11 year old Brendan spent over ?1000, unnoticed my his mother, who blames not having online banking and being busy dealing with letters about bouncing direct debits for not realising what what happening with her account. It wasn?t until she contacted the bank due to her card being declined that it came to light Brendan had cleared her out.

Neither Microsoft or Barclays accept liability over the amount paid out on costumes, weapons and games by the youngster, and his mother plans to seek legal advice.

Each of the RIR?s will receive an equal share of the 5 remaining/ 8 networks. Stricter rules are anticipated with reduced ranges available to ISPs, and some held in reserve as networks are given time to test and ready themselves for a full IPv6 rollout.

23 million downloads is pretty impressive and accounts for 0.5% of ALL users worldwide ? pretty impressive for a beta product.

Go grab a copy ? but make sure your AV software is up to date and your IT support contract is paid up!

As Windows 7 and Windows Server 2008 R2 share much of the same codebase (on x64 versions in particular) the service pack applies to both operating systems. There are features and fixes though that are specific to each operating system..

Headline Windows 7 related changes..

• Federation services improvement ? namely those supporting WS-federation passive profile protocol.
• Improved HDMI and audio performance ? general issues related to performance now fixed.
• Printing Behaviour ? specifically XPS documents

Headline Windows Server 2008 R2 related changes..

• Dynamic Memory ? HYPERV related improvement allowing more effective use of memory between Virtual machines. Memory can be pooled and dynamically applied to VMs as required without any service interruption. This new feature allows around 20 – 25% more consolidation of VM?s due to the memory enhancements (assuming the rest of your resource can cope).
• Remote FX ? This is a new set of user experience capabilities allowing for an improved and more media rich user experience through remote and session applications. Remote FX can be delivered through a number of thin and thick clients, things like Silverlight and flash can be delivered much better using this new technology. Remote FX also adds USB support for mainstream items like drives, cameras and PDA?s.
• Direct Access ? This isn?t a new feature as it was already included in Windows 2008 but a number of improvements have been made that make the technology a little more scalable.

There?s much more of course but I?d be blogging all day so I?ll leave it there, you get the idea. Anyway, with Service Pack 2 already underway (currently at over 100 updates post SP1).. by the time i finish we?ll be looking at the next service pack.

The method was extremely long winded, needed some work and allot of manual intervention. But now a proof of concept tool has emerged that completes the process with no need for any manual intervention. Quick work.

A  virul of the tool at work has been posted on the web. Written by a ?white hat? dev, the app is called "FreeMarketplace". It performs the original steps outlined in the white paper:

1. Downloading the entire marketplace using a C# code snippet that was provided
2. Circumventing the maximum application sideload limit, which was originally outlined on WithinWindows
3. Enabling deployment of the disabled XAP files by deleting a file header inside the XAP "Zip" itself
4. Activating the disabled marketplace XAP by replacing an entry assemly (the example used an open source app which had the debug assembly freely available
5. Removing the XAP’s security signatures
6. Replacing the marketplace published entry assembly with a facade debug assembly

The breach has been reported to Microsoft, who are working to address the issue. There are no further details about how the hack works or how it was built so quickly.

This latest rumour coincides with one that smaller updates could be announced at CES in Jan. Mary Jo Foley has indicated that the Mango update will be much larger than those of Jan/Feb. It will be like WP7.5 and therefore is likely to bring new functionality. Silverlight and HTML 5 support is expected to be added.

All these rumours of updates indicate that Microsoft is pulling out all the stops to keep WP7 current and competitive. It doesn?t look like they?ll let this OS go stale as has happened in the past.

The New York Times has reported that Ballmer will show off several devices made by Dell, Samsung and several other manufacturers. But the most intriguing rumour is in regards to a new layered interface for Windows 7. An insider said the following: "people familiar with this device said it will run the Windows 7 operating system when in landscape mode, but will also have a layered interface that will appear when the keyboard is hidden and the device is held in a portrait mode. "

The rumoured Samsung device is said to be the size of the iPad but not as thin as it will have a unique slide out keyboard. This will contrast the iPad that only has a virtual keyboard.

There is also mention of Steve Ballmer Will be showing off Windows 8. But no hints have been made as to what we may see from W8 if it is shown off. So, the rumour mill has aimed high for Microsoft, let see if they can live up to it.

Satscounter.com has reported that Windows 7 have broken through the 25% market share barrier. But XP dropped down to 50%, showing it is slowly on the decline.

In October Windows 7 reached the ripe old age of 1, with it?s total number of licenses sold at over 240 million and an estimated 300 million to be sold by the end of the year. W7 surpassed Apple?s Snow Leopard market share in just two weeks back in November 2009.

The first W7 service pack is just around the corner, so there still allot of momentum behind the OS. Once that hits there may well be an acceleration in the adoption rate. And with the Christmas consumer rush underway, many users will be upgrading their machines for a W7 PC. 97% of all new PCs will come with Windows 7 pre-installed.

It?s thought that XP will be surpassed by Windows 7 at around this time next year given their current projected paths. In October Microsoft announced a customer satisfaction rate of 94%, and that 88% of businesses moving to W7 in early 2011.

Reports from xdadeveloper users claim that devices that have been unlocked with the ChevronWP7 had been re-locking themselves. Users were also seeing a message which read: ”[application name] has been revoked by Microsoft. Please uninstall it.”

But CheveronWP7 co-creator Rafael Rivera dismissed these claims in a blog post hours after the first reports emerged. He explained that the re-lock was a result of the way ChevronWP7 used a certificate on the phone to trick it into thinking it was a developers device:

”The phone is reverting back as a result of a periodic check. Simply put, the phone rings Microsoft and asks ?Hey, am I supposed to be unlocked??. If Microsoft responds with a ?No, what are you thinking??, the phone apologizes and initiates a lock down,”

If an unsigned app is running when the check occurs, you get the error message asking you to uninstall. The unsigned apps however do not need to be removed from a phone that re-locked. He went onto say that the ChevronWP7 team was aware of that there was a check-in period of about 2 weeks, but hadn?t look into it.

The ChevronWP7 team had been contacted earlier in the month but Microsoft who wanted them to create an ”official” Windows Phone homebrew scene. Which resulted in the discontinuation of the ChevronWP7 tool, but a few hours later users had discovered a way to reactivate the tool. Since then a few homebrew apps have appeared.