It is very rare to see a "city zombie" during the day. This one was missing his head, so it might not have known it was walking around in broad daylight.

Other cool sightings can be found on Google Street View Sightings. 

The Vista sidebar has always felt a little awkward to me. Specially because I am used to running certain applications on the right side of my monitor. For instance ReGet (download manager) and Miranda (instant message client) are commonly found hovering on the right side of my screen. Vista's sidebar was constantly appearing over the top of them, making it cumbersome to drag and drop a file to a buddy on ICQ for instance. I first looked to see if I could control the height of the bar, but then stumbled onto perhaps an even better approach.

I dragged my gadgets (I feel dumb saying that word) to my desktop, then right-clicked the bar and selected 'Close Sidebar'. My calendar, clock, and weather are all visible on the desktop now, and I can still easily drag and drop a file to a friend. If a window is covering them up, just press Windows + Space and all the gadgets jump to the front.

Do gadgets and lingerie go together? T3 wants to help you decide... 

Stacy Snyder, an aspiring teacher who is now 27 years old, was set to graduate last year from Millersville's School of Education. But just days before commencement, campus officials discovered Ms. Snyder's MySpace page -- which featured a photograph of the student wearing a pirate hat and sipping from a plastic cup.

The picture's caption: "Drunken Pirate."

Although Ms. Snyder was of legal drinking age when the photo was taken, Millersville administrators deemed the image "unprofessional," and they refused to award her an education degree and the teaching certificate that came along with it. (Instead they issued her a degree in English.)

Now Ms. Snyder has filed a federal lawsuit asking Millersville to issue her education degree and teaching certificate. The former student also seeks $75,000 in compensatory damages from the university, according to the Intelligencer Journal of Lancaster, Pa. Millersville officials declined to comment, the newspaper said.

Wendy Nguyen's cellphone was stolen shortly before she left on an overseas vacation. When she returned she was shocked to discover she had a $26,000 cell phone bill. She called Cingular to dispute the charges, but even though she was able to prove she was out of the country when the calls were made from San Francisco, Cingular suggested she file for bankruptcy to pay the bill. From Yahoo!:

If you dig through all the fine print in your cell phone contract, you'll most likely discover a statement that reads something like this: "Should your cell phone be lost or stolen you are responsible for any costs incurred for unauthorized calls made prior to reporting the cell phone missing."

Unlike a credit card, cellular contracts are not required to limit liability for fraudulent charges. But it's also important to realize that the extent of your liability as stated in your contract is your provider's policy -- it's not a law.

The Yahoo! article gives some helpful tips for cellphone security, the most important of which is to call your provider immediately if you phone is lost or stolen. As for Wendy? They dropped the charges - only after she told her story to KPIX-TV in San Francisco.

Ten Steps to Cell Phone Security [Yahoo! Finance]

I thought this was one of the cooler wallpapers I've seen in a while. 

An addictive Shockwave game I bumped into today.

Microsoft, Google, and others are quietly adding sophisticated imaging features to their portfolios. Right now these technologies can help you with simple tasks like organizing your photos online with Riya. Or just for fun you can use MyHeritage to see which celebrities you most look like. In the near future though, I foresee that a new generation of search abilities will emerge.

Imagine what your grandparents might have thought about typing a few key words into a search engine and being directed to a site with in-depth information on any subject matter in the world. We tend to take the functionality and usefulness of search engines for granted. Think of the rapid advancements that have taken place in a not so distant past. Only 12 years ago, it was Deja News that originally archived and indexed Usenet to collect a wealth of newsgroup information and make it conveniently accessible for the user. MapQuest and others brought road and satellite mapping to the web. Today Google can help you find phone numbers, information within a website, images, videos, the lowest prices on products, or even the answer to simple mathematics and numeric conversations.

A diagram of the process by which spammers use zombie (virus-infected) computers to send spam.

1. Virus writer sends out viruses, infecting ordinary users’ Windows PCs.
2. Infected PCs log into an IRC server or other communications medium, forming a network of infected systems known as a botnet.
3. Spammer purchases access to this botnet from virus writer or a dealer.
4. Spammer sends instructions to the botnet, instructing the infected PCs to send out spam.
5. The infected PCs send the spam messages to Internet users’ mail servers.

Report seem to focus on worse one. The honest guy seems to be Torrance Computer Repair. Good for them!

Our local version of the bad guys appears to be Seaside Computers.