Apparently, Microsoft is again in talks with Yahoo! once again. This ding-dong on again, off again is pretty interesting and as a web user I am waiting to see what they could come up with if this collaboration comes into fruition. Looks like with Google threatening Microsoft, they have to do something and Yahoo! is currently the best bet.

While Yahoo! rejected Microsoft bid to purchase the company in its entirety last February and Microsoft themselves are also no longer interested to purchase it, at least not at the old price they offered in view of the drastic share price drop, both Yahoo! and Microsoft do not discount the possibility that they may enter into some sort of arrangements in the near future, particularly in web search.

Personally, I hope that this collaboration, if it happens will break the monopoly that Google seems to have on the web these days. Well, as you know, the internet is so fickle, anything could happen.

Running two freebies blogs, I surf the internet extensively for the latest freebies, deals, sweepstakes, contests, samples and other goodies on a daily basis. While I know of many freebie websites, most are so cluttered that even searching for freebies that I like is a headache.

There’s one website called Thunderfap that I come across all the time. I am happy to say that they are one of the biggest websites with free-stuff and deals where requesting for them are easy. They all do not come with strings attached and do not require us to disclose our credit card information. This is very important, isn’t it?

The webmasters of Thunderfap.com check their listings thoroughly for accuracy so that requesting for freebies is a hassle-free experience for us.

I just found out this morning that PC Fair (III) in Ipoh will not be held at its usual venue at Stadium Indera Mulia, to my dismay. For as long as I could remember, PC Fair has always been held at this Stadium or Ipoh Parade. This time, they will be holding it at Dewan SJK(C) Yuk Choy, Ipoh, Perak – 195, Jalan Sultan Iskandar, 30000 Ipoh.

Gosh, although Ipoh is a small city, this new venue is still quite a distance from home. I prefer the Stadium because it is more convenient. There were times in the past when I bought something during PC Fair and had to return to the stall due to some issues so with the PC Fair so close, I could make numerous trips there over the weekend. Oh yes, PC Fair (III) in Ipoh will be held from 5th to 7th December, 2008 from 11am to 9pm.

While at first I thought that I would be skipping this PC Fair because I have nothing to buy in particular, I just recalled that I am shopping for a USB modem for my Celcom 3G. Yes, they do sell them at PC Fairs. So it looks like I can’t skip this PC Fair!

Microsoft experts have warned that they have detected a wave of attacks on Windows servers over the past couple of weeks. Although a patch has been issued, not everyone has downloaded and installed it. Microsoft, as always, advised users to get the latest security patches from their official website.

This malware has mostly attacked businesses but some home users have also reportedly been affected. It’s not clear to me how a system could be infected but this malware would contact various major websites and request for a date, after which t would generate a list of domain names and try to download malicious file onto unsuspecting computers and then totally take control of them.

I know, this sounds pretty serious but like my friend told me, if we would like to escape from all these, it’s better not to connect to the web, but what is the purpose of the internet, then?

It seems to me that there is always a form of attack by malware, virus, Trojan and what not all the time. The best thing to do is, of course, only install original software, especially for your operating system, so that you could update your security files as and when they are available.

ExtremeTech, technology experts, recently ran a battery of tests on various popular web browsers and concluded that Google Chrome is by far the fastest web browser at the moment. Not only do web pages load faster, it is also more secure and could handle flash and render videos faster than the other browsers that were tested alongside Chrome; namely Internet Explorer, Firefox and Safari.

Now that Google Chrome has been released for a couple of months already, although it is still in beta, I think it’s about time I check it out myself too. What I want is just a fast web browser with tabbed browsing and automatic refresh/reload as these are required for my work.

Even so, Chrome is only used by about an estimated 1% of web surfers, with the majority of the people using Internet Explorer and 20% using Firefox. I guess Microsoft has the biggest slice of the pie because it is pre-installed in most computer systems that run on Windows. Google plans to pre-install Chrome on computer systems beginning next year as well, that is provided that they are able to bring it out of beta by then.

It would be interesting to see really how fast Chrome is compared to what I am using right now; Maxthon, Firefox and Safari. Yes, I use three browsers at the same time. Anyway, don’t we hear everyone saying how FAST Firefox is compared to Internet Explorer? I don’t think it is fast enough especially with loading it the first time. A lot of times, Maxthon is faster. But then, maybe it’s just my computer? *shrug*