At first blush, Starbucks' decision to drop T-Mobile and use AT&T to provide in-store Wi-Fi access may look like just another inside-business choice. A closer look, however, shows that there are at least six ways this decision could change the way many of us are mobile.

IT gives Woolies no downtime Christmas present

Woolworths' investment in transaction processing tech has paid off for the retail chain, after it experienced a downtime-free Christmas period.

"It's the first Christmas we had that speed and that time, and the investment in state of art tech has been well worthwhile and obviously will create a platform for other transactions we have out there in the marketplace," Luscombe said, highlighting its ATMs and credit card business.

snake oil sales folks

The reality is that the internet has taken its place alongside other media, and its growth has certainly coming at the expense of those more established media. But the internet is not going to kill magazines or radio or the local daily newspaper. In so many ways, they are thriving now, despite all the grim talk, and they will continue to thrive alongside the internet even as this sorting out process continues. If anything, the internet serves to enhance what they do well. None of these media is as vulnerable as the doomsters would have us believe.

People still listen to the radio while driving, even if some drive time is spent on the phone. Newspapers are taking a huge hit in ad revenue, for sure, and readership is declining, but they still have huge local impact, and they still show yearly profits in the double digits.

Lifecycle of an E-mail Worm

Worms are famous for using characters in their process name that arent readily displayable or choosing a sound-alike name. Worms can use unprintable ASCII characters that display as spaces or create a file name with lots of blank spaces, like______________________ ______________________mutex. The displayable character portion of the name is pushed to the far right and doesnt appear in Task Managers small, left-justified window. In either case, if the user pulls up Task Manager, he or she usually wont notice a blank row in the list of running services or programs. Some worms will create new files with official-sounding names or names spelled very closely to legitimate file names, like win32.exe, winservices.com or system32.vxd. Unless youre familiar with Windows system files, you might be fooled.

The Chronicle Sports Columnist Blog

At 16, I wasn't ready for the pressure, all the journalists, the crowd, it was really hard for me. I'm much more ready for it now." Asked if people might start calling him a star, instead of a prodigy, he said, "No, no. I'm a little bit famous, but for sure I'm not a star. Not a rock star or anything." . . . Federer won't take his semifinal tomorrow for granted, having lost to Gasquet (then just 19) in Monte Carlo. Federer's opinion on the Gasquet backhand: "Fantastic." . . . How bad was the wind today? Ferrero, who lost to Federer today, said it was "the worst kind of conditions to really feel the ball. Today was almost impossible to hit the ball three times nice."

Just finished sending my column and notebook, and there's just no room in the Sporting Green to mention all the tremendous on-court moments that went down today.

State Senator Advocates EAP Israel Renewal

In spite of the State Dept.'s continuing travel warnings, students and a state senator have increased their efforts to end the University of California Education Abroad Program's five-year freeze on studies in Israel.

However, California State Senator Carole Migden (D-San Francisco) proposed a Senate Resolution on Jan.

Corzine Readies N.J. Budget Plan Replete With Cuts

TRENTON, N.J. -- Gov. Jon S. Corzine worked Monday to put the finishing touches on a budget plan that's expected to seek major cuts in state programs, with property tax rebates, state workers, state parks and welfare grants among many possible cuts.