CHRISdotTODD

photo courtesy of http://www.conniq.com I live in an apartment complex, and I have found that some folks leave their wireless routers open for anyone to join. In addition, for those that are "locked down," the default password was never changed. Why is this? Well networking computers used to be a difficult task, but with today's advanced routers and OSs, it's easy to setup your own network -- and cheap too. You can go down to your favorite "big box" retailer and for less than $50 pick up a fast wireless router. If you already have cable Internet access, just plug-in the router, and it works (DSL requires some configuration). Unfortunately for the non-geek crowd, they are leaving themselves open to anyone who wants to access their network and the computers that are connected to it. "How?" you might ask. First, go to Google and search on " router default passwords " and click on "I'm Feeling Lucky" (or click on "Google S

Dell recently release a report (30-Jun-08) on loss of laptops at airports, and a whopping 12,000 are lost every week. For class B airports such as LAX, JFK, Dulles, the average is 286 laptops per week per airport. In addition, over 50% of those surveyed said their laptop contained sensitive information. Sixty-five percent of the same survey group said they do not take any special precautions to protect their data. In addition, 42% of the respondents do not have their data backed up. What are you doing to protect your laptop and its data when you travel? Of course if you are a Dell customer, the now have some offerings to help address this problem. About.com offers 8 tips for travelers with laptops . The rules for inspecting your laptop when coming in and out of the country has recently changed too. Did you know that your laptop can be seized at the border for inspection for no reason at all? International travelers entering the United States face potential inspection and seizure of t

I recently found a chart that lists common electronic gear and the power and money spent while they sit idle. For plasma TV owners, you far outpace anything else at $160 / 1452.4 kwh annually ($0.11 p/ kilowatt hour). Many of these devices can be plugged into a power brick, and when not in use the brick can be turned off, therefore not consuming any power.

The Director of the University of Pittsburgh Cancer Institute, Dr. Ronald B. Herberman, released an advisory on Thursday July 24, 2008, encouraging people to change the way they use cell phones as a precaution against cancer ( PDF ). Recently I have become aware of the growing body of literature linking long-term cell phone use to possible adverse health effects including cancer. Dr. Herberman in particular cites concerns over children using cell phones, "Do not allow children to use a cell phone, except for emergencies." This was the first item of 10 precautionary guidelines to help you reduce the possibility of cell phone induced cancer. Other guidelines include using a Bluetooth headset or speakerphone over putting the phone up to your ear. Also worth noting, as mentioned as guideline 10, different phones have varying power levels that affect how much radiation is absorbed by the body ( SAR ). Guideline 10 encourages users to use the lowest possible SAR rated phone you c

I haven't had to use MS Access in 7 or 8 years, so recently when I had to do some simple data conversion, it took me longer than it should to figure out how to best accomplish the task. I needed to run some reports against some Salesforce.com data, and the data set was too large for the built-in report tool to handle, so I decided to import the data into Access to perform the reporting. I quickly learned that the date/time format from Salesforce.com is not in the same format as Access. The solution is actually quite easy... transform the data when you import it. I began with my Salesforce.com data in the form of a CSV file (too big for Excel). Here are the steps I used: Link to the CSV data source Create a Make Table Query against the CSV datasource, selecting all data columns -- of course you only need to select the columns that you want to import Replace every date/time field with a forumla that parses the format and writes it in the format Access will accept. Salesforce.com fo

Here's a quick tip for cycling through Firefox 3 tabs using the keyboard: Hold the CTRL key and press Page Up (left) or Page Down (right)

When you are not using your computer or game machine, what are they doing? Just for the cost of electricity, you can contribute to worthy causes such as protein folding or searching for ET. Organizations from Stanford ( Folding@home ) and Berkley ( SETI@home ) have small programs that you can download for your computer, that will only run when your computer is idle. Folding@home and SETI@home are able to do this through using Grid Computing technology. The Folding@home project started in 2000 with assistance from Intel, Google, and others. What is protein folding and how is folding linked to disease? Proteins are biology's workhorses -- its "nanomachines." Before proteins can carry out these important functions, they assemble themselves, or "fold." The process of protein folding, while critical and fundamental to virtually all of biology, in many ways remains a mystery. So with the help of the Folding@home project, researchers are able to process data faster t

