Spam Took A Holiday But Did Anyone Notice?

Riva Richmond of the NYTimes Bits Blog declared yesterday that "Spam Is Back". It seems that a spam network of malware-infected personal computers known as Rustock, and believed to be linked to Russian based criminals, stopped sending spam on Christmas Eve. but resumed activities on January 9th at about 7:00 p.m. EST.


Symantec says that the activity is mostly of the pharmaceutical variety promoting an online service called Pharmacy Express. Monday, Rustock was estimated to have sent 19 billion messages representing about 28% of all spam on the internet.


The reason for the quiet Christmas break is a mystery but Matt Sergeant, senior anti-spam technologist for MessageLabs (Symantec) says  “My guess would simply be Christmas vacation,” and “Perhaps they went somewhere to spend some time on a beach and decided to shut things down for a while.”


I currently leave have 3 main e-mail addresses, 2 of which are gmail accounts and the 3rd I use very carefully. As a result, I rarely see any spam get through. Google does a great job of catching spam to it's gmail service and so I didn't notice any change in my inbox. You?

Taking Android Fandom To A New Level

If you are an Android fan you've probably come to love the little green robot that is the face of the Google Android OS. If you are an Android fan with some DIY skills and some time and materials on your hands you build yourself an Android shaped beer cooler! I commend dacavy75 for his Android building skills and thank him for sharing the process with the world via YouTube. Are you taking orders?

Job well done, you are my hero!

cnet's Best of CES 2011

If you were unable to attend the Consumer and Electronics Show (CES) this year, be sure to check out cnet's best of show video to see their top picks in a number of categories such as prototypes, auto, gaming, home theater, PCs and Laptops, etc. Hosted by Molly Wood and Brian Cooley, and presented by Natalie (Delconte) Morris. Be sure to watch for the prototypes and do a little google searching for the products... very cool stuff.

Oh!, and they have tablets too.

Samsung's Connected Refrigerator On Display At CES

Mashable has found one of those connected devices that I was hoping to see mentioned in the CES reporting, in this case it's a Wi-Fi enabled refrigerator from Samsung. The options discussed, while they do have some neat factor, are missing the Wow factor for me. It just seems like a lot of computing power and bandwidth usage to leave a note or search for a recipe. I do like shiny new technology but I'm not sure they've convinced me that the additional cost here is going to want me to replace my fridge magnet. You be the judge: