CHRISdotTODD

Seems like every time I work on a new XP system, I have to re-figure how to get the folder settings the way I like it - the way it worked in prior versions of Windows. So for the benefit of others, here is how you do it. Open Windows Explorer (Windows key + E) Choose the View menu (alt + V) Select Details from the menu (alt + D): This may already be set -- it will make sure that the Detail option will be the default display option Choose the Tools menu (alt + T) Select Folder Options from the menu (alt + O) Make sure you are on the General tab, and click the Use Windows classic folders radio button within the Tasks area (should be the second radio button on the tab) Select the View tab Check the following boxes in the Advanced settings area: Display file size information in folder tips Display the contents of system folders Display the full path in the address bar Show hidden files and folder Uncheck the following boxes in the same Advanced settings area: Hide extensions for

I occasionally speak with people that are having problems managing their email -- usually these are the people that do not respond to your email or miss an occasional meeting. I started recommending a series from 43 Folders on managing your email, and these folks are having success. The series is called Zero Inbox . 43 Folders' Zero Inbox takes you through a fairly simple 10 step process that will lead you email success. If you find Zero Inbox helpful (or maybe you do not need it), checkout other "life hacks" such as building a smarter to-do list or procrastination dash . Procrastination... hmm... maybe that is a better place to start. What are you waiting for? Give 43 Folders a try.

Wondering why you just received the last 25 posts in your RSS feed? I just moved Skimming the Cream Off the Top to Blogger's new beta, and apparently that triggered some feeds to think I posted 25 new articles. Sorry for any confusion.

Update Oct. 3: A recent article from eWeek suggest that the claimed bug in Firefox may be just a hoax . Naturally the Mozilla folks are taking this seriously until they can absolutely rule out that their is no issue. ==================== Just to be fair, since I have hammered Microsoft quite hard because of their security holes in Internet Explorer (IE), there are new reported security problems with Firefox . The basic issue is related to how Firefox handles JavaScript -- this is one of many areas we have seen exploited in IE too. Despite this, I am still sticking with Firefox for three reasons: Firefox is less of a target by hackers than Microsoft Firefox has a history of fixing bugs faster than Microsoft Using the Firefox NoScript extension is a much easier way to manage JavaScript access that through the Microsoft security options

Many of us have used Excel for things where a better tool is available, such as using it for a database. We have also not done a good job in learning about all its powerful functions, nor how to leverage its powerful programming language. Well, I have found a site that has used Excel in a non-traditional way, but surely in this effort, learned how to use the powerful programming language. Of course I am talking about using Excel to play Pacman . I cannot read Japanese, so I cannot give you any more details, but this is truly a novel approach. Have fun!

If you are still counting, Sony has had to recall over 7 million, yes 7 million, laptop batteries. This has affected Dell, Apple, Lenovo/IBM, and Toshiba. According to ZDNet and CNet , Sony's stock has dropped 8.2% since the first battery recalls in the Dell laptops. Of course the stock drop also takes into account the long delay to the PS3 game console. Analyst Masahiro Ono from Morgan Stanely: Sony's battery business is expected to have an operating profit margin of about 5 percent in the current business year to March. That compares with Sony's own estimate of its overall operating margin of 1.6 percent for the year. This seems a bit odd with the battery problems -- perhaps there are some financial creativity to handle the expenses related to the recall. I know that the techies, such as myself, pay attention to this stuff, but it will be interesting to see how big of an effect the battery recall and PS3 delay has on Sony's overall business. On top of this, we hea

Today ZDNet and other news agencies reported yet another security hole found in Internet Explorer. For only the third time, a third-party has provided an immediate fix, so that users do not have to wait on Microsoft. Microsoft expects to release the fix as part of their monthly "patch Tuesday" distribution, which occurs the second Tuesday of every month. Do not forget we have another patch that is the patch of all patches -- Firefox .

