Apple deploys the beta label in a more traditional fashion. In March 2008, for example, the company made iPhone 2.0 beta software available to select developers and customers. That July, it officially rolled out the update for the general public. And Google doesn’t always let its products dither in beta for years on end. The company dropped the beta label from its Chrome browser after just 14 weeks; and the Google search engine spent less than two years in beta after being released in 1997.

The tech community is divided on the issue of protracted beta releases. A ZDNet article from 2005 called out Google and Flickr for extended use of the label and noted that the practice could blur the line “between prime time and half-baked.” Tim O’Reilly, the open-source advocate, has used the term perpetual beta positively as an indication of open-source development processes wherein users are “treated as co-developers.”

Built from the same guts as the andLinux system that lets you seamlessly run Linux apps on your Windows desktop, Portable Ubuntu is a stand-alone package that runs a fairly standard (i.e. orange-colored, GNOME-based) version of the popular Ubuntu Linux distribution. It just doesn’t bother creating its own desktop, and puts all its windows inside your Windows, er, windows.

The coolest parts about Portable Ubuntu are:

* It actually works (in most cases, on most systems).
* It fits on a (larger) thumb drive and can run entirely from it.
* It can work on, and save to, your Windows folders and files.
* It’s persistent, so changes you make and apps you install are carried around with you.
* It’s easily manageable from Windows, and works great on dual monitors.

Wanna give it a go? Grab the latest Portable Ubuntu package (about 438MB as of this writing), then double-click to unpack it to a folder. On Vista or Windows 7, you’ll have to open your command prompt as an administrator (hit Windows key, type in cmd, then right-click on the “Command Prompt” option that appears and select “Run as Administrator”); on XP, you’ll probably just have to launch a command prompt. Head to the folder where you extracted your Portable Ubuntu, and enter run_portable_ubuntu and hit Enter to launch the .bat script.

Your machine will whir and decompress for a while, and you’ll likely get a few prompts to “Unblock” coLinux and a few other apps’ abilities on your system. Unblock all of them, and you’ll eventually get a small, move-able menu bar on your desktop, as seen in the top screenshot. Drag this wherever it’s comfortable to keep it, and you’re on your way.

From those three pop-out menus—Applications, Places, and System—you can accomplish pretty much the same thing as any Linux user can, just without the full desktop. Launch a program, and it appears in a window that looks like any other on your Windows system. Open a file browser from “Places,” and you can get to your Windows files by heading to /mnt/C (or substitute your drive name/letter for “C”). Feel free to carry around Audacity, GIMP, or any other editing programs that lack a Windows equivalent and start getting creative with them.

Whatever changes you make to your system stick with it. So if you, say, want to install VLC media player for some on-the-go media, you can install it from the Add/Remove dialog or tackle it manually in Accessories->Terminal, and it’ll be planted right in the Sound & Video menu. The same goes for system tweaks or startup apps you add to your little Ubuntu package.

Update: For those who miss it over at the Portable Ubuntu page, the default root password is 123456.

Portable Ubuntu makes for a great place to test out your more cutting-edge stuff, without having to worry about messing up your working Windows system. The latest beta of Firefox 3.1/3.5? Even easier to run than the portable solution, and you can keep both your Windows and Portable-Ubuntu-launched Firefox browsers open at once.

When you’re running Portable Ubuntu, Windows treats it like any other program. You can close down individual app windows from your taskbar, and pop it onto and off your desktop with little hassle.

Portable Ubuntu is a free, portable download that runs from Windows systems only. Drop your Linux-inside-Windows ideas and other geeky stuff in the comments.

Zabriskie, himself an avid BitTorrent user, said he has leaked all of his albums on torrent sites ahead of their official release date. And he’s not the only one doing this. “I can tell you from numerous conversations and firsthand experience that there are few artists left, even in the big leagues, that do not. You wonder where the early leaks come from? Don’t be so surprised.” he writes.

