TechByter Worldwide for 2010
More recent programs are at the top and older programs are further down. That is to say that we use an inverse chronological ordering. Click the program date to visit the summary for that program. The audio for each program will be near the bottom of the page.
Eye Candy 6 From Alien Skin: Remember "With a name like Smucker's, it's got to be good" as spoken by Mason Adams? If you do, you're older than you look, but then so am I. To twist that marketing phrase just a bit: "With a name like Alien Skin, it's got to be great." I've been looking at Eye Candy 6 and I was happy to find out that it's one of the Alien Skin products that works natively in a 64-bit operating system. I was even happier when I saw what it could do.
Ware Do U Get Yr Nwz? A report by the Pew Research Center's Internet & American Life Project says that most Americans get their news the way you're reading this: Via the Internet. More than 90% of us use multiple sources: Maybe some NPR while in the car, a newspaper at the office (or maybe you still have home delivery), perhaps some television (if you can call what the television spews "news"), and a variety of stops on the Internet. Less than 40% of us depend only on off-line sources for news.
The Ultra Cool UltraEdit is 16: This is a report about a tool not too many people need, although about 2 million people around the world use it. UltraEdit is a "text editor", which means it sort of like a word processor, except without the ability to create bold text, italics, bulleted lists, and the like. It's the kind of application that programmers use, but there are some serious writers who use it, too, because it's fast and because it doesn't get in the way.
The Frauds Are Improving: Last Thursday, I received a message from Amazon to confirm my order. (But I don't have any open orders.) The message came to an obsolete office address. (I have never used that address for an Amazon purchase.) But someone who has recently placed an order with Amazon might just be tempted to click the link. That would be a mistake.
A Bullet-Proof Multi-Part Backup Plan: Backup is important. I mention that often enough that you're probably sick of reading about it, but it really is important. Often I talk about Carbonite, an online backup service that makes the process so easy that nobody can honestly say it's too difficult to understand. But as much as I like Carbonite, it's not my only backup. I also use Acronis True Image and I think you should, too.
Tune Up: A Buggy But Useful Itunes Helper: From the name, you might think Tune Up would make your computer run better. It doesn't, but it makes Itunes look a lot better. A lot of my tracks in Itunes are from CDs or records that I own. As a result, they didn't have cover art and sometimes the track information and other metadata were wrong. I could use Itunes to obtain the cover art and manually edit the track names and add the metadata, but there's a much better way.
A Link to Avoid: Your e-mail in box contains a message from someone you know. The message has no subject. There's no signature. You notice dozens of other e-mail addresses in the to line. Some of these addresses are familiar to you, but others are not. The message consists of a single line of text, a URL to a website you've never heard of. Would you click it?
Nigerian Spammers Migrate to Benin: I received a message from Ruben Moussa, Inspector General of Police in Benin, a country in west Africa. Among Benin's neighbor countries is Nigeria, and apparently some Nigerian crooks have decided to move their business to Benin. The inspector general told me that my e-mail address was found in the records of some "scam gangsters" and that this country wanted to make good on my misfortune by issuing me a special ATM card that would be delivered by DHL.
Lessons Crooks Need to Learn for Success: I've mentioned a time or two that the average crook is somewhat unlikely to be the holder of a Phi Beta Kappa key, a member of Mensa, or the class valedictorian. This week I received spam from a spammer who wants me to buy things on my credit card, ship them to him, and wait for reimbursement. When the reimbursement arrives, it will be in the form of a "cashier's check" and the check will be for more than the amount owed. I will be asked to return the "extra". A few days later, the check will prove to be a phony and I will be out not only the cost of the goods I bought for the crook but also the cash I sent.
Migrating to 64-bit Computing: Last week I promised a report on my move from 32-bit Windows to 64-bit Windows. Had I made the move 20 years ago, I would have been on the extreme leading edge. Had I made the move 10 years ago, I would still have been in a tiny minority of forward-thinking computer users. Even coming to 64-bit computing at this late date, I'm still in a small minority of users. It's different here in 64-bit land. You'll need to make the move someday and you should at least consider whether that "someday" should be when you buy a computer to replace your current computer.
Buzz: An Annoying Noise.
Google Buzz: See Above. Google does a lot of cool things, but Google Buzz isn't one of them. For starters, you seem to get Buzz whether you want it or not. Second, there are some serious security concerns. In addition to the really cool things Google does, they sometimes commit a major howler. Buzz is more in that category.
Short Circuits: The Threat of Cyber Terrorism: Do you like scary stories? I do, and this is a scary story; but it's not a scary story that you'll like no matter how much you like scary stories. James Lewis, the director for the Technology and Public Policy Program at the Center for Strategic and International Studies, was a guest on NPR's Fresh Air with Terry Gross on February 10th. He described several instances in which someone broke in to supposedly secure government computer systems.
