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March 31, 2008
Men at work
We will be doing some blog cleaning up this week so posting may be a bit random.
But that is what Slashdot is for. And tech republic, and boing boing, and well you get the picture.
Posted by Peter at 10:39 AM
March 30, 2008
You say you want a Revolution
In a few months you won't need to haul your laptop in order to play Civilization:
Sid Meier’s Civilization Revolution is the latest offering in the legendary award winning Sid Meier's Civilization series of strategy games, featuring the famous "just one more turn" addictive gameplay that has made this one of the greatest game series of all time. Civilization Revolution has been designed and built (by the legendary Sid Meier and his team at Firaxis) from the ground up for consoles and handhelds delivering graphics, gameplay and controls that take full advantage of the hugely popular gaming platforms.
Handheld civ will be a very nice addition to the civ family of games, it will be available for the Nintendo DS the X-Box 360 and the PS3.
Posted by Peter at 01:24 PM
March 29, 2008
When is a friend not a friend? When its on facebook
At least that's what a British court says...
The magistrate was presiding over a harassment case in which a woman accused her former boyfriend of hounding her by sending her a "friend request" on the popular social networking site on January 21.The ex-boyfriend, Michael Hurst, 34, was cleared of the charge after the magistrate accepted his argument that the contact was highly innocuous because being "Facebook friends" could not be defined as "friendship in the traditional sense".
Look for a lot more cases like this as tech continues to become the norm.
Posted by Peter at 02:17 PM
March 27, 2008
Danger on the Safari
If you've ever played the old classic Avalon Hill Board game Source of the Nile you know that a Safari can bring unknown dangers.
Apparently that is true for Safari in windows as well not only are we dealing with Crashes but vulnerabilities to spoofing attacks.
I guess this helps Mozilla's CEO argument.
Posted by Peter at 09:09 AM
March 26, 2008
A fact of Vista life
Via Glenn and the inside higher ed a single paragraph that tells the story of the latest Mac OS vs the newest Microsoft OS:
At Bowdoin College, about half of the computers are Macs, and half are PCs. When Apple released the latest version of OS X in October, professors with Macs immediately swamped the IT department to ask about the long-awaited Leopard. But after Windows Vista, the latest version of Microsoft’s operating system, came out over a year ago, there were no such requests.
People vote with their feet.
Posted by Peter at 11:06 PM
March 25, 2008
Don't believe everything you hear
In these days of the internet where one can reach thousands, a practical joke on the net can clear someone of house and home:
Police say belongings removed from a Southern Oregon man's property have begun slowly reappearing at his home, a day after a pair of hoax ads on Craigslist cost Robert Salisbury much of what he owned.
The idea that people would automatically believe an ad on Craig's list to just go to someone property to take stuff is really beyond me. If it hadn't been for a person alerting the owner when he saw something odd he might have come home to a totally empty house. As it is he will likely have as much grief as Mr. Baggins did on his return getting his things back.
Posted by Peter at 11:37 AM
March 24, 2008
Has it really been 3 years?
Today we celebrate the 3rd anniversary of our company blog.
At the time we started in March of 2005 I'm not sure there were too many company blogs out there, let alone ones that allowed all kinds of employees to post. Now it seems odd if a company doesn't have some kind of online interface.
We would like to thank our customers who have checked with us daily or weekly to see what we have to say, we'd like to think we've been useful.
We look forward to many more years of sharing our tips, thoughts, news gripes and occasional jokes with the nicest customer base in the business.
Posted by Peter at 12:38 PM
March 23, 2008
Happy Easter
Today is Easter Sunday, with Good Friday the holiest days of the Christian year and pretty much an unofficial family holiday in the United States and in western nations in general.
HiWired will as always be open all day today to tend to your PC needs, it's likely that most of you will be too busy with feasting, family and fun to need us, but if you do, we will be here.
We wish all who celebrate it a happy and holy Easter, to those who don't celebrate this or any other holiday we mention, we say as always, have a great day!
