| Home • Previous page | Do you use a pop-up blocker? If so, please read this. |
November 13, 2005 |
WTVN Radio • Columbus, Ohio Sunday morning from 8 until 9 |
| Important disclaimer: | |
Books you MUST have (Depending on what computer you own)Books are handy little things, although sometimes they're not so little. Books can be taken just about anywhere. You can read one at the beach (try that with your computer) or in the bathtub (likewise) or in an airplane (just try to open your computer if you're anywhere but first class). There are lots of books that can help you use a computer better and here are some I've taken a look at recently. Tiger: The Missing Manual (David Pogue)If you have a Mac that's running OS X Tiger, you need David Pogue's book. Period. End of story. Just go get it. Apple has this strange idea that people should be able to figure out how to use the operating system without reading a manual. That's nuts. Fortunately, Pogue, the New York Times technology guy, has a lot of experience with Macs and knows two things: 1) That Apple is nuts for not providing a manual and 2) He can make a little extra money with his "missing manual" book. Without the book, you'll miss knowing about some really useful features of the operating system. Apple has done a good job making the OS easy to use by people who don't read, but those who read Pogue's book will get a lot more out of the OS. It's not a small book and with every new version of the operating system it gets larger. That's because Pogue doesn't assume that you already know everything there is to know about the previous version. So now it's 800+ pages, $30, and no CD. Instead of a CD, Pogue puts shareware and freeware that he talks about (and "patches" for the book) on-line at www.missingmanuals.com. Among the highlights:
One oddity: Production errors produced references to some odd page numbers (11893, for example, and 161126) that I couldn't find in the 800-page book. Guide to Linux (Peter van der Linden)Peter's first language is not English. That and some less-than-perfect editing mar this book a bit, but not enough to get more than a passing comment. His English is far better than my Dutch! The book starts with a story about the author's uncle, whose computer gets taken over by a worm. The new computer he buys is not, as you might expect, a Linux machine, but a Mac. Van der Linden's approach to choosing the right operating system is even-handed. He likes Linux and believes that it's right for a lot of people, but not everyone. If you've wondered whether Linux might be a good choice for you, this is a good book to read. It's not overly technical, so the average computer user will be able to read it and understand what's going on. The book comes with a bootable CD that will let you try Linux on your computer without changing anything on your computer's hard disk. The CD is bootable, so you'll be able to start Linux and use some of the applications to see if it's right for you. When you're finished, you take the CD out of the drive, reboot, and you're back to Windows. The CD doesn't work on all computers. Notebook computers that treat the CD as a USB device, for example, won't be able to boot from the CD. For $40, this is a 600+ page book with a lot of promise for anyone who's interested in Linux. Osborne's Photoshop Elements Quick Steps or Photoshop Quick StepsI haven't seen the Photoshop book, but I have seen the Photoshop Elements book (it was published about 3 months ahead of the Photoshop book). The quick steps series of books from Osborne are most reasonably priced ($17), horizontal format, full color and heavily illustrated. Although I haven't seen every book in the series, I've not been disappointed by any that I have seen. The Photoshop Elements book is no exception and I suspect that the Photoshop book will be equally good. The books are "task-oriented", meaning that a user can look through the table of contents to find a task (Using Layers, for example), flip to page 77, and get a quick step-by-step description of what layers can be used for and how to use them. Along with the description are plenty of sample images, screen shots, call-outs, notes, and warnings. Digital cameras: What's in stores this year?This week I received an interesting question: We're looking for a digital video camera that will also allow you to extract high quality still frames. Does such a bird exist? I have a 2-part answer.
Here are some current listings at the nation's largest photo store -- B&H Photo Video, 34th and 9th Ave, in Manhattan. I've dealt with them since the time they were a little store in an old building downtown. http://www.bhphotovideo.com/. Some cameras are currently on sale (noted) and prices do not include shipping (it's reasonable). B&H does not strip all the accessories out of the box and then sell them back to you at inflated prices as some mail-order photo stores do. B&H does have some "gray" market equipment, but they always clearly note it as such. (Gray items are made for non-US markets and will not have warranty protection in the US.) All items I've listed here are US models. Below $150, you'll get only a fixed lens and digital zoom. Digital zoom is there for the marketing department to talk about. Never use digital zoom, even if the camera offers it. Digital zoom should be called "digital crop and ruin" because that's what it does. If you've got the budget, the Minolta at the far end of the list has an astounding 12x OPTICAL zoom for less than $300.
