CHRISdotTODD

Are you still using Microsoft Internet Explorer (IE)? If so, then you are what I call security ignorant. eWeek recently published two articles on how Firefox adoption has slowed down and that it will be more difficult for Firefox to grow further. (See " Internet Explorer Loses More Ground to Firefox " and " Firefox 2.0 Beta 1 Is No Slam-Dunk ".) Their argument is based on usability, and that Microsoft will release IE 7 as part of a security update. Hmm... that should be a clue right there. Perhaps Firefox is not familiar as Internet Explorer; perhaps Firefox does not display all of your websites the same as Internet Explorer. I say, so what -- security, which includes your privacy, are more important than having to learn a new browser. And if your favorite website looks different or does not work right -- tell the web master and/or find a new favorite site. I have been using Firefox for some time now, I other than visiting Microsoft.com for some Windows updates

Monday I arrived in Denver and rented a car from Hertz. The sales clerk tried several times to upsell me, and I agreed to move up one level from a compact to a new Ford Mustang. The clerk promised to throw in SIRIUS satellite radio for free. I told her, "great, at least make the SIRIUS folks happy." How little did I know how wrong I was. After not finding the car in the designation stall, and finally getting to the car, I found that the SIRIUS satellite radio is permanently mounted on the dash -- I was not getting it for free, and further, the radio was co-branded with Hertz. Okay fine, whatever, back to my original point. While I was waiting for them to find my car, I had looked at the brochure, and I found that they had blues music. So, when I got in the car, I immediately tuned to 74, the blues station. Boy was I surprised (I'm not talking about the two toll booths either). In my hour plus trip to my final destination, I was never able to listen to a complete song. The

PC World’s August 2006 issue has a great article on “The 10 Biggest Security Risks You Don’t Know About,” http://www.pcworld.com/reviews/article/0,aid,126083,00.asp. This is a comprehensive article that should scare you enough to ensure your PC is up-to-date with fixes and you have all the necessary protections. The article begins with describing zombie PC attacks. These are unknowing PCs taken over and being used for various crimes, including simply logging your keystrokes to learn your usernames and passwords. They offer the usual tips to avoid this threat: avoid unknown sites and email, be suspicious of email attachments, and use any browser except Internet Explorer. The second risk discussed is having your own sensitive, stolen data available for free on the web. This is really a result of the first issue, with the hackers not securing what they have stolen. Why should they? Additional ways to avoid the original problem includes having a personal firewall such as Zone Alarm – a pr

If you have not replaced Internet Explorer (IE) with Firefox , you are really leaving yourself open to security threats plus missing out on an improved browsing experience. In addition to not supporting ActiveX, which will solve most of your security concerns, Firefox offers hundreds of extensions to improve your security and enhance your browsing experience. Take for example the extension, No Script . With No Script, I specify which domains, if any, can run JavaScript the web page I am viewing. In most cases, I always accept the local domain, but no others. For example, if I visit Pogo.com , which has a lot of free games, I allow Pogo to run JavaScript, but I miss all their ads because I do not allow DoubleClick.com and other domains from running JavaScript. Another great extension is SiteAdvisor , which is now owned by McAfee. Site Advisor displays a green, yellow, or red indicator on search results, as well as on the bottom of my browser window to indicate their rating of the site.

I had posted on June 5th my experience with how Microsoft project 2003 had problems with certain functions due to the security setting in Internet Explorer, My Computer domain begin set to High. On June 14th, Microsoft finally conceded that there is no fix expect to lower the security settings. I can either change the default setting to Medium or Enable five settings, which for all intents and purposes is the same as changing the security to Medium. Here's the response attempting to describe why it's okay that Microsoft has impeded IE into Project: There is a reason we don'’t expose that functionality in IE by default. It used to be there in Windows 2000 Server and Pro, but it serves little purpose, provides no protection against the outside world, and generally only breaks things. Worse, since its set on a per user level, it doesn'’t prevent OTHER users or the system security context from running something '‘bad'’ on the local machine, only the logged in

