Predictions for 2004 and beyond:

- Companies will continue to move jobs overseas, but will soon discover that it is more difficult then they thought. They will also discover that they are not saving them the money that they hoped. Overseas workers will continued to be dissatisfied with their new working conditions. The U.S. government will also step in to slowdown the mass migration of jobs for two reasons: one, loss tax revenues; two, jobs and skill are being lost.

- Web services, and utility computing will no longer be considered the 'hot' technologies. These technologies will also continue to advance and improve, but they won't get the headlines that they once had.

- Grid computing services will be included in every OS platform, from Linux to Windows. It probably won't be big selling point, but it will be available for companies and individuals to use it.

- The SCO vs. Linux lawsuits will fail.

- PeopleSoft vs. Oracle hostile takeover bid will never happen.

- The RIAA lawsuits will continue slow P2P file-sharing, but in the long run they hurt the RIAA in the process. The RIAA will not stop file-sharing, all they will do is force the file-sharers underground.

- Music downloading services will have to continue to evolve to meet their customer's needs. For example, the digital rights management will have to be more liberal in how the customer's can play the music, and back it up.

- Linux (and other OSes) will continue to erode Microsoft's market-share. Microsoft will adapt itself and it's products to the new market structure.

- Blade servers, terminal services and server/storage virtualization will be hot data technologies. As these technologies penetrate deeper and deeper into the Enterprise, more monitoring/management/reporting tools will be necessary.

- Companies will be consolidating their workstation with terminals services, and will be locking down their workstation configurations. This will accelerate over the next several years to low the companies TCO.

- IPv6 will start to be implemented in countries like Asia, and will spread to Europe and finally the Americas. The growth will be caused by the the growing number of TCP/IP addresses needed to support all the new devices being created.

- Video stores and production companies will soon be phasing out their VHS collections, forcing consumers to the DVD format.

- PVRs, DVD recorders will be the hot items over the next few christmas increasing their market penetration. Tivo will continue to dominate the market, but there will be a lot of competition that will give them a run for their money.

- HDTVs monitors and receivers will also start taking off as soon as the satellite and cable companies start pushing this technology more and more. This will force the PVRs and DVD records to start being able to support these new formats as well.

- HotSpots will really never take off like a great deal of companies are expecting, most of these companies will only see moderate revenue generation from this technology.

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Interesting Links
PRBop
News of the weird and interesting...

Real-Life-Debt.com
Are you having problems paying off your credit cards, or on the verge of a bankruptcy. Check out this site it has several different tools that may help you. (Note: This is not an advertisement, or an endorsement of this site)

Where's George?
Find out where the money your pocket has been, with Where's George. All you have to do is enter the denomination, series, and serial number of any US dollar bill, and your current USA ZIP Code. If the bill as been entered into this database before, you will get back a list of all the cities/states where that it has been, as well as travel time, distance and speed at which it travelled!

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Patch Your System Right Now

If your running Windows NT, 2000, XP, and 2003 and/or Internet Explorer 5.x or greater, you need to install the following patches right now. These patches will protect your system from several different types of attacks that are being developed right now.

- MS04-004 (Cumulative Security Update for Internet Explorer)
- MS04-007 (ASN.1 Vulnerability Could Allow Code Execution )

Remember - To protect yourself do the following:
- Goto WindowsUpdate and install all the latest patch it recommends for your system.
- Regularly Update your Anti-Virus software.
- If you don't have any anti-virus software download Avast's free home version
- Make sure your firewall is turned on, and is active.
- If you don't have any firewall software download ZoneAlarm's free home version
- Don't download any file from a web site that you don't know or trust.
- Don't open file attachments in your email.
- Regularly Backup your data.

If you follow the advice above, you can protect yourself from the majority of malicious attacks.

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Windows Security Update CD

This CD includes Microsoft critical updates released through October 2003 and information to help you protect your PC. In addition, you will also receive free anti-virus and firewall trial software.

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