/dev/null

One day, your computer will be a big-ass table…

The Business Software Alliance is offering up to $1 million to whistle blowers who report software piracy and organizations are paying record fines for noncompliance. From initial fines to further audits from individual vendors, being found in noncompliance can be costly. So what help is there out there?

Centennial License Manager is a web-based software license compliance solution that helps you quickly reconcile license entitlement to software usage on your network. Not only can it help your licensing position, it can help you save money as well by showing instances where you may be over licensed.

For more details, visit the License Manager products page at Centennial Software.

Panda Labs has detected a new trojan named BotVoice.A Trojan. Users who get infected will hear the phrase, “You have been infected. I repeat, you have been infected and your system files have been deleted. Sorry. Have a nice day and bye bye.”

The virus deletes systems files, modifies the registry to block attempts to undo the damage and takes control of Windows text reader. It is spread through peer-to-peer networks, external storage devices and malicious Web sites.

You can read more about the virus from their Web site and you can hear a sample of the voice here.

Apple co-founder Steve Wozniak was interviewed by RU Sirius this week about being a prankster and ethical hacking.

From excerpts of the interview posted on 10 Zen Monkeys:

I have these professionally printed stickers that I’ve had made. They’re done with this sort of foil-type stuff in the exact OSHA style and the OSHA colors. And it says, “Danger: Do Not Flush Over Cities.” And I put ‘em in the bathrooms on airplanes…They’re red with a black-shadowed airplane picture. The bathroom has a little seat fold-down. I fold that up and there’s a sign in the middle of it saying, “Don’t throw trash here.” And I put my two little stickers behind it, so the stewardesses won’t notice it right away. If they notice it right away they might realize that somebody put that there. But after a while, if they slowly get used to it, they’ll stay on for years…

Hahaha. Go Steve.

Just stop. Please.

It’s always been a slight pet peeve of mine. I understand that back in the days of mono-spaced fonts on typewriters it was necessary, and that some still have those old bad habits. But this, my friends, is the future. OK, we still don’t have jetpacks and kitchens of the future, but we do have variable width fonts that aren’t meant to have double spaces after periods (or full stops if you’re in other parts of the world).

I’m not one to cite style guides, but single spaces after punctuation is considered proper according to the MLA, APA, and the Chicago Manual of Style. So neener-neener.

The Business Software Alliance has just increased their reward for whistle blowers who report software piracy to $1 million. Although the initial campaign is target towards the U.S., it’s expected to expand internationally.

Read more