CompuDave

The Culprit Is...

2011-01-25T07:28:00.000-08:00

I've had some serious slowdowns occurring on my computer and had one hell of a time trying to figure it out. I would bring up the task manager (ctl/alt/del) and sort the processes by CPU time with highest on top (click the cpu column heading twice). It became obvious the FireFox was really eating up 100% of the cycles.

From blogspot

Here you can see what happened as soon as I closed FireFox. Some web searching provided nothing useful except to show several people have had this problem. I disabled some of my addons I really didn't need. Each time I started FF the problem came back. I tried starting FF in safe mode but it still happened.

Now I was allowing all my tabs to be restored each time. I had roughly twenty open. I left task manager up and started closing tabs slowly, watching the CPU usage. Turns out it was one site, SFGate. I had left a story open I was interested in. Doesn't matter what I do, anytime I have a SFGate page open it happens. Now I have some ad blockers and no script installed but it seems that might not be it. After all it still happens when I tried safe mode which disables all blockers.

I also tried Chrome, IE8 and Opera with the SFGate home page. Each showed an initial sharp spike in task manager but then settled down. Opera showed a somewhat higher usage with up and down spiking at around 20-25%.

Interesting and I'll still keep using FF as my default browser since I like it and am used to it. It should be interesting if I find any other pages with this happening. The underlying cause remains a mystery.

Fighting the TDL3 Hijack

2010-12-28T20:29:00.000-08:00

TDL3 rootkit. A very hard one to identify. I've had two different computers at completely different locations experience this. The big clue is redirection of search results. Even Google on FireFox. You get the results but if you try to link it redirects.

I have no clue as to the vector. AVG, Hijack This, Housecall and Malwarebytes all failed to find it. Combofix could see it but failed to fix it. Kasperskey has a specific cleanup tool that did the job.

Football, Guns, Beer & Rednecks

2009-12-11T08:13:00.000-08:00

Even for me this is a little too stupid. A $3600 TV.

CrossLoop Badge

2009-03-18T14:57:00.001-07:00

You Agree To...

2009-03-16T18:58:00.001-07:00

Microsoft Retail Stores

2009-02-13T13:29:00.000-08:00

Microsoft to open retail stores.

http://www.theinquirer.net/inquirer/news/982/
1050982/microsoft-plans-retail-adventure

Stupid Flanders.

Preinstalled Software

2008-08-29T11:14:00.001-07:00

Consumer grade computer often come so loaded with unneeded and use trial software it has developed it's own moniker - crapware. One of the reasons I steer people towards business class machine is they have far less preinstalls; with the exception of trial versions of MS office. But why would you buy that when you can get Open Office for free?

All aside this article explains that some manufacturers are rethinking the whole concept. They should.
http://www.theinquirer.net/gb/inquirer/
news/2008/08/28/pc-makers-rethink-preloaded

PC BOX BUILDERS are thinking of getting rid of the tradition of stuffing your new PC or laptop with trial software that you don’t really want anyway.

The reason is that some retailers, such as Best Buy, are making a small fortune removing the software and charging punters for the privilege.

According to the New York Times software companies pay hundreds of millions of dollars to PC makers like Hewlett-Packard to install their photo tools, financial programs, virus killers and other products, usually with some tie-in to a paid service or upgrade.

PC makers have come to lean on this cash as profit margins become thinner than a French catwalk model who has skipped eating for a month, fainted and fallen under a steam roller.

Circuit City and other US chains also report that users are miffed at the amount digital infomercials which are being packed onto the PC.

Always the end user advocate, my advice still stands. Look for business models to buy. You'll probably have to go on-line to do so.

Ink & Toner Ripoff

2008-08-22T14:21:00.000-07:00

Well really, does this come as a surprise?

http://www.slate.com/id/2198316/

I bought a cheap laser printer a couple years ago, and for a while, it worked perfectly. The printer, a Brother HL-2040, was fast, quiet, and produced sheet after sheet of top-quality prints—until one day last year, when it suddenly stopped working. I consulted the user manual and discovered that the printer thought its toner cartridge was empty. It refused to print a thing until I replaced the cartridge. But I'm a toner miser: For as long as I've been using laser printers, it's been my policy to switch to a new cartridge at the last possible moment, when my printouts get as faint as archival copies of the Declaration of Independence. But my printer's pages hadn't been fading at all. Did it really need new toner—or was my printer lying to me?
.....
OppressedPrinterUser found that covering the sensor with a small piece of dark electrical tape tricked the printer into thinking he'd installed a new cartridge. I followed his instructions, and my printer began to work. At least eight months have passed. I've printed hundreds of pages since, and the text still hasn't begun to fade. On FixYourOwnPrinter.com, many Brother owners have written in to thank OppressedPrinterUser for his hack. One guy says that after covering the sensor, he printed 1,800 more pages before his toner finally ran out.

Surprise!

Eye Candy

2008-07-30T11:10:00.000-07:00

So what's wrong with eye-candy?. In my last post I mentioned that Vista was offering mostly eye-candy as opposed to real features. Don't get me wrong, I like cool looking applications just as much as anyone else. But do you need Vista for that? You could of course get a Mac, they're all about eye-candy anyway. Not just their software but their general styling as well, but you do pay for it.

What about dressing up XP, that is easy enough to do also. Two things I use and really like. First an old one, the Google Desktop. Want all those gizmos on your screen along with that slick glassy look and a great search, then this does just that. Works great on my wide screen laptop because frankly I don't care for most applications to run that wide. Ever tried following small print all the way across a 17" wide screen? I just keep my application in a more normal aspect and let GD fill the right 2" of my screen. Well I'm a sucker for a lot of Google ware as it is. Gmail, Google Docs, Blogger and Picasa - both the program and the on-line photo sharing.

That brings me to my latest little piece of eye-candy. Pic Lens as a FireFox addon.
Those iphone commercials where they glide through pictures. Go there and check it out.
http://www.piclens.com/

Such a cool interface for Picasa on-line.

I said two items but I offer one honorable mention. Opera. The latest version sports a new look if nothing else. And it just works. Excellent browser that still has a really nice feature of fit-to-width view. The look is by default a very pleasing and glassy modern black and dark red that I truly like.
opera.com

Opera and FireFox are both skinable and there are quite a few offerings, or do your own is always an option (yeah in my free time).

What's Wrong With Vista

2008-07-24T15:52:00.000-07:00

Microsoft is trying hard to polish up Vista's image.

Spurred by an e-mail from someone deep in the marketing ranks, Microsoft last week traveled to San Francisco, rounding up Windows XP users who had negative impressions of Vista. The subjects were put on video, asked about their Vista impressions, and then shown a "new" operating system, code-named Mojave. More than 90 percent gave positive feedback on what they saw. Then they were told that "Mojave" was actually Windows Vista.

"Oh wow," said one user, eliciting exactly the exclamation that Microsoft had hoped to garner when it first released the operating system more than 18 months ago. Instead, the operating system got mixed reviews and criticisms for its lack of compatibility and other headaches.

http://news.cnet.com/8301-13860_3-9998336-56.html?tag=nl.e703

At this point many of the annoying bugs that first appeared in Vista are gone. This still misses the point. What's wrong with Vista is what isn't wrong with XP. XP works pretty well. Vista offers mostly eye-candy and slower operation due to that. From a business user and sys admin's viewpoint there is no there there. Top that with the need for an outlay of money and a learning curve for the way some old features now have new names and locations and try to figure out the motivation.

I can't.

Working Without a Script

2008-05-08T15:05:00.000-07:00

Because of the SQL attack occurring on webpages I decided to retry using Firefox with the NoScript addon installed.

Now I really don't feel too vulnerable to begin with. I use Firefox almost exclusively and I have Zone Alarm Antivirus running as well. I do a lot of surfing and I never get hit, but I don't click on unknowns either. I had used the NoScript addon before but had stopped. I decided a revisit was in order.

First and foremost you will find it annoying at best. Things like youtube videos won't even show the preview shot. Blogger won't work right with it but you can set temporary or even permanent permissions. After a while you will have given NoScript permanent permission for many of the sites you visit regularly and it won't seem so bad.

On the plus side it also stops a lot of advertisements and much to my joy those damn moving ones that way too many of my favorite reads have started using. The LA Times crossword get permission of course.

Now most users won't be able tolerate it. BUT IT IS SAFER! If you've been infected with a virus or adware trojan you might well be aware of how difficult it can be to clean up. I know I do plenty of disinfections for others (thank you). I suggest you might just want to try NoScipt and see for yourself.

Gmail & Imap

2008-04-29T13:23:00.000-07:00

What do you use when accessing email from multiple computers? For most people that's not really a problem nor has it ever been for myself. I have several email addresses and three different computers I use regularly to read it. Most of my email addresses are set to forward into my long standing earthlink account. From there I pickup up my mail using Thunderbird on one of two desktops or my laptop. The two desktops are set to read the mail but leave the messages on the server and the laptop removes the messages when it reads them. All computers check for mail every ten minutes and the desktops automatically download the messages. The laptop only notifies me of mail and I have to click get mail to force the download and removal from earthlink servers. It actually works pretty darn well and I rarely have to bother with any kind of synchronizing. Every great once in awhile I download something to the laptop before it gets picked up by the desktops but I know to watch for that.

Now I know some people think their world revolves around email. Pretty foolish really. If you know something is important best to get on the phone and have a little back and forth and know things are being taken care of. But what really are the choices if you need multiple access?

Most isps provide only POP mail servers and webmail. POP works fine most of the time but not for multiple access if you need to stay synced. Webmail isn't bad but once again there is really no way to sync up things like mail you send from the web interface (well you can cc to yourself but then your sent is really now a copy in your inbox).

So what are the choices? You can get synchronizing software. You could set up your own mail servers (come on, are you really big enough to justify that?). You might have an isp that provides imap instead of pop mail servers(rare). You might use gmail that is free and provides imap service. Now without going into details on the works of an imap mail server and client lets just make the point that it is a service designed for multiple access. Google makes it trivially easy to set a gmail account to imap and it's trivially easy to setup in a client like Thunderbird. As I explained above I not sure I have a need for it, so just for fun and experience I've changed my gmail to imap and will be playing with it. So far looks good.

