PATCH TUESDAY
April 14th with be Patch Tuesday. There will be some critical patches for Windows 2000, XP, as well as Internet Explorer, Word and Excel. Note that the Office patches are for both Windows and Apple versions alike.
Conficker Virus Check
It was expected that April Fools Day would be marked by a major assault by the Conficker Virus. Fortunately, the week has come and gone without any noticeable increase in malware.
There is a very easy way to find out whether you have the Conficker Virus on you computer. Go to the following website (no it is not infected!!!) and compare the primary image on top with the chart provided below. Basically if you can see all the images in the top row, you're ok. If not..... there may be reason to be concerned!
http://www.confickerworkinggroup.org/infection_test/cfeyechart.html
Windows XP and Office 2003 Support Ends
Finally, this month marks the end of "mainstream" support for Windows XP and Office 2003. All this means is that during the "extended" support period, users will still be getting security patches. But only those companies that have an extended support contract with Microsoft will get the "non-security" patches.
This isn't a major concern for most people. However, it is a good reason to begin making the switch from Microsoft Office to an excellent substitute - OpenOffice. OpenOffice has been and remains a free Office suite that, I would argue, is even better than Microsoft Office.
http://www.openoffice.org
NeoOffice Update
Those Mac Users out there might want to know that there is a new major upgrade to NeoOffice. You will have to download the new 3.0 version from NeoOffice's website.
http://www.neooffice.org
