Most of the outstanding features of this car are the gadgets. In-car technology has been taking to new heights. Bluetooth enables you to make phone calls through the sound system, your iPod has its own USB port, and an information display in the dash above your steering wheel tells you what song you’re playing. Like they say – good things come in small packages.

The first thing I did was pair my iPhone. I was reading around that people were having issues with this, but for me, it was a piece of cake! Push the windows button, then say ‘Settings,’ then ‘Pair’. How simple is that! It displays your bluetooth pin on the dash. Insert that into your phone, and Bob’s your Uncle! From there, you can upload your entire phone book onto your phone. And from then on, whenever you activate your Bluetooth, you can make a call without your hands even leaving the steering wheel. Simply push the windows button, tell the car who you want to call (“Call John Smith on mobile”), and the car will dial you through. The sound quality is generally excellent and clear. The volume for phone calls can be set up and saved, allowing the car to adjust from media player to phone call settings. But as with all things beautiful, there are well-proportioned flaws.

Considering the car puts you on loud speaker during phone calls, you have to consider the noises around you. So if you’re on the motorway, the sound may not be quite as clear for those on the other end than if you were trotting around town.

OK, so that’s the only flaw I can think of for the sound system. Proportionate, like I said – small car, tiny flaw. It just takes a little tweaking to get your volume settings how you like it. But then, that’s what you expect from an award-winning system.

One thing that I don’t completely relish about the in-car toys is the EcoDrive facility. This monitors your driving habits, and the effect that has on the environment. Hence, ECODrive. It teaches you how to drive sensibly, fuel-efficiently and how to best look after your vehicle. Once EcoDrive has been downloaded from Fiat 500, you install it onto a USB stick or iPod. Then insert that same device into the Microsoft Blue&Me slot by the hand brake, and take off. After your first five days of driving, you can then plug the device into your PC and open up EcoDrive. It will give you statistics of how you drive and check your carbon emissions. You can even visit other Eco-Friendlies in EcoVille. Very cute. At first, a fabulous opportunity to improve my driving and take pristine care of my new car. But give it a month. Just one month. Unless you are a ‘Sunday driver’ (if you know what I mean) then it gets a little tedious trying to change gears before you reach two revs and moving back down your gears when a red light is up ahead. Great in theory, not always convenient when you’re out on the road. The concept is plausible, but not necessarily sustainable throughout each journey. So when you get back to EcoVille, your never quite as pleased with yourself if you hope to be.

1. Rival any other free alternatives such as OpenOffice.
2. Rival Piracy, by providing it free you take away the need to download it illegally and spend time cracking it.

You also have to wonder what the free version will be missing from the full paid for version, besides the ads.

Good news for IT Managers around the world, its rumoured that Office 14 will still support XP, and it definitely will support the new Windows 7.

The worm replicates itself and buries deep into the system making it hard to remove. It hunts around and guesses network usernames and passwords. Compromised machines can be used to send spam, as dead drops for stolen or pirated data and to launch attacks on other machines.

Be sure to keep your network up to date with Microsoft‘s updates, especially KB958644.

Read more about it here: http://news.bbc.co.uk/1/hi/technology/7887577.stm

Microsoft says it has detected attacks against IE 7.0 but said the “underlying vulnerability” was present in all versions of the browser. Would this be a good time to switch to the ever increasing Mozilla Firefox, or Google Chrome? And does this especially mean the end to supporting IE6?

“Based on our investigation, setting the internet zone security setting to High will protect users from known attacks,” advised Microsoft.

However, for the most effective protection, customers should evaluate a combination of using the High security setting in conjunction with one of the following workarounds:

- Disable XML Island functionality
- Restrict Internet Explorer from using OLEDB32.dll with an Integrity Level ACL
- Disable Row Position functionality of OLEDB32.dll
- Unregister OLEDB32.dll
- Use ACL to disable OLEDB32.dll

Just be aware – there will likely be some bugs that could cause problems with your system. And for some reason, it’s preset to expire early 2010. You will also find an “Evaluation copy” message defacing your desktop wallpaper. There is a way to get rid of it and the expiration date too – but you’ll have to uninstall Vista SP. It’s not a bad update, but it’s important to know what you’re getting into before you try to install it.

So what’s new in Vista SP2?

• Windows Vista SP2 adds Windows Search 4.0 for faster and improved relevancy in searches.
• Windows Vista SP2 contains the Bluetooth 2.1 Feature Pack supporting the most recent specification for Bluetooth Technology.
• Ability to record data on to Blu-Ray media natively in Windows Vista.
• Adds Windows Connect Now (WCN) to simplify Wi-Fi Configuration.
• Windows Vista SP2 enables the exFAT file system to support UTC timestamps, which allows correct file synchronization across time zones.

Windows Vista SP2 is expected to be released in final form sometime in the first half of 2009. Judging by the expiration date of Vista SP2 Beta, I’d say that sounds about right.