WTVN Radio • Columbus, Ohio • Sunday morning from 8 until 9
Who's in the corner?
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November 28, 2004 |
Random thought:
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We AIM to pleaseAOL's Instant Messenger service is used by a lot of people at home and at the office. It can be a quick, easy way to get a message through to someone who's on a long telephone call. But AOL's application is annoying. It puts ads on the screen and that might be OK if they didn't move. But most of them do. There must be a better way. And, in fact, there is. It would be nice if an application could keep track of more than one AOL account and being able to use a single application for AIM, MSN, IRC, and other messaging systems would be helpful. But the ads have to go! On the Windows sideWindows users get a free application from SourceForge.net, one of the big players in open-source software. At the SourceForge website, you'll find a lot of applications for Linux and Unix systems, along with ports for Windows machines and some ports for the Mac.
Windows users will want to download at least two extensions for Gaim so that it will work more like a Windows application. Gaim offers a highly-customizable interface and no advertising. If you've used AOL before, you'll immediately understand how Gaim works. On the Mac side
Proteus can communicate through AOL, Sametime, Yahoo (both US and Japan), MSN, ICQ, Gadu-Gadu, iChat, and Jabber. There are no advertisements. It's customizable with several different skins so that it will have the appearance you prefer. Two winnersBoth of these program have a variety of usability options -- formatting, message notification, sounds, displays, remember password, automatic log-on, various away and offline messages, the ability to use a name other than the user's screen name, icons, and on and on.
If you're an IM user and you're tired of putting up with AOL's look and feel, these are two good alternatives you should consider. Gaim is free and Proteus is shareware so you can download it and try it before spending $15 to buy a copy.
Microsoft Works SuiteSomebody's idea of a joke involves citing "Microsoft Works" as an oxymoron. I've generally compared the application to Rodney Dangerfield when it comes to getting respect. No, it's not the most feature-laden set of applications, but when so many pundits complain about "bloat ware", the Microsoft Works suite arrives with some uncommonly useful add-ons and a lack of bloat.
The spreadsheet application isn't Excel, but it reads Excel files without a problem and does allow for basic editing. The extras that are in the box make the application quite appealing. There's the 2005 version of Microsoft's Encarta Encyclopedia, Money (standard edition), Picture It Premium version 10, and the 2005 edition of Streets & Trips. I spoke with product manager Kim Schaefer, who explained that this is a series of applications designed for use at home ...
Phishing problem continues to worsenHow many messages do you get every day that claim to be from your bank or from some other business? They often warn that there has been a security problem and claim that they need you to confirm your information before some deadline (always in the near future) to avoid having your account frozen. If you read nothing else, read this: Legitimate financial institutions don't operate this way. If you look at the message carefully, you'll probably find a giveaway. What appears to be text will turn out to be a graphic. The message isn't addressed to you. The message is address to you, but not to the address you use for banking. Maybe there's a spelling error or grammatical error. If you go deep enough, you'll find the internal links lead to a domain in Europe or Asia. But you don't had to do that. Just assume that any message that wants you to confirm information is false. If you're concerned, go the the bank's site or the company's site, but not by selecting the link in the message. It's easy for a link that says it's sending you to a bank's site to instead send you to a cloned site. Just type the URL yourself. I'm working on a longer report on security, one that looks at some future technology, but that won't be along for a couple of weeks. Go PhishPhishing fraudsters dramatically increased their output recently according to the Anti-Phishing Working Group. The increase in October was more than 100% and the anti-phishing group says this probably means that the perpetrators are using zombied machines. The senior director of security at Websense, Dan Hubbard says there's no other reasonable conclusion. The number of reported phishing e-mails increased and also "the number of phishing sites that were unique dramatically spiked." More than half of the phishing sites appear to be located on personal computers that are connected to the Internet by either DSL or cable modems. What this means is that earlier worms created the connections the fraudsters needed to reach out and take over millions of machines. Nerdly NewsOpera has a better ideaOpera Software announced this week that it has a new browser technology that will solve one of the most vexing problems for website designers and website visitors -- differing screen sizes. Today, a page that's designed for an 800x600 screen doesn't fit on a 640x480 screen and has a lot of blank space on a 1600x1200 screen. Opera's new Extensible Rendering Architecture (ERA) will prevent users who browse Web sites on Mobile devices from having to scroll up and down and from side to side to read the page. The company says ERA incorporates several of its existing rendering technologies that enable dynamic resizing to adapt Web page content to fit any width. While this is welcome news, the technology will have to be adopted by other browser manufacturers for it to make much difference. Kazaa earns the title "spyware" from Computer AssociatesThis won't come as a surprise to you if you've ever had Kazaa on your computer. Computer Associates has named the application the "number one spyware threat" on the Internet. CA's PestPatrol division says that Kazaa posed a greater threat than other programs in its top five spyware list because Kazaa is so popular. Kazaa says 214 million people have downloaded the software. CA says Kazaa slows machines by adding unnecessary entries to the Registry. Kazaa has fought back against the "spyware" name previously and even CA says it's difficult to attach labels to applications. Kazaa is a peer-to-peer networking system and CA says this means any of the 214 million people who downloaded the application have access to your computer. Let us know what you think about this program! Write to: |
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Privacy Guarantee:I HATE SPAM and will not sell, rent, loan, auction, trade, or do anything else with your e-mail address. Period.
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As if you didn't already get enough weather on the radio! Annoying legal disclaimer
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You'll find Gaim there (Unix and Windows versions). Download it, install it, and you'll have a messaging client for AIM, Gadu-Gadu, Groupwise, IRC, Jabber, MSN, Napser, and ICQ. And yes, you can have more than one of each account.
I wasn't able to find a free application for the Mac that did what I wanted it to. I found a $15 program called Proteus. 
Here's a short conversation between me (on a PC) and me (on a Mac). 
Then, on the left, is the same discussion from the Proteus side. 
Microsoft Works version 8 includes the usual applications -- word processing, spreadsheet, database, e-mail, and calendar applications. The word processor is Word 2002, which is not the latest version of Word but it still a competent performer. Word 2002 is more than adequate for people who need to create reports and letters. It works well for those who need to bring Word documents home from the office, even if the office has standardized on Word 2003.