Posted by Peter at 01:01 PM
March 22, 2008
what's one more browser?
If you are an apple user you know that Safari is the standard browser on that system.
What you might not know is that it is now an update included with ITunes updates. The CEO of Mozilla is not impressed:
That’s a problem because of the dynamic I described above — by and large, all software makers are trying to get users to trust us on updates, and so the likely behavior here is for users to just click “Install 2 items,” which means that they’ve now installed a completely new piece of software, quite possibly completely unintentionally. Apple has made it incredibly easy — the default, even — for users to install ride along software that they didn’t ask for, and maybe didn’t want. This is wrong, and borders on malware distribution practices.It’s wrong because it undermines the trust that we’re all trying to build with users. Because it means that an update isn’t just an update, but is maybe something more. Because it ultimately undermines the safety of users on the web by eroding that relationship. It’s a bad practice and should stop.
He has a point concerning updates, but it sounds a little like sour grapes particularly since google toolbar and McAfee site monitor is pushed with the Mozilla install lately. Nothing wrong with these softwares either but if I wanted them I'd download them myself.
In the end it is one more browser and I figure the more the merrier.
Posted by Peter at 08:48 PM
March 21, 2008
The Microsoft 's of spam
The Tech Don vis Marshal reports that 6 particular bots are responsible for 85% of all the spam you will see and that 40% comes from one source, Srizbi. As Marshal reports:
Analysis of Srizbi indicates it is extremely stealthy, operating in full kernel mode, which, among other things, allows it to hide its network activities and bypass sniffer tools. One interesting thing we noticed about Srizbi is that it provides continuous feedback and statistics to control servers about which email addresses were good, and which were bad.
I was actually surprised that Turkey was the #2 country of source for spam, I wouldn't have guessed it myself.
Posted by Peter at 10:14 AM
March 19, 2008
Big Mac Attack
Glenn Links today to the question of if Mac users should use anti-virus protection. It covers ground that we have covered before but is worth a look:
It's not that Mac OS X is inherently more secure against viruses than current versions of Windows (although it was clearly more secure than Windows prior to XP SP2); the numerous vulnerabilities reported and patched in recent years are just as exploitable as their Windows equivalents. But most security experts agree that malicious software these days is driven by financial incentives, and it's far more profitable to target the most dominant platform.
The whole thing is worth a read but the statement above leads me to empathize three points:
1. As Mac use increases it will be targeted more
2. As virus' writers realize Macs are unprotected they will be targeted more.
3. The mistaken belief on the behalf of Mac users that they are invulnerable to virus' lead to risky behavior that will make them exploitable.
Finally please DON'T EMULATE THE AUTHOR'S NON USE OF ANTI-VIRUS ON YOUR VISTA SYSTEM! It's true that infection is largely behavior driven and anti-virus does use some oomph but with the increased variation and the smarter use of phony screens even an experienced user can be fooled. I’ve seen enough infected vista systems to know that your author by not using virus protection on vista is just asking for it. And remember he is an experienced professional, can you say the same?
Posted by Peter at 12:22 PM
March 18, 2008
Keep your fingers Crossed
Vista SP1 is available for download today.
I'll wait till next month for the auto update.
I think the title of the post says it all.
Posted by Peter at 04:16 PM
March 17, 2008
Wireless Alphabet Stew
Hey have I got a text file for you! It is a dictionary for English, French, Spanish, German and Finn all in an easy to use notepad style text file. And you can have it for only $500 dollars!
Now what idiot is going to buy that file? A smart hacker that's who. This is the primary tool in alphabet attacks. Alphabet attacks use files like this one to try to find the combinations to wireless networks and other password to get into your system and see what they can see and grab what they can grab.
You might think hey I don't have anything, well your identity, your tax info, your banking info etc in the wrong hands can make a big mess, in addition if someone is using your system as their internet connection and download thing illegally it will be traced to you.
