Stories by: Computerworld Staff

Microsoft's Windows OS last month took its biggest market share dive in the last two years, an Internet measurement company reported Monday, erasing gains made in two of the last three months and sending the operating system's share under 90% for the first time.

The holidays can be stressful even in the best of times, but this year's dismal economic climate is bringing new headaches. Not only do we have to grapple with the usual questions about what to buy for whom ("Should I get an iPod case for Aunt Mabel? Wait, no, I got her one last year..."), we also have to look for ways to cut expenses.

A lot of solid-state disk (SSD) drive reviews and features have been circulating around the Internet lately, and I've noticed that the speeds of those products are increasing remarkably, even as manufacturers use more multilevel cell (MLC) NAND flash memory in their products, which is innately slower than single-level cell (SLC) NAND.

The federal government published this week submissions it had invited from industry players, public interest groups and concerned individuals on regulatory issues associated with the National Broadband Network process. The government received no less than 80 submissions from a broad range of participants including major telco providers, ISPs, disability access groups, telecommunications consumer and industry groups, telco experts, academics and individuals. Computerworld explored each submission and here we provide you with the key points outlined in each proposal. In most cases, the views are lifted verbatim from the submission.

Social networking is no longer the Next Big Thing; it's now as much part of our Web experience as search engines. Previously considered the province of kids who wanted to keep up with class gossip, social networking services are being co-opted by grownups who are examining ways to use them both within and outside of their places of employment.

Denial of service attacks, viruses, spyware and phishing schemes may be the best-known corporate security threats, but vendors are pushing products designed to address "content security" holes.

Courtesy of Mac Rumours comes this memo from Steve Jobs on FairPlay, the Digital Rights Management (DRM) anti-piracy technology with which Apple encodes downloaded music. DRM limits where and how digital music can be played.

Do bloggers matter? Yes, a new study suggests bloggers really can be influential regarding buying decisions and reputation (which explains why PR professionals have started targeting bloggers with their pitches).

The Cool Stuff Holiday Gift Guide is back, with tips for the very best gifts to buy for the tech lovers in your life. This year, be the one whose gifts are the biggest hits.

New Zealand lawyer Peter Dengate Thrush was elected chairman of the Internet Corporation of Assigned Names and numbers (ICANN), the body that regulates the technical structure of the internet, last week.

At Computerworld's Storage Networking World conference in the US, Frank Abagnale gave a keynote presentation on his life as an imposter and fraudster, a story that was told in the book and subsequent Steven Spielberg movie, Catch Me If You Can. Prior to his presentation, Abagnale spoke with Computerworld about ethics, computer crime and security risks faced by IT professionals.