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Saturday, September 18, 2004

Show #75

Today at 2p, Scott MacLean, founder of Toronto-based www.NeroSoft.com, creator of TimeTrax, the controversial software that lets listeners make MP3s from XM Satellite radio music.

 toc | toc 

Today’s news items

There’s a significant security flaw in Windows that could allow a worm to be hidden inside a JPEG image. The bug is in GDI+ so any application written in Visual Studio or using the .net framework is vulnerable. Microsoft rates this as a critical vulnerability because a hacker could use it to infect your computer without any action on your part. The company has released a fix for Windows via Windows Update (SP-2 includes the fix), but you’ll have to update Office and other applications individually. In addition there’s a scanner available that will pinpoint other vulnerable applications.

Have you heard the talking worm? Better hope you never do, but I’ll play the audio for you today.

Yahoo! buys MusicMatch

Major Windows XP SP2 bug reveals documents worldwide

jsks:
New York Times Article

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Noon-1p

Nathan in Yorba Linda - HDMI connector

Nathan just purchased a new HDTV and it has HTMI and he’s used to DVI, what is HTMI?
Same as DVI but it bundles audio in with the video. I recommend it.

Brenda in Hawthorne - PC crashes a few minutes after booting

She’s had a series of virus infections, her ISP is threatening to cut her off because she has some nasty trojan. Best to rebuild the whole dang computer. Back up your data then use your system restore disk to reformat the hard drive and put the system back to the way it was when you brought it home. BUT before you go online you MUST either turn on the windows firewall or install SP-2. Get a copy of SP-2 from a friend, store, or Microsoft. Read my instructions for Main/InstallingWindows safely.

Once you’ve turned on the Windows firewall (or installed a broadband router) you should run Windows Update and install Service Pack 2. You can also download the FULL install of Windows XP Service Pack 2 from Microsoft. This is a good idea if you need to support other users, have multiple computers to upgrade, or just like to be prepared I recommend downloading it and burning it to a CD. You can also get a CD free from Microsoft.

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1–2p

Bob in Canoga Park - Needs Java

Bob is trying to download a video game and he is getting a error message
Bob wants to install Battlefield a cool online game, but he gets a red X on his XP machine. That’s because Microsoft didn’t ship the Java Virtual Machine with XP (they were in a dispute with Sun, the creators of Java). It’s easy to install it. Surf to www.java.com and click the big yellow button on the right.

Irene in Santa Clarita - Display is messed up

After a power outage Irene’s monitor changed to a very low resolution (the icons and start bar got very big) but she can’t change the resolution in the Display Settings control panel. That’s usually because the computer has an incorrect monitor setting. It will only let you choose a resolution the current monitor can handle, and if it’s configured for a very simple monitor 640×480 will be your only choice. The fix is to open the Display Properties control panel, clicking the Settings tab, then pressing the Advanced button… Click the Monitor tab and make sure you have the proper monitor driver installed (if it says VGA Monitor, or Generic Monitor that’s probably wrong). Install the correct driver and you’ll be back to work.

She also had accidentally dragged her task bar to the right side of the screen. Drag it back by left-clicking in the gray space below the Start button and drag the task bar to any side of the screen.

Roberta in Poway - Clie won’t sync

Roberta has a Sony Clie PDA and she backed it up to her computer with a hot-sync, but is now getting a error message regarding a bad USB connection
Disconnect all USB devices, reinstall

John in Palm Springs - floppy vs CD-RW

John wants to back-up his data and he’s not sure how to do this, he just starting using a CD burner and he wants to use a CD as he would a floppy to back things up.
You need packet writing software (it may have come with your bruner or computer). I recommend:

• inCD from Nero

Roxio’s program DirectCD is good too but required a CD-RW. inCD works with both CD-R and CD-RW discs.

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2–3p

Scott MacLean, founder of Toronto-based

Scott MacLean, founder of Toronto-based www.NeroSoft.com, creator of TimeTrax, the controversial software that lets listeners make MP3s from XM Satellite radio music joined me.

Win your own Traffic Gauge at www.kfi640.com: ⇒

George in Trabuco Cyn - DLP vs LCD rear projection

George is interested in rear-projection TV and wants to know about DLP vs. LCD
I prefer DLP but compare side by side and make sure you’re not sensitive to the DLP rainbow problem.

Mark in Woodland Hills - he’s being attacked online

Mark is wondering if a router will stop a malicious person from bombarding him with pop-ups and Denial of Service attacks

• Get a hardware router to protect against some external hack attacks and stealth ALL ports
• Don’t use Yahoo Messenger - use Trillian instead
• Kalic writes: You may also want to try another multi IM client - Messenger 2, its Free!

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