How to avoid that two simple ways:
Mix in some numbers for example if you want to use joanjet as your password (yes I'm dating myself) put your street number in the middle say joan13jet.
If you want an even easier way add a capital letter or two say joAnjet .
If you use a combination of the pair joAn13jet you have just turned a simple dictionary attack into an items there there are 62 different combinations times the number of letters in the password. In this example 13,537,086,546,263,552 different combinations.
This is going to make cracking your system a very nasty job.
So don't make things easier for hackers, make that network key a challenge.
Posted by Peter at 11:47 AM
March 16, 2008
Brave free world
From Geek Press blog some interesting news for us old timers. Most old Geeks like myself are fans of Star Trek and the Twilight Zone. CBS is now making all three seasons of the classic Star Trek uncut available for viewing and the first two seasons of the Twilight Zone as well. These episodes include some built in ads to pay for it but also include some of the old promotional and "next week" stuff that purists love.
It looks like on the twilight zone side we aren't talking the whole seasons well it still more timely than 1 a.m. on Si-Fi.
Of course since it is a net stream you need a download but you won't be paying $10 a cd or as my wife loves it will be that much less clutter in the house.
Posted by Peter at 02:27 PM
March 15, 2008
eBay I say
eBay is on my mind a bit since lately most new computers come with an eBay link on them and my wife has been buying silverware to fill up her grandmother's set. It struck me that I never gave any advice on online auction and I was at a total loss on what to write about today so here goes:
1. Tip #1 General to the specific
How you search will depend on the net you want to cast, if you do a general search you will find that there may many categories that fit your item. For example if I do a search for Gil Hodges mana different items (190 today) show up including balls, bats and lots of baseball cards. But if I wanted the game I enjoyed as a kid Gil Hodges Pennant Fever I can search for Gil Hodges fever and the one result I am looking for will pop up ($200 is out of my price range).
2. Watch those shipping charges:
There are a lot of bargains on eBay but one way that a person gets a higher price is to boost up the shipping charges. It's not a deal if you are paying $15 shipping for a $5 item. Keep an eye on this when buying.
3. It's fun to win not always fun to pay: The ads on TV go on about how its more fun to win and this is a little true, but it is VERY easy to get in a bidding war over something that you just don't want to lose. Your bid is a contract remember that when you make it.
4. The ratings are there for a reason. If you are buying something small for a little amount of money you might not worry about the ratings of the seller. But if you are buying Gold or Silver or something expensive (a surprising amount of cars are sold on eBay) remember that the rating is your best assurance of reputation. Adjust your risk accordingly.
5. Ask and you shall receive: There is an ask question section for a reason there, use it.
6. Spelling errors are sometimes your friend: There has been more than one occasion that I've found a deal because the seller mispelled an item for sale, a search of close spelling can be a treasure trove on occasion.
Later this week or tomorrow I'll give some tips for sellers.
Posted by Peter at 01:20 PM
March 13, 2008
The world's newest Internet Millionare
People say that you can get rich off music on the net, I guess is true according to LGF:
It looks like the big winner in the Eliot Spitzer scandal isn’t David Paterson—it’s “Kristen,” aka Ashley Alexandra Dupre, whose song has been downloaded more than a million times from MySpace in the past few days at $0.98 a pop, with 70% going to her.
That is over $700,000 in under 48 hours. Of course once it gets to limewire they will all be free but her boodle will be made.
Posted by Peter at 08:49 PM | Comments (0)
March 12, 2008
The internet does what the internet does best
You just couldn't do stuff like this pre-internet and get it out the a wide audience:
Bonus points if you can identify each nation without using the YouTube Key.
Aldenteblog has it right. It is Genius.
Posted by Peter at 04:07 PM
Not as bad as it sounds
Hacking is it not just for pc's anymore?
