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Saturday January 29, 2005

Show #113

Today’s news items

The California state PUC has suspended the cell phone users Bill of Rights - something it put into effect in last May - saying the cell phone companies need more time. The rules required cell phone companies to do such controversial things as post rates on the ‘net, offer 30-day cancellation without fees, and itemized bills. Dissenting commish Geoffrey Brown says, “This is the most shameful process I’ve seen in my four years on the commission.”

There’s a new network worm out that’s designed to lower your self esteem. The Cisum worm will display the text ‘YOU ARE AN IDIOT’ while playing an MP3 that sings the same thing every five seconds or so. Meanwhile it’s shutting down your firewall and anti-virus and spreading itself to other computers on your LAN.

On Friday a judge sentenced the teen who wrote a blaster variant to a year and a half of prison time. Jeffrey Lee Parsons will also have to perform community service, pay restitution and be placed under supervision for three years following his prison sentence sentence.

Mitch adds the following news stories:
Amazon has introduced new online yellow pages that have something other online yellow pages don’t have. The new service displays images of the storefronts that are listed. Currently Atlanta, Boston, Dallas, Chicago, New York City (Manhattan), Denver, Los Angeles, Seattle, Portland (Oregon), and San Francisco have already been added to the online photo yellow pages.

Microsoft will begin forcing users of Windows XP to verify that their installation is genuine when downloading add-ons and other updates that aren’t related to security. Users that have a pirated copy of Windows will still be able to get some security updates according to Microsoft.

DaveG adds:
They have been giving away software like PhotoStory 3 and have the user install the Windows Geniune Advantage ActiveX control so your version of Windows XP is tested to see if your copy is indeed genuine. Operation Windows Genuine Advantage will begin later this year.

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11a-Noon

Carol in Alhambra - computer can’t see camcorder

Computer won’t see her DV camcorder. She’s tried different computers and different firewire cables - good move! She’s eliminated the cable, the computer, and the software as the issue - so it’s got to be the camera. Firewire chips are often damaged by bad cabling. Bring it in to the shop.

Joe in Santa Ana - Windows won’t remember Classic Style

For some reason even though Joe sets the Appearance in XP to Classic, about half the time when he turns the machine back on it’s reverted to the big Fisher-Price buttons. Why? Something is restoring the default settings. Anyone know what or why?

Listener Bruce writes:

 The problem is that the “my favorite themes” file
 (usually in c:/documents  and settings/name of user/documents)
 is corrupted.
 
 The fix is to delete the file, shutdown, and restart. 
 You will then  be back at the default XP settings.

 Now, go to display, make all the custom settings you want,
 save them, and  shutdown and restart again.

~ If you go right click on My Computer > go to properties, then the advance tab then go to where it says performance, click the settings button you get the performance options, and if you select the option that says “adjust for best performance”, it will turn off the Fisher Price looking interface. I do this on my P3 600 Machine that i use for a file server, and it makes the system run smoother.
You also have the option of going in to the services and turning off the themes service. Hope that helps - Mp3mooch

Joe is a glamour photographer who uses the Fuji S1 camera.

Tim in Oxnard - anti-virus software

His Norton subscription ran out and he’s having trouble updating it. I’m not crazy about Norton these days - it’s just too big. He bought CA eTrust Antivirus 7.1 on the recommendation of a computer store employee. It’s OK - not great. (Check the ratings at Virus Bulletin). I prefer NOD32 from ESET - it’s very fast, lightweight, and effective. I also like Panda and Trend Micro’s PC-cillin.

Jeff from Rochester Hills, MI adds: Grisoft and ClamWin offer free AntiVirus solutions for Windows.

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Noon-1p

Alex in Long Beach - inherited computers

His mom gave him an old Dell Dimension 8100 and Sony Vaio. But there’s no monitor. No problem - they’ll work with any monitor you can buy. Get a cheap monitor and a KVM switch to share it between both computers. I’d also recommend getting the System Restore discs from her and restoring the computer to the way it was when she bought it - that way you won’t inherit her problems along with her computers. On most Vaio’s you run a program to make the restore discs.

Keith in Fallbrook - will Counter Strike slow down dad’s computer

Well, you should ask dad if there is any other reason he want to keep you off his system. It won’t slow it down, but it will take up some hard drive space. And if you play online there is an increased chance of spyware and virus infection. Take the usual precautions and don’t accept files from other players.