People are not going to buy any albums before they’ve had a chance to listen to them, or before they’ve seen the artist perform live, Zabriskie reasons. Indeed, the top 1% of all artists might still be able to sell an album based on their previous performances, but the average artist has to be heard first. Much to the dislike of the RIAA, file-sharing networks are the preferred way for many people to sample music.

Zabriskie doesn’t see file-sharing networks as a threat to musicians though, quite the opposite in fact. “No one should ever be upset that people are downloading their record for free. They’re listening to it. And chances are they will buy it someday if they like it. Someone who doesn’t buy it still wouldn’t have bought it if they didn’t download it, so what’s the worry?”

In fact, much like radio, file-sharing networks are a great way to promote music. Zabriskie discovered this himself, as one of his tracks appeared on the famous Indie/Rock Playlist torrent in February 2008. Many artists have seen an increase in their fanbase after one of their tracks appeared in these playlists, since they were downloaded by tens of thousands of people.

“It’s really cool, just one person’s mixtape, but a great way for people all around the world to see what’s going on in music that month. So, very suddenly, tens of thousands of people from around Portland to Poland had that song on their computer. How did Criznittle find it? I don’t know, exactly. But he did, and he liked it, and he shared it, and I found a lot of fans because of it’,” Chris points out.

So what does this mean for the music industry, one might ask. It is hard to predict the future of course, but it’s clear that consumer to consumer promotion will be much more important than the marketing budgets of the major record labels. Music is being freed from the corporate stranglehold, and although it’s a challenge to find the right distribution method for the future, the artists and fans will come out as the winners.

Zabriskie’s final words sum it up nicely.

“Bottom line: if you like something you listen to, support the artist however you can. If that means buying something, great. If that means going to a live show, great. If that means sharing it with a friend, great. If that means blogging about it, great. If that means requesting it on your local college radio station, great. If that means just scrobbling it to Last.fm so people can see that you’re enjoying it, great.”

“That’s the future of music. It’s completely in your hands, not mine, not anyone else’s who makes music. Yours. Don’t let anyone judge you for how you choose to find and experience music. The soundtrack to your life is up to you. All music is free, everywhere. Don’t take that for granted. Share it, disappear into it. It’s yours.”

According to the security firm, just 19 percent never use the same password twice. Sophos added that three years ago, 41 percent of web users said they used the same password, indicating that just 8 percent of web users have realized the importance of strong, unique passwords.

“It’s worrying that in three years very few computer users seem to have woken up to the risks of using weak passwords and the same ones for every site they visit,” said Graham Cluley, senior technology consultant at Sophos.

“With social networking and other internet accounts now even more popular, there’s plenty on offer for hackers and by using the same password to access Facebook, Amazon and your online bank account, you’re making it much easier for them. Once one password has been compromised, it’s only a matter of time before the fraudsters will be able to gain access to your other accounts and steal information for financial gain.”

“It’s easy to understand why computer users pick dictionary words as they’re much easier to remember. A good trick is to pick a sentence and just use the first letter of every word to make up your password. To make it even stronger, you can replace words like ‘for’ for the number 4, and this should give you peace of mind that your password won’t be guessed,” advised Cluley.

W32.Downadup.C is a modular component for machines currently infected with Downadup. This variant of Downadup, also called Conficker, is not attempting to self-replicate and appears to behave more like a Trojan than a worm, says Vincent Weafer, vice president of Symantec Security Response.

“Think of it as an updated module that’s more aggressive, more robust in defending itself,” Weafer says.

The W32 Downadup.C variant was discovered Friday in a Symantec honeypot and is still under investigation. Symantec expects to identify additional capabilities shortly, says Weafer, who adds that Symantec has not yet seen W32.Downadup.C in customer networks directly.

Earlier versions of Downadup did attempt to disable anti-virus software, but the third version represented in the Downadup.C module is designed mainly to provide more protective actions to infected Windows-based machines so they can better defend themselves from anti-virus software and other eradication methods.

“It’s more aggressive, it has more services,” says Weafer.