MS OOXML

2008-04-22T15:58:00.000-07:00

Foisted on their on petard.

http://www.theregister.co.uk/2008/04/22/
office_2007_oxml_fails_test/

Microsoft's Office 2007 Word documents do not conform to the newly-approved Open XML (OXML) international standard.

Alex Brown, who heads up the group responsible for maintaining the OXML standard at the International Standardisation Organisation (ISO), revealed the less-than-pretty findings in a blog post late last week.
.....
Microsoft had tried to fast-track OOXML via Ecma International, the group which originally rubber-stamped the format. However, a vote of the draft failed to gain sufficient approval last September.

The Ecma-approved version of OOXML conformed to Office 2007 documents, but, following the changes made at the BRM, the wheels appear to have fallen off.

Oh yeah.

Email 101

2008-03-14T08:59:00.000-07:00

Had one of those fun little problems yesterday. User said that someone was sending emails to them but they were not receiving them. Question one - are they getting bounce backs? No. Are they sending them to the right address? Yes. What about the catchall account? What is that?

Okay there are two ways to set up email domains to take care of misaddressed email. Bounce back or catchall. In both cases we're assuming the domain is right just not the actual recipient. In bounce back the sender will get a return. In catchall the domain administrator designates an account to be the catchall and all mail that can't be identified to an individual gets sent there. Turns out the person with the catchall account wasn't there that day and no one had checked that email yet because "They were busy".

I was on site and looked and there they were in the catchall. This person (the receiver) has one of those name with ei in it that people confuse a lot. Swears they told the sender the right spelling more than once. You know a good way to resolve issues like this is for the recipient to send an email to the sender to get the correct address in their hands. The sender then needs to update their address book from that email. Just looking can be hard on easily misspelled names.

I was on the phone with the sender and trying to be helpful and pointed out the spelling mistake. Maybe they felt a little embarrassed over such a simple solution. Look we all make simple mistakes, myself included. I never try to make people feel foolish in spite the temptations at times but now they started making this worse. This company has two domain names, one they use for the public and one they use for emails and private web services. There was a good reason this happened but thats not the point. This person somehow had come across both, probably from reading the email header somewhere. They asked me which one they should send to (same user name, different domain). I told them they should use the main domain name but it didn't really matter as the one forwarded to the other. They ask again. Hmmmmmm....... this is a client of the company don't offend them. I simply say, "Use the main domain name". They insist on sending a test to each domain name and have a reply sent back. Let them have their way and hopefully they are happy.

Of course I hope you get the real point of the story. The easiest solution is usually to try to send mail back to the sender. In this case the sender kept using the address in their contacts and not seeing the misspelling. Updating from a received email would have been a better choice.

Home Theater

2008-01-29T15:50:00.001-08:00

A little different from my usual subjects but just in case a 50 inch TV and surround sound isn't enough....

http://theater.stevejenkins.com/gallery/complete/

be sure to check out the whole building phase.

Nine Years Ago - The Great Bakersfield Snow

2008-01-24T18:57:00.000-08:00

Jan 25,1999

Here's the link
http://compudave.com/snow/sfindex.htm

Fun

2008-01-16T10:31:00.000-08:00

Dominos With 1500 Hard Drives - Watch more free videos

And all I did with mine is erase them and send them off to recycling.

The Fat Lady Sings

2007-12-20T08:53:00.000-08:00

Most of what I do involves small businesses, but I sometimes do work for individuals so the other day when a retired fellow I'd helped before called I went over to his house. He has an older Dell computer which he had some sort of trouble with. He had taken it to CompUSA and after a month they managed to wipe out his installation of XP Home and reinstall Win 98 SP2. He was unable to find the product code for his win XP update even though he had the cd. He was forced to go back to the Win 98 that came with the computer.

They told him they had been bought out and their regular techs had left. He wasn't aware CompUSA was going out of business.
(They are, they were sold out to a liquidation firm, not to some one who is going to run it. In a way I will miss them as they were often a ready source for hardware but on the other hand their help was lousy, and their techs usually incompetent.)

Back to the story. His machine had a usb keyboard and mouse. Win 98 will usually not recognize those until you install drivers but try to install drivers without a keyboard and mouse. A quick hookup of some usb to standard adapters (which I carry in my laptop case), got us started, drivers installed and Bob's your uncle.

Now go to windows update and run the critical updates. So far so good. Now he uses Hotmail for his email and accesses through the IE browser. We head over there and signin but when we get to the inbox it renders completely out of wack and is unreadable. Seeeeesh! what now?

We just want to get this done and let him read his emails before he heads out for the holidays. First I think Firefox but since Hotmail is an MS site I think again and decide on Opera.

Quick download and install. Signin to Hoptmail and we're off. Damn I'm good some days.
If you've never tried Opera let me tell you ist pretty nice. Fast, has tabbed browsing and my favorite that even Firefox doesn't have, fit to screen. Ever have a page that wanders way off to the right and you have to keep scrolling side to side? When I hit those I just fire up Opera and away I go.

Opera web browser. Recommended.
http://www.opera.com/

Automatic Updates & IE7

2007-11-30T09:45:00.000-08:00

Well it appears Microsoft automatic updates is again pushing IE7 on to some systems. I Usually set updates to download but ask before installing. Now IE7 is an improvement over previous versions but here is the ironic part. It won't run many web applications written with Microsoft active x and .net. Yes, I've seen it more than once. The user then needs to roll back to IE 6.

First go to the control panel and use ad/remove programs. Remove IE7. Second if you have automatic updates on you may see the yellow shield in your system tray. Click it and bring up the dialog and then choose custom install. When that opens showing the IE 7 update uncheck the box then proceed. You should get a message that the update was not installed and in that window there is a box to check which says never prompt me for this again. Check that and close. Hopefully this will stop any attempts by Windows update to reinstall IE7.

Better choices, use Firefox whenever possible. For developers quit using Microsoft tools that lock your users to IE. The problem is obvious when their own updates cause your application to fail and this has been going on for almost two years. Java is a far better developer choice.

The $200 PC

2007-11-01T09:36:00.000-07:00

It starts today. I would never recommend for businesses but for a second home unit - why not?

http://www.theinquirer.net/gb/inquirer/
news/2007/11/01/via-powered-199-pc-tips-wal

WAL-MART has begun offering a $199 Linux PC powered by VIA's C7-D Processor.

The Everex TC2502 Green gPC comes with 512MB of DDR2 system memory and a 80GB hard disk.

It runs gOS operating system, which is based on Ubuntu 7.10, and, apparently, sports a friendly green front end.

Now I'm no fan of shopping at Wally World but I'll do it on a rare occasion. Now I have lots of old PC's to play with and have put Linux OS on more than one. Ubuntu is a good choice for most user.

What's Going on Behind Your Back

2007-09-13T11:34:00.000-07:00

Well I've been bad. No post long time.

When does off not mean off? Well if you own an iPhone.
(This article fails to point out the phones were turned off and never used but they still do email downloads.)
http://www.dslreports.com/shownews/
4800-ATT-Wireless-Bill-87411?nocomment=1

Back in July, a man was shocked to see that he'd received a $3,000 iPhone bill after heading overseas and getting nailed by the AT&T Wireless "pay-per-byte" data plan. He managed to get a full refund from AT&T after complaining via the blog Boing Boing. The user brought attention to the fact that AT&T Blackberry users are able to sign up for a $70 unlimited international plan, but iPhone users are not.

Apparently, he wasn't the only one not paying attention to the billing plan he signed on for. Another family is complaining they were billed $4,800 by AT&T after taking their three iPhones on an international cruise.
"Levy and his daughter each have three e-mail accounts on their iPhones, and they were each billed more than $1,900. His wife's phone had one e-mail account, and her bill hit $890. One connection alone ran $223. Levy said he has complained all the way to office of AT&T's president."
AT&T iPhone users users who travel Outside the U.S. pay $24.99 for 20 megabytes. In some countries, users can pay between $5 to $20 per megabyte for data.

And now Microsoft does updates even when your settings say not to.
http://blogs.zdnet.com/hardware/?p=774

Microsoft Corp. has started updating files on computers running Windows XP and Vista, even when users have explicitly disabled the operating systems’ automatic update feature, researchers said today.

Scott Dunn, an editor at the “Windows Secrets” newsletter, said that nine files in XP and Vista — but not the same files in each operating system — have been changed by Windows Update, the Microsoft update mechanism, without displaying the usual notification or permission dialog box. The files, said Dunn, are related to the XP and Vista versions of Windows Update (WU) itself.

Understandable

2007-07-17T15:26:00.000-07:00

http://news.scotsman.com/latest.cfm?id=1114812007>

BERLIN (Reuters) - A German man who startled his neighbours when he hurled his computer out of the window in the middle of the night, was let off for disturbing the peace by police who sympathised with his technical frustrations.

Police in the northern city of Hanover said they would not press charges after responding to calls made by residents in an apartment block who were woken by a loud crash in the early hours of Saturday.
......
Asked what had driven him to the night-time outburst, the 51-year-old man said he had simply got annoyed with his computer.

"Who hasn't felt like doing that?" said a police spokesman.

AT&T DSL - They Just Can't Stop

2007-06-20T09:12:00.000-07:00

Well AT&T promised to offer a cheap DSL in return for being allowed to become an even bigger monopoly. Big phone companies never change.
http://www.boston.com/business/technology/articles/2007/06/18/
att_quietly_offers_10_dsl_plan/?p1=MEWell_Pos3

NEW YORK --Without any sort of fanfare, AT&T Inc. has started offering a broadband Internet service for $10 a month, cheaper than any advertised plan.

The DSL, or digital subscriber line, plan introduced Saturday is part of the concessions made by AT&T to the Federal Communications Commission to get its $86 billion acquisition of BellSouth Corp. approved last December.

The $10 offer is available to customers in the 22-state AT&T service region, which includes former BellSouth areas, who have never had AT&T or BellSouth broadband, spokesman Michael Coe confirmed Monday. Local phone service and a one-year contract are required. The modem is free.

The plan was not mentioned in a Friday news release about AT&T's DSL plans, and is slightly hidden on the AT&T Web site. A page describing DSL options doesn't mention it, but clicking a link for "Term contract plans" reveals it. It's also presented to customers who go into the application process, Coe said.

The service provides download speeds of up to 768 kilobits per second and upload speeds of up to 128 kbps, matching the speeds of the cheapest advertised AT&T plan, which costs $19.95 per month in the nine-state former BellSouth area and $14.99 in the 13 states covered by AT&T before the acquisition.

So typical. Why is there always this desire to mislead the customer? Cell phone carriers seem even worse.
Now AT&T also wants to help big media companies caught pirates.
http://www.theinquirer.net/default.aspx?article=40320

Privacy? We've heard of it. Sorta.......

Xandros - How To Kill Goodwill

2007-06-04T16:15:00.000-07:00

Well it should have been obvious after Novell's tryst with the beast.

Microsoft and Linux distributor Xandros announced on Monday a technical and legal collaboration, the latest step in the software giant's ongoing programme to partner with open-source companies.

According to the two companies, over the next five years they will work on improving interoperability between their servers to improve systems management.

The pact calls for Microsoft to provide patent covenants for Xandros customers that ensure they are not infringing on Microsoft's intellectual property, according to the companies.

Xandros will also ship software for desktop productivity applications that translates between the Open Document Format and OpenXML, which is Microsoft's own document format.

The agreement will make it easier for Xandros customers to run a mix of Xandros and Microsoft software, Andreas Typaldos, chief executive of Xandros, said in a statement.

http://news.zdnet.co.uk/software/0,1000000121,39287358,00.htm

Idiots I tell you.

Best Selling Windows Ever

2007-04-23T17:15:00.000-07:00

WITH TWO OVERLAPPING events, Microsoft admitted what we have been saying all along, Vista, aka Windows Me Two (Me II), is a joke that no one wants.

It did two unprecedented things this week that frankly stunned us.

Dell announced that it would be offering XP again on home PCs. The second that Vista came out, Microsoft makes it very hard for you to sell anything other than Me II. It can't do this on the business side because it would be laughed out the door, but for the walking sheep class, well, you take what you are shovelled.
.....
The other equally monumental Me II failure? Gates in China launching a $3 version of bundled XP. Why is this not altruism? Well, it goes back to piracy and how it helped enforce the MS monopoly. If you can easily pirate Windows, Linux has no price advantage, they both cost zero.

With Me II, Microsoft made it very hard to pirate. It is do-able, you can use the BIOS hack and probably a host of others, but the point is, it raised the bar enough so lots of people have to buy it. Want to bet that in a country with $100 average monthly salary, people aren't going to shell out $299 for Me II Broken Edition?

http://theinquirer.net/default.aspx?article=39087

Firefox

2007-03-15T14:30:00.000-07:00

A little history on Firefox and a note that IE is now below 80% market. Cool.

http://www.eweek.com/article2/0,1895,
2104271,00.asp?kc=EWKARCAPPS031507STR1

But while Mozilla 1.0 received many kudos from reviewers (including eWEEK Labs), it failed to make much of a dent in the 96 percent market share that Microsoft's Internet Explorer enjoyed at the time.

During that same time, a teenager by the name of Blake Ross, who had started as an intern at Netscape, began work on a new project within the Mozilla Foundation to counteract the feature bloat and developer orientation that was indicative of the Mozilla browser suite at that time.

Along with Mozilla developer Dave Hyatt, Ross worked to build a new version of the browser that would be slim, easy to use, and most of all, just a Web browser.

Open Document Formats

2007-03-08T13:34:00.000-08:00

http://www.desktoplinux.com/news/NS3446288416.html

California may become the second U.S. state to mandate an open format for all government documents. A bill filed this week by state Assemblyman Mark Leno (D-San Francisco) would require the transition to open, XML-based document formats by 2008.

In September 2005, Massachusetts became the first state to commit to using only nonproprietary document formats, including ODF (Open Document Format). ODF documents can be created by such office suites as OpenOffice.org, KOffice, GNOME Office, and others. Similar legislation is pending in Texas and Minnesota.

A spokesperson for Leno in Sacramento, Calif., told DesktopLinux.com that it will be several weeks before the bill makes its way to the floor for a vote, but that Leno is "optimistic" that it will succeed.

ODF was recognized as a global standard by the International Standards Organization in May 2006.

While normally I dislike government interference this is about making public documents accessible to everyone, and for many years to come. It will also help stop MS from trying to hold users documents hostage to their propriety formats.

Voice Recognition

2007-02-16T13:59:00.000-08:00

Remote Software

2007-02-14T15:56:00.000-08:00

Microsoft's remote desktop software is as usual way over done and too cumbersome to use. I've come up with a couple of new ones I really like.

First if you are attempting to help someone out, try Crossloop. Very easy to use. Crosses most firewalls. Secure and encrypted. Works on an invitation only method. Works on Win 98 and up.

Now what if you want to control your home computer from work? Actually anywhere you can get on the web.
iremotepc
Start this on the computer you wish to control and then login at iremotepc from anywhere else and take control. Up to 2 computer are free. A more robust client is available for a fee.

A Fair Comparison

2007-02-02T12:11:00.000-08:00

Steven J. Vaughan-Nichols takes a pretty high-end PC and installs Vista and Ubuntu Linux in dual boot and does comparisons.

http://desktoplinux.com/articles/AT9727687530.html

My test system's high-end audio outputs are S/PDIF (Sony/Philips Digital Interface Format) compliant. S/PDIF is probably the most common high-end audio port around for PCs today. It also has no built-in DRM (digital rights management) capability, and that turned out to be an important matter.

When I switched back to Vista, I tried to play Wilco's Yankee Hotel Foxtrot CD. Whoops! Not a single sound emerged from my speakers. After a little investigation, I found that Vista disables media outputs that don't incorporate DRM, when you try to play DRM protected media through them.
.....
That was a kick in the head. I have a fully legal CD in my hand. Any other version of Windows will play it, Linux will play it, Mac OS will play it, and my CD player will play it, but if you're using S/PDIF for your computer-driven audio and Vista, you're out of luck. If you have a card with a Toslink optical digital audio port, you will be able to play it.

One of the ironies of the situation was that this very album had been first released on the Web without any DRM, in part as a protest against DRM. Ah well, that was yesterday.

There's a very detailed report on just how Vista goes wrong with DRM, which I recommend to you. I'll just content myself by saying an operating system -- any operating system -- is not the place for DRM.

Dandy

Vista - NO Need

2007-01-25T08:40:00.000-08:00

I've been saying it for months. So have a lot of others.

http://review.zdnet.com/Windows_Vista_Ultimate/
4505-3672_16-32013603.html

The bottom line: Windows Vista is essentially warmed-over Windows XP. If you're currently happy with Windows XP SP2, we see no compelling reason to upgrade. On the other hand, if you need a new computer right now, Windows Vista is stable enough for everyday use.

So, If you're getting a new computer - maybe. I'd still go Win XP Pro in a business setting. Better idea - spend your money on more memory for your current machine. 1GB of mem makes a vast improvement in performance.

On an other note IE7 breaks many web applications. I had to roll back some machines this week when the software support people said their product would not run on IE7. Fair warning.

Who Needs an iPhone

2007-01-15T10:22:00.001-08:00

Go for a ZunePhone instead

More on Vista

2006-12-01T12:05:00.000-08:00

Well it's out - at least to volume license purchasers.
So if you're interested in Win XP SP3 at a greatly inflated price - go for it.
I have not seen one compelling reason to buy it. The only ones praising it are MS flunkies and PR firms and magazines with MS advertising to protect.

Soon it it start being bundled on new computers and that is where most sales will come from. There will still be Win XP SP2 sold on new computers and I would recommend that until Vista SP1 is out.

Vista

2006-11-29T16:22:00.000-08:00

Yes I've been lazy.

http://www.eweek.com/article2/0,1895,2062318,00.asp

Microsoft really doesn't want you to know this, but many of your existing applications won't work with Vista. In fact, some brand new products won't work with Vista.

At the top of that list of "It doesn't work," we find, believe it or not, Microsoft new music player, Zune. Yes, that's right; Microsoft's iPod killer doesn't work with Vista.
......
Then, consider if you will, Windows Live Messenger 8.0 and the beta 8.1. Both IM clients blow up after a few hours of use on Vista.

Oh, and the new IM client from AOL, AIM 6? I can now attest from personal experience that it goes "boom" too on Vista.
.....
That said, I do wonder a bit why many major anti-virus programs, such as AVG Free, Symantec AntiVirus Corporate Edition for Vista, and Kaspersky Anti-Virus & Kaspersky Internet Security 6.0 are all reported to crash and burn.
.....
You should also know that some of Microsoft's own programs won't run with Vista. For example, Microsoft's own Virtual PC 2004 won't work.

Neither will Visual Studio .NET 2002, Visual Studio .NET 2003, and Microsoft SQL Server 2000. Visual Studio 2005 SP1 will work... sort of.

So, if any of you developers out there are planning on creating.NET 1.1 applications in Vista, forget about it!

And that should be quite enough.

Pumpkin Tux

2006-11-02T10:11:00.000-08:00

Dan Bowman's son does a little Halloween carving.
Check out Dan's photos, there some great shots in there.
http://thetimesink.net/
http://thetimesink.net/Blog/

Browser Update

2006-10-26T10:25:00.000-07:00

Well I did the FireFox 2.0 yesterday as well. To be fair I also did IE7 and the latest Opera.
FF installed perfectly as well as all extension updates. Total install about 4 mins.
Installed and updated:
Imagezoom
Greasemonkey
Adblock
FireFTP

not compatible
TabMixPlus
ColorfulTabs

IE failed its first install probably because of ZoneAlarm asking but me not allowing a home page change. Second time I allowed and it went. About 10 min total install time.