As we have all been struggling to keep up with the rising gas prices, one service Internet service has been developed to help you find the lowest price in your area. That would be GasBuddy.com . GasBuddy has any easy interface (despite the busy distractions): click your state and enter your zip code - that's it. You can also find the average price for gas in each state plus Washington DC. Here in Oregon, we're currently averaging $4.268, 45th of 51. The lowest average goes to Missouri at $3.854 and the highest goes to Hawaii at $4.552. With the gas temperature map , you can see the range of gas prices within your state (or for the country). And finally, you can view the trend of gas prices for up to 3 cities over the last 6 years.

With the last Microsoft patch this past Tuesday, if you were a user of ZoneAlarm , you were no longer able to access the Internet. I happen to be one of those users. I could get to my router, but not the Internet. Other devices on my network, of course, also were able to access the Internet. When I finally discovered that ZoneAlarm was the problem, I found a reference on the ZoneAlarm site . Apparently the patch was fixing quite a serious flaw in Internet addressing. "You'd have the Internet, but it wouldn't be the Internet you expect. (Hackers) would control everything." - Securosis analyst Rich Mogul I find it funny that fixing the flaw caused ZoneAlarm problems. Anyway, if you're finding this post, then you were not affected or you have solved the problem.

First it's Microsoft that bloats Vista with MPAA DRM protection software , and now PC manufacturers such as Dell are bowing down to the RIAA . These manufacturers seem to forget who their customers are, and are ripping off unsuspecting buyers. Can you imagine spending $1000 of your hard earned dollars on a laptop to find out later that you cannot record audio -- even though the sound card supports it? Of course teech savvy people like Chad are going to find a solution; and the real copyright violatetrs are going to as well. But the average consumer who wants to dabble in a little audio and video, perhaps for their church or their son's or daughter's sports team, are left with a bag of bolts. So next time you need a new computer, start with your objectives -- what do you want to use it for -- and then do your homework before you buy to make sure the hardware will support it. If you're thinking about audio, photos, and video, you might give Macs a hard look. Using their

Just one more of many tributes to Bill Gates, TWiT (This Week in Tech) this week, episode 149 , spent significant time talking about Bill Gates and the history of Microsoft. Leo Laporte had on old time industry followers John C. Dvorak, Jerry Pournelle, and Bill Machrone. If you have any interest in personal computer history, this is a great podcast to catch. You can download it on the TWiT site or subscribe through your podcatcher.

I have always wondered what the story was behind "Lorem Ipsum" used as filler text on website mock-ups. Well there's a website that has the story, http://www.lipsum.com/ . Website builders will often use this Latin text to give the previewer a feel for what a page will look like once the content has been added. It has roots in a piece of classical Latin literature from 45 BC,.. Visit Lorem Ipsum at lipsum.com and learn the entire history. Also from the site, you can have it generate your own Lorem Ipsum text to put in your next website mock-ups.

For the past week or so I have been using OpenDNS instead of the DNS service provided by my ISP. Huh? When you enter a URL into your browser, a [DNS] system must translate that into a computers [ip] address so you may visit the website. If you have ever input a bad URL and were returned a web page with search results that included your ISPs name or logo, that is the ISPs DNS "helping" you find what you were looking for. Just a month ago Comcast's DNS systems was hacked , so whenever a user using Comcast's DNS system tried to go to Comcast.net, they instead received a web page loaded from a different website ( see picture ). The typical complaint from users in regard to DNS is that some web sites take a long time to respond. When I was a Comcast user, I do recall having problems whenever I tried going to Yahoo!. Perhaps a coincidence; perhaps not. Back to OpenDNS. OpenDNS is a DNS service that you can use instead the default service (most of us use) provided by your

