Windows Vista Service Pack 1 (SP1), the beta of which was just released by Microsoft, is designed to improve Vista's performance, reliability and security. And even though Microsoft doesn't publicize the change, SP1 also alters the way Vista's search works, allowing you to substitute an alternate search tool of your own for the one built into Windows.
Bad guys don't target just big, corporate networks. If you have a Wi-Fi network at home or in a small office, intruders may be after you, such as casual "war drivers" who troll city streets, looking for unprotected wireless networks.
If you've got a wireless network at home or at your business and don't take special care to protect it, well, you're playing Russian roulette -- and the chamber is loaded with multiple bullets.
Microsoft has touted Windows Vista as giving significant security improvements over Windows XP, and it offers the Windows Firewall, with its new two-way filtering feature, as one reason for that better security.
Microsoft has released an interim build of Windows Vista to 100,000 Customer Preview Program (CPP) participants. The new build is also available on TechBeta, TechNet, TAP and MSDN.
It sounds like something straight out of cyberpunk science fiction: monkeys controlling robot arms miles away through their brain waves; quadriplegics regaining some use of their limbs by merely thinking about moving them; silicon-based brain implants.