Recently I posted about another security issue with Internet Explorer -- Microsoft has since released a patch -- a rare case for Microsoft to release a patch outside their monthly "patch Tuesday" cycle. I also push Firefox fairly hard as an alternative to Internet Explorer. To be fair, Firefox has had as many issues as Microsoft, but it still is a better alternative for two reasons: 1) Firefox does not have the same tight integration to Windows as Internet Explorer, therefore the problems are typically not as severe; 2) Firefox releases fixes much faster than Microsoft. All that aside, if your machine gets a virus, spyware , or other malware from browsing, it is more difficult than ever to remove. So of course you need to be diligent in keeping your browser and operating system (OS) up-to-date, as well as your security applications. If your system is compromised, you might as well just plan on re-installing your OS -- a very time consuming effort -- and consider yoursel

As yet another security issue is found in Internet Explorer, it is a good time to remind you that Internet Explorer is used for more than web browsing. A few months back I pointed out how Microsoft Project had problems due to the ActiveX security settings I had set too high. Another such program is Outlook and Outlook Express. With the latest issue, you could receive an email with embedded code that would exploit your computer. This problem is big enough that Microsoft may actually release it outside their normal monthly patch cycle -- they have only done this once -- to fix a problem with their DRM. This problem is big enough, you can actually get a fix from a third-party . Perhaps a better fix, in addition to using Firefox (or Netscape) instead of Internet Explorer, use an alternate email program such as Eudora or Thunderbird (from the makers of Firefox).

Contrary to what you might hear, there is a lot of free music available on the Internet. A good place to start is with podcasts. There are a few different licenses available to podcasters, such as Creative Commons . Podcasters are often also granted rights to play music from smaller labels. In some cases, because the podcaster is not in the U.S., they can also play artists that would never be approved for play within the U.S. Here is three to get you started: The Roadhouse Raven n Blues IndieFeed Another option is to try services such as Pandora or Blogmusik . With Pandora, you can suggest an artist or sing that you like, and Pandora will play it. From there, Pandora will play other songs that they believe you will like based on your selection and others before you. This is a great way to discover new songs and new artists. With Blogmusik, you can search on artist or song, and it will return sources for you to select and listen to. Both services play the music through Flash , making i

The New York Post reported September 22nd that Wal-Mart has threatened movie studios if they sell movies through the iTunes store. Consumers want to see several improvements in the online movie distribution business: Quality needs to go up DRM removed (or the same DRM across all platforms) The ability to watch a video without going to the store Access to a larger selection I think Wal-Mart's position works against the consumer and is giving the movie industry one more reason to continue to be scared of online distribtion. The fact is, we are a long way away from having the quality through digital download that you can get off of a disk, because bandwidth limitations. And for DRM consitancy, that will take even longer. Did I mention people are getting a larger selection ofmovies and other entertainment without going to the store, than ever before? So what is the big deal Wal-Mart? Seems like there is a more logical approach -- make a better offer to consumers. Instead of bullying t

Yesterday my organization announced that they are still unable to get a fix from Microsoft for the security patch MS06-042 from August 15 that broke our ClearQuest web interface for creating queries. The August 15 patch was actually the third release of the MS06-042 patch from Microsoft, as each time they have introduced new problems. The original release of the patch actually introduced security problems . This is the recommendation from my company to fix the problem, "Internet Explorer is the only browser impacted by the Microsoft security patch. The only known workaround at this time is to use one of the other supported browsers; Firefox version 1.5 is suggested ."

I listen to the Buzz Out Load from CNet on a regular basis, and there has been recent discussion about the new iTunes 7 and problems with it. Here is some help. Note, this is based on version 6.x of iTunes, as I have not yet installed version 7 (see item 1). Do not be the first to upgrade to the latest version of any software -- wait and listen to the experience of others. If you really want the latest version now, make sure you have a sandbox machine to thoroughly test it out yourself. Oh, and when you install it on your primary machine, make sure you have your data files backed up. Many folks had complained about iTunes moving their files around. iTunes has a feature to let it manage your files (Keep iTunes Music Folder Organized). Likely version 7 just shipped with this featured turned on. I actually use this feature -- I remember having the same experience when I first turned it on. iTunes and QuickTime will run in the background and in your System Tray. And when you think you hav

I ran across this site, BBspot , that is full of geek humor: A good place to start is Top 11 Signs Your Computer Was Drinking Last Night .