Opera installed in about 3 min.

This is a fast machine AMD Athalon 64 4000+ 1gig. All browsers seem fast with all three running. FF 2 seems a little slower than FF 1.5. IE7 seems reasonably fast until you get more than about 6 tabs open. Opera still seems the fastest.

IE7 did one total lockup on me when I purposely tried to push about 10 tabs open fast. I couldn't seem to force it to end either. When I brought up task manager there were 2 instances of IE running and killing them both finally did it.

The toolbars in IE7 hit me as odd but probably just different.
IE7 seems okay but nothing compelling. FF 2 now has built in spelling check which is just great. If a word shows up with a red line while filling in a form like this one, just right click on it and a list of replacements shows up.

I still like Opera too but with FF extensibility and spell check I'll stick with it.

Quote Of the Day

2006-10-23T16:14:00.000-07:00

"The Iranian government just announced that they are going to slow down Internet access speed because they don't want Iranians to have good Internet service. Apparently, the government is so serious about this they are making all Iranians subscribe to AOL." --Conan O'Brien

We Own Your System

2006-10-05T07:30:00.000-07:00

Microsoft in an effort to continue to boost their dying OS franchise is planning to disable systems it thinks may be pirated.

http://arstechnica.com/news.ars/post/20061004-7898.html

Windows Vista will ship with anti-piracy technology that will lock down the OS if it has not been activated within 30 days of first use, Microsoft announced today. If the OS is not activated, Windows will switch to a reduced functionality mode that will cripple the OS. This is but one of many planned features of Microsoft's new Software Protection Platform (SPP), shared by both Windows Vista and the forthcoming Longhorn Server, due sometime late next year (at the earliest).

Considering there have been many known failures of the WGA this is outrageous. They keep siting some BSA bogus figure of $35 billion lost to piracy. Oh come on, that's how they accumulated all that money they now have. The only ones really punished by this absurd action will be legitimate users whose systems fail to pass WGA.

Nerd Test

2006-09-27T13:56:00.000-07:00

I'm surprised it's so low.

Another IE Flaw

2006-09-19T15:39:00.000-07:00

http://www.eweek.com/article2/0,1895,2017407,00.asp

Security researchers at Sunbelt Software have discovered an active malware attack against fully patched versions of Microsoft's Internet Explorer browser.

The exploit has been seeded at several porn sites hosted in Russia and is being used to launching drive-by malware downloads that appear to be hijacking Windows machines for use in botnets.

Let's see, hmmmm don't go to porn sites....

The attack is linked to the WebAttacker, a do-it-yourself malware installation toolkit that is sold at multiple underground Web sites.

"Once you click on the site, the exploit opens an MS-DOS box and starts installing spyware," Sites said.

If you see a DOS box open shut down and start cleaning.
Or..... just use FireFox.

IE Patch

2006-09-13T10:37:00.000-07:00

http://news.com.com/Third+time+a+charm+for+IE+patch/
2100-1002_3-6115275.html?tag=nefd.top

Microsoft has issued a third version of a troubled Internet Explorer patch, aiming to fix a bug in an earlier update that could be exploited to hijack Windows PCs.

The original MS06-042 patch, released on Aug. 8, introduced not one, but two new security holes. Microsoft addressed one flaw in an updated version of the patch released Aug. 24 and dealt with the second flaw in the third version released Tuesday, Tony Chor, a group program manager on the IE team at Microsoft, wrote on a corporate blog.

MS06-042, a cumulative security update for the widely-used Web browser, was one of a dozen security updates delivered last month and was meant to repair eight flaws. Microsoft tagged the update "critical," its most severe rating.

The patch now fixes 10 flaws, including two introduced by earlier versions of the update. The first bug affected IE 6.0 with Service Pack 1 and could be exploited by remote attackers to commandeer a Windows PC. The second flaw is similar, but affects IE 5.01 on Windows 2000, IE 6.0 Service Pack 1 (in a different location), and IE in the original release of Windows Server 2003.

Just use Firefox

Vi$$$$ta

2006-09-07T12:48:00.000-07:00

Okay, long time no post. And a crappy title too.
This first
http://www.desktoplinux.com/news/NS3179571720.html

So, let's add it all up, shall we, and see what it will cost you to upgrade your office XP systems to either Vista or SLED.

SLED will cost you $50 per desktop. The suggested upgrade retail price for Windows Vista Business is $199. If you had to buy a new license, it would hit your wallet for $299.

For Vista, you'll need to spend at least $325 for better hardware, not counting the labor expense. With Vista, you'll also need to upgrade at least some of your software, and continue to pay for security software. Let's call this total $200.

You'll also need to retrain your employees on either platform. For the reasons, I discuss above, the actually appears to be a wash.

Now, with SLED, you don't need to update your hardware. Let's say that you use both Versora and CrossOver Office to make life as easy as possible for your users. That will run you $70.

While free, open-source software can supply most of your needs, let's presume that you'll need to pay at least $50 for some program that won't be available within SLED or the open-source community. Of course, you won't need to pay for anti-virus or spam protection, so you'll save that cash.

So, bottom line time, it will cost you $724 per PC to upgrade to Vista. Or, you could pay $170 per PC to get SLED. That's a savings of $554 per user desktop.

And this
http://www.microsoft-watch.com/article2/0,2180,2010894,00.asp

Microsoft wouldn't talk TCO specifics. I asked. A spokeswoman said to expect the company to share details later this fall, in the post-Release-Candidate-1 (RC1) timeframe. Vista RC1 is expected to go to more than two million testers as early as next week.

In the interim, Vista Product Manager Mike Burk did offer some limited guidance.

"Vista can positively impact a company's direct and indirect costs," he said. (Direct, in this case, is hardware, parts and depreciation; indirect is support; troubleshooting; specific configurations, etc..) "Vista will require fewer support calls. It will be easier to manage. It will have better deployment tools."
......

HA HA HA HA HA - fewer suport calls????? If you buy that I got a bridge deal for ya right here.

Vista and Voice Recognition

2006-08-02T08:45:00.000-07:00

Xandros

2006-07-12T10:02:00.000-07:00

I've been terrible about keeping up here. Work Work Work. That's all I can say.

Yesterday Microsoft stopped all support of Win 98 amd ME including security updates.

You could update to Win XP. That will cost you anywhere from about $80 for the academic edition if you qualify to upwards of $200 for XP Pro. Oh, and you'll probably need memory upgrades as well. It may crawl however.

An alternative would be a Linus distribution. Xandros would be my first recommendation to most and now we have version 4.

This from Steven J. Vaughan-Nichols

Xandros 4 is the latest in a long series of Linux desktops dating back to Corel's 1999 Linux desktop. Xandros has come a long, long way since then.

Today, as three older members of the Windows family depart, Xandros is more than able to take up the needs of these, and other, Windows users. More so than almost any other Linux desktop, Xandros is designed to look and feel like Windows.

http://www.desktoplinux.com/news/NS2501946250.html

MS Word Trojan

2006-05-24T12:18:00.000-07:00

A backdoor trojan exploit that trips up MS word 2002 & 2003 has been found....
Hackers have developed malicious code designed to exploit an unpatched vulnerability in Microsoft Word 2002 and 2003.

Maliciously-constructed Word documents containing the Mdropper-H Trojan have begun to circulate on the net in messages that pose as internal emails. The malware contains a number of objects (such as PowerPoint slides and Excel charts) along with Backdoor-Ginwui, which opens a back door that allows hackers to control compromised Windows PCs.

http://www.theregister.co.uk/2006/05/22/trojan_exploit_word_vuln/

So MS suggestion....

Attacks targeting an unpatched vulnerability in Microsoft Word 2002 and 2003 have prompted Microsoft to tell users they should run the application in "safe mode".

The workaround does not address the underlying vulnerability, but running Word in safe mode will thwart current attacks based on the vulnerability, Microsoft advises.

http://www.theregister.co.uk/2006/05/24/ms_word_security_workaround/

Right! That's going to happen.
Most users don't even have a clue how to do this, nor are they going to.

Better idea. Quit using MS ~~Turd~~ Word and use Open Office instead.

File Sharing & Spyware

2006-05-13T13:06:00.000-07:00

Last night I tried to clean up a friend's computer that was so badly compromised you could not even get spybot started. So, I started by instead forcing a start in safe mode (start by pressing F8 about one or twice a second at startup until you get a menu allowing you to choose safe mode). Plugged in my USB flash drive and installed Spybot Search & Destroy and ran it without updates. Went to the system config utility (msconfig on older windows and Help Options on newer). Turned off run-on-startup of just about everything. It was then late and I told them to go back and update SSD and run it again. I highly suggested removing Morpheus which I suspect was the vector for the infestation. Hope it all works but I won't be surprised if they call me back. Scrub to bare metal might be needed.

See this piece in this last weeks The Inquirer for some more insight in avoiding trouble.
http://theinquirer.net/?Article=31675

MPAA & Black Dogs

2006-05-11T13:26:00.000-07:00

Can there be anything these clowns won't try?
http://www.spacegrinder.com/article8.html

"United Kingdom, Los Angeles - - The Federation Against Copyright Theft (FACT), express delivery company FedEx and HM Revenue & Customs, has joined forces to launch an exciting new initiative to help combat DVD piracy.

As part of a project promoted by the Motion Picture Association of America, Inc. (MPAA), FACT instigated the training of two black Labradors named Lucky and Flo by one of the world's leading experts in the field whose other clients include police, fire and rescue service. The dogs were trained over an eight month period to identify DVDs that may be located in boxes, envelopes or other packaging, as well as discs concealed amongst other goods which could be sold illegally in the UK. These DVDs are often smuggled by criminal networks involved in large scale piracy operations from around the world."

snip........
Bob Thompson, where I got this link, says the RIAA and MPAA will merge to become the
Music And Film Industry Assoc.
I think they already are.