As with all updates, I always recommend waiting before updating your main computer. The recent problems with Windows XP SP3 is a good example (and here ) of why you should wait. Well its been a little over two weeks since Firefox 3 has been released, and it looks like it has worked for the most part without any significant problems. I have now installed and ran it successfully on my work laptop and home desktop. What I was most pleasantly surprised about is my custom toolbars (using TinyMenu) stayed intact for all but one item which was easy to add back in. As you might of expected, not all my plug-ins worked though. In the case of RoboForm, Firebug, and the Digg toolbar, it required some manual download and install. For the following though, no additional work was required -- they continued to work : Del.icio.us toolbar TwitterFox Download Statusbar BugMeNot Forecastfox FoxClocks IE Tab No Script PicLens Read it Later Web Developer The following no longer work : TinyURL NSFW AutoCopy

Today ends an era of Bill Gates working at Microsoft, as he redefines his priorities moving forward. There has been a tremendous number of articles written about Bill Gates in preparation for today. I found this particular video from the BBC that I thought was very interesting as he reviews the early days of Microsoft. The BBC has also published a Bill Gates and Microsoft Timeline.

That would be Tiger Woods. While the US Open was being played on June 17th, Internet Service Providers (ISP) were caught off guard by unusually high traffic. Of course their first reaction was to investigate to see if their systems were under attack. In fact what they learned was that the US Open was being streamed across the Internet. According to Arbor Networks , For several ISPs, traffic into their network grew by 15-25%. In one provider, inbound traffic nearly doubled. ... Traffic dipped and peaked corresponding to Tiger’s initial misses and subsequent spectacular comeback... What really amazes me is that how much one event can cause so much impact on an ISPs network. What's going to happen to these same networks during a live reporting of a major catastrophe? For example, what if the 1989 San Fransisco earthquake repeats itself in 2009? Could the ISPs handle having all their subscribers watching live broadcasts and other video feeds to a majority of its users? I suspect not, t

John C Dvorak just posted an interesting opinion piece on Microsoft's bid to acquire Yahoo!. I like his rationale here. Did you invest in a company (Y!) for what the company has to offer and its potential future or did you invest, waiting for Microsoft to buy it? For most, it is (or should be) the former. By going with the Microsoft buyout, you're giving up on your investment. Further I would add, sure you get Microsoft stock (which you can get anyways without the buyout), but you really have no idea what's in store for the future merged company. What parts of Y! stay and which parts go? Oh, and if you've ever been one of these acquired companies, how often has the "new plan" panned out? Typically the highly skilled employees from the acquired company leave for new jobs; the acquiring company never lets the newly acquired company influence and teach the valuable parts they bring to the table; and so you are left with a bunch of assets now being ran by inexper

With May being Bill Gates last month at Microsoft, Wired.com posted an article with a chronological view of his life. Did you know that at 13, Gates was acting his shoes size? Seriously though, at 13, along with Paul Allen, Gates worked out an agreement with Computer Center Corp to report software bugs in exchange for computer time. This was after spending his schools annual budget for computer time in a matter of weeks. Here's a couple other highlights: January 1977 Gates takes a leave of absence from Harvard and establishes Microsoft in Albuquerque, New Mexico,... ... 1997 On several occasions, Gates' secretary enters the Microsoft building to find him crumpled on the floor, asleep. ... August 28, 1980 Gates signs a contract with IBM, agreeing to develop software for the PC. ... November 10, 1983 Windows debuts. ... August 1, 1989 Microsoft Office debuts. ... August 24, 1995 Microsoft introduces Internet Explorer. ... June 15, 2006 Gates announces his retirement from day-to-

On Monday we learned about the new 3G iPhone : lower purchase price ($199 for 8MB version), GPS integration, longer battery life, and more. A lot of the buzz was around the lower price, but if you look at the total cost of ownership you will find out that it is actually more expensive. Over the 2 year plan with AT&T, you're going to pay an additional $10 per month for data ($240) and an additional $5 for SMS messages ($120). So instead of a total cost of ownership of $1815, you will pay $1975. For the additional features, the price is probably worth it. In comparing against other smart phones, the cost is competitive too. Gizmodo has a more detailed breakdown that includes phones from Sprint, Verizon, and AT&T. Speaking of new iPhone features, Gizmodo also has an article that discusses the new video conferencing add-on for the iPhone. There has been discussion from the community over the missing, built-in video conferencing features, but as you can read about there is a l

