PowerBlog Review: AMCP Computer Privacy

Editor's note: We're pleased to present the sixty-sixth in our regular weekly series of PowerBlog Reviews of business weblogs. This week's review is being guest-blogged by Lynne Meyer. Lynne Meyer, APR, is president of A Way with Words.


A Black Belt in Blogging
By Lynne Meyer

If there were such a thing as a third-degree black belt for blogging, Alex Morganis would certainly be entitled to wear one.

He's webmaster of four technology and computer news blogs and was recently nominated for Microsoft's "Team 99" to test and blog about Longhorn, their the next-generation operating system. He also writes blogs for Tech News Online and Spyware Informer. In his spare time, Alex beta tests for AOL, Google, Yahoo, Microsoft, and the Mozilla Foundation. He's at AMCP Computer Privacy TECH BLOG. AMCP stands for Alex Morganis, computer programmer.

Alex says he's "part of a talented group of computer nerds," and the main goal of their blog is "to inform readers about the ever-changing tech world by providing news about the latest technology developments, spyware, viruses and more. We also try to help out our readers when they e-mail us."

I don't know when Alex sleeps, but when it comes to technology, he knows his stuff. There's abundant news about cutting-edge technology in all of his postings.

Case in point. On May 11, he tells us about test driving AOL's new AIM (AOL Instant Messages), a beta version of their new program, code-named Triton:

"Triton has a whole new and improved interface, as well as taking into account that instant messaging now goes beyond simple PC-to-PC text exchanges and also includes video and audio communication, as well as connections with wireless devices," he explains. "Some of Triton's features includes multiparty voice chat and an IM catcher feature that intercepts messages from senders not on the user's contact list, allowing the user to preview the message and decide whether to accept it, ignore it, or report it to AOL as an unsolicited commercial instant message."

Alex also updates readers on computer viruses. "We recently blogged that Sober.N is being detected again and continues to perpetuate. According to U.K.
Anti-virus company Sophos, this worm accounted for 77% of all virus activity, and the virus writers used spam technology to send it out." Alex explains that, according to Sophos, the virus writers use German language messages for German Windows users, telling them they've won tickets to the World Cup. Unfortunately, this has been an effective ploy in that region. "Although different anti-virus companies call it different things," Alex warns, "Sober.N and Sober.P are the same virus."

Fortunately, Alex isn't all work and no play. He also makes time to review some of the fun stuff. Here's what he recently had to say about Sony's newest PSP gaming system. "Man, this just keeps getting better! As soon as we turned it on, we were amazed at how good the graphics for the games were. The screen was great, with no pixel problems. And the sound . . . wow!" (Hmmm . . . sounds a little like a kid having fun with a new toy, doesn't it?)

Check out Alex's take on new technology developments (as well as his reactions to some fun stuff) at the AMCP Computer Privacy TECH BLOG .