First up is a great article on how to build your own PBX for digital phones using Linux and Asterisk. This is actually pretty useful as I know a lot of companies that are now using Asterisk in conjunction with Polycom Phones.

The Dell-Apple rivalry took another notch up this week. Tim Bucher, who was fired personally by Steve Jobs joined Dell and is heading up a project called Zing. Zing is calculated to over throw iTunes by providing a way to bring all sources of MP3′s and digital movies together into one location, and provide a way to synch with handheld units. It remains to be seen if this will happen, but it does come closest to the Apple Model which works well.

Vista continues to be Microsoft’s sore subject. A new report suggests that 35% of new PC are being downgraded to XP.

In the project management world, Microsoft Project is the premier software that just about everyone users. Unluckily in Mac heavy shops this causes quite a few problems. Two programs are aimed to fix this. The first is actually an online tool called Liquid Planner. This has the advantage of being able to share projects among teams. But for those wanting a bit more security, iTaskX fills that niche. Unluckily it does not have a server component.

Next is a story about non-IT people hiring for IT positions, and a process called Pink Box Testing. HR unsafe jokes aside, it gives a good reason to be sure you test your recruiters.

One of the biggest pains I have with surfing the Internet is the pop-up ads that tell me my computer is infected with Virus. Of course, when I’m on Mac or Linux this is a bit on the hard side to believe. Most of these ads are virus in themselves in an attempt to get people to pay money to buy “protection”. I’m not sure how much they make scamming people like this, but I’m sure it’s a lot. In the meantime here are instructions to get rid of XP-Antivirus-2008 which is one of the most common scam virus going around right now.

The Wall Stree Journal has a great article about hobbyist who build their own working nuclear fusion reactors. In their garage! Most of them take more energy then they put out, but is this the next step in energy for home use? Find out more on their web site.

Netflix had some big shipping issues this week, and Wired.com says that they should give up go 100% digital delivery.