A new study demonstrates a large gap in the security of implanted devices that help regulate heartbeats and use wireless technology, researchers from Beth Israel Deaconess Medical Center, the University of Massachusetts, and elsewhere report today."With some technical expertise, we were able to retrieve information from the device in an unauthorized fashion," said Dr. William H. Maisel, senior author of the report. "We were able to send commands to the device in an unauthorized fashion and could reprogram settings and even tell the device to deliver a high-voltage shock."
While it might be useful if you are a tech savvy Ninja assassin I suspect this s less that it seems to be, today's hacker is a for profit enterprise. Unless you have someone directly threatening murder this isn't going to fly.
However remember the more a device builds on existing tech blocks of a pc the more likely it is subject to those same issues that a pc has.
Posted by Peter at 12:15 PM
March 11, 2008
Google the future?
LGF wonders if Google knows something the rest of us don't.
Posted by Peter at 09:15 PM | Comments (0)
March 10, 2008
Glenn has the last word on Vista
A NYT article today talks about how Vista a year later is still a problem.
We usually do not have the opportunity to overhear Microsoft’s most senior executives vent their personal frustrations with Windows. But a lawsuit filed against Microsoft in March 2007 in United States District Court in Seattle has pried loose a packet of internal company documents. The plaintiffs, Dianne Kelley and Kenneth Hansen, bought PCs in late 2006, before Vista’s release, and contend that Microsoft’s “Windows Vista Capable” stickers were misleading when affixed to machines that turned out to be incapable of running the versions of Vista that offered the features Microsoft was marketing as distinctive Vista benefits.
The lawsuit stuff is interesting but Glenn hits it on the head with his link...:
My sister-in-law, a computer whiz who's getting her Ph.D. in artificial intelligence, gave up on Vista and switched back to XP. That's been enough to keep me away.
Who can argue with that?
Posted by Peter at 04:12 PM
March 09, 2008
Multiple machines+Connected on the go=No email mess
It is now becoming much more common for the avg user to have multiple machines in the house. This has started to lead to trouble has they use e-mails on each machine. Problem what do you do if e-mails are downloaded on different machines and they are not the same?
The solution is our connected on the go e-mail. It uses Microsoft exchange to route all of your e-mail to a single server. Each system that receives e-mail syncs with that server causing the mail to be identical on all systems.
Now in the business community this is much more common thing but it is only lately becoming an issue for the home user. This service run about $16.50 a month for the yearly sub a small price to pay to be sure that you have all your e-mails all the time.
Posted by Peter at 12:55 PM
March 07, 2008
Scallops Anyone?
Another great use of the internet is to find info on topics you might not know. I do some cooking I'd never made baked stuffed scallops.
Lucky for me I have the internet and a search for Baked Stuffed Scallops turned up so many recipes that I couldn't make up my mind, so I decided to combine a bunch of them and make up my own which follows:
2 lbs large sea scallops
1 pkg Ritz Crackers (any similar brand will do)
2 sticks of butter
1/4 lemon
Papricka
Parsely
garlic powder
onion powder
Melt butter in Iron frying pan, add broken (but not crushed) Ritz crackers to mixture and stir allowing crackers to absorb butter. Add spices to mixture and brown. Clean scallops and put to one side.
In Oven safe China serving bowls put in a layer of the cracker mixture on the bottom of the bowl. Put a single layer of Scallops on top, spice the top of Scallops lightly with onion powder and Parsley. Repeat layer of crackers and scallops. Top final layer of scallops with a smaller amount of breadcrumbs and parsley and squeeze lemon juice on the top. Repeat for the other Bowls (If you don't have individual serving bowls you can use a single casserole bowl with a larger bottom and place layers accordingly)
Place bowls or casserole on baking tray back at 400 degrees for 20 minutes. Serve in the bowl so you can dip the scallops in the butter at the bottom. Serves 4.
There are more cooking sites on the net than you can shake a stick at.
Posted by Peter at 07:20 PM
March 06, 2008
Puppy Scam ?