I started a new blog today, specifically focusing on my experience in web support over the past 10+ years. I will cover things such as web analytics, knowledge management, and tricks to help drive change in the organization. In turn, I removed from this blog any reference that may have conflicted -- most specifically the blogroll of web analytics web sites. Since I have not been completely happy with the flexibility in Blogger, I thought I would try WordPress as the host this time. Please stop in and check out my new blog at: http://websupportblog.wordpress.com/

Steve Bayzl writes in his blog Petit ecureuil , 5 Easy Ways to be a Better Developer . Steve makes some very good points. Here is the list with my comments: Learn Ruby and Ruby on Rails: Steve's point is that you need to learn how to write clean and maintainable code. He is right on the money. It is simple: bugs need to be fixed, you will want to extend your app, and/or someone else is going to work with the code too. Read The Daily WTF? : I think the lesson here is learn from your mistakes and of others. Learn something new every week: Someone is doing something new and better everyday. I joked the other day that the Internet is moving so fast, we are now on Web 4.0. The point is that if you want a career as a developer, you need to be constantly learning. Understand customer wants != customer needs: A very wise observation. I have two comments -- First, one common situation is your customer comes to you to get a new tool to solve their business problem. What they really need is

Nintendo announced this week that their U.S. launch for the Wii (we) is scheduled for November 19th, selling for $250. This is $50 more than expected by industry analysts, but makes sense with the price of the Xbox 360 and PS3 being so high. If you have not seen the Wii, it offers an innovative controller worth checking out. Take a video tour of their event from September 14th on TechEBlog and then go over to IGN and get a first-hand look at Zelda. You wont want to miss the Zelda videos, they are truly awesome.

I was not the first to find this article, but it is worth passing on. Business Week wrote a great article on Jonathan Ive , the Apple Senior Vice-President for Industrial Design. This is probably one of the few guys that has been actually able to work closely with Steve Jobs, and the results have been great over the last 10 years. This line really resonated with me, "He talked about focusing on only what is important and limiting the number of projects", because I see too often people trying to do too many things at once. But what should really get you to read this is we rarely hear much about Apple's people , so this is a rare glimpse of Jobs' partner, who has helped to raise Apples stock over 225% in the last 10 years.

How do you solve technical problems with your computer? I have 6 PCs on a wireless network at home, plus my work laptop. In addition I support family and friends on occasion. There are so many things to know and learn, it is nearly impossible to have an answer all the time. (I did get A+ certified once, but that was a long time ago.) Amazingly enough, if you have an error code or message, or you can describe the issue in 3 to 6 words, you can often find the answer through Google. I even use Google when I know that it is an answer that I will likely find at Microsoft -- Google is easier. If you are not doing this already, it is time to start. Take for example when my firewall tells me I have a new program trying to access the Internet ( You do have a software firewall, right?! ). Recently compaq connections.exe came up -- I entered it in Google and found many results . Within the first three, I had found enough information to feel comfortable about the action to take. This part is impo

Seems once or more a week that I use Windows NetMeeting. When the participants look for NetMeeting, which Microsoft now hides, I hear them struggle to find it. For me, it is very easy -- go to Run... , type conf , and Enter . This is one of many shortcuts to launch applications that can save you time. For more of these shortcut, visit Another Home @ Sansor -- he has posted many such shortcuts . Now if you combine this with the shortcuts I posted on the 30th of August, here is what you get: type plus R , the filename from Sansor's list, and then Enter . Give it a try: + R , s-p-i-d-e-r , Enter

I cannot beleive that it is so difficult or I am so stupid, but I cannot seem to get Technorati to update (ping) my blog as being refreshed. I signed up about 12 days ago, yet it says that my blog has not been refreshed in about 95 days. Is this the day I first started my blog? I suppose it could be. I added their little promo on the right nav, but that did not help. I followed their instructions for Blogger, which I already had set, but that did not help either. And of course I have tried their manual process now about a dozen times. Of course I cannot find even an email address for support. I found something else in the FAQ section on tagging links, but I am not sure I understand how that would help either. Here's the format: <a href="http://apple.com/ipod" rel="tag">iPod</a>. I will try adding the rel="tag" to the link about, and I guess we will see. In the mean time, any help would be appreciated.