And here is a good editorial in EWeek
http://www.eweek.com/article2/0,1895,1957278,00.asp
Intellectual property regulation in the United States is out of control. The thicket of legislation, policy and precedent through which we grant private monopolies on ideas has become, in many places, disconnected from its Constitutional mandate of promoting the progress of science and useful arts.
snip......

We all need to try to get our congress critters working for us again. I know it's hard to do and it seems as if they really don't listen to anyone who isn't a giant corporation with $$$$ but we're all on the verge of losing our fair use rights.

Open Office

2006-05-04T09:16:00.000-07:00

Why is anyone using MS office that doesn't really have to? I guess if you have it already that's fine. Why would you pay for an upgrade? Are there really got to have features in new versions? I doubt it, most people never use one tenth of the crap in there to begin with. Big bloated and overpriced, especially overpriced.

How can you compare any offer for MS office with the price of Open Office? You can't.
Please try Open Office and then be honest and try to justify staying with MS.

at&t Maketing - Idiots

2006-04-18T13:55:00.000-07:00

I just got another (let's see, about the third) call from the new at&t checking to see if I got my new at&t yellow pages.

The recording says it's the one with the picture of te john ranch on it. That's right with a jay sound. You know, right here in the southern San Joe ah kwin valley.

What a bunch of fools. I got mine, and sent it straight to recycling. The yellow pages are about the worst deal in advertising. Expensive and they don't work for most businesses. Don't waste your money.

Oh, and at&t, lesson one, don't piss off the customers.

FireFox Extensions

2006-04-06T12:54:00.000-07:00

One of the really great thing about FireFox is the extensions. Helpers that you add to the browser.
My favorites that I use on a regular basis.

Image zoom - Does a couple of things. First if an image is bigger than your screen it automatically sizes it to fit. When you bring the mouse pointer over it it changes to a magnifying glass with a plus sign, One click and the image goes to full size and the pointer has a minus sign. Click again and it back to image fit. Do a right click and the context menu contains an image zoom entry and under it are zoom in and out, several preset percentages and some other options. The best feature and the one I really like is place the pointer over the image, hold down the right mouse button then tuen the mouse wheel to enlarge or shrink the image. So easy and so cool too.

Colorful tabs - just what it says - tabs are displayed in a rainbow of colors that makes them easy to see. Another good one for old men with weak eyes.

FireFTP - a graphical FTP client you can use right inside FireFox. Maybe only something geeks need but of course I like it.

GreaseMonkey - user scripts. Modify the way web pages work. I use it right here on blogger to set up my Technorati tags. Places a handy little box below the edit screen and you just enter your tags seperated by comma and it inserts the tag html code for you. I used to paste in a set I had in a text file then alter them. So much easier.

For extra security
Noscript and Adblock - both do just what they say.

Asta la Vista - Vista

2006-03-23T09:34:00.000-08:00

Vista delayed until Jan 07. Ho hummm......

It's become nothing more than a release for XP anyway. So many so called features have been dropped. It has all become a joke. More powerful. More features. To do what? Sell more hardware? Keep up the revenue stream?

System administrators tend to fall into two camps. The MS rah rah crowd and the alternative system advocates. I guess it's no great secret where I stand. There is a big difference though. A superiority that tends to make those of us outside the MS camp a little smug. We all use Windows too. We see the difference. Much of the MS crowd never looks at what else is out there. Great products, better security and much lower costs.

Why not try some of the alternatives. It's easy enough to create dual boot machines. Try Xandros. Don't want to got that far. Use FireFox instead of IE. How about Open Office instead of MS Office. I use it all the time on Windows and the cost - $0.
Feel a little safer with a big name instead of open source? Apple.

RIAA Rage Out Of Control

2006-02-16T12:38:00.000-08:00

Big monied RIAA wants you to know that ripping music you already own to another device you own is illegal.
http://www.eff.org/deeplinks/archives/004409.php

Of course these are the same one who have gone after a woman who has never owned or even used a computer.
http://www.vnunet.com/vnunet/news/2149712/
riaa-sues-pirate-without

Explain to me why people like this are complaining

NEW YORK, Feb 14 (Reuters) - Warner Music Group Corp. (WMG.N: Quote, Profile, Research) on Tuesday reported its quarterly profit almost doubled thanks to strong sales of digital songs and lower costs, but revenue missed market expectations and its shares fell.

The company, whose artists include Madonna, Green Day and Sean Paul, said fiscal first-quarter revenue fell 4 percent to $1.04 billion. Analysts surveyed by Reuters Estimates had forecast revenue of $1.09 billion.

http://today.reuters.com/investing/financeArticle.aspx?type=

Kind of reminds of the oil companies, blame it something but still make huge profits.

Microsoft - Security is Second $$$ is First

2006-02-08T10:02:00.000-08:00

Micosoft announces that security will cost extra......

http://www.theregister.co.uk/2006/02/08/windows_antivirus_protection/

Users running Windows will be charged almost $50 each year for having their PCs protected by Microsoft against attacks from hackers.

Microsoft's Windows OneCare Live program will be launched in June and made available online and via retailers for an annual fee of $49.95 on up to three machines. Customers who beta test Windows OneCare Live between April 1 and April 30 get to take advantage of a special $19.95 promotional price.

Well that's a surprise.

For personal use all these are free...
Firewall - ZoneAlarm
Antivirus - Grisoft
Spyware - Spybot Search and Destroy

Kama Sutra Worm

2006-02-03T11:34:00.000-08:00

C/net is reporting that the world has not come to an end.

The Kama Sutra worm, designed to begin deleting files on infected computers this morning, has caused virtually no damage, according to antivirus firms.

The worm, also known as Nyxem.E, MyWife and Blackworm, has been circulating for a couple of weeks, and antivirus vendors said businesses have done well to ensure that their networks were protected against the pest.

There have been "no reports of any (Kama Sutra) detonations so far.

http://news.com.com/Kama+Sutra+worm+threat+shrivels/
2100-7349_3-6034706.html?tag=nefd.top

I'm not too surprised. I never felt that big a threat was there. Never the less use AV software. Non-comercial users can get free av from Grisoft. Beats the heck of that Norton resource hog.
http://free.grisoft.com/

tags: Virus Kama Sutra Grisoft AVG Free

The New att - Meet the New Boss

2006-02-01T18:26:00.000-08:00

Same as the old boss.....
http://arstechnica.com/news.ars/post/20060131-6089.html

AT&T CEO Ed Whitacre has made a name for himself by making loud and repeated pronouncements about how people and companies are not paying enough for Internet access. First, there was the infamous "our pipes" comment, made last year as a warning to VoIP providers. Next came the blasting of Google and Microsoft for being freeloaders on the Information Superhighway. Now, to complete the hat-trick, Whitacre has clarified his comments by announcing that only half of people's Internet access is being paid for:

"I think the content providers should be paying for the use of the network—obviously not the piece from the customer to the network, which has already been paid for by the customer in Internet access fees—but for accessing the so-called Internet cloud."

I know of people still paying over $500 a month for less then T1 service. Why? Because SBC/att owns the last mile. Hell I get over 1mbps service at my house for $42. Dynamic IP address and server restrictions that the T1 doesn't have, but a $450 difference. There is no excuse for this and yet the clowns running the Bells think they should get more for doing nothing.

tags: att

CERT is WRONG

2006-01-24T11:53:00.000-08:00

Computer Emergency Readiness Team (CERT) showed a ridiculous bias when they published a summary of Windows vs Unix vulnerabilities.

Completely misleading and now many sources have analyzed the report and pointed out the flaws.

see:
http://www.tectonic.co.za/view.php?id=777

and
http://blogs.zdnet.com/Murphy/index.php?p=521

Of course the main stream press ran with the first story but the corrections will never see the light of day outside trade magazines.

tags: CERT

Outsourcing

2006-01-20T11:59:00.000-08:00

A little humor.
This from fauxnews.com

I'm Back - Hell Freezes Over and Other Minor Events

2006-01-12T11:06:00.000-08:00

I know, I know. A month without posting. What a break for all two of my regular readers.

Hell Freezes Over!
Jerry Pournelle discovers the joy of FireFox. Okay, before anyone gets the wrong idea, I'm a big fan of Jerry's work, his writings and even a lot of his politics. No I don't think he's always right, but who is? He's certainaly smarter and more educated than I. However, he does tend to stick with MS because it's what he knows and I for one find that frustrating. Kudos to JP on his endorsment of FF. http://www.jerrypournelle.com/index.html

Film is Dead! - Long live the digital camera!

35mm film has come to the end of the roll, Nikon has said. The camera maker this week revealed it is focusing its efforts solely on digital photography products.

http://www.theregister.co.uk/2006/01/12/nikon_goes_all_digital/
Well it's sad. I use to have a darkroom. Film is still a wonderful medium that digital cannot always match. Then again I haven't taken a film shot in over five years. C'est la vie.

And the watch is dead too.

THE WRIST WATCH is fast going the way of the grandfather clock and the sun dial, as kids of today use their iPods and mobile phones to tell the time, according to the Journal Sentinel.

http://www.theinquirer.net/?article=28927
Once again I'm a cuprit too. When the battery on my trusty Seiko went out about three years ago I just took it off and stopped wearing a watch for the first time in about thirty years. I always had my cell phone on me, or I was in the car, or in front of a computer or the TV.

Thunderbird 1.5 Released
Mozilla releases new Thunderbird email and RSS client. I use it as an RSS reader and still use the Mozilla suite for email. BUt like JP above I think you gotta try to see just how good it can be.
http://www.mozilla.com/thunderbird/

tags: Firefox Camera Wristwatch Thunderbird

Opera

2005-12-03T09:05:00.000-08:00

Well I keep going on and on about FireFox. It's a great browser.
I'm remiss however by not also telling you that I've revisted Opera. I tried it a few years ago when it was a free trial then needed to be purchased to continue using it.

It didn't really seem all that much better than any other browser back then. Now it is available for free and it really is very good. They call themselves 'The World's Fastest Browser', and yes it does respond well, if that is important. I not really concerned about milliseconds (or greater) in response times for browsers. All browsers seem fast enough me, or maybe it's just my age.

