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Last week I talked about the SirCam virus warning my dad sent me. Hours after penning that item, the virus attacks began in earnest. As a press guy, I'm in lots of address books, so everyone and his mother (not my mother, fortunately) sent me this virus. PR people I've never even met, of course, were kind enough to whip out a message containing the fatal SirCam attachment.

Long ago I trained myself not to open e-mail attachments. But these toxic attachments are oddly tempting, the same way a cliff invites you to leap or a lake invites you to drop your cherished pocket knife. While restraint keeps most of us safe, there are those who cannot resist. I had a boss one time, who, despite his years in the computer business, just had to find out who it was that loved him. IT spent all morning cleaning up that mess.

So it is no surprise really that SirCam, which is activated by clicking on an e-mail attachment, continues to spread. And it is not just thousands of PCs that were hosed by this beast (including the FBI's National Infrastructure Protection Program). Because the worm spreads via e-mail address books, the sheer amount of traffic continues to plague certain networks.

You Will Upgrade

Every year or two Microsoft develops a new operating system and then spends millions trying to convince us all to upgrade. Of course most upgrades that originate in Redmond blow up our machines somehow, leading to the golden rule regarding Microsoft operating systems: The easiest way to upgrade is to buy a new machine.

Now Microsoft is trying to convince consumers to move from the hideously unstable Windows 95/98/ME to the Win2000-based XP. Apparently if I give 100 clams or so to Microsoft for the upgrade, my machine will stop crashing. Microsoft is also trying to convince corporations, which are struggling to move to NT and Win/2000, to now move on to XP. The argument is that XP is more secure and stable than Windows 2000 (hey, wasn't Win2000 supposed to be nearly crash-proof?), and that users can access their PCs remotely (sounds like PCAnywhere), and that it supports wireless connectivity.

I have to admit I am a bit confused by Microsoft's OS strategy. The .NET initiative proposes that apps be distributed via the Web and Internet standards. At the same time, Microsoft is pushing the old-fashioned notion that the PC operating system is of fundamental importance and should always be upgraded to the biggest, baddest, and most functional release. So which is it?

Is AOL the Real Power?

It is thoroughly amazing how quickly power shifts occur in this industry. You don't believe me? Just look at how fast AT&T, Nortel, and Lucent have fallen. The ever-paranoid Microsoft must have noticed this as well, and is now rightfully terrified of AOL -- after all, it was AOL that proved the Internet interface was even more important than the PC operating system. And now AOL has content and millions of broadband customers, thanks to Time Warner.

Recently, AOL has made a few strategic moves. For one, it is building a Web identity service to match Microsoft's Passport. For another, it is rumored to be interested in AT&T's broadband division, and Microsoft is already angling to stop any plans AOL has to move in that direction.

Perhaps the biggest move of all is that Compaq agreed to give AOL a prime spot on its desktop interface, something Microsoft contracts used to prohibit. This may seem like a little thing, but it could, in fact, signal a major power shift. If PCs start pushing AOL, Microsoft may never get its on-line act truly together.

I have my own theory as to why Compaq went with AOL. For years, Intel and Microsoft told PC manufacturers exactly how to build their PCs. If you didn't install enough RAM or have the right sound card or port, you just didn't get the Wintel seal of approval. This is mighty insulting to creative hardware engineers, hoping to innovate. Now that the contracts between Microsoft and hardware manufacturers have changed, it's payback time!