I’m scared, scared to use all these free services. They close down when their providers can no longer support these services and every user is booted out of the system. We’ve had this happening to various Yahoo! properties over this past year, just to name one example.

A few days ago, I received an email notice from Microsoft that they are closing down Windows Live Spaces. It’s their blog service. Although I don’t use Windows Live Spaces, I have friends who do and I feel bad for them and I fear this will happen to some other free services that I am currently using. I may not be affected now but this malady will surely touch me soon. TOUCH WOOD!

If you have a Windows Live Spaces, you should take note of the time line:
End of September, 2010 – Migrate your blog to WordPress.com
From 4th January, 2011 – No more changes allowed, except to download your content or upgrade to WordPress.com
16th March, 2011 – Windows Live Spaces will close

Although I don’t have a Windows Live Spaces blog, I was pissed off that I was only informed of this closure ONE MONTH after the decision was made. Why is that so? is it so difficult to send an email out?

A woman in Italy by the name of Paola Letizia has made a police report that her Pet Society items, including a jacuzzi, a designer sofa, a billiards table, paintings, carpets, aquarium and mirrors have been stolen. These are all items that she has used to furnish her pet house for her virtual cat in the game, Pet Society, a Playfish game on Facebook.

The only way that someone could steal another person’s game items is by logging in to the victim’s Facebook account or hacking the email account that is linked to Facebook. Right now, Paola Letizia did not say how she suspects that her game items were stolen but this case is now being followed by Italy’s postal police.

It would be interesting to see how this case concludes. The case is not so much about stealing virtual game items but “illegal and aggravated entry” into someone’s email (or Facebook) account. This charge carries a potential prison sentence between one and five years under Italy’s criminal code.

Sex.com is probably the most controversial domain name to date. There were 12 bidders in total but at US$13 million, it was still US$1 million short of what the owners, Escom LLC, bought for in 2006.

Sex.com has a pretty interesting history. In 1995, it was stolen by conman Stephen Michael Cohen from its owner, Gary Kremen. It took Kremen five years to claim back his domain name, during the time which Cohen continued to rake in US$500K a month from advertising. Cohen fled the country but was caught and imprisoned briefly. He was also issued with a US$65 judgment.

In 2006, Escom LLC bought Sex.com from Kremen for US$14 million. In March, 2010, the company was issued an involuntary Chapter 11 petition and had to dispose of its most valuable property, albeit a virtual one. Sex.com is now owned by Clover Holdings.

I am a blogger and I write for fun. However, I have a few friends who are semi-professional and professional bloggers who take blogging very seriously because it’s their livelihood. They tell me that I must not write whatever that fancies me because these posts have no value but I should write according to internet trends.

I know what they mean but I don’t know what the trends are unless I keep an eye on Twitter, Facebook and Google Trends but I just don’t have the time that’s required to do so. No wonder my friends are in this full-time. My friends are very smart, though, as they have programs to help them streamline the work. One of the programs they use is called Keyword Spy and with it, they re able to research and track popular keywords, finding keyword and ad copy combination that would pay the highest.

My friends have urged me to use Keyword Spy but I didn’t yet because I thought that I wouldn’t use it enough to justify spending money on a keyword research program. However, now that I have found this keyword spy promo code on CouponUS.com, I may just change my mind. I’m thinking that if I could earn enough as a blogger, I too would like to turn professional!

*** This post has been sponsored.

Protesters of the 100-storey building called Warisan Merdeka or Heritage of Independence to be financed and built by government-link company Permodalan Nasional Berhad (PNB) and slated to be completed by 2020, within the enclave of Stadium Merdeka and Stadium Negara, started a Page on Facebook the day after this mega-project was proposed at the Budget 2011 announcement.

To date, it has already received more than 100,000 supporters. A friend invited me to “Like” the page as well but I did not. I am not showing if I support or don’t support the idea. There is no need to. I let my vote at the General Election speak for itself. LOL

In contrast, there are also Pages on Facebook that support this mega project that would dwarf even the Petronas Twin Towers. These Pages on Facebook have received only a small amount of supporters, probably all UMNO members.

Microsoft has announced that to day, 240 million Windows 7 licenses have been sold, one year after its launch. According to Microsoft in a blog post, Windows 7 is their fastest selling Operating System so far. As of September, 2010, Windows 7 was running on 93% of new consumer PCs and according to Net Applications, as of 1st October, 2010, Windows 7 holds over 17% global OS market share. These are impressive figures, of course.

Earlier in the year, people in the industry have predicted that Microsoft could well sell 300 million Windows 7 licenses by the end of 2010. They are closing in on that number already. Unfortunately, I am part of this statistics having just purchased a Windows 7 desktop. It has served me well, though, so no complaints.

Google shipped out another Chrome browser update to plug multiple security flaws of the browser. I would have thought that Google should have already checked for vulnerabilities first before releasing their product to the market, knowing how hackers and spoofers love taking advantage of such loopholes in browsers.

Recently, a friend told me to stop using Chrome because of its security vulnerabilities and I thought that he was just saying so because it’s a Google product. You know how some people try not to use too many Google products because of monopolization? He didn’t elaborate on the vulnerabilities though and even if he did, I would not understand him.

Anyway, I stopped using but didn’t uninstall it from my computer. Then when my computer died and I bought a replacement desktop, I remembered not to install Chrome. I think that I would not install it anytime soon. I use Firefox as my primary browser and if I need a second browser, I have Opera and Internet Explorer. Three are more than enough!