Tabbed browsing is excellent, just like Firefox a press on the middle button (wheel) on a link opens the link in a tab in the background (that has to be set in preferences in FF but is the default for Opera). I really like that feature in that you can be reading an article, press a link and continue reading the article you're on while in the meantime all the links you may want to view will be loaded and waiting to view when you're ready.

Built in search, smart toolbars, popup blocking, page fit to view and great image manipulation all are there to begin with. Opera is truley a firstclass browser and deserves to be tried.

http://portal.opera.com/

tags: Opera

FireFox 1.5

2005-11-30T09:10:00.000-08:00

Mozilla releases FireFox 1.5
I'm using it as I write. All looks well.
If you are not using FireFox I can only ask, "Why not?"
A superior browser in every way.

tags: Firefox

Sony-BMG DRM

2005-11-09T13:46:00.000-08:00

Sony-BMG not only had the nerve to use a rootkit for Digital Rights Management, it then failed to give an appropriate response to the mistake. Now to top it all off in an NPR interview, Thomas Hesse, President of Sony BMG's global digital business division, showed a complete lack of understanding and arrogance beyond belief.

"Most people, I think, don't even know what a rootkit is, so why should they care about it," he asked? "The software is designed to protect our CDs from unauthorized copying, ripping."

There is lots of information out there on removing this mess from your system. It's long and complicated and certainly no fun for anyone.

I'm a long time fan of Sony electronics. I have 2 digital cameras and a digital tape camcorder. I have a Sony 5.1 surround system on my main TV/audio system. Last June I bought my daughter a Sony MP3 player for junior high graduation. (I now wonder if the software that came with that is why her computer is so slow. All spyware checks have been coming up clean and I haven't really had a chance to check deeper. I always just blame it on AIM and myspace that she spends all her time haunting. And no I don't let her near my boxes. In fact I have a second router between them and they are on separate nets.)

My advice right now is to boycott all Sony products. Maybe someone in the higher end of the Sony corporate empire will wake up and start cleaning house

footnote: when I spell checked this post, blogger suggested replacing BMG with BUMS. HA!

tags: Sony DRM

Norton is Out

2005-10-12T14:16:00.000-07:00

I no longer use Norton Antivirus. I came to the conclusion some time ago that it was a resource hog and overpriced. Now here they are raising their prices.
http://news.com.com/Symantec+quietly+hikes+Norton+
renewal+prices/2100-7350_3-5894058.html?tag=nefd.top

I'm not surprised. If you are a home user get Grisoft AV Free.
http://www.grisoft.com/doc/289/lng/us/tpl/tpl01

If you don't quailfy for the free either get Grisoft's other pay for products or my favorite
Zonelab's Zone Alarm with AV
http://www.zonelabs.com/store/content/catalog/products/
sku_list_zaav.jsp?dc=12bms&ctry=US&lang=en&lid=dbtopnav_zass

tags: antivirus
Norton
Grisoft
Zonelabs

Microsoft Turns 30

2005-09-23T09:40:00.000-07:00

It's MS 30th birthday today. Talk about over the hill!

Here's a fun one fron The Inquirer.

http://theinquirer.net/?article=26401
Microsoft is a bully, plain and simple. It has more programmers than anyone else, and always had the option of doing the right thing for the right reason, but for some unfathomable reason, never did. It preferred to hold your feet to the fire, and force you to do what it said.

tags: Microsoft Birthday

New Internet Tools

2005-09-14T10:46:00.000-07:00

Google releases a blog search tool.

google.com/blogsearch

and watch for Flock - a 'social browser' based on FireFox

http://www.wired.com/news/technology/0,1282,68823,00.html?tw=wn_tophead_1

tags: blogsearch flock

Back from Vacation / Google Talk

2005-08-24T16:29:00.000-07:00

Well about a month off, with 10 days in Mexico just hangin' by the sea.
I've got loads to catch up on with work.
Plenty going on in the computer world.

Google enters the talk and instant message market.
http://www.theregister.co.uk/2005/08/24/google_talk/

Google made a late entry into the instant messaging market on Tuesday with the launch of Google Talk, an IM service that allows users to place free phone calls over a net connection to other people signed into the service. Google Talk, released as a beta, requires a Gmail username and password. It works with Jabber-compatible Instant Messaging client (such as Apple's iChat, Trillian or GAIM). Although that represents a stand towards interoperability in practical terms it doesn't mean that much since none of the big three IM clients (MSN, Yahoo! and AOL) support the feature.

tags: google talk instant message

MS Virtual Earth vs Google

2005-07-27T16:09:00.000-07:00

Why in the world does the media persist in giving Microsoft praise for coming up with a piss-poor version of Google Earth?

Check out these two views of The Northwest promenade and surrounding neighborhoods. MS is old out of date black and whit image. Google's looks so much better. (MS doesn't even have the shopping center built yet - sheeeeesh).

http://virtualearth.msn.com/

http://maps.google.com/maps

Google Earth is even better but it is a stand alone application you must install.

tags: Virtual Earth Google Earth

Busy Busy Busy

2005-07-06T10:40:00.000-07:00

Yes I've been too busy with work and other matters to get much posted lately. Aren't you luckey?
Two items of note however. EU parliament rejects software patent initiative.
http://news.com.com/Europe+rejects+patent+proposal/
2100-1014_3-5776046.html?part=rss&tag=5776046&subj=news

I'm assuming they are mostly afraid of large US companies dominating the software market even more then they do now but the results are still good.

Second, my geek friends and I all knew this.

Giving senior execs digital toys such as PDAs and wireless gizmos can be more trouble than it's worth, according to research out today.

http://go.theregister.com/feed/http://www.theregister.co.uk/
2005/07/06/exec_toys/

tags: patents executive toys

Feedmap

2005-06-21T15:13:00.000-07:00

I removed Feedmap.
I decided it's not ready for primetime.

tags: feedmap blogmap

More Apple

2005-06-10T10:43:00.000-07:00

There's been a lot of talk around the Apple/Intel switch over to Intel CPUs of Apple 'pulling an Osborne'. For all you neophytes that has nothing to do with Ozzy. It refers to when Adam Osborne, the legendary founder of a very successful early luggable computer, announced a new version of his computer way in advance of it's delivery and killed the sales of his current model. Not having tons of cash his company went under for lack of funds. Some seem to think Steve Jobs has done this.

I doubt it. First, Steve is a pretty smart guy. Second, he has loads of money and a decent cash flow from iPods and iTunes coming in and that will continue. It could instead present a real chance to actually up Apple sales. Apple computers are not cut-rate. There's lots of margin in each sale. Start cutting prices on the current models and people will perceive them as bargains. Now you have more Apple users and future customers for your upcoming Apple/Intel machines.

Smart guy.

tags: apple osborne

Apple Goes Intel

2005-06-09T10:32:00.000-07:00

Well it's all over the place - everybody has ideas as to what drives Steve Jobs to switch to Intel. I've been a long time Unix guru but never a big Apple fan. Besides what's my opinion worth? HA!

Robert X. Cringley has a take on it all.
http://www.pbs.org/cringely/pulpit/pulpit20050609.html

and I think he may be right.

That's the story as I see it unfolding. Steve Jobs finally beats Bill Gates. And with the sale of Apple to Intel, Steve accepts the position of CEO of the Pixar/Disney/Sony Media Company.

Steve has never liked being number two to Bill.
tags: apple intel

Power Point

2005-05-26T09:24:00.000-07:00

This from The Bakersfield Californian on last night's city council meeting

start.....

PowerPoint problems
Halfway through City Attorney Ginny Gennaro's presentation of her budget plan to the council, the whole PowerPoint presentation had to be restarted.

Sound effects -- specifically one from a well-known legal television show -- triggered in quick succession as pages were scrolled through.

It made council members wince.

"We're going to rue the day you put that in there," Vice Mayor Mike Maggard said, kidding Gennaro.

snip.....

http://www.bakersfield.com/local/story/5551174p-5527460c.html

I truly hate most Power Point presentations. Both too long and overdone by wonks you like to hear themselves. Many times too complex with too many multimedia inserts. I've had more than one person contact me over problems with PP. It's is especially tough if you have to use other hardware since pre-testing can be impossible.

My advice is if possible use you own portable to play it and if you have to burn to CD for play on other hardware be sure you understand then 'Pack & Go' function of PP, then test on some other hardware even if it's not the one you'll be using to present on.

tags: powerpoint power point

Outlaw Spyware

2005-05-19T12:35:00.000-07:00

Well spyware has almost become the geek full employment act. I still hate it.
Now if California and some other states would follow suit.

Washington State outlaws spyware by ZDNet's Wayne Cunningham -- During our Antispyware Workshop, I was intrigued by the notion that existing laws can be used to prosecute adware and spyware makers.

http://blogs.zdnet.com/Spyware/wp-trackback.php?p=463

tags: spyware

Images - And an Old Dog Learns a Trick

2005-05-18T15:05:00.000-07:00

Google helps me find my problem with images.
When I post an image I often make the image fit by just using width="50%" and height="50%" inside the html img tag. Turns out to be wrong. When you use a percent insted of pixels as the values the browser makes the image a percent of your current window or frame.
I had always thought it worked just like it does for fonts and would just make it a percent of the original size. Never assume.

Normal size:

and half size using half dimensions in then html tag

Well clearly using pixels is the right way. Only problem there is you have to check the properties of the source image and do the math. Well at least I'm pretty good at math.

A trick that is suppose to work is using only a percent in one dimension - this is suppose to keep the aspect ratio (which it seems to), but they are not 50% in size, they are still 50% if the column width.

and one more using just a percent width only

and one more using just a percent height only

tags: HTML

RSS Reader - Thunderbird

2005-05-18T13:42:00.000-07:00

While I have had a RSS (real simple syndication) feed on this blog all along I've never bothered to use a RSS reader. When a friend of mine (thanks KM) mentioned a slight problem with graphics on my feed we started talking about Mozilla's Thunderbird. I had down loaded it and looked at it but never really used it. I use Mozilla suite for browsing and e-mail.

