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Saturday, May 21, 2005

Show #145

 toc | toc 

The Leo World Tour hits Athens, Ohio on Wednesday. Join me at the Southeast Ohio Macromedia Users Group Spring <BR>. And get tour merchandise at our Cafe Press store - proceeds benefit TWiT.

Today’s news items

Steve Ballmer says Google is a one hit wonder. It’s an long-standing tradition in technology. If you can’t compete, spin.

Big victory for file sharers in Canada. In a unanimous decision Thursday, the Canadian Federal Court of Appeal dismissed the Canadian Recording Industry Association’s appeal of a ruling last year in which a Canadian judge said programs like Kazaa and Grokster were no more illegal than placing a copy machine in a library.

But what are the lawsuits worth anyway, now that Yahoo is offering unlimited music for your computer, MP3 player, even CD burning for just $5/month.

A huge win for Netflix. Wal-Mart is bowing out of the DVD-by-mail biz and giving it all to Netflix.
Despite Leo’s Opinion, Jody Weissler of Teachtopia.com writes : Walmart never had much market share and this bowing out might actually be Walmart forseeing the end of all DVD by mail services in the future. If Walmart wanted to be in the business Netflix is in, they had the wealth to either aquire it, or aggressively price Netflix to death. If Walmart bows out of something, it is thinking in the longterm, and recognizes that the current fad (Netflix) will be replaced by streaming video content in the near future.

Sony has announced details of the Playstation 3 and it’s a doozy. The XBOX vs PS3 war is on.

Tired of waiting for the next version of Windows. Microsoft has announced that the next version of its Office Suite will be released. In the second half of 2006.

I’m loving the new My Google.

11a-Noon

Wayne in Chatsworth - protecting office privacy

You don’t have any right online when you’re using your employer’s equipment (even at home). Courts have consistently upheld an employer’s right to monitor all online activities, even your “private” email. Anonymizer will encrypt all your traffic, but the boss has the right to prohibit using encrypted communications. Mac users can use Anonymizer’s Net Shield.

Debra in Oceanside - cheap Mac recommendation

Since she already has a PC, I’d keep its keyboard, mouse, and monitor and buy a Mac mini. Spend the extra $50 to get 512MB of memory.

Reporter dude, writes-
Found this article on the skid of the Mac Mini sales. Apparently consumers are not agreeing with Leo Mac mini v.1 sales curve slows. Just the facts, Ma’am.

Jake in Florida - HalfLife 1 won’t install

Sounds like the laptop video card is incompatible. Check the Valve web site.

Dennis in Santa Monica - changing default folders and dedicated home page

He wants all programs to save to the Desktop. You can do that, I guess, by using TweakUI and changing the location of the My Documents folder to your Desktop - but it might make a mess. Normally you do this on a program by program basis.

He also wants a home page that lets him enter a URL (like Google but not for search). I recommend using a local HTML file for this. I’ll post an example later.

Julian Tosh adds: Right click on the My Documents icon on your desktop. Select Properties. You can edit the location of where My Documents gets put on your hard drive by changing the target folder location. Note: To actually change it to the desktop, you’ll have to point it to the desktop directory in your profile directory (Example: c:\documents and settings\JoeUser\desktop).

A listener adds: Here is my for my comp

robert_ adds: Maybe its just me, but I think he’s just missing the address bar in his browser??

BenListening says, That’s what I was thinking…..
To reveale the address bar :
In Firefox it is known as “Location”.. right click on one of
the upper bars of your browser, select “Customize”. Find
“Location” in the Customize Toolbar applet that opens.
Just drag the desired tool from the applet to wherever
you want it on the browser toolbars.
You can now type or select, copy & paste whole or partial URLs
in the Location field just like regular text.
In Internet Explorer it is known as the “Address Bar”
…right click on the tool bar of your IE browser, (not the title bar)
see that “Lock the Toolbars” is UNchecked, then select “Address Bar”.
“Address Bar” should now be checked.
You can now arrange your toolbar items any way you want.
I like my address bar to run the full width of my browser in
a seperate bar so I can see all or most of the longer URLs.
You can relocate various tools in IE, (with toolbar UNlocked)
by rolling over a tool border with your cursor, when it changes,
(mine gets a double ended arrow),
left hold down & drag to new location.
To rearrange the tool bar in Firefox the
“Customize Tools” applet must be open.

A listener adds: If he wants to use Google still (but doesn’t want to Search and then click once more) why not just use the handy “I’m Feeling Lucky” button on Google, right next to the Search button? That will take you to the more relevant website in only one click.

Scott In Chicago Adds: Cheatsheet Creator

Noon-1p

Sally in Escondido - XP Media Center Edition

Explorer error every time she boots. She used anti-spyware to clear out her system and now she gets this error. Easiest fix is to reinstall Windows.

