CHRISdotTODD

I recently for the first time recorded a GoToWebinar presentation. GoToWebinar, from Citrix, provides the option for their own proprietary output or WMV. I took the WMV option, to make it easier for my viewers, and give me the option to clean up any errors in the presentation. Upon completion of the recording, I brought the WMV file into Windows Movie Maker. The source was 80MB (1 hr), and Windows Movie Maker split it into 8 pieces of various lengths. I performed normal edits, chopping out some dead space at two points, increasing the overall audio level, and adding intro and exit info. So far, so good. Upon trying to save my project is where I ran into troubles. Trying several different settings, closing other programs to free memory, and rebooting -- nothing worked; it would not output. I then decided to try another computer, and realized I needed GoToWebinars own codec -- this was my first clue that I may not be able to solve this problem. I tried two different encoders and importi

First, sorry for the large gap in posts. In addition to having problems with losing my domain -- which I should have back soon -- I've been busy on another project. I found a slick little utility to enhances copy and paste on Windows. As you know, once you copy new text, the previous is lost. With CopyPasteTool , if you continue to press V as you hold down the Ctrl key, it will scroll through prior copies. I've used utilities in the past where you could view prior copies in a little window, manage, and save them. This is much simpler. Just keep pressing V as you hold Ctrl, and release Ctrl when you find the text you want.

Polaris is a cross-platform Google Analytics desktop widget with Adobe Air. With Polaris, you have easy access to your Dashboard, Map Overlay, Top Content, and more. With 8 simple reports, the interface is easy to use and puts data right on your desktop whether using Windows, a Mac, or Linux (Fedora 8, Ubuntu 7.10, openSUSE 10.3). A single-site version is free while the full multi-site version is only $15 annually. This is just the first of 4 announced products coming from a new company, Desktop Reporting .

Ars technica has posted an article about a recent University of California Santa Barbara paper on findings after hijacking the Torpig botnet for 10 days. The headline is 56,000 passwords in an hour. The botnet (research) users were also able to gather 70GB of data. The goal of this particular botnet (and probably most of them) is to gather financial information. "In just ten days, Torpig apparently obtained credentials of 8,310 accounts at 410 financial institutions..." Concerned that you may be a target? "The researchers concluded that victims of botnets are usually those with poorly maintained machines and who choose 'easily guessable' passwords." I've posted many blogs on how to improve your security. Some of the basics I know people are still not getting include an up-to-date virus scanner. Those bundled, out-of-date virus scanners from McAfee and Norton have mislead many consumers. This does not have to be difficult! Go to Avast and get their free

Vivian Yeo of CNet has published a greater interview with Taher Elgamal , the inventor of SSL and recent winner of the RSA Conference Lifetime Achievement Award. Mr. Taher responds to these subjects: SSL man-in-the-middle attacks and the ability to intercept session cookies Logging into sites that have expired SSL certificates How do browser makers keep users and protect them? How different do you think SSL would be if it had been invented in the current security landscape? What are you most dissatisfied about in the current security landscape? Mr. Taher also points out, "The biggest issue with Internet security today is that there are databases with a lot of important info that are available from the Internet, from the outside." I tend to agree as we hear many stories of database break-ins from stolen laptops, to guessed passwords, to poor network security. Head over to CNet and read this article for yourself.

Check out 141 vintage computer ads and photos on flickr by SA_Steve. While you're there, you might also want to view Signs of All Kinds from Sa_Steve, too.

When working with large spreadsheets in Excel, it's very inefficient to copy the same formula down all the rows. Many of us already know that once we have our formula in our first row, we can drag the handle down to populate the remaining rows. But when we have 100s or even 1000s of rows, even this is not efficient. To allow Excel to do this for you, instead of dragging the handle, just double-click the handle. Here's the steps: Create formula in top cell Move cursor top lower-right corner of cell -- cursor should change to a plus (+) sign Double-click

The cable providers are scared of losing their cash cow by people watching TV over the Internet. In the latest volley from the cable companies, Time Warner is rolling out restrictive caps that are high priced, and extremely high if you go over. Sure, $15 a month for Internet sounds good, until you realize it's for 1 GB of data and an additional $2 for each gig you go over . As Wired points out (in "Congressman Wants to Ban Download Caps"), that's 3 hours of Hulu video or half a standard definition movie delivered online. For a mere (cough, cough) $75 per month, you can get 100 GB per month, and only pay $1 penalty for each gig over. It sure makes Comcasts 250 MB cap at $50 - $55 per month look good. I've heard some folks defend the caps, claiming we don't need that much bandwidth, but each argument has been based on 1 user. The typical claim has been from 50 to 90 GB average usage. Multiply that by a family of 4 and now you're at 200 to 360 GBs. And if t

I had experienced problems with Word 2003 taking a long time to launch. I'm not sure when it occurred, though I suspect it was when I tested it as the email editing client for Outlook. Even though I disabled Outlook from using Word 2003, Word continued to launch slowly. I searched Google, but couldn't find much that would help. I resorted to using the Detect and Repair feature contained in the Help menu. After some processing, the Detect and Repair process asked me for my install disk. Since this is a company computer, Office was installed from a shared drive that I don't have access to, so I canceled the process. When I returned to Word, it acted as though it was the first time launching, and it now seems to open faster. Unfortunately, when I opened Outlook, it also acted like it was the first time launching. My profile was gone with my settings to access my email and the pointer to my email archives. Fortunately I keep all most of my email on the server, so I can access i

I had a fresh install of CorelDRAW X4, and each time I tried to start it, it would crash. After some searching through Google, I found the following fix. Open the folder C:\Program Files\Corel\CorelDRAW Graphics Suite X4\Programs\UIConfig\CorelDRAW Edit DrawUI.xml Find the line <dockpage guidref="bc1e2f70-3b58-41cd-8406-aaa550482972" visible="true" selected="true"> Change visible="false" and remove selected="true" <dockpage guidref="bc1e2f70-3b58-41cd-8406-aaa550482972" visible="false"> Save and close DrawUI.xml Fold down F8 and restart CorelDRAW X4 When prompted to update settings, select OK That did the trick for me. Apparently it is caused by a conflict with MFC dlls that are installed (version 1833) with SQL2008.