Stumbling all over the Internet

This could be addictive. Certainly I've spent more time stumbling around than I'd intended to. First, it was just a couple of stumbles here or there, but now I stumble at least once a day. Sometimes for extended periods. It all began innocently enough, with a visit to the Firefox extensions page. I noticed an extension for "Stumble Upon". The text suggested it was a way to explore the "social Web" and, not knowing what was meant by that, I read on. It turns out that you tell the application what your interests are and it will direct you to websites based on sites that people with similar interests liked.

It's a free service, but you can pay to upgrade. Why? If you don't, some of your stumbles will be to commercial websites that pay to be included. I was directed to a "space photography" site, for example, that offered to sell me high-resolution images from space. While I find these images interesting, they're not sufficiently interesting that I want to pay for them. But the occasional stumble into a commercial site isn't a big deal for me.

Setting up

	Initially you can start by selecting broad categories, but you'll probably want to be a little more specific as you stumble. Click these images for a larger view.
	You may return to the site to update the topics, or to drill down.
	This is where you can specify sub-topic areas within the broad category outlines. It's useful for fine-tuning what you'll see. But the application also learns what you like and what you don't.

Let the stumbling begin

Although I found Stumble Upon as a Firefox extension, it also has an Internet Explorer tool-bar. The toolbar shown here is the one available to Firefox users. To visit a random page, I click Stumble. The "All" indicates that all of my topics are currently active. I can rate any site as one that I like or one that I don't like. Those ratings help the application show me sites I'll like and avoid the ones I won't, but it also feeds information back to the authors for their use in creating profiles that are used by everyone.

I stumbled onto a Beethoven page. That didn't look too interesting, so I stumbled again and ended up in an amateur radio area. I looked around for a bit and stumbled to Piggy Bank (an extension that promises to help me find coffee shops that are close to restaurants). Eh?

Next stop -- The Joker ("My first job was working in an orange juice factory, but I got canned, I couldn't concentrate," and "Two vultures board an airplane, each carrying two dead raccoons. The stewardess looks at them and says, 'I'm sorry, gentlemen, only one carrion allowed per passenger.'") That's more like it!

Then on to a Murphy's Law site, complete with rules for police officers. "Whatever you are about to do, if there is a good chance it will get you killed, you probably shouldn't do it."

Another site offered to translate my text so that it would appear to have been written by a 13-year-old computer nerd. I gave that a try, of course:

• What I wrote: As strange as it may seem, the cat has fallen asleep on a large pile of fresh laundry. This is, as any cat person will know, astonishingly unusual.
• The translation: AS STRANGA AS IT MAY SEM DA CAT HAS FAL3N ASLEP ON A LARGE PIEL OF FR3SH LAUNDRY111! OMG LOL THIS IS AS ANY CAT PERSON WIL KNOW AS2NISHNGLY UNUSUAL!111 OMG LOL

I believe that I'll continue to stick with the vernacular as I know it.

Security? Privacy?

The application does not automatically collect any personal or system information, but it does record information you explicitly provide such as your ratings of websites. This rating information is shared (in aggregate only) with other community members and also improves the application's performance to you.

As the site's privacy policy says, "Associating personal information with your userid, such as a name, nickname, or webpage is entirely voluntary and not required to use the StumbleUpon toolbar." When you register, you create a user ID and a password. If you want to list additional information, you can. I find that privacy policy clear and fair.

Some of the sites I stumbled to

• A website for an ad agency that doesn't exist: http://www.huhcorp.com/ideas.htm.
• A complete examination of Murphy's Laws: http://www.murphys-laws.com/murphy/.
• Writings in Engrish: http://www.engrish.com/.
• An explanation of what $87 billion really is: http://www.crunchweb.net/87billion/.
• An on-line human virus scanner: http://totl.net/VirusScanner/?.
• An explanation of how propaganda works: http://www.propagandacritic.com/.
• A news account that Australia drank a bit too much and woke up the following morning in the North Atlantic Ocean, and upside down: http://www.satirewire.com/news/jan02/australia.shtml.
• A useful quiz: http://www.dr-joe.net/.
• An Darwinian evolution game: http://www.ventrella.com/Darwin/darwin.html. (It's just a theory, like the Theory of Gravity.)
• The Darwin awards (cleaning the gene pool): http://www.darwinawards.com/.
• A collection of truly stupid videos: http://www.stupidvideos.com/.
• An entire website devoted to pictures of cats in sinks: http://catsinsinks.com/.

Where have I stumbled? Click here.

