I don't know if you heard about the Conficker worm so far, because today it's my first time. No, it has nothing to do with Tequila, and there's no connection with any of the games in the Worms series, either. Anyway, this worm has been around for a while now, but the hot news say that a slightly different version is on a rampage over the Web these days!

According to F-Secure, quoted by ArsTechnica, "more than one million PCs have been infected with the worm (also known as Kido or Downadup) in the past 24 hours, with a total of 3.52 million machines infected worldwide. According to F-Secure, that 3.52 million is a conservative estimate." That's not something to joke around with, don't you think?

This new version of the digital threat has the following description (via Microsoft):

"Worm:Win32/Conficker.B is a worm that infects other computers across a network by exploiting a vulnerability in the Windows Server service (SVCHOST.EXE). If the vulnerability is successfully exploited, it could allow remote code execution when file sharing is enabled. It may also spread via removable drives and weak administrator passwords. It disables several important system services and security products."
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All right, so what can we do to stay away from it? After all, this is all that really matters - prevention is the mother of all cures, at least to myself. Installing MS08-067 seems a good idea to guard against attack from either version of the agent, provided you aren't using weak passwords. For now, the number of infected computers seems to be around 1 million...and rising!

Although Google Apps for businesses is a set of tools released almost two years ago, something kept them at a pretty low level, at least when talking about popularity with home users, as well as media coverage, and I have no idea what. Could it be the fact that Google's free apps are so great? Well, it may be possible, but - according to the search giant, "our expanded Google Apps suite is used by more than 1 million businesses, with 3,000 new companies signing up each day." Great, they just demolished all that I said... or not!


Why not? Well, it seems Google still needs help, and if we can help ourselves by helping them, that's even better! OK, that should give you a clear hint about what's next, so here's the interesting part, right from The Official Google Blog:

"Today we're excited to announce the Google Apps Authorized Reseller Program. With this release, solution providers globally can take advantage of tools that enable bundling of sales, customization and support for Google Apps Premier Edition for customers of all sizes.
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We've adapted this program to complement resellers' current business models. Authorized Resellers have the flexibility to combine their existing services with Google Apps. With cloud-based Google Apps there is no new hardware or software to maintain. The Authorized Reseller program benefits include:

• owning the customer relationship and billing structure


• providing consulting, service management and end-user support


• receiving a recurring discount on the annual Google Apps licensing fee


• receiving marketing, sales and technical training from Google

We've been fine-tuning the program for the past few months, working with more than 50 pilot resellers to make sure it's a good fit with our partners' needs. We're excited about the new opportunities that cloud computing is creating for IT solution providers, and we encourage you to visit our program site to learn more about the program and apply."

This sounds like a great challenge, so if you were worried about losing your job, or maybe you want to jump off the boat before it sinks, becoming a representative of Google and the most powerful brand in the world really sounds like a great challenge!

If you ever had the crazy idea that the underlying structure of the global finance industry uses Microsoft products as trustworthy servants, you should think again. It may be true that Microsoft's Windows is (still) a dominant operating system for home users, but Linux and open source solutions, together with various in-house solutions are powering the Wall Street every day. Now, a new open source trading software just hit the market, and it could help open source win a significant market share in this delicate industry!

According to its own developers, the Marketcetera Trading Platform, which the developers believe is the first of its kind, aims to offer a cost-effective alternative to building a custom software platform in-house.

The project has been in the making for over 2 years now, and its parents are a pair of Stanford computer scientists, namely Graham Miller and Toli Kuznets, who created this automated trading platform using Java, keeping in mind two major features: rapid deployment and ease of extension.
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The Marketcetera Trading Platform provides APIs, as well as a JRuby scripting engine, allowing complex trading strategies to be implemented by writing only a few lines of code!

Although this product just reached version 1.0, it has been available for some time already, and over 20 financial institutions adopted it so far. I don't know what do you think about this, but I strongly believe we're not facing a crisis, only the dawn of a new age, and Marketcetera Trading Platform is one of its messengers...