Apple Support: I've said nasty things about the people who provide support for hardware and software. And I've also said nasty things about Apple. This week I needed to call on Apple for support and now I'm writing love letters. What happened? I think I can explain.
LogMeIn Lets You Be in Two Places at One Time: How can you be in two places at once when you're not anywhere at all?" That was the name of a comedy album released by Firesign Theater sometime in the 1960s. It has nothing at all to do with LogMeIn, but I've always liked the name of the album. LogMeIn is the solution to the problem of leaving an important file you want to work on at home on your office computer or the inverse problem of leaving an office file you worked on at home on your home computer. With LogMeIn, you just work on the file using the computer it's on even if you're not there.
Moving to Windows 7 64-bit: By the time you read this (or hear it if you're listening to the podcast) my primary desktop computer should be running the 64-bit version of Windows 7. I'm writing this on Monday, February 8, and the plan is to visit TCR on Friday where I'll find a computer with Windows 7 installed. We'll move the 3 disks from the current computer to the new box and I'll spend some time setting things up and testing. By the time I come home, I should have a fully functional computer. Just to be on the safe side, I recorded this week's podcast on Thursday.
Xmarks the Spot: I keep saying that you should have more than one browser. If you do that, you might want to have the same shortcuts (favorites, bookmarks) available in all of your browsers. I don't because I use Firefox as my primary browser and set up Opera, Chrome, or Internet Explorer for alternate uses. But if you'd like a bit of consistency from browser to browser, or from Firefox on a desktop computer to IE on a notebook computer, Xmarks is what you're looking for.
Short Circuits: Streaming Video: Why You Need High-Speed Internet: Faster and better online streaming video is in your future if only the United States can manage to provide the same kind of service that's enjoyed by the planet's other technological giants such as France, Norway, and South Korea. Netflix is looking at what's required to bring HD video ("1080p") to its subscribers and this is something that could happen within the next few years. This year, Netflix plans to start providing 5.1 audio (enhanced stereo sound) to online viewers. True streaming 1080p will have to wait, but (maybe) not for too long.
Are Computer Games so 1980? Electronic Arts, unarguably one of the largest players in the computer game marketplace appears to be sliding into oblivion. The company says it lost $82 million in the most recent quarter. That's better than a year ago, when EA lost $641 million, but a loss is a loss. Stockholders are happier when the company reports a profit.
Learning with Lynda: When you're trying to learn the basics of a new piece of software you've purchased, or when you want to pick up some of the application's finer points, you might want to know Lynda. Lynda Weinman, that is. She's the co-founder of Lynda.com, the on-line library of training videos. Although the training videos range in subject matter from Perl programming and how to get the most out of Ebay to Joomla and Drupal, by far the most common subjects are Adobe Photoshop, other components of the Creative Suite, and digital photography. As I tell you more, you'll understand why.
The Changing Spam and Scam Landscape: Like the city dump in a windstorm, spammers and scammers keep changing the landscape. The underlying goal is always the same, but the techniques keep changing. I gave the slop bucket a closer look than normal this week and fished out a few smelly pieces to share.
PC Magazine Utilities: $20 Well Spent: In the early days, PC Magazine published a utility every month. The article explained how the utility worked and showed the source code. Over the years, this changed and now PC Magazine has a $20-per-year utilities option. Subscribe and you can download any of the magazine's utilities for an entire year. For my money, it's a good way to spend $20.
Short Circuits: Touching Amazon's Kindle: The fact that no small number of Mac fans have dissed the Ipad (for its lame name, weak feature set, and operating system) hasn't kept some in the Windows community from gushing over how wonderful it is. Even those who might be inclined to buy one, perhaps remembering the painful lessons of early Iphone buyers, are waiting for version 2. But the Ipad got Amazon's attention and the company reacted quickly.
A Monster for Yahoo: Yahoo continues to shrink. The goal is to put emphasis on its core business units and spin off those operations that aren't key to Yahoo's core competencies. The latest to go is HotJobs, acquired by Monster for $225 million. Monster says the job market is improving and the acquisition makes sense in today's marketplace.
The Unexpected Winner: Norton Internet Security: Written as simply and directly as I can write it: I am in awe of what Symantec developers have accomplished with the code for the latest version of Norton Internet Security. I used Norton Antivirus in the early days of computers, but then it became too big, too bloated, and too slow. It caused even fast computers to crawl. For much of the last decade, I've used AVG Antivirus, but AVG has added a whole suite of protective applications that brought my computer to its knees. After trying and removing other applications, some of which looked interesting at first, I downloaded Norton Internet Security 2010 on Sunday, January 17, for a 30-day trial. I had to provide a credit card number and, if I don't opt out, Norton will charge about $70 to that card in mid February. I have no plans to opt out.
