A 9-year-old boy - Microsoft Certificated Professional

Marko Calasan, a 9 year-old boy from Skopje, Macedonia holds four Microsoft IT certifications (MCP, MCDST, MCSA and MCSE) and has already decided the next certification he will add to his ever-growing resume. He wants to become a "Microsoft Certified Trainer" to share my knowledge with others. Calasan will celebrate his 10th birthday this July.
Isn't that impressive? What do you think?

Microsoft - 17 Years Later

A 17-year-old bug in Windows will be patched by Microsoft in its latest security update.
First appearing in Windows NT 3.1, the vulnerability has been carried over into almost every version of Windows that has appeared since.
The ancient bug was discovered by Google security researcher Tavis Ormandy in January 2010 and involves a utility that allows newer versions of Windows to run very old programs.
The patch for this vulnerability will appear in the February security update. Five of the vulnerabilities being patched at the same time allow attackers to effectively hijack a Windows PC and run their own programs on it.
There are days like this, when I wonder I am still using Windows...

[source:bbc.co.uk]

Microsoft Word and Office banned

Microsoft Word and Office will be banned from sale starting January 11th, 2010. Microsoft lost a patent infringement suit against XML specialists i4i back in May 2009 when it was found that Word's handling of .xml, .docx, and .docm files infringed upon i4i's patented XML handling algorithms. Existing Office users should also be fine, as only future sales of Word are affected by the ruling, not any already-sold products.
Microsoft replied they will removed the XML algorithm by January 11 and will replace it with their own implementation.
I expect there will be some issues with the product as the code was implemented in the last minute and probably not well tested. I don't think I will upgrade for awhile.