Conficker Set to Strike: Protect Yourself with These Tips and Tools

Graphic: Diego Aguirre

Security watchdogs that millions could be affected by the Conficker worm tomorrow - unfortunately this is not in an April Fool's Day joke. Over nine million PCs are already infected and a new variant of the virus could threaten those who didn't patch their PCs with the latest security updates.

that on April 1st Conficker "will simply start taking more steps to protect itself." After tomorrow, machines infected with the new "C strain" of may not be able to get security updates or patches from Microsoft and other security products vendors, says the company. Known also as Downadup or Kido, Conficker is a worm whose purpose security researchers couldn't decipher yet.

How do I stay safe?

Security experts recommend that you run (such as Norton or McAfee) and that you keep updated with all the latest patches and updates from both Microsoft (Vista and XP) and for your antivirus provider. "Free" security scans from various websites are not recommended. Google searches for Conficker protection software are not advisable either, as they could redirect you sites that will actually infect you. Users who received all the automatic updates from Microsoft should be already protected from Conficker.

How do I know if I'm infected?

Spreading across networks, Conficker finds vulnerable computers and automatically disables security services (like Windows Update and antivirus) and blocks access to various well-known security firms' websites. Another symptom of Conficker infection is when your Internet connection is running suspiciously slow, without any apparent reason. The best way to find out whether you already have Conficker is to use one of the Microsoft, Symantec or McAfee Aa free trial version of these should at least help you remove the virus and keep you safe tomorrow).

Sony Slashes the Price of the PlayStation 2

Looking to scoop up a PlayStation 2? Starting tomorrow, April 1, Sony will cut the price of its gaming console to $100, down 25 percent from its current price of $130. Today's announcement is the third price cut for the PS2 since Sony's first discount in 2002.

Rumors had swirled in recent days that Sony was set to make a major PlayStation 3 announcement today. Industry watchers speculated that the company would announce a brand new browser, online content for the PS3, or perhaps a release date for God of War III. But the biggest rumor was that the PS3 was getting a $100 price drop as a way for Sony to improve slumping sales. In the end, it turns out that the rumor mill was way off.

According to December 2008 figures from Nielsen, the PS2 is still the most popular gaming system in use today. For its part, Sony doesn't seem to be letting up on development for the system even though its successor, the PS3, has been out for more than three years. Sony believes the PS2 has a 10-year lifecycle, meaning new games for the PS2 should wind down sometime in 2010. By year's end, Sony says there will be 1900 available titles for the PS2, including new releases like MLB 09 THE Show and MotorStorm: Arctic Edge.

While the attention of hardcore gamers is now focused on the next generation of systems like the PS3 and Microsoft's Xbox 360, the lowered price tag might mean a second life for the PS2. Playing action-based games like Call of Duty 2 or Unreal Tournament 2004 may help you improve your vision, according to a recent study by the University of Rochester. While neither of those games are available for the PS2, enterprising users (or doctors) just might be able to find PlayStation equivalents.

AT&T Wants to Keep iPhone Exclusivity Until 2011

The 4.7.0.113 update will also bring a much-wanted feature to Storm users: a full QWERTY keyboard to use in portrait mode. So far, the BlackBerry Storm allows the use of a full QWERTY only in landscape mode, while a SureType keyboard is used in portrait mode. In total, over 30 bugs will be fixed, with stability and speed issues addressed in this firmware update as well.

Some BlackBerry forums and Web sites already offer various versions of this update for download. If you know what you're doing, you can try an unofficial update at your own risk. However, I would recommend you wait until the official version from Verizon will be released.

This might well be the last firmware update RIM will offer for the Storm, as the company is already working on the Storm 2. The second iteration of RIM's flagship phone is said to add Wi-Fi, a 5-megapixel camera, and a new touchscreen technology called TruePress.

But from AT&T's point of view, the privilege of selling the iPhone is worth the cost. The big telecoms are moving away from landline service and looking to wireless as the industry's future. The WSJ says AT&T has already spent $18.8 billion in purchasing wireless spectrum and smaller wireless companies as it prepares for the coming years. AT&T may also cut out the requirement that you be an AT&T landline customer to qualify for discounts on TV or broadband service.