An Anonymous Listener says: Keith save your pennies and buy an xbox. No slowdowns on Dad’s computer.

Ruth in Alta Loma - Spybot and Microsoft show a DSOExploit infection

Nothing to worry about. As long as you have the latest IE you’re not vulnerable, but here are removal instructions anyway. The newest version of Spybot should fix this. Get it from www.safer-networking.org

Andy P. writes: An update to Spybot which will fix the erroneous DSO Exploit reporting is available at www.majorgeeks.com Go to the spyware tools section and download the “Spybot - Search and Destroy DSO Exploit Fix” It will update Spybot version 1.3 to version 1.3 TX. Run the updated program to catch the DSO Exploit yet again, but this time it will stay gone for good! Oh, and one more thing: after installing this (and any other Spybot) updates, don’t forget to re-immunize!

Concerning Spybot Jeff in Santa Ana adds:
Anti-Adware Misses Most Malware By Brian Livingston Jan 27, 2005
(2nd article at this WindowsSecrets page) gives a gloomy picture of malware killers.

Using a single app, the best results were:

     Product          Adware Fixed     False Positives
 Giant AntiSpyware        63%               0

Using 2 apps (the 1st one being Giant AntiSpyware), the best results were:

     Product              Total Adware Fixed
 Webroot Spy Sweeper           70%

Leo replies: These results are from tests conducted last October. These programs have changed a lot and I think are more effective. I do think you’re better off running the three major free anti-spyware programs: Spybot, Ad-aware, and Microsoft. And Webroot’s Spy Sweeper is probably the best commercial choice.

Karen in Upland - no sound on her PC

She dropped something on her keyboard and mouse and squished them. Now she can’t hear anything. I think she must have crushed or shorted the sound controls on her keyboard. Disconnect the keyboard, open the sound Control Panel and turn on the sound. If it works, replace the keyboard.

Henry in Valencia - ready to edit video, needs software

The best program out there for under $100 is Adobe Premiere Elements, hands down. There is a free demo, but it’s a 491 meg download!

Randy in Oceanside - Media Player 10 not finalizing discs

He likes the search features of Media Player, but it’s not burning right. Try iTunes for Windows - it has excellent search features and is free.

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1–2p

Craig in Whittier - podcast equipment

He does an Internet audio show, called a podcast, about dot Net and software development issues. He’s using his iRiver MP3 player to record the audio, but he’d like to improve the quality. &&&Thank you for giving his url joe

I’d look for a portable player than can handle real microphones. The mic is going to make a big difference. You can use Audacity to edit the audio and encoding it as MP3 before uploading. I get my equipment from BSW.

I will write an article on the best way to do this for under $100. And I do recommend using Coral to ease your bandwidth consumption. It’s a free global peer-to-peer network run by New York University that caches your files to reduce the bandwidth draw from your site. It works best with content that’s very active. I’ve Coralized my podcasts (by changing the url to leoville.tv.nyud.net:8090) and it’s reduced by bandwidth usage from 80GB per day to 1 or 2.

No need to write an article about how to do this for less than $100. It’s already been written along with a lot of other great, and I mean great, podcasting tutorials found at Baffled Experts . The Podcasting for $100 article is found at Super Cheap Recording.

Michael adds: I do a podcast called Reel Reviews. I went through the same process Craig is now facing. A lot of podcasters have found my Podcast About The Podcast helpful. Hope this helps - you can find it here.

(Do read Michael’s article it contains excellent advice. Frankly, he’s got a much better setup than I do! — Leo)

Weatherman adds: You can also check out another website for equipment thas has good prices. The company is called ZZounds.

bruceb adds: Another great article on podcasting is in the current (February 2005) (print) issue of Macaddict magazine, starting on page 58. Thanks to Jenny S. for pointing that article out to me! —bruceb

Iris in Santa Ana - keyboard stops working while she’s online

She has to restart to get it working. I suggest uninstalling and reinstalling DUN and any other Internet software you use. A full reinstall of Windows 98 would probably be a very good idea.

Jackie in Lancaster - CD-R/RW stopped working in her laptop

Laptop was out of warranty and she wanted to remove the internal drive in windows and use a external drive. You can disable the drive in the BIOS. Then you can plug in the external drive.

And start using Firefox instead of Internet Explorer!

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