Verizon is putting the final touches on it’s new plans and for the most part if you want any type of phone that does more than dial a number you WILL buy a data plan. Overall Verizon says this will average out for most users so the monthly cost are about the same yet they also admit they see the revenue per user continuing to rise.

In what is the final act for PACE Airlines Judge Thomas Waldrep has entered PACE into involuntary Bankruptcy. On December 2, 2009 multiple creditors filed a petition to start the liquidation of PACE Airlines almost a year and half after PACE stopped paying it’s lease agreement with Smith Reynolds Airport. Interesting enough nobody representing PACE Airlines showed up at the December hearing.

We posted back on October 27th that it had been reported that CEO William Rodgers had signed away any interest in the company. What information was available appeared to point to Lee Booth had taken various assets and was likely setting up shop in Burlington however that is about all that was known or maybe rumored would be better. It appears the attorney appointed by the courts to handle this case is as much in the dark as everyone else as he was quoted as saying, “I will examine corporate officers under oath to determine the ownership.” Edwin Allman III who was appointed as Trustee further went on to say if he can recover any assets the legal fees will be paid first then creditors with the 400 or so employees owed back pay “would be pretty high up" the list of creditors”. While I would like to think he is right I have enough experience with things like this to know employee back pay will be considered  unsecured debt while the multiple companies owed $10 million or more will likely be seen as secured debt  and secured debt always gets paid first.

Of course there are still charges against William Rodgers for failure to pay insurance premiums while months later the N.C. Labor Department is still “investigating” the failure to pay wages.

My last comment on this is at what point is the Airport Commission called to the carpet on allowing PACE to go a year without paying it’s lease obligations? Remember the Airport Commission is also in hot water for allowing it’s contractor in charge of runway expansions per a 1997 Grant to not pay it’s subcontractors. I’ve not heard or seen anything else on this and the Journal certainly hasn’t covered this.

Reports and rumors are coming out that Verizon will be releasing multiple new phones in the upcoming months. From the much anticipated iPhone to more Android based phones it looks like Verizon has finally decided it’s time to upgrade their less than unique phone lineup.

The latest rumor to show up is all about a new Android phone from Motorola called the Devour. Basically it appears to be a slightly less advance version of the Motorola Droid so expect to see pricing be slightly lower although it will run Android 2.1.

It also appears HTC will be releasing an update for the Eris to push it to Android 2.0 or 2.1. Of course how quickly Verizon will make the update available is anyone’s guess. If your wondering why running Android 2.x is such a big deal it has several major updates such as supporting multiple Exchange accounts as well as a browser update.

Of course with CES coming up there’s always a lot of news and rumors about new products and not to be outdone Palm is rumored to have a new Palm Pre Plus ready for Verizon. This will be a slightly larger and newer version of the Palm Pre.

Lastly will there be an iPhone for Verizon? It was a given last year but as the year ended most had cast doubts on Verizon’s iPhone plans. There are those however that still see an iPhone in Verizon’s future probably sometime in the summer as Apples releases it’s newest version of the huge successful iPhone. With little to go on the belief is the new iPhones will be smaller, have a 5MP camera, be built by AsusTek vs. Hon Hai which makes the current models, use a Qualcomm hybrid CDMA/WCDMA chip that allows multiple cell carrier signal types  and show up mid year.

Of course let’s not forget to warn anyone looking at Verizon for a new phone they have enacted a new $350 cancellation fee on their “Smartphone” line so if your thinking of buying now and switching if and when they release an iPhone you may want to change those plans.

Word is Dell will keep the Winston-Salem plant open for a few more months allowing around 400 workers a little more breathing room. No further information is out there as of yet but I’m sure we will see local leaders take all the credit somehow.

Adobe Corrects At Least Seven Vulnerabilities in Flash Player and Air

They also warn of a zero day flaw in Illustrator CS3 and CS4

Severity: High

9 December, 2009

Summary:

§ This vulnerability affects: Adobe Flash Player 10.0.32.18 and earlier, running on all platforms. Some flaws also affect Adobe AIR 1.5.2

§ How an attacker exploits it: By enticing your users to visit a website containing malicious Flash content

§ Impact: In the worst case, an attacker can execute code on your computer, potentially gaining control of it

§ What to do: Download and install the latest version of Adobe Flash Player and Air

Exposure:

Adobe Flash Player displays interactive, animated web content called Flash, often formatted as a Shockwave (.SWF) file. Adobe’s Flash Player ships by default with many web browsers, including Internet Explorer (IE). It also runs on many operating systems.

In a security bulletin released on the same day as Microsoft Patch Day, Adobe warned of at least seven critical vulnerabilities that affect Adobe Flash Player 10.0.32.18 for Windows and Macintosh (as well as all earlier versions). Some of the flaws also affect Adobe Air 1.5.2 as well. Adobe’s bulletin refers to seven CVE numbers, which suggests that their update fixes seven security vulnerabilities. The bulletin doesn’t describe the flaws in much technical detail. However, it does warn that if an attacker can entice one of your users to visit a malicious website containing specially crafted Flash content, he could exploit many of these unspecified vulnerabilities to execute code on that user’s computer, with that user’s privileges. If your Windows users have local administrator privileges, an attacker could exploit this flaw to gain full control of their PC. If you use Adobe Flash Player in your network, we recommend you download and deploy the latest version throughout your network as soon as possible.
On a related note, the day before releasing the Flash update, Adobe also released an advisory about a critical buffer overflow vulnerability in Illustrator CS3 and CS4. The flaw has to do with Illustrator’s inability to properly parse specially crafted .EPS files. If an attacker can entice one of your Illustrator users into opening a malicious .EPS file, he can also exploit this flaw to execute code on that user’s computer, with the user’s privileges. There is no patch for this flaw yet. Adobe plans to release one in January.

Solution Path

Adobe has released a new version of Flash Player and Air. Specifically:

§ Flash Player 10.0.42.34

§ Air 1.5.3

If you use these products in your network, we recommend you download and deploy their updates as soon as possible.

Dell has informed the state that it believes it met the requirements during it’s years of operating in North Carolina and will not repay those monies. Governor Bev Purdue and other state representatives have said Dell would be forced to repay all the incentive money they were given however Dell has claimed some $6 million is covered in the agreements and will not be repaid. The Governor’s Office has released a “corrected” statement saying Dell may be able to keep some North Carolina taxpayer money.

Animated map showing unemployment rates growing across the nation.

I am seeing around a two dozen or more virus laden emails a day right now all with the same general subject lines such as:

“payment request from "Qualcomm" or “payment request from "Google"” or “Your Credit Balance is over its limit”

These all contain a backdoor Trojan in the attachment so again and again I remind everyone to not click those attachments you get in email. I like that “transaction inspector module”, they are always looking for something that will just make people click away, well DON’T!