Well I might not change my email to Thunderbird but I'm using it to read news and lots of other blogs now. I only wish more of my regular reads were publishing RSS. If you are interested in making an RSS feed from your site there are several free ones. This one uses Feedburner.

The graphics problem seems to be when I scale the image back by a percentage. In fact I'm going to place two versions of the same pic here and see if I can duplicate it.

Normal size:

and half size using 50% in html tag

tags: Thunderbird RSS Feedburner

UPDATE: Well I posted this and then went and checked it all. Here are my results.....

1. Mozilla browser - perfect rendition
2. Firefox - almost right, the scaled image is a little out of aspect - slightly too tall.
3. MS Internet Explorer - first image right, second image didn't even render.
4. Thunderbird - first image right, second shows about half height but width is about 125% making it was out of proportion.

Hmmm..... must goggle and see just what is up here.
See the next post for the answer.

FireFox Fixed

2005-05-12T12:13:00.000-07:00

We started the week with a couple of Firefox vulnerabilities and the IE apologists just couldn't have been happier. Pointing fingers and saying look FF can be exploited too.
Well guess what - fixed!
Once again the Mozilla foundation proves the superiority of open source software. MS could never have done a fix that fast.
No reports of any exploits have been received

http://www.mozilla.org/products/firefox/releases/1.0.4.html

tags: firefox Mozilla

Rules

2005-05-04T08:55:00.000-07:00

Jerry Pournelle posts an email from one of his regulars,
Rules of Computerdom

I know, it's pretty geeky. A couple of my favorites

12. It said "Insert disk 3..." but only 2 fit in the drive.

37. A computer scientist is someone who, when told to "Go to H---," sees the "go to," rather than the destination, as harmful.

40. "The three most dangerous things in the world are a programmer with a soldering iron, a hardware type with a software patch and a user with an idea."

tags: geek humor

File Traders to be Executed Next

2005-04-21T13:39:00.000-07:00

Okay I'm not being serious. I don't advocate illegal file trading but give me a break.
Thanks to our congress critters selling out as usual to big monied interests you can now go to jail for 3 years for bootlegging movies.
Yep, 3 years!
article.......

Making a movie available electronically prior to its release can now result in a three year sentence, thanks to the Family Entertainment and Copyright Act approved Tuesday by the House. The Senate has already passed its own version, and the final bill is expected to be signed by the President.
The bill also calls for three years in cases where a person is caught recording a movie in a theater with a camcorder - and six years for a second offence. It also indemnifies theater operators against all criminal and civil liabilities arising from detaining suspects "in a reasonable manner." (Welcome to movie jail.)

snip.......

http://www.theregister.co.uk/2005/04/21/p2p_is_murder/

tags: copyright bootlegging

Feedmap

2005-04-12T09:15:00.000-07:00

Want to show where you blog from or see other bloggers in your area?
See my sidebar for feedmap.net. I'm feeling kinda lonely. (but that really isn't my exact location - off by about a half mile).

tags: feedmap blogmap

Technorati Tags

2005-04-11T15:49:00.000-07:00

Technorati - see my side bar - now offers tags. Neat little way to classify and track blog entries. Check these out.

tags: technorati blogging

Google Maps

2005-04-06T19:39:00.000-07:00

Have you used Google Maps? They now have the ability to switch to satellite and back to maps.
Double click to center or just drag the pointer to move the view. A zoom bar lets you move the view in or out. As you change views the map and satellite stay in sync. Very cool.

http://maps.google.com/maps?ll=35.405502,-118.988113
&spn=0.010772,0.015814&t=k&hl=en

My neighborhood. Yeah I can zoom right down to my house. Glad the pool looked good that day.
There's Garces Memorial High with OLPH on the low left, the Panorama bluffs and the Kern River across the top, Greenlawn Cemetery in the middle and the west side of Bakersfield Jr College on the right.

The Real Thing

2005-04-05T13:36:00.000-07:00

There are lots of CompuDaves out there. Just do a Google if you want some proof.
And many of them are Daves associated with computing of course. However this is the real thing. Yes I own CompuDave dot com and a few other things with that name. So just because you see somthing signed CompuDave it very well might not be me, but you can email me if you want to know for sure. Any email to any name to the domain mentioned reaches me.
Damn imposters.

GMail

2005-03-23T08:58:00.000-08:00

In case you're interested I have a few gmail invites available and will give them to non commercial individuals if y'all ask nice. I'd prefer to see someone with daily journals or a blog to confirm that it won't be used for spamming. Send the request to me at my main page with a short note about yourself. (I retain the right of sole discretion.)

Hiding Behind Voice Mail

2005-03-16T15:36:00.000-08:00

You all know what I mean. Why is it so many companies use voice mail instead of real people? No one likes it when they are the caller. It makes your customers unhappy. Now the megacorporations all use it because they don't really care. They've all come to treat their customers as cash cows to be milked. Try calling the phone company, or almost any utility. And they all like to start out telling you that your call is very important. Worse yet are individuals who always have a message that says, "I'm either on the phone or away from my desk". Yeah, right.

Now I'm not saying there are not legitimate uses of voice mail because I use it too. But I know that when you call me I'll answer the phone probably better than 80% of the time. If not I'm either on the phone or away from my desk.

Need Weather Forcasts - Google

2005-03-09T11:58:00.000-08:00

Google can give you the weather.
Enter weather [zip code] or weather [city,st]
see the example in the picture

And this is what you get on top of the usual search result (click image for full size view)

Microsoft Offers Win 98 Patches

2005-03-09T09:09:00.000-08:00

Kudos to Microsoft. Bet you never thought I'd do that.
MS offers up two security patches for Win 98.
'Bout time.

http://www.eweek.com/article2/
0,1759,1774106,00.asp?kc=ewnws030905dtx1k0000599

Sir Bill

2005-03-03T13:47:00.000-08:00

As usual The Register has the best coverage of Mr. Gates knighting.

http://www.theregister.co.uk/2005/03/02/
bill_gates_knighted/

MS AntiSpyWare

2005-03-03T08:06:00.000-08:00

http://surl.se/fzi

Funny.
But regardless I'll stick with AdAware and Spybot.
Why trust the king of DRM to stop spyware - they are spyware.

IE vs FireFox

2005-02-28T10:39:00.000-08:00

FireFox continues to take a bigger and bigger share of the browser marketplace.
And why not? It is both better and more secure despite the FUD from MS and its lackies.

Read this ZDnet article and see .

article.......

The Mozilla Foundation stresses that the real battle isn't between browsers, but between two types of technology -- Microsoft's, which is tied to Internet Explorer, and standards-based technology, which can be used with Firefox or any other standards-compliant application. In theory, this means that sites and Web applications that work with Firefox should behave the same way with Opera, Safari or other Mozilla browsers (like the Mozilla suite and Camino), and switching should no longer be an issue.

snip....
The number one driver of Firefox's popularity is security, specifically a number of high-profile security scares around IE, according to analysts. Microsoft chairman Bill Gates, in announcing IE 7, acknowledged that "browsing is definitely a point of vulnerability".

snip.......
The announcement of IE 7 made it clear that Microsoft intends to compete against Firefox, at least for Windows XP SP2 -- it seems Windows 2000 users will be left high and dry. IE 7 promises better defences against phishing, malware and spyware, and may include other long-awaited features, such as improvements to CSS and PNG support.

Microsoft denies it is motivated by the increased competition. "This is not related to Firefox. This is about ensuring that our customers get the protection and functionality they ask us for," says Randle.

snip........

That last really shows how MS will use the Fud to also promote moving user of older versions of the OS to XP.

http://insight.zdnet.co.uk/0,39020415,39189477-3,00.htm

Some Blogs Install Spy & Adware

2005-02-23T09:34:00.000-08:00

http://www.eweek.com/article2/0,1759,1768836,
00.asp?kc=ewnws022305dtx1k0000599

I big caution on cruising blogs. DO NOT allow any blog to install anything.
And better advice is to use a browser other than IE.

Get Firefox. NOW!

"A witty saying proves nothing." - Voltaire

2005-02-17T19:23:00.000-08:00

"Black holes are where God divided by zero." - Steven Wright

IE Version 7

2005-02-16T15:58:00.000-08:00

Mr Gates promises more security and in spite of earlier statements not to do this, MS will bring out an update of IE before the much delayed Longhorn.

http://www.technewsworld.com/story/news/40680.html

but here is the real kicker

article......

The news -- a departure from the company's previous stance on browser-OS integration and rollout, and widely viewed as an admission that Explorer is a source of security weakness -- came out of a keynote address by Microsoft chairman and chief software architect Bill Gates, who delivered the speech at the RSA Security (Nasdaq: RSAS) Conference in San Francisco.

snip.......

Pleaseeeee............. - what a crock!
Get FireFox.

A new post and some comments on HP

2005-02-10T08:36:00.000-08:00

Well I've been remiss in posting content here. I'll try to do better.

Big news in the computer world is the beheading of Princess Fiorina of HP.
I'm surprised it took so long.
Best commentary I've read is here.

http://news.zdnet.com/2100-9589_22-5569725.html

article........

She came from Lucent, the AT&T spinoff. Not only was AT&T a giant, it was the last bastion of feudalism in the Northern Hemisphere. (Ironically, Fiorina majored in medieval history.) The company ran on a rigid hierarchy. Competitive battles were won through financial heft and strength and a lot of energy was dedicated toward internal company battles.
By contrast, HP seemed to be run from the bottom up. The founders used to eat in the cafeteria. Engineers were continually reminded about their importance to the company. The complaint heard most from executives and analysts was that HP moved slowly because decisions were made by consensus.

So when HP started increasing the number of corporate jets, and rumors surfaced about how Fiorina traveled with a security detail and hairdressers, conflicts between management and the rest of the company began to emerge. And the lack of consistent performance certainly wasn't going to silence the grumbling.

