The compromised website is still the most effective attack vector for hackers to install malware on your computer with 47.6 percent of all malware installs occurring in that manner, says security firm AVG. Another 10.6 percent are tricked into downloading exploit code -- many times, without their knowledge -- by clicking on links on pages to sites hosting malware.

The Chelmsford, Mass. company announced its findings as part of a broader study of threats detected by its software. It also found that faked pharmacy sites are a popular attack method, seen in about 10.4 percent of all attacks.

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There are a number of tools that computer users will install by default on their Mac or PC -- an email client, web browser, media player and an office suite. Make the move to a mobile platform such as iOS or Android and the range of apps you need changes slightly. Most phones and tablets will comes with a number of apps pre-installed including a calendar, messaging tool, web browser and various other tools. One thing that is generally left out of the mix is a mobile office suite.

There are plenty of suites to choose from, but the vast majority of them cost too much and many users are disappointed to find that the app they choose to try out is too limited for their needs. Kingsoft Office is something of an anomaly -- an extremely powerful and feature-packed Android office suite that is available for free.

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Mary-Jo Foley's article about a slide shown at last year's Microsoft BUILD conference raises uncertainties that bug me as a developer. It's the graphic that attempts to lay out the architecture of Windows 8, particularly in relation to Metro versus the Desktop. As a long-time Windows API programmer, I regard this graphic as the most important yet about Windows 8. Something doesn't seem right!

Somehow all the different interpretations of this chart don't make sense to me. Something's not right, especially the position the Win32 API is given. So I decided to do some digging to see if I could uncover what is really going on under the hood.

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Financial software and services company Intuit launched its redesigned GoPayment Card Reader on Wednesday, after debuting the new design earlier in January. The free device plugs into a smartphone's or tablet's audio jack and lets users scan credit cards for payment.

Mobile payment systems are a hot business where lots of different standards are competing, with no clear "winner" in the space.

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Online note capturing and storage service Evernote has updated its Windows client, Evernote for Windows, to version 4.5.3. Despite the minor revision number, Evernote for Windows 4.5.3 packs in a number of new features aimed at those who store PDF files within Evernote.

Also updated is Evernote for Android to version 3.5, offering two major new features -- auto-title suggestions and save anytime functions – plus improved layout of images when viewing notes.

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Capturing what’s on your desktop can be as simple as hitting the Print Screen key and pasting the contents of the clipboard into an image editing app. But you’ll notice that it is not possible to capture everything; the cursor cannot be included in grabs and many dialogs disappear when Print Screen is pressed. WinSnap is a powerful screen capture tool that includes a number of handy options, with the latest version bringing support for the capturing of native Aero shadows.

WinSnap is now able to capture the shadow that is added to windows and object by Windows, but in cases where this is not possible, post-capture shadowing can be added for you. Screen capturing has many purposes, but it is often used to highlight information. To make this easier, WinSnap includes a number of annotation tools that can be used to draw shapes and arrow on your grabs as well as adding text. To the same end, there are also a number of effects to choose from. If you want to highlight a particular area of a screen capture, you can opt to grey out the rest of the image, or blur it slightly.

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In case you missed it, and I certainly would have if not for someone asking a question, Apple's fiscal 2012 first quarter earnings report has a jaw dropper. iPhone generated $24.42 billion revenue. During the same quarter, all of Microsoft: $20.89 billion. More broadly, Apple revenue ($46.33 billion) was more than twice Microsoft's, and net income nearly was ($13.06 billion versus $6.62 billion, respectively). But it's that iPhone figure that really stands out. One product's revenues against an entire company's. Microsoft's margins are better, but who wouldn't want more money in the bank?

Nearly five years ago, Microsoft CEO Steve Ballmer dismissed iPhone, in a USA Today interview: "There's no chance that the iPhone is going to get any significant market share. No chance. It's a $500 subsidized item. They may make a lot of money. But if you actually take a look at the 1.3 billion phones that get sold, I'd prefer to have our software in 60 percent or 70 percent or 80 percent of them, than I would to have 2 percent or 3 percent, which is what Apple might get". How's that for the mother of wrong predictions?