While holding onto the iPhone may make sense for AT&T, an extension isn't in the best interests of the consumer or Apple. Let's face it, millions of people around the U.S are salivating over the iPhone, but aren't switching over to AT&T. This can be for a variety of reasons like being locked into a contract, availability of AT&T service in certain areas, and even plain old brand loyalty. Apple needs to reach out to this much larger base of customers, especially with competition coming from the Palm Pre and an anticipated slew of devices coming loaded with Google's Android platform.

Opening up the iPhone to other carriers also has the potential to reshape the American wireless market. With so much hype behind it, Apple is in a position to dictate terms to service providers. Carriers could end up offering competing rebates, free devices, or other goodies in order to satisfy your iPhone lust.

I hope AT&T's time in the iPhone limelight is fading. It's time Apple unshackle the so-called "Jesus phone" from AT&T so we can see some iPhone competition in the U.S. marketplace.

BlackBerry Storm to Get Firmware Update

The BlackBerry Storm, the first touchscreen device from Research In Motion, is to get a software update over the coming two weeks. The new firmware is set to fix multiple bugs plaguing the phone, as well as add features such as improved keyboard usage.

The over-the-air software update from Verizon Wireless will be the first major update for the Storm since one in December. Known as 4.7.0.113, the new firmware is expected to fix numerous bugs the Storm is suffering from, stopping the device from freezing when using voice dialing, and fixing the bug that causes the display to get filled with small, multicolored dots.

The 4.7.0.113 update will also bring a much-wanted feature to Storm users: a full QWERTY keyboard to use in portrait mode. So far, the BlackBerry Storm allows the use of a full QWERTY only in landscape mode, while a SureType keyboard is used in portrait mode. In total, over 30 bugs will be fixed, with stability and speed issues addressed in this firmware update as well.

Some BlackBerry forums and Web sites already offer various versions of this update for download. If you know what you're doing, you can try an unofficial update at your own risk. However, I would recommend you wait until the official version from Verizon will be released.

This might well be the last firmware update RIM will offer for the Storm, as the company is already working on the Storm 2. The second iteration of RIM's flagship phone is said to add Wi-Fi, a 5-megapixel camera, and a new touchscreen technology called TruePress.

AT&T "No Commitment" iPhone Pricing: No Bargain

Word on the street is that AT&T is finally preparing to add a new (but previously announced) pricing option for the iPhone 3G that does not require committing to a two-year data plan, or activating on site. But the offering (as outlined in a supposedly leaked presentation on Boy Genius Report) is so expensive--$599 for the 8GB model and $699 for the 16GB model--and so loaded with restrictions that it's hard to see who'd benefit from the deal, which supposedly will be offered starting March 26.

For starters, the contract-free price will only be available to existing AT&T customers--and there's no indication that the phone would be unlocked so that you could use it on someone else's network. Also, most people will want a data plan, so the issue then becomes how much you save if you want to opt out early from a commitment.

Let's say you're not eligible for the subsidized contract pricing ($199/$299). You can still buy an iPhone at the "early upgrade" price of $399 (8GB) or $499 (16GB) with a two year contract. Should you decide to opt out after a month of service you'd pay $175 for early termination, which would bring your outlay to about $575 for the 8GB phone and $675 for the 16GB phone. That's already a bit less than the no-commit price--and bear in mind that the termination fee would go down for each month you used the phone.

Since other costs (activation fee and monthly voice and data usage) would presumably remain constant regardless of how you purchased the phone, there doesn't appear to be any upside to the no-commitment pricing. The leaked AT&T presentation says the offer is meant to provide handsets to current customers who want to give them as gifts, add a line, or upgrade early. But my math suggests that even if you've lost your phone and want to replace it, you'd be better off starting over by buying the iPhone at the early upgrade price, and taking the two-year data plan (which you can cancel early if need be).

The no-commitment price option was leaded the day after Apple announced a slew of changes coming this summer to the iPhone operating system. These changes will presumably make the 9-month-old handset more appealing to new users. However, the cell phone competition is getting intense, and some predict newcomers will put pressure on iPhone prices.

No word yet from my AT&T contacts as to the accuracy of the leaked presentation, by the way.

Omnia HD: The World’s First HD Mobile

The Samsung Omnia HD, set for release later this year, will be a GSM quad-band phone with a set of powerful multimedia features. It will be the first phone to offer 720p HD video recording.
Additionally, it will be equipped with an 8 megapixel camera, TouchWiz user interface, GPS receiver, and FM radio.

