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It is truly the OS that will not die: No matter what you think about Windows XP’s successors, the Little OS That Could has reportedly been given yet another reprieve from the high-tech dustbin. AppleInsider claims that Microsoft has agreed to another extension on sales of Windows XP, at least for Hewlett-Packard, the largest manufacturer of Windows-based PCs in the country. The new extension "assuming the report is accurate" allows sales of XP bundled with new PCs through April 30, 2010, allowing HP an extra nine months of sales.

The news puts all parties — HP, Microsoft, and consumers — in a strange situation, as Microsoft formally retired XP from shrinkwrapped sales long ago (in June 2008). More importantly, on April 14 of this year, Microsoft will end standard technical support for XP, too.

So-called extended support will be offered for XP for five more years (through April 8, 2014), which means the OS will still receive security patches and critical fixes, but the software will no longer receive feature upgrades after April 14, barely a week from now. More critically, customers will not receive any free tech support from Microsoft (though paid plans will still be available) and the company will not honor any warranty claims for XP, either.

Via Yahoo News

If you’re backing up anything — whether you’re copying to an external hard drive, optical disc, or over the web — you’re ahead of the game, but for most people, backing up their files usually amounts to making a copy of the My Documents folder and calling it quits.

But there’s lots more you can — and should — back up than just your documents, pictures, and music. And today Killer Tech Tips offers suggestions on how to improve the comprehensiveness of your backup by showing you six things you probably never thought about backing up before — and how to get the job done painlessly.

Some highlights:

> Your webmail - Readers regularly ask me how to back up their webmail account and I normally tell them to use a POP client (like Outlook or Thunderbird) to download their mail to their local computer, leaving a copy on the web. Boom, instant backup. If you have Gmail there’s an easier way if you use this utility: Gmail Backup. Yahoo! Mail users may also try YPOPs! to do a similar thing, though I have never tried it.

> Your cell phone - Losing a cell phone often means a massive headache of recreating your contacts, calendar items, and other information from scratch. Nokia users can follow this backup guide, and I know similar tools exist for other model cell phones (do a little searching based on your phone’s manufacturer and "backup"). I’ll also add that numerous SIM card readers are available on the market which are designed specifically to let you backup your cell phone data with the push of a button. (They’re widely available online; here’s a good example.)

> Your drivers - If you’ve ever had to reinstall Windows from a Microsoft CD, you know what a pain it can be to find all the drivers you need to keep your computer running. The easier way: Back up the drivers before you reinstall with DriverMax.

> Your bookmarks - You can use an automatic bookmark syncing tool like Xmarks, or back them up by hand periodically. (In Firefox, go to Bookmarks > Organize Bookmarks > Import and Backup. In IE, File > Import and Export > Export to a file > Favorites.)

I’ll also add: Don’t forget to backup any email you store locally on your PC, no matter what provider it’s from. A lot of people think just backing up the My Documents folder will also save their email, but that’s not the case.

Check out the full backup story here!

Via Yahoo Tech!

Web 2.0 is dominated by blogs, social networks, micro blogging, online video, photo storage and so on.

Tomorrow April 1, is D-Day for Conficker, as whatever nasty payload it’s packing is currently set to activate. What happens come midnight is a mystery: Will it turn the millions of infected computers into spam-sending zombie robots? Or will it start capturing everything you type — passwords, credit card numbers, etc. — and send that information back to its masters?

No one knows, but we’ll probably find out soon.

Or not. As Slate notes, Conficker is scheduled to go "live" on April 1, but whoever’s controlling it could choose not to wreak havoc but instead do absolutely nothing, waiting for a time when there’s less heat. They can do this because the way Conficker is designed is extremely clever: Rather than containing a list of specific, static instructions, Conficker reaches out to the web to receive updated marching orders via a huge list of websites it creates. Conficker.C — the latest bad boy — will start checking 50,000 different semi-randomly-generated sites a day looking for instructions, so there’s no way to shut down all of them. If just one of those sites goes live with legitimate instructions, Conficker keeps on trucking.

Conficker’s a nasty little worm that takes serious efforts to bypass your security defenses, but you aren’t without some tools in your arsenal to protect yourself.

Your first step should be the tools you already have: Windows Update, to make sure your computer is fully patched, and your current antivirus software, to make sure anything that slips through the cracks is caught.

But if Conficker’s already on your machine, it may bypass certain subsystems and updating Windows and your antivirus at this point may not work. If you are worried about anything being amiss — try booting into Safe Mode, which Conficker prevents, to check — you should run a specialized tool to get rid of Conficker.

Microsoft offers a web-based scanner (note that some users have reported it crashed their machines; I had no trouble with it), so you might try one of these downloadable options instead: Symantec’s Conficker (aka Downadup) tool, Trend Micro’s Cleanup Engine, or Malwarebytes. Conficker may prevent your machine from accessing any of these websites, so you may have to download these tools from a known non-infected computer if you need them. Follow the instructions given on each site to run them successfully. (Also note: None of these tools should harm your computer if you don’t have Conficker.)

As a final safety note, all users — whether they’re worried about an infection or know for sure they’re clean — are also wise to make a full data backup today.

What won’t work? Turning your PC off tonight and back on on April 2 will not protect you from the worm (sorry to the dozens of people who wrote me asking if this would do the trick). Changing the date on your PC will likely have no helpful effect, either. And yes, Macs are immune this time out.

Via Yahoo

View the BMW Z4 Roadster from every angle in all paint finishes and with all wheels.

The BMW Z4 is a rear-wheel drive sports car by the German automaker BMW. Replacing the Z3, first-generation production started in 2002 at BMW’s Spartanburg, South Carolina plant, with both roadster and coupe forms produced. Starting with the 2009 model year, the second-generation Z4 is built at BMW’s Regensburg, Germany plant as a retractable hardtop roadster.

The most powerful car of the Z4 line-up is the Z4 M. It features a naturally aspirated, in-line six cylinder engine, used in the third generation of the BMW M3, producing 252 kW (343 PS; 338 hp) at 7,900 rpm and 365 N·m (269 lb·ft) of torque at 4,900 rpm. 0-100 km/h takes 5.0 seconds, and the top speed is limited to 250 km/h (155 mph).

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Here is a collection with 25+ funny drawing. You will find Roberto benigni, Ronaldo, Eddie Murphy and others…

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