So it’s officially 2009 now. And many people are, well, stumbling around with hangovers. But some others are jumping for joy. Why? Because their Microsoft Zune music players are working again!

Yes, you read that right.

Pretty much every 30GB Zune (as well as various others supposedly) all stopped working suddenly. The problem Microsoft deduced, was because of a bug in their internal time code. It had something to do with a leap year, and yada yada, blah. Their advice? Just unplug it to let the battery run down, and wait to turn it on January 1st, 2009. That, they said, should fix everything.

Sure enough, Zune owners are already reporting that this workaround does in fact work, and Zunes like undead iPod-killer-wannabe zombies are rising from their graves everywhere after their T-Virus infection. Umbrella Corp Microsoft was right.

And for those of us who don’t have Zunes?  Well happy day!  It’s New Years!

So you got yourself a fancy new G1 cellphone.  It’s so fancy!  It’s so intuitive!

It’s so fancy and intuitive in fact that it even thinks for you.

Like, say, if you were texting someone, and you were telling them how you had to reboot your computer at work, like magic, the fancy G1 would reboot itself upon seeing the word.  It’s that intuitive.

Yes, you read that right.  The G1 handset has a bug that it picks up on keywords you enter, say in texting someone, and operates itself according to those keywords.  So if you text the word reboot to someone, your G1 reboots itself.

Neat!

No, not really.

Even worse, if you had texted that to a server running Google’s Android like your G1 phone does, then that server would have rebooted too.  Or if someone knowing your phone’s flaws was just evil and vindictive, they could keep texting you the word reboot over, and over, and over, and over…

Fortunately Google has issued a fix.  Well, a partial fix it seems.  I guess Android isn’t built in a day.  Or fixed in one either.

Still, how in the world did this bug ever get past testing?  And who even thought this was a useful feature anyway?

So I just watched Cloverfield from Comcast On Demand.  I’m sorry that I payed five bucks to see it.  Maybe two might have been more about what it’s worth.  Which, I guess, makes a good rating system.  Two dollars out of five.  Heh heh.  Anyway…

So … what the flirk?!  Blair Witch Project meets Godzilla.  They even had to put in the runny nose scene.  I could have done without that, thanks.

Stupid big alien thing wipes out tons of military.  How in the world did that thing not get killed?  I mean maybe if it had technology, like shields or something … maybe.  But no.  It’s just a big fleshy thing and even carpet bombing it didn’t phase it any?  Come on!  I don’t care how big it is, flesh can only take so much punishment!

The little bugs were a cute touch.  Not really inspired, mind you.  Just like yet another zergling swarm.  Heck, even then they were hardly original.  Sci-fi loves a good bug swarm.  Still, the movie was better having them than not.

But come on!  Are people really so stupid?  And I don’t just mean the whole brave insane and assured death for love bit.  You know, the romantic in me likes to believe that much at least could happen.  But why does no one ever arm themselves?  I mean freaking hell!  They saw the bug swarm and did nothing.  Then they lost one of their group to the bugs and did nothing.  Then they kill one on their way back from the rescue and leave the damn fire ax embedded in the bug like it just had to be alone.  And it was alone! Bad writing there.  But I guess killing them all before they’d suffered even more would have been bad form.  Or something.

Still, why is it in so very many movies, people never pick up a damn weapon?  Aliens shooting you with ray guns while your military has machine guns and you have a breech-fed shotgun?  Don’t pick up the dead soldier’s machine gun and spare ammo.  Don’t pick up the alien’s ray gun and energy packs.  Just keep your shotgun, and when you run out of ammo, throw it at an alien.  Nerf!  So freaking stupid, and yet nearly every movie and TV show runs along those lines.  I mean drop me into a situation like that and I’d  be freaking armed to the teeth with every damn gun I could carry.  Over every piece of armor I could put on myself!

Or something like that.

And I mean, I know it’s New York and they don’t have like normal buildings, but sheesh, you’d think you could hole yourself up somewhere.

If I were in like an alien invasion or zombie movie, the first thing I’d do is run to the nearest super Walmart (or something similar) and weld all but one door closed.  I don’t care if I have to rip panelling out of some back down to weld over the glass doors out front, I am making that building secure!  Then I’d set up all of the generators in the dock area to make a generator room.  All of the ventillation is getting similarly reinforced, and HEPA filtered to hell and back.  And I’d arm myself with whatever shotguns and such they’ve got in there and keep the refrigerated and frozen food as cold as I could once the power goes out.  If it goes out.  There’d still be plenty of unperishables and bottled water and such in there too, but go through the perishables first because they won’t last as long.

But anyway, the point is once you’re in a defensible position, then you start messing around with looking for survivors or striking back or whatever.  Secure yourself.  Set yourself up for a long siege.  And then do stuff.

I’d probably even make my sleeping quarters suspended from the ceiling so that if a zombie somehow walked in, I’d still be way over his head, out of reach.  I’m not sure what I’d do if it were aliens, like in Cloverfield.  But it’d basically amount to the same of first setting up a secure perimiter.

So when all of those people are running around, running across the bridge, running through the city, et cetera - I’d have been finding a place to set up shop, collecting guns and ammo and food and water, and welding the damned doors closed and securing the windows and air vents with reinforcements of steel, steel, and more steel.  Let the invaders get through that.  I’ve seen enough zombie and alien invasion movies to know that you don’t run around all willy nilly.  If you’re going to survive, you’ve got to be smart from the beginning.

And you’ve got to accept that people will die.  No freaking bug/zombie-bitten refugees in my camp!  Want to stay in my domain?  First you’re going to sit in a quarentine room with everyone else.  I’ve seen Alien.  I’m gonna make sure no little bugger bursts out of your stomach.  Or that you don’t turn into some monster yourself.

I really don’t get how these people survive in these movies.  Well, other than “it was in the script”.  Bad writing.  I think Cloverfield sets a new low standard there.  Who the heck is going to run around carrying a camera like that through all of that?  Oh my god!  Alien bugs are trying to eat me!  Let me film it!  I don’t think so.

I know.  I’m rambling.  I’m not feeling so well.  But yeah … I’m waiting for the day when an intelligent movie of that genre is made.  Cloverfield certainly isn’t one.

The world is a scary place. The internet is no different. Everyone is out to get you. Everyone wants to hurt you. And they’re always thinking up horrible new methods to do it.

Okay, so yeah, that’s just a tad over the top. No, life isn’t really that bad. But yes, there really are hackers out there in the world trying to be mean and nasty.

Just ask Adobe. What is more internet than Adobe’s Flash providing all sorts of goofy little Flash applets all over the intarweb? Well Symantec has found a weakness in it. An exploited weakness. With at least 20,000 web pages found to carry links to a site that hosts malicious Flash applets that exploit the weakness. Not good. Fortunately, it’s only Adobe’s own Flash Player stand-alone application that is vulnerable. Internet browsers like Internet Explorer, Firefox, et cetera that support Flash plug-ins aren’t vulnerable. They’re safe. Still, not such a great moment for Adobe.

Speaking of the internet, what about one of the biggest ISPs out there, Comcast? Well just a couple days ago, for a mere few hours, Comcast.net was hacked by a couple of losers who redirected the webpage to one with text that read, “KRYOGENIKS Defiant and EBK RoXed COMCAST. sHouTz To VIRUS Warlock elul21 coll1er seven.” Wondrous stuff that. Just the hack of the ages there. Fortunately Comcast fixed everything by Thursday and is working with the police, even if they are stymied.

Still, a hack is a hack, and of all businesses out there to be well protected, you’d have thought one of the great cable ISPs like Comcast.net would have held up better than that. Oh well.

And speaking of ISPs and hacks, let’s jump across the pond to everyone’s favorite BT Home Hub wi-fi internet router, which has yet another security hole. When left on the default settings. You see, to combat stupidity from being a factor in hacking the device, recently the default administrator password from “admin” to the device’s serial number. Each being unique and relatively harder to guess than “admin”, it seemed a fairly intelligent way to go. And since it’s stamped on the device you never have to go far to find where you wrote it down. Except that, according to GNUCitizen, it’s not actually all that difficult to request the serial number from the device over a network connection. Hmm. Not so brilliant then. Just yet another reason to change from the default settings to actually secure ones. Good advice for everyone out there, not just for BT Home Hub owners.

In fact, when was the last time you Windows users patched your bugs and holes? You naughty naughty lot. Automatic Updating should be fixing it for you. If you haven’t turned it off that is. Why do I ask? Well, according to a new study by Akamai, China and the US lead the way for denial of service and exploit traffic in 2008. Yes, that’s right. Exploits. As in your computer has a security hole the size of Texas that was fixed years ago, but because you don’t think updating is worth it, you got hacked and now hackers are sending out traffic from your computer. Goodness knows that the past years have seen a great number of really effective worms, viruses, and Trojans for Windows PCs. All of them with fixes. Have you updated your computer with those fixes? Because in the world of always-on-line high-speed internet, if you’re not part of the solution, you really are part of the problem. Update your PC today. With Windows it’s just as simple as turning on your Automatic Updates. Or clicking on that little Windows Update button. It’s never been easier. Protect yourself. Protect us all. Update your PC. Please!

So yes, hubs, computers, even cell phones can be hacked.

Cell phones?

Yes, that’s right, cell phones.

Such as a bug found in Motorola’s RAZR firmware allows intentionally malformed JPG images to execute whatever code a hacker’s little black heart desires. Fortunately, after a year of working on it, Motorola finally has a fix. Yipee! Way to keep on top of things Motorola!

But all is not lost. It’s a scary scary world, but there are plenty of folks out there finding the security holes. And plenty of people fixing them. Or telling you how to protect yourself from them. It’s a scary place, but we’re here to help. If you let us.