Quick Specs

Operating System: Symbian S60 5th Edition
Screen Resolution: 3.7" QHD AMOLED Touch Screen
Keyboard Type: On-screen
Communications: Bluetooth, GPRS, GSM, EDGE, HSDPA, Wi-Fi, UMTS
Meda Type: microSD
Camera Resolution: 8.0 megapixels
GPS: Yes
Dimensions: 4.84 x 2.28 x 0.51 inches
Battery Type: Lithium - Ion, 1500 mAh
Release Date: 6/30/2009

Amazing product, I think this is the long-awaited iPhone-killer

CompUSA Is Back With a New Retail Strategy

Remember CompUSA? The electronics retailer may have closed up shop in your town, but it never shut down entirely. As reported by PC World’s Tom Spring last January, Systemax paid $30 million for select CompUSA assets and retail stores in a deal that kept 16 CompUSA locations open. Systemax subsidiary TigerDirect then took over the CompUSA brand, and even converted some TigerDirect stores to CompUSA shops.

Resurrecting a consumer electronics chain with a less-than-stellar reputation for service and support is a risky move for Systemax, which figured that TigerDirect could rebuild the brand. It may prove to be a smart move too. Consumers have short memories, and many will likely remember the CompUSA name and not the baggage that went with it.

Now Systemax is trying another bold move by allowing customers in its 30 CompUSA stores to surf the Web to comparison shop. According to Wired, in addition to better lighting and an updated store design, each CompUSA will have Web terminals that shoppers can use to find cheaper deals online. But will CompUSA meet or beat the online price?s

In-store comparison shopping is a risky move that could drive away customers who find better deals elsewhere. Then again, it may also draw customers who appreciate the consumer-friendly approach. I hope the new CompUSA succeeds. Best Buy needs more brick-and-mortar competitors, particularly after the recent demise of Circuit City.

Which Campaign is Better: Microsoft's Laptop Hunter or Apple's Get a Mac?

Microsoft has unveiled its latest "Laptop Hunter" ad, throwing back a powerful punch against Apple's long-running (and, by most counts, long-winning) campaign on coolness. Unlike Microsoft's past attempts, this new line of marketing has many ad experts taking note -- and saying maybe, just maybe, Microsoft has finally hit the mark.

Microsoft's Laptop Hunter Ad

The new "Laptop Hunter" spot, the third in Microsoft's latest ad series, shows a mom and son trying to find a laptop for less than $1500. Microsoft offers to pay the price of the computer if they can find one within that range.

The ad follows similar spots debuted this month, one featuring a guy named Giampaolo and the other with a gal named Lauren. Both went on similar missions to find inexpensive laptops and, after comparing Macs and PCs, ended up going with Microsoft's platform.

Shifting Strategy

The "Laptop Hunter" strategy is a definite departure from last fall's divisive Seinfeld-Gates series of Microsoft ads. (Microsoft, for the record, says those segments were meant only to "reintroduce" the brand and get people talking.) It also takes a distinctly different focus from the "I'm a Mac" ads Apple has long used to beat down the Microsoft name.

That distinction may serve Microsoft well, says Matt McCutchin, a former ad copywriter who's worked on numerous Microsoft and PC-related campaigns in the past.

"It was a great strategy a year ago to try to kick the door open and get the buzz going, to get Microsoft talked about in a different way," says McCutchin, a lecturer in the University of Texas at Austin's advertising program. "I think that bringing it home to the actual shopping trip is the right next step. That's what really goes through a consumer's mind now."

Future Thinking

This latest ad is the third in a series of six "Laptop Hunter" spots scheduled to be released over the coming months. The segments are little-by-little upping the ante: While an early edition focused on a machine under $1,000 and the most recent looked for a laptop less than $1,500, a future spot is said to raise the price limit to $2,000.

Microsoft is clearly aware of the edge that playing up price can offer over its competition. A Microsoft brand exec even joked that it was a "good day" when Apple unveiled a $2700 MacBook Pro at this year's Macworld Expo. The question now is whether Apple will address the hits in a new way or continue pushing for success with its past tactics. McCutchin -- who recently made the switch himself, by the way, to Mac -- thinks a change may be in order.