3G 8GB: $199; 16GB: $299 Available July 11th in 22 countries 2.8 faster than iPhone 1.0 on the Edge Network. Longer battery life GPS integration SDK Push email, calendar, ... Live contact searching Word, Excel, PowerPoint Bulk delete and move Save email images Enhanced calculator Asian language support, including character recognition MobileMe ( me.com ) App distribution through cell network (less than 10MB), iTunes, WiFi, enterprise (intranet), ad hoc (up to 100 authorized phones) Tech Specs SDK / Apps article

Take a look at this video -- the early stages of robots joining together to make their own hardware.

Based on a review I read, I thought I'd give Xobni a try. As described on the Xobni home page, "Xobni is the Outlook plug-in that helps you organize your flooded inbox." Xobni installs a new right-hand pane in Outlook and tracks your contacts communications. When you view an email, prior emails, files transfered and other cc'd contacts display in the Xobni window. Xobni provides you additional information as well, such as the contacts phone number, the numbers of sent and received emails to the contact and how the contact ranks in comparison to your other email contacts. You can also see a graph of when the contact communicates with you (by hour of the day). And finally, Xobni has a search feature to help you find emails. The Xobni website covers the features in more detail . The reason I'm uninstalling Xobni as I have not found the benefit in comparison to the pain. Every morning when I start Outlook, it now checks for errors because it did not close properly th

Check out this 10 minute video that does a great job in putting the Internet and Net Neutrality in perspective. The big media, telcos, and cable companies are lining the pockets of Washington, so they can control the Internet medium like they already have with TV, Radio, and Newspapers. This will affect us all, whether you're a tech geek, an independent content producer, or just a consumer. Give this 10 minutes of your time, and then pass it on.

Update June 3, 2008 Jim Louderback, Revision3 CEO, joined the TWiT podcast on Sunday (posted June 2nd) and talked about the DoS attach quite extensively. Jim's a real class guy; check out what he had to say about the DoS attach, BitTorrent, and MediaDefender. Over the Memorial Day weekend, Internet TV company Revision3 suffered Denial of Service (DoS) attacks from MediaDefender . What specifically did MediaDefender do to Revision3 servers? MediaDefender flooded the Revision3 servers with 8,000 requests per second. With that type of volume, the Revision3 servers couldn't keep of with those requests, let alone legitimate requests for Revision3 content. Revision3 has posted an article with the details . From the MediaDefender website, MediaDefender, Inc. is the leading provider of anti-piracy solutions in the emerging Internet-Piracy-Prevention (IPP) industry. We provide services that stop the spread of illegally traded copyrighted material over the Internet and Peer-to-Peer n

Not many folks try to row across an ocean; Roz Savage has already rowed across the Atlantic , and Sunday morning she left from the San Fransisco Bay to row across the Pacific. You might ask, "What does this have to do with technology?" Well, Roz is keeping us all informed of her progress using technology. If you visit Roz's website, you can follower her through a tracking console that shows her current location and where she's been. This includes a date-time stamp of her last report, her speed and course, and her latitude and longitude. Perhaps that's not for you... also on her site is daily blog posts. For others, well you can track her Twitter feed , subscribe to text alerts on your phone, or listen to her podcasts (look for it to show on TWiT.TV -- the first recording happened today). Now you know why I posted this on a tech blog. And if that's not enough, get a look at her boat , it looks pretty hi-tech too.

Ballmer and Gates promise a late 2009 release of Windows 7 (and not a minute too soon). Here's a brief look at the UI. Video: Multi-Touch in Windows 7 I think it looks good, but I don't like the idea of reaching over my keyboard to the screen -- I think it needs to be a tablet PC to really enjoy the multi-touch screen, not unlike the Microsoft Surface product. (Of course it works well on the iPhone, too.) I also wonder how it'll work for handicapped people -- those missing fingers, hands, or even just tremors.

