Jeffrey Lee Parson, 19, of Hopkins, Minnesota, appearing in U.S. District Court in Seattle, will serve his time at a low-security prison.

He was also ordered to perform community service, pay restitution and be placed under supervision for three years following the sentence.

He had faced up to 10 years in prison, but the judge took pity on the teen, saying his neglectful parents were to blame for the psychological troubles that led to his actions.

"If you use the Internet to harm people, it will be investigated and you will be punished," said Jeff Sullivan, chief of the criminal division of the U.S. Attorney's office in Seattle.

Users and analysts are now hoping for a word from Google about its upcoming plans, since many believe that Google will launch its own browser in the near future. Google, however, declined such speculations and stated that the search giant will create plug-ins or extensions for the Firebox browser to take full advantage of its search technology.

According to numerous industry analysts, this may be the beginning of Google’s branded browser in-the-not-so distant future. Analysts are still a bit skeptical about its success, though. They said Google would have to offer their browser free of charge if they want user interest. And they will have to keep the code as simplified as Mozilla’s Firefox browser.

Since Internet Explorer’s position will remain strong in governmental and educational institutions, Google will have to think of a way to convert the aforementioned academies to adopt a different browser. Some analysts portrayed this task to be fairly complicated, since IT departments usually have a tendency to stay with software that is working and not causing any problems for them. ....

Regardless, Google has plans to work hand-in-hand with Firefox with help from Ben Goodger. (source)

"As soon as we saw the tsunami, we knew that we would see scammers right in the middle of it," Margosian said, adding that similar ploys surfaced after the 9/11 terrorist attacks in 2001 and the Oklahoma City bombing in 1995.

At least a dozen Oregonians reported sending their credit card numbers to fraudulent overseas groups after they received e-mail solicitations, Margosian said. However, other instances likely haven’t been reported because people don’t realize they’ve put themselves at risk for identity theft, she added.

Consumers immediately should be wary if they receive any unsolicited plea to give to charity, Margosian said. Asking donors to wire money through Western Union is a tell-tale sign that a scam is afoot, she said. Nigerian swindlers requesting aid for civil war refugees in West Africa have favored money wiring for years because the transfer is untraceable, Margosian said. (click here for more)

Picasa 2 is better organized than the earlier version. It offered me to index the entire hard drive or selected folder when I first ran it. It took its time to index all the images. However, unlike other applications the entire application was functional while the images were being indexed. Of course, like the version 1 it takes care of video files as well.

It sorts the images by dates and makes them accessible from easy to manage side bar. Images can now have custom labels, which can be assigned to them from the interface itself. Picasa keeps track of them for future display. In version 2, Picasa also added a Gold Star rating, which users can assign to selected photograph in different folders. This can be used as labels (as in GMail) to view them together at a later stage.

Images can be kept in multiple virtual libraries without actually duplicating them on the hard drive. This saves disk space (though Picasa’s own index file would cover-up for the advantage gained). Image collections can be assigned passwords to keep them private.

One of the more interesting features of the new update is better image enhancing effects. Google typical of their style have even included an I’m Feeling Lucky effect, which acts as a one click fix for lighting and color! Reminds one of the similar features on their Search Engine. Picasa 2 also makes good use of the EXIF information stored in the image.

More new features can be seen from the integration of Picasa with GMail! In addition to Default mail client and Hello… Users can now use their GMail accounts to share their images with friends and relatives. Integration with Blogger let you host images for free to showcase on Google’s Blogger Blogs. Picasa can now also make funky collages from existing images using effects like Picture Grid and Picture Pile. Of course, options to Order Professional printing and exporting also exist.

Overall, it is an excellent product from Google’s stable for all the image management needs someone might require. Give it a try and you would be surprised that things actually work the way they do in Picasa. Frankly speaking, Picasa works in a way Macintosh applications are known to work! Everything is so smooth that you just cannot stop admiring the work developers have done on this nifty application.(source)

It comes with an attachment - tsunami.exe - which, when run, will send itself on to other e-mail addresses found on your machine. It's thought the virus might also launch a DoS attack against a German hacking website.

Sophos' Graham Cluley said: "Duping innocent users into believing that they may be helping the tsunami disaster aid efforts shows hackers stooping to a new low." The company said it had so far only received a small number of reports of the worm in the wild.

Meanwhile, scammers trying to make money out of the tragedy have had their efforts foiled. A fake American Red Cross website was put up by scammers, and asked visitors for their credit card details - including PIN codes - to donate to the disaster fund. (source)