This Week in Tech (TWiT) , hosted by Leo Laporte, had a great discussion on Net Nuetrality during show 60, posted July 2nd. Of particular interest was the playing of part of a speech from Senator Ted Stevens [transcript] [audio] (R - Alaska). According to Mr. Stevens, he wants business to pay data providers a tax based on savings throught the use of the Internet. His example was services such as NetFlix, and that if movies are to be delivered via the Internet instead of mail, that an additional fee should be charged (above the bandwidth fee already being paid to deliver the movie). Here are the comments I posted on the TWiT website: It was great that you gave so much time to Net Neutrality -- you really helped me gain additional clarity on the real issue, and I have been following it for several months now. I beleive the goal of the data providers is to tax content providers , it was never about the home user. The data providers see all the revenue being generated using their pipes,

The Net Neutrality bills are not fairing well in congress, but states are still pushing. Anne Broache published an article today, " State governments push for Net neutrality laws ," that talks about the push by New York and California for the feds to adopt a net neutrality law. It is great to see states step up where the feds have failed us. I have been pretty worried that this would be one more thing that the average consumer was going to lose out on. News.com seems to be following this rather closely, with a special website covering the issues, including some videos. I found an opinion piece by Cory Doctorow , published in Information Week that does a good job telling how folks will lose out if there is no protection from the bandwidth providers. This is a great quote from Cory, " It's a dumb idea to put the plumbers who laid a pipe in charge of who gets to use it." And he concludes with, "This is the start of the network neutrality fight, not the end o

I wonder how popular is RSS? Does the average person now know what RSS is? And if so, do they use it? I have been using Feedreader for some time now, and I like the preview of headlines that appear in the lower-right corner of my screen every hour. Occasionally, I even read the articles associated with the headlines. I have had trouble matching up my interests -- finding feeds on topics of interest -- as well as making the time to read them. I find my self most often reading the headlines while I am waiting for another process on my machine, and therefore my computer is slow to respond to reach the details to read. I find that I tend to follow technical related topics more than other items, but I wonder if my adoption would be even higher if it was even closer to the work I do. I hear surprisingly a lot that managers in my organization do not want to go to a website to get status on a project or to get data -- they want it fed to them via email or even worse, invite them to a meeting.

On Friday I installed Microsoft Project Standard 2003, and the main view window was completely blank. I went through the menus and options, tried updating Windows and the Project Service Pack, and tried to repair and also re-install. Nothing helped. I called Microsoft -- they give you two free calls for their $600 package. It took 20 minutes to get an agent (roughly 10 minutes of hold and 10 minutes for a Call Taker to start a trouble ticket). I spend another 35 minutes with a Project Specialist, and nothing he had me try worked. He promised to call me on Monday, and he did, but after another 20 minutes, he was stuck again. He promised to have a more senior person call by Tuesday. During the two calls, I learned that through disabling the Display Project Guide feature, everything else works. I also learned that this feature requires Internet Explorer -- I wonder why that is? I mean apparently Microsoft has not learned their lesson about making applications dependant on IE. And further,

I have been using a 3G (3rd generation) iPod for some time that would not hold its charge. I was forced to always keep it plugged in and miss the advantages of listening where ever I wanted. Then in April I ran across an article that said there are replacement do-it-yourself batteries. Sure enough, I found one at Fry's. [I just searched Google on "ipod replacement battery," and got over 5 million results.] It was not easy, but I did successfully change the battery. The not-so-helpful instructions within the package were line drawings, so I went on a search for better instructions. Most of what I found was not any better. Take for example the instructions from ipodbattery.com . They have a much better visual representation than my original instructions, but they never really help you understand how to remove the case and just how hard it is. I eventually found eshop.macsales.com , and they provided a video -- once I learned how to navigate to the right video. In their exam