I obtained an insight into Fiorina's management style on the day former Compaq CEO Michael Capellas resigned in November 2002. We all sat at a small circular table. We asked Capellas why he resigned. "I can answer that," she said, and spoke for him.

snip............

I think that about says it all.
Oh, wait. She does get $21 million for leaving.

More Spyware & Viruses

2005-01-06T09:59:00.000-08:00

Well in the last week I've cleaned up two of the most infested computers I've ever seen. Both had been so badly compromised they would not start in a usable state. Both had virus as well as spyware on them. When this happens try to follow these steps.

Use another computer to get Spybot Search & Destroy, Lavasoft AdAware and Grisoft Anti-Virus. Burn to a CD.

Disconnect any network cables.

Start the infected computer in safe mode. This is done by hitting the F8 key during the startup. Just start by hitting the key about once or twice a second until the startup menu appears. Choose safe mode.

Install and run the above three programs. Don't worry about getting updates the first time through. Most times that will get you on your way. Get updates after a normal restart (plug the network cable back in just long enough to get the updates then remove again or dialup the internet to get them then hangup) and run all three again.

Get and install ZoneAlarm and maybe WinPatrol too. Get all Windows updates and install.

Most times that will work, however the second one I did was so badly damaged by virus infections I has to do a restore of Windows XP itself.

If you have a cable or dsl connection get a router. NOW! Some are as cheap as $20. I highly recommend the D-Link 614. Very easy to use. Use a software firewall as well. It won't stop the incoming trojans but it can stop them from calling back out. ZoneAlarm is my first choice.
Use alternate browsers and mail programs. Mozilla & FireFox/Thunderbird.
Finally - THINK - don't be tricked into downloading freebies that seem too good to be true. If something seems interesting just do a Google check first. You can almost always find out very fast which offers are trouble before you even go there.

OTH - here is a link to some great freeware including some of the one's I've mentioned here today.
http://www.techsupportalert.com/best_46_free_utilities.htm

A whole lot of useful and safe stuff.

Switching to Broadband

2004-12-29T08:13:00.000-08:00

No, not me. I did it about 4 years ago and have never looked back. My cable broadband (earthlink via Brighthouse (previously Time Warner)) rocks. Very fast.

A relative of mine just switched over to dsl on his earthlink. He waited until I got there for the Xmas Holiday to have me switch him over. Good thing. First I went around the house and installed the dsl filters on all the telephones. Seven total, seems like, a lot but when I think of my own house I guess that's not unusual nowadays. I have just as many. I'm going to refer to the DSL adapter as a dsl modem for simplicity sake. I connected the dsl modem up. No sync. I thought a moment then did a Homer. D'oh! I'd placed the dsl filter then the splitter out of the wall. It's the other way around. At least I found it quickly. DSL synced right up. Allrighty, connect the computer to the modem.

Now the fun. This is a Netopia dsl modem obviously setup with firmware specifically for earthlink. When you first open a browser it brings up a signon screen. No problem (except if anyone can explain to me why these dsl providers continue to use PPPoE I'd love to hear it). This should do it. Only it couldn't go anywhere in the browser. Now in spite of the Homer moment mentioned above, I really do know what I'm doing here.
Command prompt.
Do a ping to a known numeric ip address. Okay.
Do a telnet to a known numeric ip address. Okay.
Do an ipconfig/all.
There is the problem. DNS is listed same as the gateway. For anyone who wants to know, DNS, Domain Name Service is just that. When you try to go someplace on the internet by name, say enter cnn.com the name cnn.com has to be looked up and the numeric ip address such as 192.168.0.155 is delivered back from a DNS server and your application goes there. Now most of the time this is all set up automatically by DHCP. That's dynamic host configuration protocol. Your dsl modem gets its information from the isp and your computer get its from the dsl modem (and yes there should be a router in between there and its just one more pass of these addresses but for right now it's the KISS method). Well the dsl modem has a pretty nice http based interface. That means you open you browser, put in the ip address of the modem and you get nice web pages, easy to use and navigate. There is a diagnostic page. It shows a list of all the steps the modem takes to connect with either a pass or fail. And it showed exactly what I was seeing. Everything passed until it got to the DNS lookup, the last three steps of it's signon procedure.

Under help it suggested calling a 800 help number for earthlink. What the hell, the problem was with either their servers or their dsl provided modem. I called and a very nice young lady politely told me that wasn't the number I should have called. I politely told her it was the number their equipment said to call. She politely transferred me to the right number where a recorded voice politely assured me of how important my call was but I would have to wait.
Okay I'll start being nice, the wait was short. Alex then came on the line (Alex???? I'm sure was somewhere in southern Asia). I explained what the diagnostic screen said. Alex was a drone. Started going through all the things I'd already done. He had no real technical ability. Just a script reader. I politely did most of the things he said.
Then he politely asked, "May I put you on hold for 3 minutes?".
Then he came back asked something else then asked "May I put you on hold for 3 minutes?".
This happened about 4 times. Obviously he was asking someone else questions, but to his credit it was never more than a minute or two I was on hold.
He finally came back and told me to get WinPoet software from the earthlink site or CD and that would solve the problem.
And at this point I politely told him to forget it.

Well I'm making a short story long. Truth was when they first ordered the dsl I had brought a network card and a DLink cable/dsl router over and connected it all up. The dsl wasn't ready by the time I left at Thanksgiving so I left it all there ready to go. While I was trying to get this running I'd left the router out to keep it simple stupid. So since I knew it was all running except for the DNS problem I reattached the router, dialed up earthlink and looked up the dns addresses, went back and entered the dns addresses into the router configuration and TADA!, all was well. The dsl modem still can't find the DNS but the router delivers the correct ones back to the computer and it all works. I can only imagine if a non-tech type had had to do this what a friggin nightmare it would have been.

(HA - when I spell checked this post it wanted to replace WinPoet with inept)

Busy

2004-12-16T13:44:00.000-08:00

Busy, but I'll get some new material up - Real soon now.

Dude!

2004-12-08T15:50:00.000-08:00

Thanks to Doc.

http://www.cnn.com/2004/EDUCATION/12/08/
dude.study.ap/index.html

A few years ago I had a Yahoo! name CalGameDude.
Whenever I played (mostly Hearts or Backgammon) my name would show up as
CalGameDud.
The boards would cut it off at 10 char. I changed it but then quit playing games on Yahoo!, too addicting and they often rigged the dice in BG to keep the game close. The other problem is there are just too many rude people on those sites, either resorting to cheating or name calling. Not that I can't take it, but why bother?

Screensaver Dangers

2004-12-07T15:22:00.000-08:00

Some people thought the Lycos screensaver that would attack spammers was a good idea. Well, maybe, but the flaws were many. Now the scum have started using a fake to spread trojans.

http://www.theregister.co.uk/2004/12/07/
fake_lycos_screensaver_trojan/

article.....

Virus writers have begun distributing their wares in emails that pose as Lycos's abandoned "Make love not spam" screensaver.
The fake screensaver emails contain an attachment with a RAR SFX archive that has embedded key logger Trojan inside, antivirus firm Sophos warns. Infected emails come in emails with subject lines such as "Be the first to fight spam with Lycos screen" and an attachment called "Lycos screensaver to fight spam.zip".

snip.....

The best way to stop spam is just ignore it. If they weren't getting buyers they wouldn't be sending all this junk out - NEVER buy from junk e-mail.

Knoppix

2004-11-30T07:49:00.000-08:00

Brian Bilbry makes note of Knoppix, fast becoming a Sys admin's best friend.

http://www.orbdesigns.com/bpages/2004/z20041129.php#Monday

I you're not familiar with this little gem I highly reccomend it. It's a full Linux compressed boot CD image. Just insert in a CD drive, make sure the CD drive is in the boot sequence and Bob's your uncle. It recognizes and sets up most hardware. It includes Mozilla, Open Office and a slew of tools.

USB Mince Pie

2004-11-22T09:47:00.000-08:00

British Christmas Tradition meets modern technology.

http://www.usbmincepies.co.uk/

Too funny!

(it's a usb flash memory, just in case.)

Writing Your Representatives & Senators

2004-11-21T13:53:00.000-08:00

The other day I urged all of my reader (2 of you?) to wite your Senators about HR2391
I had suggested using http://www.congress.org/congressorg/dbq/officials/

Well unfortunately some of our paid (by who you ask) representaives don't wish to make our contacting them easy.
Here is the email reply I received from Sen Feinstein
=====================================================

November 18, 2004





Mr. David Krecklow

xxxxxxxxxxxxx Avenue

Bakersfield, California  933xx



Dear Mr. Krecklow:



     Thank you for contacting me.  I appreciate your e-mail and welcome

the opportunity to correspond with my constituents.

   

     Unfortunately, due to the volume of mail I receive, I cannot respond

individually to messages sent from third parties or websites other than my

official Senate website.  If you wish to send a personalized message via

the internet, please use the email form on my website:

http://feinstein.senate.gov/email.html.  Please know that my staff will tally

your input today.



     If you prefer to fax your concerns to me, you can send them to my

Washington office at (202) 228-3954.  You can also call my Washington

office or one of my California offices to share your thoughts with me:

   

Washington, DC: 		(202) 224-3841

San Francisco: 			(415) 393-0707

Fresno: 				(559) 485-7430

Los Angeles: 			(310) 914-7300

San Diego: 			(619) 231-9712



     Again, thank you for emailing me.  Please know that every time you

write a letter, send an email or fax, or call my office, your concerns are

taken into account.  I appreciate your understanding in this matter and hope

to hear from you again soon.

			

			Sincerely yours,



			Dianne Feinstein

			United States Senator



http://feinstein.senate.gov



Further information about my position on issues of concern to California and the

Nation are available at my website http://feinstein.senate.gov.  You can also receive

electronic e-mail updates by subscribing to my e-mail list at

http://feinstein.senate.gov/issue.html.

====================================================
Bah! And nothing from Boxer.
The cynic in me says it's probably not worth my time anyway.
Maybe if I wrote it on a $100 bill she could find time.