It’s official: Today, January 14, we’re formally introducing the Save Windows XP petition. That’s right, with Microsoft saying it will stop both OEM and shrink-wrapped sales of the OS come June 30, the clock is ticking. But we know lots of you want to keep XP alive, to not be forced to upgrade to the less-than-stellar Vista, if I may be euphemistic. “Millions of us have grown comfortable with XP and don’t see a need to change to Vista. It’s like having a comfortable apartment that you’ve enjoyed coming home to for years, only to get an eviction notice,” Randall Kennedy explains. So sign the petition at SaveXP.com, then pass the URL around. Columnist’s corner: Calling it security’s dirty little secret, Roger Grimes explains that “not having your users logged in as root or administrator will not stop malware.” So it follows that the concept of least privilege is more mantra than rule, at least in most environments. “This is especially true at home, but it’s nearly as bad at work,” Grimes writes in Security design: Why UAC will not work. “Just to be clear: Not having admin or root access does limit the possibilities for malware writers. They can’t take their pick of all the current low-hanging fruit, but there are still plenty of ways to hack a user’s computer without privileged access, and that’s the pity.” Storage: Dell and EMC this week announced the same thing — branded versions of the Clariion AX4. The pair even jointly developed the storage solution, so the technology is pretty much the same, regardless of the vendor. But, “market strategy may mean Dell will reap deeper rewards,” Mario Apicella suggests. Dell could best EMC in joint AX4 release. “Even if we ignore the range of solutions that Dell’s acquisition of EqualLogic will bring, Dell offers enough variety to satisfy even the most demanding customers in the SMB space. Perfect those solutions are not, but no other vendor can cover the same storage ground today, not even EMC.” Software Development