With 2005 almost over, it's time for the yearly Google Zeitgeist, a look at what users of the popular search engine were most commonly searching for during the past 365 days. Heading this year's list were pop star Janet Jackson and Hurricane Katrina, which destroyed New Orleans and the Gulf Coast in August.

"We chose a few key events and phenoms to study, and predictably found the patterns to be amusing or bemusing, challenging or heartening -- kind of like the year itself," Google Zeitgeist team member Karen Wickre explained.

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Sunbelt Software on Tuesday completed its acquisition of Kerio's desktop and server firewall products, a move which will save the popular free Kerio Personal Firewall from its planned retirement. In addition, Sunbelt is lowering the price of the full version to $19.95.

As previously reported, Kerio says it is moving out of the desktop market and focusing on software for small businesses. The company currently offers Kerio MailServer and Kerio WinRoute Firewall in that space.

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For once the never-ending Sober worm actually did some good. A 20 year-old child porn offender turned himself in earlier this week after mistaking a message generated by the worm as an actual communiqué from Germany's Federal Criminal Police Office. The e-mail said "an investigation was underway," which apparently spooked the man into believing the authorities were aware of his online activities.

He was charged after police found pornographic images of children on his computer. A spokesman for the Paderborn, Germany police credited the worm with uncovering a crime that probably would have otherwise gone undetected. There is no word whether the worm has helped uncover any other crimes.

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Testers and developers looking forward to playing with Vista's most prominent new feature over the holidays will have to wait a bit longer. Microsoft officials confirmed to BetaNews late Monday that the Windows Sidebar won't be delivered in a public build until Beta 2.

Microsoft on Monday released the December CTP of Windows Vista, which includes a number of changes mostly centered on the areas of performance, security and mobility. Build 5270 also includes the new Windows Defender anti-spyware application, and a feature called BitLocker, which encrypts a full hard drive.

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Despite the fact that fewer consumers will be replacing their computers in 2006 and lagging economic growth, the overall PC market is expected to continue to grow, albeit at a slower pace. The industry is expected to expand by 10.5 percent in 2006, which would be down from 15.8 percent this year.

Low cost and portable PCs will lead growth in the sector, research firm IDC said in its Worldwide Quarterly PC Tracker report Tuesday. In the current quarter, IDC now expects shipments to grow about 15 percent, up from earlier expectations of 12.6 percent growth.

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Three Los Angeles area men have been charged with copyright infringement after authorities discovered one was modifying original Xbox consoles to allow pirated games to run on them, then turning them around to be sold at the video game store of the other two.

A complaint was filed against the men in federal court charging the three with conspiracy. The U.S. attorney's office says the three were attempting to conspire to break the copyright protection of the console, and then profit from that action.

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The first update to OpenOffice.org has been released exactly two months after the launch of version 2.0. Five release candidates of 2.0.1 have been made available since that time, with the final build showing up on OpenOffice.org mirror sites early Tuesday.

Version 2.0.1 brings a myriad of bug fixes and feature enhancements to the open source suite, which includes a word processor, spreadsheet, presentation builder and a database -- all for free and available in 36 languages for Windows and Unix based platforms. OpenOffice.org 2.0 most notably added support for the OpenDocument format and has received rave reviews from users.

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Apple grew the fastest in terms of traffic among the top ten Web brands in the month of November, according to a survey by Nielsen//NetRatings that was released Tuesday. The company's Web site saw a 57 percent increase in traffic year-over-year, driven by its iTunes Music service.

Google and Amazon also recorded significant growth, with increases of 29 and 16 percent, respectively. However, the biggest Web property on the list is still Yahoo, with 103.9 million visitors and ten percent growth in traffic.

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After seven months of beta testing, America Online has discontinued its new AOL Media Player software, replacing it with the subscription based digital music service it launched in November called AOL MusicNow. Variations of the software are still available in the AOL client and on AOL.com.

As first reported by BetaNews, AOL Media Player (AMP) ran independent of the company's client software and was one of many new efforts to expose AOL products and services to Web users outside its "walled garden" of subscribers.

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IMLogic warned Tuesday that a new instant messaging worm that attempts to get users to visit an apparently harmless Santa Claus site was making the rounds of the AOL, MSN and Yahoo networks. When users visit the site, a rootkit is delivered to their computer, often named gift.com. Upon execution of the file, it attempts to shut down antivirus software and collect personal information.

Infected users will also spread the worm to people on their buddy list, as it will automatically send the URL to all contacts. IMLogic recommends that users check to make sure their antivirus software is up to date, all current security patches have been applied, and IM clients that are not up to date have been blocked from accessing the network.

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RIM said Monday that it expects to have a workaround completed soon that may stave off a potential shutdown if it loses a patent battle with NTP. The company's co-CEO Jim Balsillie told Reuters in an interview that RIM would "keep our business going as we always have, always will."

The maker of the popular BlackBerry e-mail device has received some good news in recent weeks, as the U.S. Patent and Trademark Office found two NTP patents invalid last week in a "non-final action." The company still has three valid patents that are still being examined.

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Alongside the December CTP of Windows Vista, Microsoft has released build 5270 of Windows Server "Longhorn." Both operating systems are available on the same DVD image. Although development is currently in line with the client build, the next Windows Server won't be ready until 2007.

It's not yet clear when Microsoft will split off development, but Windows Vista is expected to reach the feature-complete Beta 2 milestone in February, well before Windows Server "Longhorn." In addition to build 5270, Microsoft has also released a new Platform SDK and Driver Development Kit for its next-generation operating systems.

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Billionaire investor Carl Icahn inserted his two cents into the rumored exclusive negotiations between AOL and Google. Icahn warned that if the deal with the search engine would prevent a merger or deal with another online company, the board could be "on the verge of making a disastrous decision."

Icahn has already called for a shareholder vote to replace the Time Warner board, saying the company needs to streamline its business and begin setting up sales of assets that were holding the company's stock price down.

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Microsoft announced Monday that it had hired Canadian human-computer interaction researcher Bill Buxton to assist the company as a senior researcher in the Microsoft Research division. Buxton would continue to work from Canada, while making regular trips to the Redmond lab, as well as to international locations. His first residency would be at the Cambridge, England lab for four months starting in January 2006.

Buxton specializes in technologies, techniques and theories of input to computers, technology-mediated collaboration between people, and ubiquitous computing, according to Microsoft. He most recently served as chief scientist from 1994 to 2002 for Alias Systems, a subsidiary of SGI. "We're proud and fortunate to have Bill, a leader in the Canadian research community, join Microsoft Research," Microsoft Research senior vice president Rick Rashid said.

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In a conference call Monday afternoon, Shanen Boettcher of the Windows Client group announced the availability of the December Windows Vista CTP, numbered build 5270. The CTP focuses on improving security, performance and mobility aspects of Microsoft's next Windows release, but still lacks the Sidebar.

The test build is available now to Vista technical beta testers and will show up later today on MSDN and TechNet. Around 500,000 people will be testing the December CTP, which according to Boettcher is, "intended for use by developers and IT pros."

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