In an effort to battle security threats Paypal announced today that it will block "unsafe browsers" from using its services. It is trying to step up its anti-phishing efforts. Older web browsers are considered unsafe because the lack many security features the newer browsers have. Paypal said it was "an alarming fact that there is a significant set of users who use very old and vulnerable browsers such as Internet Explorer 4". Some users were still using Internet Explorer 3 (a browser more than 10 years old).

The Open Source Census is collaborative project that attempts to collect and share quantitative data relating to the use of open source software in the enterprise.

The Open Source Census has a tool called OSS Discovery that scans individual machines and generate anonymous reports regarding what open source software that machine has installed. It is completely voluntary and any individual or company can participate in The Open Source Census.

If you're looking to transition from Windows to Linux but your users are not technically inclined you may want to evaluate Linux XP Desktop 2008. Linux XP tries to emulate the look and feel of Microsoft Windows. The goal being to make the transition to Linux easier for those used to Microsoft like operating systems.

In what looks like a last ditch effort to fend of Microsoft's bid Yahoo is close to announcing a deal that with Google that would carry search advertising from Google Inc. as part of a test that could lead to a broader partnership.

According to the WSJ Online it will be a two week test limited to no more than 3% of US traffic of Yahoo's Web search results. The test will allow the two sides to evaluate the revenue potential of a broader search ad outsourcing arrangement.

Sophos claims that new and creative malware will push the total number of viruses/malware to one million by year's end. According to a report about 25 percent of unique malware has been created in the last six months of its 20 year history.

Bloggers take note: "Blogging can kill". The NYTimes posted an article about the high stress world of professional bloggers. It cited two recent deaths of well known bloggers. Russell Shaw, a prolific blogger on technology, dead at 60 from a heart attack and Marc Orchant dead at 50 from a massive coronary. A third, Om Malik, 41, survived a heart attack last year.

Forget OpenSolaris, and hello to Ubuntu. In a bold move Sun seems to be adopting Ubuntu Linux and leaving behind OpenSolaris as well as some of the other major linux distros like RedHat and Suse.

In an interview with Reuters on April 2, Canonical CEO Mark Shuttleworth reinforced the "growing relations" between Sun and Ubuntu. This release comes just before the scheduled release of "Hardy Heron" Cononical's latest Ubuntu version due in late April.

A new survey from Forrester Research asked 50,000 large enterprise employees which browser they use on a daily basis. They found that over the course of 2007, Internet Explorer's overall market share in the enterprise decreased by 10%. During that same period they saw Firefox's share almost doubled from 9.8% to 18%.

The survey also showed that most companies are using the 6-year-old Internet Explorer 6. Only 23.4% of companies officially used IE7 as their standard browser.

Dell may soon go the way of the Dodo bird. All the signs are there. Some of their recent announcements are setting off warning signals.

These include:
1) Announcements of additional job cuts (5,600 more jobs in addition to the 3,200 already announced).

As you know April Fool's Day is among us. I've tried to compile a list of some technology related pranks that you may want to use at your own risk.

Here are some of my favorites:

1) Fake Format. A free tool that simulates Window's formatting of drives. The user is unable to stop, interrupt, or cancel this format. Once the fake formatting is complete, the standard Windows format summary appears. Upon closing this summary screen the program can be exited. No harm done.

According to a release from the Wikimedia Foundation, the 10 millionth wikipedia article was created at 5:07 p.m. PDT on Wednesday March 26th. The lucky winner is a post about the Hungarian biography of of 16th century painter Nicholas Hilliard. For those Hungrian natives you can view the post here.

The following is a list of the 100 oldest registered .com domains.

See if your favorites are here:

Rank -- Date Created -- Domain name

1. 15-Mar-1985 SYMBOLICS.COM
2. 24-Apr-1985 BBN.COM
3. 24-May-1985 THINK.COM
4. 11-Jul-1985 MCC.COM
5. 30-Sep-1985 DEC.COM
6. 07-Nov-1985 NORTHROP.COM
7. 09-Jan-1986 XEROX.COM
8. 17-Jan-1986 SRI.COM
9. 03-Mar-1986 HP.COM
10. 05-Mar-1986 BELLCORE.COM
11= 19-Mar-1986 IBM.COM
11= 19-Mar-1986 SUN.COM
13= 25-Mar-1986 INTEL.COM
13= 25-Mar-1986 TI.COM

An informal survey over on Epicedit.com show that over 60% of photoshop users obtain their software illegally.

My first reaction was "only 60%"? Pirating is very prevalent especially for very popular (and very expensive) software. I guess this is one of the reasons why the software is so expensive to begin with...

Here is a cool tool I ran across that will allow you to convert any html into a pdf file:

http://www.htm2pdf.co.uk/

This is nice for people who want to save a file with all images in one file. Usually when you use the "Save As" option from a browser it creates a separate folder for images. This makes it difficult to share docs. This tool, as well as other like it, allow you to create one single file with images embedded that can be emailed and shared easily.

The CEO of Red Hat at the recent Open Source Business Conference claimed that open source technologies are benefiting from the unpopularity of the US. He suggests that people are resentful of sending billions of dollars back to the U.S. in "intellectual property" taxes. He claims that he's talked to governments like China and Russia and they are very keen on deploying technologies that are not tied to any IP laws of the US.