Microsoft employees: Start heading to the unemployment office

You know that the economy is really in the dump when Microsoft, the silicon giant has to lay off employees.  Not just a couple hundred but 5,000!  A pretty big chunk of people will now be standing in line at the unemployment office very soon.  It really is sad how many people are losing their jobs while CEO’s continue to rake in millions upon millions.  (That covers a whole laundry list of companies and organizations.)  Click through to read Steve’s memo to his beloved employees.

Full qwerty keyboard in portrait mode coming to the Storm!

The newest Blackberry Storm OS 4.7.0.90 includes one feature that users have been asking for since day one: a full qwerty keyboard in portrait mode!  Besides the keyboard update, a few other issues such as bumping the phone turns on the backlight has been fixed as to not kill your battery quite as fast as well as a few visual inhancements.  Stability (music/video player not included) also seems to have been improved.  All in all, a good update from RIM.
Source: Engadget

Working in the White House is like working in the 1960′s

Throughout Obama’s campaign, he and his supporters used technology extensively in their promotions, everything from email, social networking sites such as Facebook, to SMS/text messages.  They are by far the biggest user of technology ever in a presidential election.  So  you can understand their complete and utter shock when they realized just how low tech and outdated the White House really is. 

Uh-Oh: Secure your digital wallets!

Kaspersky Labs has detected a new mobile virus that infects the symbian mobile operating system on an Indonesian mobile carrier.  The virus, a trojan, is written in a script language called python and sends SMS messages to people with a short number and instructions to transfer money from one of your accounts to the criminals accounts.  There are five known different types of the Trojan-SMS.Python.Flocker floating around, from .ab to.af.  The amounts transferred range between $0.45 and $0.95.  I don’t know if thats a typo but that seems kind of low.  Until now, Russia has been the only place where mobile viruses have been appearing.  This new development shows that mobile viruses are starting to spread and that manufacturers and mobile OS developers need to collectively step up their security in order to stay one step ahead of thieves.

Source: SlashPhone, Kaspersky

What a boat load of Windows 7 tips and information?

Windows 7 is quickly surpassing Vista’s popularity (or lack thereof) and becoming the most talked about thing from Microsoft.  It’s hard not too.  On the outside, the new start bar changes an iconic navigation method that hasn’t changed in over a decade!  Microsoft who has been losing market share slowly but steadily isn’t taking this lying down and everything from the look, to the way it operates, Windows 7 is proving to be what Vista wasn’t: A new page for Microsoft.  So you downloaded Windows 7 and you want to know all of the ins and outs?  Gizmodo has put together a monster reference section with articles on everything you could imagine for Windows 7.  Head on over and start reading!

Source: Gizmodo

Everybody loves Windows 7

When the founder of one of the worlds largest growing open source operating systems compliments Windows 7 and basically praises it, you know the world is soon coming to an end.  Mark Shuttleworth, the founder and head MF of Ubuntu recently had many positive things to say about Redmond’s latest and greatest.  Increased competition was one of the statements that was uttered from his mouth.  With Windows 7 coming, Shuttleworth mentioned that Microsoft would be faced to raise the price OEM’s pay for 7 as opposed to their almost free giveaways of XP.  Once the price goes up, will more defect to Ubuntu?  Guess we’ll have to wait and see.

Source: Crunch Gear, The Register

Stock Android theme too common for you? Try the Ghost Black theme.

While Android and Mobile OS X look amazing straight from the factory, it’s always nice to be able to customize your gadgets.  Themes (skins) make your gadget a little more personal and allows your to stand out from the crowd.  Themes are the often overlooked part of mobile devices that can really add to the usability and appeal.  Todays platform of interest is Android.  While everyone else’s G1 looks the same, you can walk around and show off “Ghost Black”.  It is a wicked cool theme created by “toxtrepla” from xda-developers.com.  The theme is a beta so glitches and bugs are to be expected so apply the theme with caution.  To apply the theme, put the theme on the root of your SD card, rename it to “update.zip”, reboot into recovery mode, and apply the update.  Click through for more pictures of the theme in action.