NOTED

My God, even Firefox isn't safe!

Open source means you can fix it yourself, if you like

No program is perfect, but bugs in open source software are less of a problem, says technology analyst Bill Thompson.

The Firefox open source browser is full of bugs, some of which are rather serious. In March Danish security firm Secunia reported that it had found eight. Some could be used to trick users into giving away confidential information. Others could let hackers get access to people's computers.
Every few days there are new ones.

Check it out...

Volkswagen is really macking great cars...maybe Ford and GM should try to emulate them...

olkswagen, Europe's largest carmaker, said yesterday that its first-quarter profit almost tripled, ending two years of declines, on cost cuts and increased sales of Audis.

The company reiterated that its full-year profit would rise. Net income rose to 70 million euros ($92 million) from 26 million euros, Volkswagen said in a statement to the Frankfurt stock exchange. Profit beat the median estimate of 57 million euros of eight analysts surveyed by Bloomberg News.

Sales fell 2.4 percent, to 21.1 billion euros.

"As expected, the most important automotive markets experienced a relatively difficult start to 2005," the company said in the statement. "We believe that price pressure will continue unabated."

Patrick Juchemich, an analyst at Sal. Oppenheim in Frankfurt, commented, "This will bring a bit of relief to shareholders who have feared that the situation would get worse." Mr. Juchemich, who has a neutral rating on the stock, added, "The outlook is at least realistic that pricing pressure isn't going away."

Bernd Pischetsrieder, Volkswagen's chief executive, plans to cut 3.1 billion euros in costs this year and has frozen wages in Germany to stem the earnings slide. The Western European market, where the company gets more than half its sales, shrank 2.5 percent in the first quarter, while rebates in the United States and competition in China are putting pressure on profit.

In case you want to see some pretty Russian swindlers....

See them here...

Here's a sample:

Alexandrova, Tania - Magadan, Russia

Phone: no phone
Address: City of Magadan proletarskya,3-15 Russia

Details: Prewritten letters; requests money for visa and tickets.

First reported: Bob

Alexeenko Irina - Samara Russia

Email: lastochka1976@pochtamt.ru
Address: 40b Lebedeva Street, Apt. #4, Samara, Russia

Details: She initiates contact, requests money for visa/passport/airline tickets. Then she asks for more money to be put in an account as proof for the INS that she can support herself.

First reported: Dave.S

Altybaeva, Dinara - Tashkent, Uzbekistan

Phone: 99871-1253103

Email: dinaria_velvet@mail.ru

Address: N/A

Details: Found on Absolute Agency. Typical visa/ticket fraud. Wants you to send money
to come to America. Has friend in Travel Agency with connections to get visas to UK or USA. Sends lots of photos with each email. Then some sexy pics to entice you. Doesn't want you to come to her city. Says meeting weill be "impossible". Only meeting in your country will be ok.

Absolute Agency doesn'ty care. They have many scammers in their site.

First reported: Brian