Internet Explorer 9 will be available Monday. Though it requires newer hardware, and operating systems, it offers some features you may like.

Windows XP has been around for long enough that, presumably, everyone knows how to use it. However, Windows 7 is different, which means training will be needed for administrators and users.

Patch Tuesday includes only three updates this month. The MS11-015 bulletin, rated critical, is for a flaw in Digital Video Recording (DVR-MS) files which can be exploited in a ‘drive-by’ attack.

The release date has been set. Starting March 14 you can download the final version of Internet Explorer 9. Remember, it requires Windows Vista or Windows 7 to run.

Even at 50 pounds, in six volumes, the $625 price tag may give you pause. Nathan Myhrvold, Microsoft’s first CTO, has released his cookbook, "Modernist Cuisine", apparently covering everything from hamburgers to why you need a rotor-stator homogenizer in the kitchen.

You can use mail-forwarders and other masking techniques to hide your identity but, it may be harder to hide your writing style. Researchers are using patterns in the text of messages to identify individuals.

Nokia has agreed to give up Symbian in favor of WindowsPhone 7. To ease their pain, it appears Microsoft will provide $1 billion to promote and develop the new handsets.

You buy a new PC, take it home, boot it up, and find the disk has been filled with programs you never asked for and don’t want. Not only do they take up space, they slow down the machine. In response, Microsoft has begun selling PCs without all the extra added junk.

Microsoft Research’s TechFest 2011 is currently under way. This year the theme is natural user interfaces (NUIs) such as gesture, touch, speech, and vision.

Internet Explorer 9 Release Candidate and Firefox 4 Release Candidate 1 have been put to a test. Two hardware platforms were used to run a series of tests using a variety of software to produce rankings for HTML5 and JavaScript speeds.