I've read a lot of news and comments about the Windows XP SP2, but the news I've just read on TechTree.com is absolutely amazing...
Nikhil Rastogi writes here about the new security feature on XP SP2... he firstly says that "Microsoft may have found a much more destructive way to get rid off Illegal copies of Windows Xp than Service Pack1. Users installing SP1 on illegal copies would simply get a 'This is a pirated copy' error message. But now Microsoft has armed itself with a huge list of illegal CD keys ensuring that SP2 does not install, but also destroys the computer hard drive by rendering it unusable".
After that, a correction has appeared on the article: "It has been rumoured that the boot sector of the OS would be modified rendering the OS unusable".
Where these rumours come from? Really he thinks that MS would adopt these methods to avoid illegal copies? These methods are not completely legal... what about the users data? Why he don't think all the consequence that MS could have with these actions? They're only rumours... ridiculous rumours...
The same story... other Microsoft Internet Explorer Multiple Vulnerabilities are just discovered... for a secure Windows, IE must revisited... soon! 
I've received a question by Learner (this is the nick) on my blog regarding ADO.NET and Connection Closing. He asks: "is there a way to CLOSE or DISPOSE any and all open connections - globally? OR to see whats open?"
I want to try to give an answer this question on a new post because it's a bit curious and I'm not sure on how to answer directly to it... why having many connections opened at the same time to a database? Are you sure you want it?
Remember that if you are using Datasets, the connection is closed when you fill it, but if you are using a DataReader you must close the connection explicitly (if you don't do this, the Garbage Collector takes control of this...).
Usually, I use the guide line I've read on a book (I don't remember the title now, maybe "ADO.NET Core Reference"??) that says something like this: "Think disconnected, open it, use it, and close it as fast as you can".
However, in ADO.NET 1 if you have 2 connections (sqlCon1 and sqlCon2) with 2 different databases, I don't know a direct way to close simultaneously the connections... I think you have to do sqlCon1.Close() and sqlCon2.Close(), no way to clear the connection pooling. Someone can say something about?
In the future ADO.NET 2, new connection pooling enhancements will be available... They will allow you to programmatically close all the connections currently kept alive by the pooler. You can clear a specific connection pool by using the static (shared in Visual Basic .NET) method SqlConnection.ClearPool or clear all of the connection pools in an appdomain by using the SqlConnection.ClearPools method. I think this is what you want...
I hope to have feedbacks and ideas about this from the community... 
A recommended fix for Windows Media Player 9 Series is out today:
When you are playing content from a network source, Microsoft Windows Media Player 9 Series may quit unexpectedly (crash) if Windows Media Player briefly loses the network connection and then tries to reconnect.
If you are using Windows Media Player together with a host application such as Microsoft Internet Explorer, and Windows Media Player is embedded in the host application, the host application may quit unexpectedly if the network connection is lost.
You can find the fix HERE.