I figured the whole "Windows-7-ate-my-RAM!"-thing would be one-item only, but apparently, it won't be. Over the weekend, the situation got a lot murkier. As it turns out, Craig Barth, the supposed CTO of Devil Mountain Software, was actually an InfoWorld blogger/editor - who has been fired from InfoWorld over all this. Someone on the web who isn't who he claims to be? Surely you jest! Update: Ars' Peter Bright has published an article about this as well.

Discovered by Czech researchers, the Chuck Norris botnet has been spreading by taking advantage of poorly configured routers and DSL modems. The malware got the Chuck Norris moniker from a programmer's Italian comment in its source code: 'in nome di Chuck Norris', which means 'in the name of Chuck Norris'. Chuck Norris is unusual in that it infects DSL modems and routers rather than PCs. It installs itself on routers and modems by guessing default administrative passwords and taking advantage of the fact that many devices are configured to allow remote access. They're behind the times, though. It should've been the Epic Beard Man Botnet. Move over, Chuck.

"People confused and frustrated by computers can now turn to a laptop called Alex built just for them. Based on Linux, the laptop comes with simplified e-mail, web browsing, image editing and office software. Those who sign up for Alex pay GBP 39.95 a month for telephone support, software updates and broadband access. Its creators hope the laptop and its simple suite of software proves to be a popular alternative to the Windows and Mac operating systems."

While it's been a low-level grumbling for years, the issue of Flash on mobile devices (and particularly the iPhone/Touch/iPad ecosystem) has reached fever pitch over the past few weeks, with Steve Jobs as self-appointed Flash basher-in-Chief. The OSNews crowd, that is, dyed-in-the-wool technologists have, by and large, not been big fans of Flash, with its spotty availability and performance on alternative platforms, resource hogging, and instability. And though it's quite useful for web video and other specialized interfaces, it drives the tech savvy crazy when it's used for utterly superfluous multimedia bling. So we've had a lively discussion of the pros and cons of Flash, and whether device users should be free to make their own decision about whether it's worthy to install on their iPads. But we're leaving out an important detail. As Daniel Eran Dilger, a Flash developer, points out, almost all the important existing Flash infrastructure won't work anyway. Update: A worthwhile rebuttal to this point of view.

It must suck to be a Windows developer. So you already have an entire legion of misguided folk hating your work for no reason (on top of the people hating your work for legitimate reasons), and then a company comes along spreading clear misinformation about Windows' memory usage, based on that company's performance monitoring software. To make matters worse, when said company is called out on its errors, it decides to publish the usage information of an Ars Technica editor's computer. As such, it is advisable to uninstall the software in question.

In case you've been living under a rock: Apple isn't particularly keen on Flash. They can't control it, and the company claims it's the number one cause of crashes on Mac OS X. Now that Steve Jobs is busy promoting the iPad to content providers, he's also on the offensive against Flash.

OSNews recently linked to several articles on the two remaining big iron RISC based platforms still alive and kicking, something of great interest to myself both in a professional capacity and for personal reasons (I wouldn't be an avid OSNews reader and poster if I wasn't into non mainstream architectures).

BBC News reports that the US and European regulators (yes, the same EC that slapped MS with a EUR900M fine) have approved the deal that will see Microsoft control Yahoo's search and advertising business. This will mean that one of the first, great search engines (there was a time before Google) will now be powered by johnny-come-lately Bing.

With the flood of ARM-based netbooks and tablets upon us (keep watch outside, the flood can come any day now, promise!), Linux distributions are trying to be ready for The Great Coming of ARM. A problem with ARM hardware, according to Jamie Bennett, an Ubuntu Mobile Developer working for Canonical, is that many 3D drivers are non-Free; this poses problems for Ubuntu's Netbook Remix UI.

IPfaces is a client-server framework for iPhone (and presumably other platforms soon) that enables developers to create a server-side app using their familiar tools then connect to a generic client that's already downloadable in the App Store. It's dual license, with a GPL Open Source version for free projects and a commercial version for for-profit apps. Unlike other frameworks that allow you to create an iPhone app using non Objective-C tools, this one gives you a real client, not just a wrapper for a web app.

"Today's smartphones are too much of a handful, according to Israeli company Else: You either need to grab them with both hands and punch away at the keyboard with your thumbs, or you hold them with one hand and touch the screen with the other. However, Else's Intuition software platform makes it possible to access all the functions, contacts and data in a phone with just one hand." The company's entire website is done in Flash. I'm not kidding.

The SIM cards in cellular telephones might be smaller than a postage stamp and less than a millimeter thick but that hasn't stopped South Korea's SK Telecom from cramming all the major components needed to run Google's Android OS inside one of them.

Recently, a story about people mistaking a news story for the Facebook login page has received considerable media attention. It's currently being seen by many as justification for the recent trend in locking people out of their computers for their own protection - but anyone with even basic mathematical skills and a calculator should come to the conclusion that this story has been blown way out of proportion.

"Enterprise stalwart Research In Motion showed off its new faster, smoother, all-round better WebKit-powered browser today at Mobile World Congress. RIM's BlackBerry has long been popular with corporate customers; with the new browser, the company wants to broaden the device's appeal to attract more non-business users to the platform."