I seemed to have found several good resources related to speed and connectivity issues. My wife in particular has been frustrated that certain http connections seem slower than most – more specifically Yahoo! And Go Daddy . I decided to do some investigation, including whether I have other options besides Comcast (which I do not if I want broadband). I found a site called T1 Shopper , which provides tools and help, plus links to bandwidth testers. For example, here is their information on traceroute . They can even run a traceroute from their end to me, though Comcast seems to block the last hop. T1 Shopper also offers a download calculator . I cannot speak about the services they can hook you up with, but I believe the resources are great. Back to my connectivity issue. Here is what I sent to Comcast. Does this seem technically right? Any suggestions for better ways to troubleshoot and report connectivity issues? It seems we have problems connecting to websites reliably. My wife no

I found a great site in June, Public Knowledge , which "is a group of lawyers, technologists, lobbyists, academics, volunteers and activists dedicated to fortifying and defending a vibrant information commons." On the Public Knowledge site, Alex Curtis writes about Net Neutrality . August 30th he wrote about what it could be like if we did not have protection for a neutral Internet. In the future, we could be reading Consumer Reports for the ISP that provides interests that best match our needs. Curtis reminds us of the Prodigy, Compuserve, and (even) AOL days that did not stand the test of time. This looks like a good blog to follow.

Did you know that Firefox has a safe mode? I did not. If you find that Firefox crashes on you, perhaps after installing a new Extension, you can run Firefix in safe mode to correct the problem. Simply restart Firefox with the following switch: " -safe-mode ". Do this either through Run... , " firefox.exe -safe-mode ", or add it within the properties of your Firefox shortcut.

Jim Puzzanghera of the LA Times writes about how Olympia J. Snowe, Republican Senator from Maine actually understands the implications if we do not have a net neutraility bill. Some great insights are mentioned in this article: [New] lines won't be worth much if network operators can dictate whose data flows through them — and at what speed. [Snowe] fears that phone and cable executives would create an Internet class system. "The Googles and Yahoos will take care of themselves," Snowe said. But small entrepreneurs looking to launch innovative Web services, such as YouTube, would be at the mercy of phone and cable companies, who could charge "a mighty fee" for fast content delivery, she said. It looks like at least one more Senator is on board with Snowe, that is Byron L. Dorgan, a Democrat from North Dakota. Have you contacted your Senator and let him or her know how their vote will affect your vote? If you are in Washington , Senator Patty Murray is still un

I have documented all the keyboard shortcuts for Windows XP that I could come up with. Most of them I use on a regular basis -- it is so much quicker than using the mouse. Let me know if I have missed any of your favorites. ( Click on the image to get the full-size view. )

I recently started listening to Buzz Out Loud , a podcast from CNET. It is a daily podcast that reviews tech news -- I am going to replace Slashdot Review with this, as I am tired of the errors from Slashdot Review, and there are now too many commercials. Anyway, back to my original point... Buzz Out Loud, hoasted by Molly Wood, Tom Merritt, and Veronica Belmont is just one of many offerings from CNET. I discovered today that they introduced CNET TV a several months back, and there appears to be some good content to help beginner and intermediate Internet users. These are small in length too, 3 - 5 minutes in most cases. Here are some programs to view: How to stop spyware How to stop computer viruses Get your music off your iPod Digitize your old photos Fix your digital photos Don't get scammed by phishers And if that is not enough, CNET also offer free online course in subjects such as Home PC, Home Entertainment, and Digital Camera & Design. Now I have not taken any of the