Jerry in Alta Dena - use about:blank

PDF 995 is a $10 print driver that will turn any file into a PDF.
His firewall recommendation: Outpost. However… no software firewall is as effective as a router these days since most trojans and malware disable the software firewall as a matter of course.

Matthew S. asks: Hey..just something to add to that, and a question. This is my first time editing the show notes so excuse me if I do not do it correctly. A huge fan of yours by the way..but to the question. You mentioned throughout the show how Software Firewalls are pointless and that Hardware cannot be modified, like a router. I have a Linksys router, with a Firewall enabled. I also use all of your “Must Have Security Software” I’ve got AVG..and all of my anti-spyware, along with ZoneAlarm. And I’ve been infected with this same hacker even after a reformat, and having the Linksys firewall enabled. One question would be, would it be a good recommendation to turn on Windows Firewall along with the Linksys Firewall? My brother has his setup like that, with no software firewall and has no problems(But yet..is not being attacked by a hacker either).

Julian Tosh responds: Software firewalls only fail because users always login with an administrative role instead of a regular user account. Change your default login type to regular user, and you wont have that problem. You’ll have to login as an administrator to install any new applications (or use RunAs), but hey, if it’s good enough for Unix dorks, it’s good enough for us Windows guys too.

Ray in Indiana responds: A software firewall such as zonealarm will stop outgoing packets, unlike a router which only blocks incoming. If you have connectivity problems, it can be difficult to diagnose whether it is the software or hardware firewall that is blocking. You can check by turning off the software firewall to see if that corrects the connection problem. If you are still being infected after a reformat and reinstall, it’s possible that you are restoring the hacker’s access along with your data and programs.

Matthew S. responds: My Hard Drive must be infected then, since I backed up no data from the previous reformat. Would it be wise to discontinue using any software firewalls and just switch to Windows Firewall inconjunction with the Linksys router firewall? If you look at Windows Firewall, it is not fully configurable..actually it isn’t configurable at all. You cannot set program access, and it does not even inform you when something is trying to access the web like ZoneAlarm and most other software firewalls do. For a side note, the biggest problem I’m having is this same person obtaining all of my passwords for all of my accounts, and it isnt a keylogger of any sort.

Jeff in Santa Ana adds:
Another (payware) printer driver / PDF converter: print-driver.com
and another one (gratis) that gets raves as better than PDF995: pdfcreator

Another good (and free) pdf creator is http://www.primopdf.com/
robert_ says: PrimoPDF is awsome, and its FREE (maybe a good choice for a free file on CFH?) I use it, and recommend it!

Guy says: CutePDF Writer is free, no adware. See Show128 notes for more.

Clarice in Garden Grove - infested Windows Me machine

Backup your data and reinstall Windows. Before you get online again read my articles on Installing Windows and Must Have Security Software.

Keith in Murrietta - is the new 40x or 60x CF hype?

Not at all. Compact Flash has gotten much faster, even faster than hard drives. If you have a device that can take advantage of the speed, I do recommend it. I use Lexar 40x media in my Nikon D70.

1–2p

Helen in Costa Mesa - safely recycling computers

She wants to donate or recycle her old PC but she’s worried about safely deleting her data first. You can do it yourself with file shredding programs like Eraser, or you can call Dell or HP. They both have recycling programs.

John Smith says:
Leo, 99% of the time you give great advice, but this is one time you were off. Trusting any company to safely handle your personal info on your hard drive is a horrible idea. By doing that you are trusting every employee in that company with access to your data, and you are also trusting them to be competent and securely erase the drive. In this day and age of identity theft and related crime, this is just foolhearty. Anyone can securely wipe their hard drives, even one with limited computer skills, and it is as simple as using a floppy or CD image and following some on-screen prompts. Just download a copy of Darik’s Boot and Nuke at http://dban.sourceforge.net/. It is available as a bootable floppy image, and a bootable CD image. Just use the images to create a floppy or CD, and put it in the PC which has the hard drive you want to delete. Reboot that PC, DBAN will load, and then just follow the on-screen prompts. Use the highest level of erasure if possible, and let it run (use a lesser erasure if the machine is slow and you don’t have a day or two to let it run, even at lower settings it is very secure!) Easy! Then, go ahead and recycle the PC as Leo suggested. Or, even better, keep the older PC and use it as a backup PC or a file server or other uses if the PC isn’t really old or broken.

White Hat Cracker, agrees -
I have to agree with John Smith, you’d have to be nuts to turn over your old computer with all your files (even if you THINK you deleted them, which they are REALLY still there), passwords, personal data, etc. to any company. What were you thinking??

At the very least, quadruple deep reformat the Hard Drive.

Tony in Malibu - installing a Wiki

If your ISP offers Cpanel and Fantastico (as Vizaweb does) installation is automatic. I use PMWiki - and if you have PHP on your system installation is very simple. You FTP the software to your computer and complete the install via the web.

Anthony in El Segundo - Mac compatibility

It’s much improved

Chat Logs and Show Audio