"I would say it's time for Apple to evolve its strategy," he says. "They're going to have a harder time trying to justify those price points."

Unlike the Seinfeld ads, these latest spots offer nochurros or tight-running Conquistador shoes. In the long run, though, they may offer something far more valuable in Microsoft's ongoing rivalry with its cooler, but perhaps costlier, competitor.

"I think Apple's going to have to deal with the issue at some point," McCutchin contends. "That's why Microsoft's strategy is so well-timed in making this more about price and value as opposed to some sort of coolness."

The 10 Wackiest Headphones

Audio-Technica ATH-W5000

Audio-Technica's ATH-W5000 is a set of headphones with a decidedly retro feel. Packing high quality components into an over-the-ear design, the headphones have wooden outer covers for the ear-cups, making them instantly recognizable.

AKG K1000

Recognizable for a completely different reason, AKG’s K1000 headphones are essentially full-size speakers suspended over the listener’s head with the headband. Reminding us of broadcast studio microphones — sans the fuzzy covers — these headphones are as expensive as they are ingenious.

Audio-Technica ATH-EW9

As a smaller redesign of the ATH-W500, the ATH-EW9 from Audio-Technica is a set of clip-on headphones that sit on the listener's ears. With a metal ear-clip mechanism the ATH-EW9 headphones are a pleasant mix of retro and modern styling.

Sennheiser HE90 Orpheus

Novel for their bulk, prowess and price, Sennheiser's legendary HE90 Orpheus headphones are one of few models on the market to use electrostatic sound reproduction instead of the moving-coil design used by most headphones. The end result is peerless sound quality with the downside of requiring a dedicated, specially designed amplifier.

Logitech Curve

Slightly out of place in such prestigious company, Logitech's Curve headphones have been chosen because of their ultramodern headband and clip-on design. Molded out of lurid green plastic, the Curve headphones may not suit all tastes but certainly catch the eye.

Takara's Novelty Headphones

A list of novelty headphones can't be complete without at least one boutique Japanese cartoon design. These Takara headphones seem like generic clip-ons — until they unfold to reveal the plastic limbs of either Frenzy or Rumble, depending on which model you purchase. A licensed transforming MP3 player is also available.

Logitech Freepulse

Logitech's FreePulse headphones are the older, cooler brother of the earlier Curve. With Bluetooth technology and a thin band design, they’re stylish enough to be worn wherever you go.

Zelci Outi

These Zelco Outi earphones are designed to be attached to the outside of your ears rather than nestled inside. Transmitting their vibrations directly into your ear cartilage, the Outi are designed to reverberate sound through your entire body.

Skullcandy

If you want a zany design, you can't go past Skullcandy. With all of their models available in over-the-top finishes, you’re bound to make a statement 24/7.

The MacBook Air-Dell Adamo Deathmatch

The Tale of the Tape

You know all about the on-again, off-again PC-Mac turf war, of course. Which is better? One thing we can tell you is that PC makers sure are taking note of Apple's awesome design work. And that's the setup for the welterweight matchup we have going on today.

In this corner (pictured at right), the MacBook Air, the sleek standard-bearer for how Apple does computing. In the other, the Dell Adamo, the spunky up-and-comer that packs on ports…and takes some not-so-subtle jabs at the big "A."

Neither company really positions its ultraslim ultraportable as a high-performance hot rod. Heck, both of them eschew optical drives to stay lean and mean. But they're both expensive--very, very expensive. We figured it was time to find out if either the Air or the Adamo has what it takes to win.

Now before these two palookas start mixing it up, let's look at what they each bring to tonight's fight. The MacBook Air is the cagey vet. Since it first showed up on the scene, it has improved its game by providing better processors and an honest-to-goodness graphics card, nVidia's GeForce 9400M. That means it can actually play some games--not many, but some.

The Air we last reviewed offered a 1.86GHz Core 2 Duo CPU and 2GB of RAM, and scored a 78 in WorldBench 6. In our battery-life tests, the Air survived for about 2.5 hours before sputtering out. It can accommodate a 120GB hard disk (our more-expensive model came with a 128GB solid-state drive). But then, of course, there's also the dreaded "Apple Tax": These machines range in price from $1799 to $2499.