At work I was having trouble with any Google web property not displaying images when I used Firefox. I tried everything I could think of from changing Options to clearing cache to searching for a solution. I finally decided that setting everything back to "new install" state would have to be the way to correct it. Of course I searched Google, and I found an answer on the Mozilla site that told me that by deleting the Profile file, Firefox would create a new one and I'd be good to go. Sure enough, it worked. I did lose most (maybe all) of my Extension configurations. Deleting your Profile (manually): Close Firefox Enter %APPDATA%\Mozilla\ Firefox\Profiles\ into Run... Open the folder of the Profile you want to delete (the folder name will end with . ProfileName ) Delete prefs.js Start Firefox Well in researching this tonight to post, I discovered that I could have just created a new Profile - giving me the opportunity to see if that fixed the problem. If it did (which in

I just discovered this new web service, Cover It Live , that enables bloggers to post short commentary instantly onto a website. If you're familiar with Twitter , it is similar, but with a feed for a single event. As you can see on my right-nav column, I have added my own live Twitter feed; with Cover It Live, you can add a feed for a single event as a replacement or addition to a blog article. The first example I saw was from Rafe Needleman , on his WebWare site. Rafe was blogging live (streaming) using Cover It Live while at the Google Factor Tour for Search event on Monday. I missed the live posting, but I was able to follow the commentary that he posted. I was also able to see the questions posted by those who were following Rafe. I found another example being used by a Yahoo! blog, Ball Don't Lie , where four bloggers posted commentary during the NBA Draft Lottery, followed by Game 1 of the Eastern Conference Finals (Celtic and Pistons). I haven't posted myself, but

Formula explanation clarified 22-May-08. I recently had the need to compare a long list of values with another list, and for the matches get a value from the same row. For example, if you have a long list of phone numbers and you want to find who they belong to, you could compare the phone numbers to a contact list, and for every match pull out the name. Oh, and if there is no match, you don't want to get an error message, but rather something more intelligent. It takes 4 Excel functions to do this: IF (logical_test,value_if_true,value_if_false) ISERROR : Value refers to any error value (#N/A, #VALUE!, #REF!, #DIV/0!, #NUM!, #NAME?, or #NULL!) INDEX (array,row_num,column_num) MATCH (lookup_value,lookup_array,match_type) Here's how to do it: =IF(ISERROR(INDEX(phone!$B$1:$B$25, MATCH(A8,phone!$A$1:$A$25,0))),"NA", INDEX(phone!$B$1:$B$25,MATCH(A8,phone!$A$1:$A$25,0))) (I used carriage returns for display, this should be one continuous string) phone!$A$1:$A$25 refers to

John C. Dvorak posted a great opinion piece in his PC Mag column on Microsoft buying Yahoo!. He reminds us that for the same $44 billion we could by GM and Ford and have enough left to have a great party too. You could buy General Motors lock, stock, and barrel for $14 billion, name all the cars "Google Sucks," and get more bang for the buck. Heck, you'd have enough left over to buy Ford for around $16 billion, and you could name all those cars "Google Sucks More" and still have $14 billion left over for a big party. He also points out Microsoft's (lack of) success with prior mergers. Give this one a read for yourself .

If you have been a regular reader of my blog, you have likely noticed the images and photos have a nice shadow and sometimes torn edges. These are two of the many features available from SnagIt -- a screen capture and editing program from TechSmith. SnagIt screen capture of a long (scroll) list SnagIt's screen capture options are pretty powerful. For example, you can use it to scroll a window to get the entire contents. And if the scroll is part of a drop-down box, SnagIt can capture that as well. It can even do short video captures of your screen. In addition to the screen capture features, the latest version of the editing functions is better than ever. TechSmith has made it easy to add objects such as call-outs and arrows, with the ability to move them after placing them without having to understand layers or other more complex editing techniques. From the TechSmith website, here are the system requirements : Microsoft Windows 2000, XP, XP x64, Vista 32-bit, or Vista 64-bit i