This is a tiny listing of cameras available, even within the narrow price range of $150 to $300 and the sky is the limit. There's a good selection of single-lens reflex digital cameras in the $1000 to $2000 range, but others hit $20,000 and beyond. Good News: FTC kills spyware groupYou want free lyrics, free browser upgrades, and ring tones? Fine, but you'll have to take this spyware, too. That's OK, eh? Sorry, fool, but no -- that's not OK and a company that used that technique has been ordered to halt its illegal activities by a US District Court thanks to actions by the Federal Trade Commission. The court has also ordered affiliate companies that helped spread the dreck. Those who downloaded anything from the various sites also received (at no additional charge) a program that claimed the computer had security problems. That was true, but people who chose to "upgrade" their computers by clicking on the provided link ended up downloading spyware onto their computers. The court has frozen the organization's assets pending a further hearing. The FTC will seek to bar the deceptive practices permanently and take from the company any fraudulent profits it made. The FTC complaint alleges that the defendants' websites create pop-ups that offer a variety of "freeware" such as music files, cell phone ring tones, photographs, wallpaper, and song lyrics or warn that the browser being used is defective and needs to be upgraded. Anyone foolish enough to download the "freeware" or "security upgrade" will have their computers infected with spyware. The FTC says that the spyware tracks Internet visits, changes the home page settings; inserts new toolbars, displays ads, and shows pop-up ads even when the browser isn't running. The spyware is difficult to remove and the FTC says these practices are unfair and deceptive. and violate the FTC Act. The agency will seek a permanent ban on the practices, and redress for consumers. This case was brought with the assistance of Microsoft and Google. Who? Defendants include Enternet Media, Conspy & Co, Lida Rohbani (AKA Linda Rohhani and Lida Hakimi), Nima Hakimi, Baback Hakimi (AKA Bobby Rohbani and Bobby Hakimi) and Networld One, all based in California. If your computer has been attacked by any of these "fine" programs, the FTC wants hear from you. Send an e-mail message to enternetmedia@ftc.gov or call 202-326-2992. Nerdly NewsTrashing your computer in a flashIf you're still using version 7 of the Flash player, you'll want to upgrade to version 8 right away. It's free. The update is important not because of any new features, but because a critical vulnerability has been found in version 7. According to Macromedia, "The current version of the player (8.0.22.0) contains a fix for the vulnerability. Users who have already upgraded to Flash Player 8 are not affected by this issue." Updated versions of the player's version 7 for Linux and Solaris are also available from Macromedia's website. But if you have a Windows 95 or Windows NT computer or you're using a Mac that's still running an old version of the operating system, you will be unable to upgrade to version 8, but a patch is available to correct the problem in the old player. The flaw could allow malicious hackers to launch a worm or run arbitrary softwate on the victim's computer. As of today, there is no known exploit for the problem, but the flaw was made public on Friday and exploits usually begin to appear quickly, so now is the time to obtain the update from Macromedia. Sony's incredibly stupid moveSome copy-protected CDs from Sony install digital rights management software on Windows machines (but not on Macs or Linux machines). Sony's goal was to stop piracy. The problem is that the DRM software installs as a rootkit, meaning that it is hidden from Windows, has no Registry entry, and is difficult to find or remove. Worse still, removing it may render the machine unable to boot. Does Sony have a legal department? How about a PR department? Could the people who work in those two departments not visualize what would happen when users found out what the company was doing? The DRM software warns the user that it will install "proprietary software", but it does so in small type near the end of a multi-page agreement. The anti-virus community is livid. F-Secure says Sony is "playing with rootkits and other blackhat techniques" that virus writers use to hide malware. Sony acted fairly quickly to provide an application that allows users to "uncloak" the DRM processes to show what the CD installed. But the company hasn't apologized for its actions and there is still no easy way to remove the program. Another anti-virus company, Sophos, says that a new Trojan horse already exploits Sony's rootkit technology. The Trojan (Troj/Stinx-E) is included in a spam that pretends to be a message from a British business magazine. The message says, "Your photograph was forwarded to us as part of an article we are publishing for our December edition of Total Business Monthly. Can you check over the format and get back to us with your approval or any changes? If the picture is not to your liking then please send a preferred one. We have attached the photo with the article here." Opening the "photo" runs an application that creates a file called $sys$drv.exe. Files with "$sys$" in the name are automatically cloaked by Sony's lunatic copy-protection system. Sophos says that Sony's scheme has created a vulnerability that hackers and virus writers can easily exploit. Sophos has an application that detects the presence of Sony's DRM copy-protection on Windows computers, disable it, and keep the Sony malware for re-installing itself. You may obtain it here. Hello, Sony, can you say "class action lawsuit"? And if the person who approved this hasn't been fired yet, what are you waiting for? Let us know what you think. Write to:
|
 |
Have a question? Ask it and you might pick up a prize for stumping the chump. Send your question to . And ... good luck! |
Privacy Guarantee:I HATE SPAM and will not sell, rent, loan, auction, trade, or do anything else with your e-mail address. Period. |
Is this information useful? |
|
Joe(Photo by Sally) |
Bill(Photo by Scampi) |
|
As if you didn't already get enough weather on the radio! This is the only ad you'll ever see on this site. It's for my website host, BlueHost in Orem, Utah. Over the past several years, they have proven to be honest, reliable, and progressive. If you need to host a website, please click the banner below to see what BlueHost has to offer. Annoying legal disclaimer [an error occurred while processing this directive] |
||