The Dell Adamo, on the other hand, offers lesser parts and…charges…more? Really? Let's go over this. Dell's high-style PCs cost between $1999 and $2699. The Adamo maxes out at a 1.4GHz CPU but compensates with 4GB of RAM to handle a 64-bit version of Windows Vista Home Premium. Supposedly its battery will last 5 hours in tests, if we're to believe promotional materials. Will it get slapped around in our WorldBench 6 suite? Stay tuned; we'll update this story as soon as we receive results from our labs. For now, though, buckle up for a feature-by-feature smackdown.

Hey, you two silicon status symbols: Are you ready to rumble? FIGHT!

Round 1: The Packaging

Apple: Ships in a neat little box. It's tiny. It's mostly white. It comes with a handle. Yay!

Dell: When the Adamo arrives at your doorstep, it looks as if someone froze your new laptop in carbonite. Yeah, I went there. It's a minimalistic plastic display case that houses the small handful of accessories (a DisplayPort-to-VGA cable, a power cable, and a microscopic manual) that come with the Adamo.

Winner: Draw. If you're going by cool factor, Dell out-Appled Apple in this department. Environmentally friendly plastic casing, not so much.

Round 2: The Keyboard

Apple: The Air didn't invent the notion of cut-out Chiclet keys--it just popularized them. The buttons are reasonably spaced, and you rarely run the risk of mistyping. That said, the function keys are shrunken down a little bit too much for my tastes. Otherwise, the Air has a slick set of backlit keys.

Dell: One editor here refers to the little dip in the middle of these wide keys as "finger buckets." The fancy-pants Dell marketspeak for it is "scalloped keys." Whatever. The point is, the keys are flat-ish and wide, as I've grown to love on a number of laptops (the HP Mini 1000 being among them), and they have a little lip for your fingers to rest in. The Adamo also finds room to accommodate a couple of multimedia-shortcut keys next to the power button. The only drawback here is that making out some of the keys without the ambient backlighting turned on is a little difficult.

Winner: Dell. Bigger keys and more of them equal a win in my book.

Round 3: The Touchpad

Apple: Looking at the touchpad, it's pretty obvious why the Air gave up some ground from the keyboard. The mousing area on the MacBook is big and beautiful. While some people (ahem, me) have trouble with getting the multitouch functions to work 100 percent correctly, all the time, it feels--and looks--great.

Dell: The Adamo's touchpad borders on the average side. It's not bad by any stretch; the buttons are firmly in place and give the right amount of pressure. Like the Apple laptops, this Dell model provides some multitouch functionality as well.

Winner: Bigger surface area. Feels better. Apple.

Round 4: The I/O Ports

Apple: I can count the number of ports on three fingers. You can guess which ones they are. You get a single USB port, a mini-DisplayPort, and a headphone jack. That's it.

Dell: Here’s where the big "D" gets it right. The Adamo has two USB ports, ethernet and headphone jacks, one eSATA connector, one DisplayPort, and a user-accessible SIM-card slot for WWAN service.

Winner: Dell. As if this one was even going to be close. At least both machines offer Webcams and built-in microphones.

Round 5: The Screen

Apple: A crisp 13.3-inch display stays protected behind a big, aluminum bezel. With the Air's native 1280-by-800-pixel resolution, you'll get some great, colorful images on the backlit LED screen. Of course, the glossy coating means you're bound to get a little bounce-back in broad daylight, too.

Dell: Ditto on the glare from the glossy coating, but this screen is worth it. The Adamo offers edge-to-edge glass that's securely locked into place on the 13.4-inch screen. Its WLED display one-ups the Air's with a 1366-by-768-pixel resolution (translation: 720p-friendly). Initial tests show that the screen looks pretty sharp. But one thing I keep mulling over is the obviously Mac-esque shortcut bar that sits on the desktop (shown here). It provides clean, quick links to all the main apps you'd use on the computer. And it's easily customizable.

Winner: Dell. The Adamo has a bright, bigger screen with a higher resolution? Sold.

Round 6: The Overall Design

Apple: Thanks to its simple, spartan design, the Air has much cleaner lines. Then again, managing without all of the perks that have been nipped and tucked out of the 12.8-by-9.0-by-0.8-inch, 3-pound Air in order to make it so small is a bit of a pain. As in life, it's all about trade-offs.

