Microsoft giving tips on how to convert XP over to Windows 8...Good Luck with that!

Support for Windows XP will end in less than two months, and if you know of family members or friends who are still running the legacy operating system, Microsoft has some tips. In a recent blog post, Microsoft's Brandon LeBlanc suggested ways you can help your loved ones rid themselves of Windows XP before support officially ends on April 8, 2014. One of those ways is to upgrade their PCs to Windows 8.1.

Provided they meet the minimum system requirements -- 1GHz or faster processor, 1GB (32-bit) or 2GB (64-bit) of RAM, 16GB (32-bit) or 20GB (64-bit) of HDD space, and a DX9 or above GPU with WDDM driver -- Microsoft suggests downloading and running the Windows Upgrade Assistant on their PCs and then making the switch.

If that doesn't work out, LeBlanc's next tip is to "get a new PC," plain and simple as that.

"We hope that this end of support page for Windows XP on Windows.com and all the resources there is helpful to you and can be something you can use to help your friends and family get off Windows XP," LeBlanc states. "As we get close to April 8th, we’ll continue to publish blog posts about the latest offers on new devices and resources for to help people get off Windows XP."

In case you haven't heard, after April 8, Microsoft will no longer provide updates to Windows XP, nor will technical support be available. Though this has been know for some time, a large number of users continue to cling to the legacy OS -- Net Applications figures some 29 percent of all desktops are running XP, while Stat Counter says it's about 18 percent.

How to create a password protected folder

Under "What's New" is a link to a great article that will show you how to create a password protected folder in Windows 7.  Click here for article

Change colors of your folders

Organizing folders in Windows can be quite tricky. At most, you can rename them with custom labels, or sort the items by group, date, name or size, but there are better ways to help you distinguish one folder from another. Of course, you could change the icon of the folder, but you can’t always find one that’s suitable for a particular folder. Wouldn’t it be helpful if you could change the color of each folder too? Sadly, Windows doesn’t allow you to change the color of the default folder icon. This is where a third-party tool called Rainbow Folders comes to the rescue. This little utility offers a quick and convenient way to change the color of any folder.

Using Rainbow Folders is dead simple. After downloading its ZIP file from the link given below, extract the contents of the ZIP to your desired folder and run the setup file within. The setup will ask you if you want to integrate Rainbow Folders in the right-click context menu of folders. We’d recommend allowing it to do so. The shell extension makes the process of changing icons tenfold easier because you can instantly jump to Rainbow Folders with your desired folder selected, as shown in the screenshot below.

Rainbow Folder’s application window carries a bunch of different settings. Here, you can choose from three different icon style – namely Classical, Typical and Modern – from the drop-down menu located to the right. You can also enable ‘High contrast icons’ for a funkier look. The next step is to set the color using the Saturation and Hue sliders.

If you find a color combination that you really like, you may add it to Favorites for later use. If you’d rather not spend time finding a specific color, you can have the app set a random color for you. Users can also set a custom tooltip text for a folder.  Click here for the program.

Comcast Mail latest to get hacked....they downplay the severity

Comcast is keeping customers in the dark after an apparent hack of the company's mail servers last week.

On February 5, hacking group NullCrew FTS claimed to have gained access to 34 Comcast mail servers. The hackers exploited an unpatched vulnerability in Zimbra server software, and made off with Lightweight Directory Access Protocol passwords and MySQL credentials.

Shortly thereafter, NullCrew posted the details of its exploit on Pastebin, along with a list of the company's mail servers. An initial ZDNet story reported that the hackers posted the stolen passwords to Pastebin, but a subsequent report walks back that claim.

Even so, the exploit was made public for 24 hours before the hackers removed the Pastebin post entirely. In those 24 hours, Comcast forum users reported slowness, crashing and reliability issues, according to ZDNet.

Only after that 24-hour period did Comcast issue a response, telling Multichannel News that it was “aggressively investigating” the situation. “We take our customers’ privacy and security very seriously and we currently have no evidence to suggest any personal customer information was obtained in this incident,” Comcast said.

So what's the issue? ZDNet suggests that in those 24 hours, any malicious hacker could have used NullCrew's exploit and helped themselves to users' data. Comcast's only response so far—a canned statement to a single trade publication the following day—isn't encouraging, even though the company claims that everything's fine.

From the outside, there isn't any hard evidence that any personal data was stolen. We can only speculate based on the claims of one hacker group, but that's all the more reason for Comcast to set the record straight for its customers. Downplaying potential security breaches is never helpful to anyone.

Surprise, surprise...an emergency flash update is out

Adobe released an update for Flash Player to fix a critical remote code execution vulnerability that is actively being targeted by attackers.

The vulnerability could allow an attacker to remotely take control of an affected system, Adobe said in a security advisory published Tuesday.

The vulnerability is identified as CVE-2014-0497 on the Common Vulnerabilities and Exposures list and is classified as an integer underflow. It can be exploited to execute arbitrary code on the system.

"Adobe is aware of reports that an exploit for this vulnerability exists in the wild, and recommends users update their product installations to the latest versions.”

The company released Flash Player 12.0.0.44 for Windows and Mac and 11.2.202.336 for Linux. The Flash Player versions included in Google Chrome and Internet Explorer 10 and 11 will be automatically updated through the respective update mechanisms of those browsers.

It’s not clear where and how the exploit for this vulnerability was discovered, but the phrase “in the wild” suggests it might have been used in attacks.

In its security advisory Adobe credits Alexander Polyakov and Anton Ivanov from antivirus vendor Kaspersky Lab with reporting the vulnerability. Kaspersky Lab did not immediately respond to an inquiry seeking more information about the exploit and where it was found.

25% of Americans are still not online...

The number of Americans who connect to the Internet is growing, but one out of four are still offline, according to data released this week by the U.S. Census Bureau from its 2012 Current Population Survey.

The government report showed that in 1984, 8.2% of U.S. households had a computer, compared to 78.9% in 2012.

If Americans have a computer, they're likely to go online. The census report found that in 2012, 74.8% of U.S. households had Internet use at home, compared to 18% in 1997.

U.S. Census Bureau Current Population Survey

Ezra Gottheil, an analyst with Current Analysis, said he's not surprised at the number of Americans who don't go online to play Angry Birds, read news stories on CNN.com or watch videos about clever cats on YouTube.

"First reaction, I would have thought there would be more people online in this country. Connectivity is the new normal," Gottheil said. "But if I'd given it much thought, I think I would have come up with this kind of number. We are a very big country... Some of us are poor. Some of us are very remote, and some of us don't like new things."

Patrick Moorhead, an analyst with Moor Insights & Strategy, said the study's numbers show an interesting journey for connectivity in the U.S.

"These numbers indicate a huge growth in home computers and Internet [connectivity] since the '80s and '90s, but also show we have a ways to go," Moorhead said. "One would expect that more than 75% of American households would have Internet via phones, broadband, or dial-up, but then again, there is access at public libraries and schools."

The whole notion of younger people as computer-savvy whiz kids who have to show their parents and grandparents how to use Facebook and Twitter might not be so spot on.