Technology corner rating for STUMBLE UPON

9 CATS: Stumble Upon is dangerous fun. You'll probably spend far more time stumbling around than you planned to. If you're the kind of person who visit bookstores and libraries for the "serendipity" factor, you will love this application. Visit the website for details.

How the Technology Corner rating system works.

Time to look at antivirus programs again

The license for my antivirus program expires next week, so I did some looking around to see what's available. I've used Grisoft's AVG Antivirus for the past several years and have recommended it to others, in part because it treads lightly on system resources. Some of the competing products cause applications on the computer to run slowly because the antivirus application is always doing something. But is AVG still the right choice for me?

Usually the response I hear from people who have replaced one of the other applications with Grisoft's AVG Antivirus goes something like this: "Wow! My computer is so much faster now! Are you sure it's working? "

	Yes, it's working. Normally I have AVG delete files with viruses, but I told the application to store infected files in its vault. At the left is the summary of all virus infected messages sent just to my Technology Corner account in about 2 months. Other accounts receive far more virus-infected messages. CLICK ANY OF THE IMAGES FOR A LARGER VIEW.
	The AVG control panel is easy to use because each of the components had its own specific area. AVG will work with any e-mail program, but has specific plug-ins for Outlook, Eudora, and The Bat. A small bug in the program results in a message that says the e-mail scanner is not "fully functional". The message is incorrect and may be safely ignored.
	Selecting the test center icon opens a list of tests that the user may run. The user may modify existing tests, add tests, and delete tests. If you routinely download files to a specific directory (a good idea, by the way) you can have a test already defined to scan that specific directory. Files are scanned as they are downloaded and written to disk, but some people feel better if they scan new files before they do anything with them.
	The European Institute for Computer Anti-Virus Research has a test file that is used worldwide to test antivirus programs. The file isn't a virus, but it contains a "signature" that antivirus publishers have agreed to use for testing their products. The EICAR test file simply consists of this string of characters: X5O!P%@AP[4\PZX54(P^)7CC)7}$EICAR-STANDARD-ANTIVIRUS-TEST-FILE!$H+H*
	When I right-clicked the test file and attempted to save it, I immediately received a warning.
	When AVG finds an infected file, it offers to tell you about the virus. Here is the description of the EICAR test file.

AVG is available in both free and paid versions. The free version is surprisingly robust considering its cost. The paid version provides a better interface with more controls. But if you're on a tight budget, consider the free version. You'll get daily updates and the same kind of protection paid users get.

For a few dollars (less than $35) you can buy the professional version of AVG for a single Windows PC and that includes two years of updates, not just one. Grisoft also has products for Windows servers and for Linux. And the renewal license is less than $20 for 2 years.

If you need technical support after purchasing AVG, you'll be surprised by how quickly Grisoft responds. It's easy for a techno-journalist to say this. When companies send us their wares, they're careful to provide quick and accurate support. But I've also heard from AVG users who have asked Grisoft for help and who have received accurate replies within a few hours. My theory is that Grisoft is still small enough to care about individual customers.

Technology corner rating for GRISOFT AVG ANTIVIRUS

9 CATS: It would be hard to find a better antivirus program than Grisoft's AVG. It's trustworthy, accurate, and reasonably priced. Add that to its minimal use of system resources, and you have a winner. For more information, see the Grisoft website.

How the Technology Corner rating system works.

Nerdly News

Another victory for the anti-phish

The man who ran a 6-person phishing gang that stole more than half a million dollars from about 200 Ebay users will spend some time in jail. Four years. So that's about $125,000 per year. But he had to split up the proceeds among 6 people, so that's less than $20,000 per year. Maybe crime doesn't pay so well, after all.

David Levi of Blackpool, England, received the longest sentence. Other gang members will be in jail for 6 months to 2 years. The group created a website that looked like Ebay's website and then sent e-mail messages to people. The messages -- standard phishing fare -- directed them to the websiste.

Bottom line: Don't follow links in e-mails that claim to come from your bank or any commercial enterprise. Never give a website information the company should already have.

How serious is avian flu?

It's sufficiently serious that spammers are peddling "drugs" that will "cure" the flu. In reality, all the "drugs" will "cure" is a bulge in your wallet.

Anti-spam operations are seeing an increase in the number of messages that claim to sell "Tamiflu". That's the drug considered most effective at protecting humans from the H5N1 strain of the bird flu virus. Tamiflu is in short supply and high demand and the spams peddle "Tamiflu" alongside "generic Viagra", which also doesn't exist.

Roche, the manufacturer of Tamiflu, confirms that any website purporting to sell the drug is bogus. If you buy anything advertised by spam, you probably deserve whatever it is that you don't get.

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