A new revolt seems to be brewing against Apple's notoriously murky method of approving apps. Known for its questionable rejections and communication-free delays, the App Store has long come under fire by developers who feel they're being left in the dark. Even the guy behind Facebook's official iPhone app called it quits this month, telling tech blog TechCrunch he was "philosophically opposed to the existence of [Apple's] review process."

Apple Senior VP Phil Schiller defended the app approval process in a story published by BusinessWeek on Sunday, but neither his explanation nor Apple's recent introduction of status updates for developers seems to have calmed the storm. And now, the opposition is about to get even louder.

This Friday is Black Friday--officially kicking off the 2009 holiday shopping season. Online attackers and malware developers know how to capitalize on current events, and the rush to find great holiday bargains offers a prime opportunity to exploit eager shoppers. Here are five tips to help you shop online securely.

1. Start with the Basics. I realize that it seems redundant and cliché, but the first step in protecting yourself and your computer this holiday season is to make sure your computer is patched and secure .

Way outdone by rivals like Hulu and YouTube, Web video service Joost is now in the throes of winding down, only two-and-a-half years after its rollout with very high hopes by Skype co-founders Janius Friis and Niklas Zennstrom.

Tis the season to go shopping, what with Black Friday and Cyber Monday just around the corner. Here's an easy way to put $10 back in your pocket.

Specifically, new subscribers to Microsoft's Bing Cashback program can get an extra 10 bucks back when you make a purchase of at least $25. (Note: This offer expires today, so if you're interested, get clicking.)

Is four years and a $250,000 fine really the best punishment for the self-proclaimed "Godfather of Spam?" Put another way: Do we take the criminal aspects of spam seriously enough?

I don't think so. But, we're also not ready to hunt down spammers or create effective measures to stop spam at the source.

Major magazine publishers are uniting to solve that old media dilemma of how to survive new media, rumor has it, and they'll soon be opening a joint storefront to peddle their digital wares. Time, Condé Nast, and Hearst are among the publishers who will participate in this iTunes-style magazine store, according to the Observer, but concrete details are scarce. Here's how I'm hoping it pans out:

Bring it to iTunes

Magazines are sold in grocery stores and bodegas, and even newsstands sell lots of other stuff, so why pen digital magazines into their own marketplace? Make the store an annex of larger, existing digital storefronts. Publishers could still sell digital magazines directly, but their content will be easier to stumble upon in places where people are already shopping.

Are you in the market for a laptop or netbook this holiday season? Then check out the hot deals below. I've scoured the Web looking for the best Black Friday laptop and netbook deals priced less than $400. I've found offers from many major retailers, as well as some handy tips to help you map out this year's shopping strategy.

If you can't get enough laptop information, then you should also check out PC World's 2009 Holiday Laptop Gift Guide to see which computers promise to be on everyone's wish list this year.

Apple has established the concept of the app store and continues to define the business model for competitors to follow. Mobile operating system platforms, at least those intended for smartphones, are more or less required to have some form of app store now, but enough is enough with 'there's an app for that'. How many apps do we need, exactly?

App Store boasts over 100,000 apps. Contrast that with the roughly 10,000 apps in the Android Market, or the approximately 1,000 apps available from Microsoft's Windows Marketplace for Mobile, and you can easily see that Apple is by far the leader in the app store arena.

Dwma needs to return a dead hard drive to the manufacturer, and asked the Answer Line forum for a way to first remove sensitive data.

Hard drives almost always contain some potentially compromising information, such as credit card and social security numbers. You should always wipe a hard drive before turning it over to someone else. But that job is particularly difficult if the hard drive no longer works. (See Remove Sensitive Data Before You Sell an Old PC for wiping healthy drives.)

Have you already tried Chrome OS using a virtual machine, and were less than impressed? Well now you can get a feel for how Google's Web-centric operating system will run natively on your machine. The folks over at Engadget were able to boot Chromium OS -- the open source version of what will become Chrome OS -- off of a USB stick on a Dell Vostro A90 netbook. The USB bootable disc is based on the Chromium OS build of Twitter user Hexxeh, who set up a Web site where you can view all the instructions you need for getting your bootable USB up and running.

If you're ready to get your hands dirty and try out the new OS, here's what you need to know:

Stranded in the middle of a do-nothing town, armed only with a mobile phone? Google has streamlined its movie search function on your iPhone, Palm WebOS, or Android-powered device to make on-the-fly searching for movies easier.

Large swaths of the world are subject to censorship, or else track their citizens' use of the Internet. Free program Freenet lets you anonymously browse the Web, share files, chat on forums, and more--no matter where you are. Download and run the software, and you become part of a decentralized P2P network that uses encryption and other tools to keep you hidden and anonymous. As you browse, your data is encrypted and sent through a series of Freenet nodes, making it very difficult to track you.