A federal judge said Tuesday he intends to require Google to turn over some information to the Department of Justice in its quest to revive a law making it harder for children to see online pornography. U.S. District Judge James Ware did not immediately say whether the data will include words that users entered into the Internet’s leading search engine. The legal showdown over how much of the Web’s vast databases should be shared with the government has pitted the Bush administration against the Mountain View-based company, which resisted a subpoena to turn over any information because of user privacy and trade secret concerns.

United Online announced that it is bundling its NetZero Voice 100 Internet phone plan with its accelerated NetZero HiSpeed 3G Internet service, the fastest accelerated dial-up service available. HiSpeed 3G users will now be able to make 100 minutes per month of free calls to any phone number in the United States, Canada or Puerto Rico using their computer. NetZero HiSpeed 3G can be purchased for as low as $9.95 with a 12-month commitment.

Microsoft has pushed back plans to support of UEFI, a new type of PC firmware, in its forthcoming Windows Vista for PCs. Where the move isn’t likely to disrupt the PC market, it shows the software maker continues to pare down Vista features as it works to roll out the OS this year.

Microsoft employees are growing more and more disillusioned with stagnating salaries and an increasingly contentious review system that they say is unfair, according to a recent report in WashTech News. That’s led to more defections by senior engineers and growing dissatisfaction among rank-and-file workers, the report said. The publication is affiliated with the Washington Alliance of Technology Workers, a labor union affiliated with the AFL-CIO that has tried to organize Microsoft workers in the past. At issue is the company’s performance review system, according to the report. Microsoft employs some 38,000 workers in the U.S. alone.

As part of its monthly patch cycle, Microsoft on Tuesday released fixes for six security holes in Office and one flaw in Windows. Five of the six vulnerabilities in Office are specific to Excel. The sixth problem affects a range of Office applications, including some versions of Word, Outlook, and PowerPoint. Microsoft’s second update deals with an operating system issue that affects Windows XP with Service Pack 1 and Windows Server 2003. The Windows flaw and two of the Excel vulnerabilities had been previously disclosed, Microsoft said.

Laplink Software has responded to strong interest among PC manufacturers and vendors in providing customers with a better upgrade experience by teaming up with select partners to make PCmover available direct from the desktop of new PCs. PCmover transfers files, settings, and programs from an old PC to a new one across any network connection, a Laplink USB cable, or using removable media such as a CD or DVD. Unlike other migration solutions, PCmover transfers both conventional and specialized programs even if the PCs are running different operating systems. With a fail-safe "Undo" feature that allows users to roll back a migration at any point and full overwrite protection for the new system, PCmover is the safe and stress-free way to capture the functionality and personality of the old PC on the new model with a consumer-friendly and wizard-based approach.

Virus hunters have discovered a new Trojan that encrypts files on an infected computer and then demands $300 in ransom for a decryption password. The Trojan, identified as Cryzip, uses a commercial zip library to store the victim’s documents inside a password-protected zip file and leaves step-by-step instructions on how to pay the ransom to retrieve the files. It is not yet clear how the Trojan is being distributed, but security researchers say it was part of a small email spam run that successfully evaded anti-virus scanners by staying below the radar.

The European Commission, the executive body of the European Union, on March 10 sent Microsoft a hard-hitting letter, telling the software maker that it was still out of compliance with its antitrust order. The Commission did not mince its words, saying in a statement released in Brussels that Microsoft had added nothing substantial to the revised Technical Documentation compared to the previous version. "The material continues to be incomplete, inaccurate and unusable. The improvements required to the documentation are not merely refinements or improvements to the text: the documentation as it stands is unusable," the letter said.

The story of blogging has largely been written. It was a niche activity for early adopters. It became a personal journaling trend among the confessional set. It was ignored, and then reviled, and finally adopted by politicians and journalists. It became a business for those bright enough to see its potential, and it made quite a few entrepreneurs rich. The headline in a recent issue of New York magazine encapsulates the story arc quite nicely: Blogs to Riches. Professional bloggers Jason Kottke and Heather Armstrong took the stage at SXSW to discuss what happens when you start making a living from your hobby.

Why must we mock those who love us? That’s a fundamental life question we don’t even come close to answering in this slightly twisted take on our usual OutlookPower Q&A. A reader wants to know how to send friends and family spam to his friends with a little extra effort. We mock him, then give him a potentially useful suggestion.

Read this OutlookPower article.