

GreatNews is a small, fast and very efficient RSS reader – it doesn’t require any installation either, so just unzip and run.

This is one good RSS reader worth grabbing while it’s still freeware and you can do that right here.