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RunPee, the website that tells you when it's safe to take a bathroom break during the movie you're watching, was a big hit when Lee wrote about it back in May. If you're a RunPee fan who's been wishing for a better, more practical mobile method of using the site, you might be interesting in the iPhone app. Now you can simply whip out your iPhone before the credits start and see when it's time to go relieve the effects of that large soda.

The best part about the iPhone app is that it will allow you to quickly check RunPee from the bathroom and read the site's quick synopsis of what you missed, so you can jump back into the movie when you return. Don't worry about spoilers, though, they're obscured by default so you won't accidentally read them before it's time. Sure, it's kind of a novelty, and definitely not the most useful thing you're going to have on your phone, but using it even once would be fun.

Flickr has launched its own service - Flickr2Twitter - for sending images to Twitter, and at first glance, it looks like it could compete head-on with existing Twitter photo services like Twitpic and Yfrog. Flickr's system is a bit different than the others, though, and doesn't yet have application support from a major Twitter client. Taking that into consideration, I think there's a good case that these apps will be able to coexist, with Flickr2Twitter dominating amongst existing Flickr users, and Twitpic or Yfrog favored by more casual photographers.

Everyone knows Flickr is a big player in the online photo game, but not everyone has a Flickr account or wants to sign up for one. While existing Flickr users will probably adopt Flickr2Twitter, folks who don't want to sign up can use Twitpic with their existing Twitter logins. Flickr2Twitter also handles uploads via email, so you need to send your photos to your account's email address to post them (the text of the tweet goes in the subject line). For mobile users, this works, but it's not as easy as Twitpic-ing or Yfrogging from your Twitter client, and some of the most popular clients support those services. From the desktop, Flickr2Twitter has the advantage: you can Twitter a Flickr photo very quickly by clicking the "blog this" button that you've probably already noticed on your photo pages.

Dropzone is a utility described by its developers as "the Swiss Army knife of drag and drop for the Mac." That's definitely accurate, because with Dropzone in your Dock, you can quickly do just about anything you'd want to with a file. You can install apps, upload pics to Flickr, save text, open something in Skitch and more, all by dragging and dropping. Even better, it's got an API, and there are already some useful user-contributed actions you can install.

If you're a die-hard command line junkie, this app is probably not for you, but if you're the typical Mac user who gets a lot done with the mouse, it could be just what you're looking for to speed up your tasks. There have been individual apps for some of these actions (iike Flickr or FTP uploads) for a long time, and it's an even better deal when they're combined into one.

In a discussion with tech.blorge.com, David Hall, who is Symantec's Product Manager for Asia-Pacific Consumer Products and Solutions, voices his concerns over the popularity of free antivirus programs.

"People tell me, 'oh well look I use free antivirus because it is free and it protects me from everything in those areas,' but when you compare that with what's really going on in the threat landscape, there is a very, very big gap between what antivirus does and the threats that are being delivered today."

He later continues, "[...] attackers are not necessarily only targeting the web browser. Think about all the plug-ins you have installed on your machine – RealPlayer, Flash, QuickTime – all of these have vulnerabilities too."

Yes, the threats we face on the Internet have changed over the years and In some respects, Hall is correct.

Like many of you, I no longer rely only on AV software. It's a starting point in keeping my systems protected. I also use a firewall, OpenDNS or a hosts file blocker, and browser addons like NoScript and NoFlash. For added protection, I'll use Sandboxie (and sometimes Windows SteadyState). All of these tools are totally free, and they've been doing the job quite nicely on my home systems.

Hall's quotes do help explain why I've seen several machines on my workbench running only Symantec's own Norton Antivirus that have fallen victim to drive-by attacks. Yes, Symantec, even users running your AV protection aren't totally safe. And it's not free. They paid for it.

In fact, they're still paying for it.

See what I did there?