Gmail account note probably work of fools

I've had Gmail accounts for several years now, and just today I received a most disturbing message:

Dear Account User,

This Email is from Gmail customer care and we are sending it to every Gmail accounts owner for safety. We are having congestion due to the anonymous registration of Gmail accounts so we are shutting down some Gmail accounts and your account was among those to be deleted. We are sending this email to you so that you can verify and let us know if you still want to use this account. If you are still interested please confirm your account by filling the space below.Your User name, password, date of birth and your country information would be needed to verify your account.

Due to the congestion in all Gmail users and removal of all unused Gmail Accounts. Gmail would be shutting down all unused Accounts, you will have to confirm your E-mail by filling out your Login Information below after clicking the reply button or your account will be suspended within 24 hours for security reasons.

* User name: ............................

* Password: ................................

* Date of Birth: ............................

* Country Or Territory: ....................

Warning!!! Account owner that refuses to update his or her account within Seven days of receiving this warning will lose his or her account permanently.

Thank you for using Gmail !

The Gmail Team

G MAI L BETA

Anyway, that's the message.

So far as I know, it's all crap.

Just swallow down that bile rising in the throat for a moment, OK?

A couple of things:

Why anyone would want my account name and password is beyond me, unless it's for nefarious purposes.

Check it:

If it was from Gmail, they'd already have all that.

Got it?

I had a partial answer here, which if nothing else confirmed what I'd already figured.

So if you have gmail and received that message, ignore it. Keep in mind, that's what happens when we have idiots on the Internet.

(Posted simultaneously in The Column, Reloaded and The Workbench, Reloaded)

Netbook or laptop? It's harder to tell the difference

As more features are finding their way into smaller packages, the lines are blurring between netbooks (like that tiny Acer I'm using to maintain this blog) and "real" laptops.

At least that's according to CNet:

Color, screen resolution, battery, Wi-Fi, Webcam? The same. And they both lack an internal optical drive. The differences, though relatively small, can be summed up in the 11z notebook's 1.5 inches of extra screen real estate, a more powerful Celeron processor, 1GB of extra memory, and a larger hard drive ... plus, by getting the notebook with Vista, you have an automatic free upgrade to Windows 7. With any computer with XP, it costs around $100 to get Windows 7 Home Premium Edition ... the specs are so similar that the average shopper would likely be confused as to why one is better than the other.

I know that, even with my bargain-basement unit, folks are amazed there's room for a hard drive ...

Here are some easy hardware fixes

Rather than spend a lot of money on a new computer, or worse, on repairs, here are some fixes that just about anyone can do -- as seen on the website Lifehacker.

Personal note: I've done many of these myself -- replaced a hard drive, changed out a motherboard, installed RAM, replaced a power supply, and (in part) built my own unit.

OK. What do I win?