Notes from the field: Why, yes it is, at least according to Robert X. Cringely. He’s responding to a reader who contacted Team Redmond because he had problems with Windows XP and Automatic Update. The thing is, Microsoft’s troubleshooting site served up a bunch of empty pages, and for several topics. Cringe tried it for himself and garnered the same. “I guess Microsoft’s philosophy is that no advice is better than bad advice.” GripeLine: The Spy Act only protects vendors and their DRM, but does too little to guard the good citizenry from spyware, Ed Foster reports. What’s worse, “it’s perfectly OK for basically any vendor you do business with, or maybe thinks you do business with them for that matter, to use any of the deceptive practices the bill prohibits to load spyware on your computer.” Like the Can Spam Act before it, Foster predicts this one will take on a new moniker, the Vendors Can Spy Act. Security: It’s host against network in the battle for the future of network access control, NAC. In the one corner we have folks believing in a centralized network-based approach; the other a cadre maintaining that NAC should be on the endpoint. “Many larger vendors support the notion that both will be adopted by enterprises,” Matt Hines writes in this article. “But some agreed that there will not likely be tolerance among customers for multiple systems that require the creation of parallel policies and controls.” The news beat: The U.S. SEC charges a former Apple executive with backdating stock options, while the company’s former CFO cuts a deal due to facing similar charges. Microsoft and SAP outline future versions of Duet. And the $10,000 Mac hack impacts Windows as well because the flaw resides in QuickTime. Software Development