Anytime we can laugh at Microsoft, we will: Microsoft failed to heed its own advice and left many of its own servers unpatched against the worm. The frantic message came from the corporation’s information technology workers: “HELP NEEDED: If you have servers that are nonessential, please shut down.” The computer …

The wondrous Keith Jarrett, the creator of ambient jazz with his seminal solo piano recordings in the ’70s, has a meaty, mind-expanding improvisational new live trio double-CD with Gary Peacock and Jack DeJohnette called Always Let Me Go, wherein they bat about bits of melody like cats with a mouse …

We mentioned back in December that Pearl Jam was going to do authorized bootlegs for each show on their upcoming Riot Act World Tour, to be sold exclusively online. Now the details are out: Pearl Jam announced today that they will release an official bootleg of each show on their …

The students were dumb for thinking they could get away with it, and the faculty were dumber for letting it happen in the first place. Ring-tones aren’t the only thing hot on cell phones: The University of Maryland is investigating 12 students for allegedly using the “text messaging” functions on …

Acting local, thinking global: Cleveland’s own super cool jazz club Nighttown has been named one of the Top 100 Jazz Clubs in the World by Down Beat magazine. Here’s their schedule for the next month or so: Special Events at Nighttown Swing City with Ernie Krivda (sax, piano, trombone, guitar, …

Competition from public utilities may help drive down the cost of broadband: Folks in Glasgow, Ky., pay $19 a month for 70 cable channels, and for an additional $25 they can get fast Internet access. How do they get prices half the national average? Because the city-owned electric utility provides …

The Library of Congress has opened its National Recording Registry with 50 historic recordings: The choices for the National Recording Registry were announced by Librarian of Congress James H. Billington, who appointed William Ivey chairman of a board of directors. The board and the general public will make suggestions, advising …

Sharman Networks, owner of Kazaa, countering the legal body blow delivered by a federal judge last week, filed a federal lawsuit yesterday against the major record labels and the movie studios claiming that they have “obscenely” abused their copyright powers. I just like the sound of that, “obscene” being such …

Part of the RIAA’s ongoing PR campaign against file swapping is to portray swappers as amoral, inconsiderate, greedy freeloaders who aren’t willing to abide by the rules of civil society. The ongoing hacker attacks on the RIAA’s site (another one over the weekend) is counterproductive at best because it plays …

If you can’t make fun of the iconic cultural archetype that is Barbie, what the hell can you make fun of? The Supreme Court tells Mattel to lighten up and share a spliff with Jamaican Barbie, or something like that: Toymaker Mattel lost a Supreme Court appeal Monday over a …