Those Nigerian e-mail guys just keep getting better:
Nigerian con men are taking out newspaper advertisements offering purebred English bulldog puppies for adoption. Victims who respond to the ads are informed that the puppy can only be obtained after wire transferring hundreds of dollars overseas in vaccination and shipping fees. Of course, no puppy is ever delivered.
As long as there are people ready to fall for them they guys will keep on trying new twists and turns.
Posted by Peter at 06:58 PM | Comments (0)
March 05, 2008
A perfect laptop for that Arctic trip
Need a laptop that that's tough, the Latitude XFR D630 seems to be it:
Dell said its Latitude XFR D630 meets the Department of Defense's MIL-STD 810F standard for enduring extreme conditions. That means enduring temperature ranges from 60 below to 205 degrees Fahrenheit; rain lashing it at up to four inches per hour and being dropped up to three feet.Because it's expected to be used outdoors, the XFR has a sealed keyboard to protect against rain and sand and the screen is extra bright compared to standard laptops to make it easier to read. All of the components have shock isolated mounting to handle rough treatment.
All this starting at $3899, a mere pittance.
Posted by Peter at 08:08 PM
A perfect laptop for that Arctic trip
Need a laptop that that's tough, the Latitude XFR D630 seems to be it:
Dell said its Latitude XFR D630 meets the Department of Defense's MIL-STD 810F standard for enduring extreme conditions. That means enduring temperature ranges from 60 below to 205 degrees Fahrenheit; rain lashing it at up to four inches per hour and being dropped up to three feet.Because it's expected to be used outdoors, the XFR has a sealed keyboard to protect against rain and sand and the screen is extra bright compared to standard laptops to make it easier to read. All of the components have shock isolated mounting to handle rough treatment.
All this starting at $3899, a mere pittance.
Posted by Peter at 08:08 PM
March 04, 2008
The Father of modern gaming is dead
If you are even a little bit of a geek you know who Gary Gygax is. The inventor of Dungeons & Dragons (also made many other games such as Avalon Hill's Alexander which I have. Many of the current fantasy games you play online or via PC own a lot to him and is influence.
Gary Gygax died today at the age of 69. As a person who first played D&D in 1979 and who has been a gamer even longer tonight's game night will be a little sadder.
Games drove Pc's the high end PC's that are sold today are gaming PC. When you play your MMP today take a second and remember the fellow who started it all and built an industry. Or as an older player might say, Where is that 13th level Cleric with a raise dead spell when you need one?
Posted by Peter at 02:18 PM
Live by the net break up by the net
This is one of the reasons why you don't see me on the social sites of the web:
A public breakup on the web is not a fun thing, at least not for the people involved, the rest of the web seems to be having a ball with it.
P.S. (Another reason being it is not in the nature of Sicilian Americans)
Posted by Peter at 10:23 AM
March 03, 2008
Today's words of wisdom A Timely fix
With the impending movement of the clocks at the end of this week today's words of wisdom are very proper.
Half the battle is being at (or in our case on) the right time.
Which translates to the fact that there are quite a few tech issues that can be caused by system that are set to the wrong date. It can mess with registration and any site that relies on the calendar.
Take a few minuets to check the date, time and timezone on your PC and be sure it is correct. It might just save you a help session sometime in the future.
Posted by Peter at 05:43 PM
March 02, 2008
today's words of wisdom: Vegas caveat
If there is one lesson that people need to learn in this modern age it is this one:
What happens near a cameraphone stays on the net forever. (Las Vegas promo ads not withstanding)
The best example of this I can thing of is of all things today's (3/2) Garfield strip.
Posted by Peter at 03:58 PM
March 01, 2008
Blogging blogging everywhere
Some blogging news:
Did you know Youtube had a blog? I never noticed.
The Air Force is blocking blogs, this is rather foolish and only copies the practices of many unsavory countries.
According to WordPress' founder a quarter of blogs are spam. This is no surprise.
One of my favorite blogs Captain's Quarters is shutting down, he is moving to and been hired by HotAir blog. Our podcast interview is here.
Posted by Peter at 06:11 PM