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Today, after the closing bell, Apple answered the question analysts have asked for weeks: How many iPhones sold during the holiday quarter? The answer: A colossal number -- 37.04 million.

Apple also shipped 5.2 million Macs and 15.43 million iPads during fiscal 2012 first quarter. Analyst consensus was around 5 million and 14 million, respectively, and 32.5 million iPhones. During today's earnings conference call, Apple CFO Peter Oppenheimer revealed 315 million cumulative iOS device sales. Apple's App Store has 550,000 applications -- 150,000 for iPad. Developers will have earned $4 billion cumulatively by the end of the month, he said.

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Opponents of the Motion Picture Association of America are using the US Government's recently created "We The People" online petition service to force the Obama Administration to take a position on some controversial comments by former Conn. Senator-turned MPAA chief Chris Dodd to Fox News last Thursday.

By Tuesday afternoon, the petition had already passed the 25,000 person threshold to trigger a response from the White House. With over 27,500 signatures, it is gaining about 1,000 signatures an hour. Stop Online Privacy Act and PROTECT IP Act protesters are not satisfied with killing the bill alone: they want heads to roll.

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In 1968, NYU professor Edward Altman devised a statistical method for determining the financial health of a company called the Z-score formula for predicting bankruptcy, and since its publication, it has become a common statistical model used in loan evaluation.

Now a Director of Research in Credit and Debt Markets at the NYU Salomon Center for the Study of Financial Institutions, Dr. Altman has turned his formula into a hundred dollar mobile app for iPhone, iPad, Android and BlackBerry called "Altman Z-Score Plus."

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In December, Microsoft pulled out of the Consumer Electronics Show starting with next year's event. The rationale: Smaller, Microsoft events are more beneficial to everyone -- the company, attendees and customers for starters. Hey, that makes sense to me. So then, why is the software giant suddenly pulling one of its most-important developer events of the year? Without fanfare, or even a proper burial, MIX is over. Not just MIX 2012, but the entire event. Poof! Gone! Outta here!

Tim O’Brien, Developer & Platform Evangelism general manager, broke the news on the Official Microsoft Blog early this afternoon. Considering how hot and heavy Microsoft is about the Cloud right now and release this year of Internet Explorer 10 and Windows 8, timeing sure seems strange.

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Microsoft spent a good deal of time dismantling the Kelihos botnet last year, making it the first takedown where it was able to name actual defendants behind it. On Monday it made the suprising announcement that its latest defendant, Andrey N. Sabelnikov, had previously worked for an antivirus software vendor.

According to information on the Web, Sabelnikov worked for two Russian security vendors: Agnitum, a firm that produces firewall and antvirus software for PCs from September 2005 to November 2008, and Retunil from November 2008 to December 2011.

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Hot on the heels of a fifth Beta release last week, TRIM Enabler 2.0 has been given a final, stable release. TRIM Enabler 2.0, which extends TRIM support to non-Apple SSDs in OS X Lion, features a complete rewrite and new way of enabling TRIM by patching existing SSD drivers rather than replacing them.

Recent updates have also improved the speed of the patching process, plus TRIM Enabler now automatically updates when changes have been made instead of requiring a manual refresh. The final release has also introduced a new automatic update checker, allowing users to be prompted when a new version is released.

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The latest addition to the stable release channel for Opera is v11.61, which includes more than 50 security and stability enhancements and is recommended for all users. You can either wait for the automatic updater to occur, or you can force a manual check and update from the Help menu.

Two of the most important changes to the browser see a couple of on-going scripting problems being fixed, but there are also a large number of additional tweaks that address issues with various aspects of the program.

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At first glance the Advanced System Tweaker looks much like many other Windows tweaking tools.

There’s the same familiar ideas, for instance, recommendations to disable this service or that, various networking and Explorer speedups. You get simple maintenance options, so you can perhaps clear your system temporary files at a click. And a Programs menu gives quick access to useful Windows applets, such as Device Manager and the Event Viewer.

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