Out! Out! Damn Spot! Have you ever tried to remove a program using the application's built-in uninstaller or the Windows Add and Remove Programs feature? Most of the time, it works; sometimes it fails. Even when it succeeds, though, you'll often be left with some pieces of the program in a directory or in the Registry. But there's a better way and it doesn't cost anything.
IPad: That's the Best Name They Could Think Of? What's wrong in Cupertino? Instead of the usual adulation (although there's plenty of that), Apple's latest gadget is being met with abuse, satire, and derision. The Ipad will probably fly off store shelves, but I have to wonder what engineering was thinking of when they decided to make a computer-size phone in the shape of a tablet computer and what marketing what thinking when they came up with the name.
Short Circuits: Keep Your Hands Off Firefox, Microsoft! They did it again! Microsoft was criticized, and rightly so, about a year ago when it started installing a Net Framework addition in Mozilla Firefox without asking for permission to do so. To make things worse, the installation was botched so that removing it wasn't particularly easy. I've disabled it. I've uninstalled it. And it keeps coming back! Stop it, Microsoft!
Vista Fades as a Bad Fiscal Memory: Microsoft's earnings are up and not just a little. The company says earnings increased 60% in the most recent quarter, compared to the same period a year ago. Apparently holiday shopping and upgrade fever helped out now that Vista is finally out of the picture.
Believe Nothing I've Said About Antivirus So Far! Question: "After reading your latest newsletter, I am a bit confused. I am looking for new antivirus. Currently using avast and not thrilled with it. If I am interpreting your letter correctly, there still isn't one you recommend?" Correct, and I was beginning to be more than a little disheartened by what I was finding. But now I've found something that, after just a few days, seems like a winner. But I'm not going to tell you about it.
Is 2010 the Year of Linux? Around 1985, I asked if the age of the CD-ROM had arrived. It hadn't. I asked the same question for the next couple of years and eventually the age of the CD-ROM did arrive. But it was a short-lived victory and was superseded by the age of the DVD. In the early 1990s, I began asking if we had reached the year of the digital camera. Eventually that year arrived and the Eastman Kodak Company began trying to find a way to reinvent itself, something it's still trying to do. For the past several years, I've been asking if this is the year of Linux and the answer has always been negative. That may not change anytime soon.
Have You Looked at Opera Lately? Opera is the browser that tried to bring sanity to an insane world. More than a decade ago, when Microsoft and Netscape were battling for world supremacy based on which could introduce the most non-standard "features", Opera's philosophy seemed to address building the best possible standards-compliant browser. Netscape is dead, although a few die-hards continue to use it. Microsoft's browser is generally scorned but it's still the browser that's used by the largest number of people. Firefox's add-ons make it the browser I couldn't live without. So why is Opera now my default browser?
Short Circuits: Are You STILL Using Internet Explorer? If so, why? Microsoft has once again had to resort to an out-of-cycle emergency patch to fix a browser flaw. This one has been instrumental in allowing attacks against Google and other companies such as Chemical Abstracts. Unlike Firefox, which is patched frequently, Internet Explorer is typically patched only on the monthly Microsoft "patch Tuesday".
Malware, Google, and China: What brought the current Internet Explorer flaws to everyone's attention is a series of attacks, aimed at Google, that originated in China. And that whole mess underlines serious new threats by malware, malicious software that can quickly and easily take over a computer.
Multiplying Spam: Rick asks: "For some number of months, I was receiving virtually no spam at all. About two months ago, the spam began increasing on a daily basis. Moreover, most of the spam is landing in the inbox instead of the spam box. Have new spammers come online recently? Also, I use AT&T/Yahoo e-mail. I noticed that the spam filter has a limit of 500 e-mail addresses. Do you know of a spam blocker that I could add to this e-mail service? Should I be looking at switching to another e-mail service provider, one that is not necessarily free?" The quick and easy answers are yes and yes. But you'll want more than that. And you'll have it.
Surrounded by Antivirus Programs: This is an unfinished story, a work in progress. I'm telling it now because it illustrates the frustrations of trying to find the right application or applications to protect your computer's data. For many years, I used AVG Antivirus because it was a light user of system resources. But version 9, released late in 2009 had begun to remind me of Norton Antivirus, the application AVG had replaced. I removed AVG and installed, over the next few months, several antivirus products. Some were free, others were free trials. Shopping for an antivirus program these days isn't easy.
Short Circuits: Disconnected! How important is the Internet to you? I was reminded on Thursday, January 14, how important it is to me. When I arrived at home from the office, I logged on to my account on the computer and noticed that all of the Internet applications indicated no connection. When I called Wide Open West, an intercept recording said, in essence, "Yes, we know."