Dell: As slim as the Adamo is (13 by 9.5 by 0.65 inches and 4 pounds), it's still a bit boxy. Hey, that's not a knock. After all, just about every laptop is a little on the square side (even Apples, until pretty recently). The dotted grillwork on the back pops, and the two-tone top makes the Adamo look more like a fashion accessory than most laptops on the scene do.

Winner: Draw. This one boils down to a matter of aesthetics and taste. Whether you like clean and simple or you want to try to match your shoes to your laptop, either machine works.

As I said at the beginning of this slide show, hang tight: We will have a full review of the Adamo up soon with all of our WorldBench 6 test results in place.

Netscape instability

No, I'm not talking about the mental health of the team that's now running the site. I'm talking about trying to put together the largest site of my career so far.

The earliest sites I worked on were TV Guide's first site and Business Week's first site, both in 1995. There was no such thing as a crush of traffic back then and everything I did was on the front-end anyway, just design work. I started doing database-driven sites with my Tech-Engine crew, but that never got popular enough to strain under heavy usage. I did a bunch more database/web apps for Business Week, but it was never something like the home page of BusinessWeek.com, just little tools like the business school ROI calculator or a private PDF downloads site.

The first time I had to deal with a crush of traffic that was too much for my server-side code to handle was when I did the CMS for A List Apart. The tools were great and the site was an upgrade from the hand-rolled versions before it, but it was definitely not Slashdot-proof. It was running on my mail server. More accurately, it was running on my lone mail/DNS/SQL/FTP/web server.

As completely dynamic and uncached as my Capgemini site is, it must not have enough traffic to reveal any flaws it its ability to scale. Either that or they do have tons of traffic, but they are running on really good hardware. Or maybe it has no flaws!

On the Kansas City Chiefs NFL team site, that was probably the only example of a Windows IIS/SQL site that has also never showed any performance trouble and I know it gets a ton of traffic. Again, I chalk that up to good hardware, since there's very little caching going on and no one's complaining about performance.

Weblogs, Inc. had its ups and downs. It started out on that same email server, sharing resources with A List Apart. The first two Windows versions of the Blogsmith platform had limited caching, mainly certain dynamic portions of pages were written into include files as were all RSS feeds, but we had outages and growing pains. Things like a Slashdot article hotlinking straight to two of our video files didn't help. We quickly moved to two new dedicated servers and eventually split the work among ten servers, but the ASP application wasn't really designed to be run like that. It wasn't built with worst-case traffic levels in mind.

The latest Blogsmith version was built for scaling. It runs on Linux and it has smart caching and a ton of redundancy. We can add web servers and database servers as needed to handle new traffic levels. Fortunately, much of the same team that did the latest Blogsmith platform also worked on the new Netscape.

The Netscape application is way more difficult to cache. On Blogsmith, you're dealing with blog posts and comments. If a list of blog categories is stale for 30 minutes, no one can really tell, but on Netscape if someone adds a vote or a comment and the numbers of votes and comments don't change, the experience is ruined. We were also running servers on the east and west coasts and we ran into a problem with sessions where we could attach visitors to a single server to make the experience more real-time, but the network wouldn't lock visitors into a single city. So as you bounced between the two cities your vote numbers would change and you'd think the site was broken and unstable.

I always compare the editorial side of Netscape -- the news, voting and anchor reporting -- to the stock market. The public drives stock prices (stories) up and down and the anchors are just here to tell you about the top movers -- stocks on their way up or down -- and call attention some that you might have missed. On the technical end, it's clear that we're dealing with the exact same thing as you'd see on a trading floor: we have to be able to scale to incredible levels and at the same time keep up the appearance of being a real-time application.

So we tuned a bunch during our beta testing in June and we stress tested eight different ways before converting over the DNS and adding the traffic of www.netscape.com to the system that was only running at www.beta.netscape.com.

Even with all of that preparation, Netscape's built-in traffic load was a whole new level of pain. The first night of the cutover was overwhelming. We turned off some features to lighten the load. We increased some caching times. We turned off some of the cool-factor Ajax for non-members.

It was unreal, but we survived it.

We're adding more equipment. We're fixing bugs and making the system smarter. We know where the remaining pain points are. Most importantly, we gained a ton of experience at taking a dynamic site beyond the previous heights of a global consulting firm, an NFL team and the world's largest blog publishing network. Soon we can get back to adding hot new features, because a whole lot of stuff didn't make it into last week's launch.