Sony furthers its losses, this time with a battery recall 1.8 million Apple laptops , for a total of 4.8 million batteries. At a cost from $170 to $250 million for their battery problems, I do not think a 2% loss in shares is that much. Interestingly enough, if you look at Sony's stock over the last 12 months in comparison to the NYSE, they are not doing so bad. I plotted closing stock price and trade volume for some of more notable Sony announcements over since the Rootkit problem reported on October 31, 2005. I looked at the day before, the day of, and the day after each announcement. With all the bad things going for Sony, perhaps their recent $65 million purchase of Grouper is good news. Robert Cringely thinks so . Mr. Cringely, in his "i, cringely" column talks about how Sony can use this purchase to learn how to play in the new video era. At number 8 in volume, 1% of video traffic, I think this could be another loss for Sony. How many people have even heard of Gr

I think next time I take my car into the shop, I will watch much closer. See what can happen if you are not watching.

If you are like me, you get very irritated by the time it takes to open a PDF file. And once open, Adobe is asking you to update to a new version. Worse, if you do not have the original CD (e.g. your IT department installed it), then once all the files are downloaded, the update fails. Oh, and did I mention that Adobe thinks it is okay to run all the time and consume some of your processing power while sending information about you back to them? FoxIt Reader is a great replacement. It's fast, it does not nag me, and I do not have to worry about someone stealing my processing power or my privacy. Do you still need to create PDFs? There is a better solution for that too... Try CutePDF Writer or PDF Creator . Both work like a printer driver, but instead of printing out your document, it prompts you for a file name.

I ran into a new site, TurnHere , that gets local talent to make short films about their city or town. Places include New York to Los Angles to Tokyo. TurnHere is pushing its services as a way to visit and learn about a place before you make travel plans. It was fun to view the films on Portland (my town), though there were a few errors in the interface. For example, the Chinese Garden in Portland was listed three times with slightly different names -- TurnHere needs a local to review before posting. Another error that was quite surprising is that there were videos for LaConner and Seattle Washington within the Portland listing. I like Seattle and all, but it is not close enough to bundle together. That is like putting Philadelphia and New York together. All that aside, it looks like a promising new site.

eEye Digital Research notified D-Link in February of a flaw in their firmware in several of their routers. After six months of not correcting, eEye has notified the rest of us. If you have one of these routers, you may want to put some pressure on D-Link to correct this bug. In the mean time, if you turn of Universal Plug-n-Play (UPnP), it will prevent the problem. For that matter, you may want to turn off UPnP whether you have this router or not. UPnP was designed to make it easy for non-technical types to get their router properly configured by software. The problem is that when enabled, any malware running on your PC could change your router settings without you knowing. Steve Gibson and Leo Laporte first discussed the dangers of UPnP in Episode 3 of Security Now in September 2005. Why then do we have UPnP? Microsoft has an article that talks about all the benefits to UPnP here . Regardless of the benefits, turn it off -- Learn to make the manual changes required, so you fully und

John Carey, Matt Shichtman, and Beth Gordon pull of a "Crazy Awesome" thing -- a Firefox crop circle. I like this because when you see the video, you see a lot of folks dedicating their time to something they like so much; they are happy; and they are having fun. It's also neat to see that it was done so close to home. I found thes pictures on the Oregon State Linux User Group site: OSLUG Gallery . This is not the first Firefox promo done by this group. In viewing the OSLUG pages, I found two other references: Take Back the Sidewalk and Take Back the Sky . They appropriately named the crop circles project: Taking Back the Field .