Googling Broken China? Many media pundits have not been kind to Google this week. The commentators have wondered how and when Google found its moral compass. They've said that maybe Google finally decided not to be evil. And those are the positive comments. This could be interesting. Who is stronger, Google or China?
4-8-16-32-64—Hike! The first personal computer central processing units were 4-bit devices, quickly followed by 8-bit and then 16-bit processors. After a few years, the world moved to 32-bit processors and a few years after that, 64-bit processors were released. Except that the world didn't follow the the 64-bit leader (AMD was first, by the way). Now maybe it's time.
Backup Is Easier and Less Expensive than Ever: Whenever I think about computer backups, my first thought is cost. It's easy to think about the hardware as being valuable. After all, you spent several hundred or several thousand dollars to obtain the hardware. But hardware is easy to replace. You may have it insured. The data that's stored on the hard disks cannot easily be replaced and that's why you need insurance for it. In this case, insurance is named "backup".
Windows, Reloaded: Sometimes an operating system such as Windows becomes so badly damaged that the only solution is to reinstall it. This is a scary prospect because it involves formatting the drive, which destroys all programs and data on the computer. The process involves a lot of steps and you'll probably spend many hours working on the computer and you should plan on spending even more time in preparation. It's the preparation that will allow you to save your data. The key is not to start until you're certain that you have everything you need to recover from what is the computer equivalent of brain surgery.
Short Circuits: Program Note: An additional article follows Short Circuits this week. It's a geeky, esoteric topic that I think is interesting, but you may not. For that reason, I've put it at the end of the program and made it easy to skip if you're not interested.
Windows 7's "God Mode": Marshall Thompson, the head honcho at The Computer Room passed along an interesting tip this week. If you're a Windows 7 user, you can create a new directory and call it "GodMode.{ED7BA470-8E54-465E-825C-99712043E01C}". When you do that, the icon immediately changes to the Control Panel icon and the directory contains everything that's in the Control Panel, with more granular control, and other utilities.
Monday I Had to Reboot My Phone. Twice. Monday when I got to the office, my phone wouldn't work. Some network changes had been made over the weekend and I couldn't make or receive calls. After I rebooted the phone, it told me the time was midnight and the date was January 1, 2000. I could make calls, but the phone couldn't find the timeserver, so I had to set the date manually. Later that morning, the network engineer made the changes needed for the phone to see the timeserver and I had to reboot the phone again. Who would have thought, even 5 years ago, that we would be using phone that had to be rebooted!
What Makes the Web Tick? Warning: This is an esoteric topic. If you're a Web developer, you'll want to skip it because you already know everything that I'll be discussing here. If you have no interest in knowing how the Web works, you'll want to skip it because it won't be of interest to you. So my guess is that the worldwide audience for this topic is approximately 104 people. That's why this isn't the lead story or even the second item. I've even positioned it behind Short Circuits. But if you're curious and you like to experiment, this article will be enough to get you started.
More Comfortable Seating in the New 2010 Model: The annual TechByter Worldwide site redesign is complete. This year, the changes are mainly evolutionary, but I have made changes. As usual, in this first program of the year, I'll review the changes and explain why I made them.
The State of Online Music in 2010: The music landscape continues to change and it's possible to foresee a time when the people who make music and the people who listen to music will be able to deal almost directly with each other. Increasingly, music is being provided online. Despite what the Recording Industry Association of America says, we're not all thieves. But we all look for a bargain. An increasing number of players in online music distribution has made shopping for music more difficult, but potentially less expensive.
Groovy, Baby! A little-known Microsoft Office application makes it possible to share documents automatically with co-workers, whether they're located in your office, across town, or on the other side of the planet. Although it works well with technologies such as a Microsoft SharePoint server, no such server is required. All that's needed is the installation of an application called Groove on all the PCs that need to share information.
Short Circuits: Nokia vs Apple and Apple vs Nokia: Nokia sued Apple so Apple sued Nokia. Now Now Nokia is suing Apple again. In October Nokia claimed that Apple stole its technology for the Iphone. Apple then accused Nokia of stealing its technology. Now Nokia says that Apple is improperly using technologies covered by 7 patents that cover technologies found in many Apple products.
No Retrospectives Here: The past week has featured a non-stop series of articles from the major media pundits with titles such as That Was the Year That Was, Ten Technologies that Touched Your Life in 2009, The Ten Best Iphone Apps, and one that really surprised me: Stupid Tech Tricks of 2009. Bah. Who cares?
The author's image: It's that photo over at the right. This explains why TechByter Worldwide was never on television, doesn't it?