I stumbled across several sites celebrating the 25th anniversary of the PC. Of course IBM has something -- check out their archive page . PC World has a great article that covers many aspects of the days developing the PC at IBM. There is another site, Vintage Computers , ran by Eric Klein. Here is what Eric has to say about his collection, "My vintage computer collection is small by most standards but it contains examples of what I consider to be some of the most significant machines and items from the early days of personal computer history." Mr. Klein has done a great job in providing photos and facts on so many early computers. Another good site for old computers is OLD-COMPUTERS.COM , ran by Thierry Schembri and Olivier Boisseau. I remember my first PC, which I bought used during the summer of 1982. It was a Sanyo MBC-555 that used the 8086, so it was not completely IBM compatible. It came with two 180K floppies, which I could use to run WordStar, and a green monochrome

ZDNet is reporting that the laregest battery recall in Dell's history could cost Sony $85M to $430M. Sony also supplies batteries for Hewlett-Packard, Apple Computer and Lenovo. Adrian Kingsley-Hughes of ZDNet says he will folllow the progress on his blog, including any problems with these other manufacturer's laptops. InfoWorld reports that Sony and Dell have been discussing the battery problems for the last 10 months.

You may find that your ISP is already offering tiered Internet service -- mine does (Comcast). If that is the case, you better check and make sure you are getting the speeds you are promised. How might you do that? Try Speedtest.net . You will need Flash 8, though they promise a Flash 7 version for Linux users (this week). Fortunately, I had pretty good results with the testing. I wonder if Comcast keeps up at the higher speeds.

Dell has identified several products (4 million in all) that may contain batteries manufactured by Sony that are defective. The affected products are as follows: Latitude: D410, D500, D505, D510, D520, D600, D610, D620, D800, D810 Inspiron: 500M, 510M, 600M, 700M, 710M, 6000, 6400, 8500, 8600, 9100, 9200, 9300, 9400, E1505, E1705 Precision: M20, M60, M70, M90 XPS: XPS, XPS Gen2, XPS M170, XPS M1710 If you own one of these products, Dell has set up a specific website where you can check your battery serial number and learn what to do next. Is this just one more problem for Sony? They had the rootkit problem; the delay to the PS3 ; Blu Ray vs. HD , with a delay and the first models not being able to play movies -- what's next? Oh yeah -- they are struggling in their launch of a music service for their PSP due to DRM issues .

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

Net Neutrality is continuing to get a lot press, so I have attempted to gather various sources of information that I have found and put it all here. Adam Livingstone of BBC Newsnight recently wrote an article, " BitTorrent: Shedding no tiers , " where he made several good points. First he starts with an analogy about driving your car down the road, and as you get closer to a place of business, your car begins to slow down. And if you turn around, it speeds back up. Later Mr. Livingstone puts a different twist on the analogy -- instead of losing speed going to the same store, when you go to a rival store, your car goes faster. From that perspective, as long as the speed to the first store is reasonable -- but it's not resonable to take my broadband speed and slow it down to dial up or worse. Mr Livingstone also introduced a new, interesting concept, Cachelogic, which is used to speed up content delivery in a P2P environment. I wont go into the details

By the time you read these, I will have gotten this problem fixed... I recieved a notice in my email that my Blog has been disabled to to suspecting that my blog is spam. This system has detected that your blog has characteristics that resemble spam. Since you're an actual person reading this, your blog is probably not a spam blog. Automated spam detection is inherently fuzzy, and we sincerly apologize for this erroneous result. Though I guess I can understand that spammers can consume a lot of bandwidth and storage, so a mechanism is required to protect against it, I find it hard to beleive that this blog fit into the suspicion category. Tell me, for the few who are reading this, does it feel like spam?

Have you heard of Skype? Now owned by eBay, Skype is a cheap or free way to make phone calls using the Internet as the transport ( VOIP ). Think of it as instant messaging, but with audio. Many Podcasters are using Skype to record interviews, as the quality is as good or better than recording a traditional phone call. (Right now I am in the process of trying different techniques for recording the Skype calls for use in Podcasts -- once I feel confident in my solution, I will post it here.) Cheap or free you ask? If you and the party you are calling have Skype installed on your computers, then the call is completely free. If you want to call a landline (a phone number - Skype calls this SkypeOut), from the U.S. and Canada to the U.S. and Canada, it is also free until the end of the year. The posted rates are $0.021 per minute after the end of the year. So if you like this service, and want to continue at no cost in 2007, you will need to convince you family and friends to put Skype on