As reported by Ars Technica , Oregon's Senator Ron Wyden (D-OR) let tech executives in Washington know that if ISPs move away from a neutral web then the government will move away from the tax breaks and other freedoms they have been benefiting from for the last 15 years as part of the Internet Tax Freedom Act. Wyden delivered his ultimatum at a Computer & Communications Industry Association conference in DC, where he cast the entire network neutrality debate in terms of a legislative compromise. The story goes on as Rep. Ed Markey (D-MA) hosts a net neutrality meeting on Internet Freedom Preservation Act of 2008 . To establish broadband policy and direct the Federal Communications Commission to conduct a proceeding and public broadband summits to assess competition, consumer protection, and consumer choice issues relating to broadband Internet access services, and for other purposes. The premise is to prevent ISPs from put unfair constraints on its customers. For example, if

Friday may 2nd, Apple announced a partnership with the 4 major Hollywood studios where they will make movies released to DVD available through the iTunes store on the same day they are released on the shelves of your favorite store. You can buy the movie in electronic format, with Apples proprietary DRM for $15 or rent it for $3.99.When was the last time you bought a new release for under $20? Never. Of course watching it from your computer is not as comfortable as from your easy-chair. And, you need to wait for it to download into iTunes... unless you have Apple TV. With the release of Apple TV 2.0 in February, after a short buffer time, you can begin watching your new movie immediately while it finishes downloading in the background. With Apple already being the leading provider of music in the U.S., I'm sure this move has gotten he attention of retailers Wal-Mart and Best Buy, and of course Netflix and Blockbuster. Apple continues to make it easier and easier to avoid the cost o

LinkedIn is a social website that is used to manage professional connections. Take for example the guy you worked with 3 years ago. Perhaps you're looking for a new job, and you remember he started his own company. Through LinkedIn you can find out if he has any job openings or perhaps one of his clients or friends does. Or, perhaps there's another colleague or former colleague that you though was just great to work with. You can write a recommendation for them on LinkedIn, to help them out the next time they're looking for new employment. With LinkedIn's new RSS feature, you no longer have to login to the site to see what's new with your colleagues. Just add it to your RSS Reader, and you can view a headline of all their activity. Perhaps a current contact that you have in LinkedIn connects with a former colleague. Now that you see the former colleague has a LinkedIn account, you can send them a request to add them to your list of connections. If you want to enable

The BBC has a great site about the Human Body & Mind . I found it a lot of fun to complete two different tests: (1) Brain Sex and (2) Face Memory . As you likely know, both men and women are considered to be intelligent, yet they think differently. "The reasons for these brain sex differences, if they exist, are not known, though there are a number of theories that offer possible explanations." The Brain Sex test will score you against the average men and women and relate it to generalities about each sex. The Face Memory test is part of information on Sleep. "Are you too tired to remember? 'Executive skills' such as memory are the first to go when you're tired. See how you score." Also included is a sleep quiz on"the top ten most fascinating and weird sleep facts." I found each of the tests to be easy to complete and without much surprise. For example my right-side of the brain is more dominant. "Some studies theorise that as a ri

I found a couple of new Firefox extensions; the first is used to indicate whether a link on a web page is safe for work (SFW) or no (NSFW). You simple hover over a link on a web page and in the lower-right of your browser you will see SFW, NSFW, or Unrated. If you're on an existing web page, you can send your own rating; the extension uses user votes to determine SFW or NSFW. Go to No-NSFW to get this extension for yourself. I found another, not so useful Firefox extension, RefControl . With RefControl you can change the referral page in your browser. As you may or may not know, when you visit a web page, it gets various information from your browser, including the page you were on previously. With refControl, you can change this to be what ever page you want it to be. In fact there are multiple options: Normal - send the referrer as it would normally be sent without interference from RefControl. Block - send no referrer to this site. Forge - send the root of the site as the r

Living in an apartment, I found that many of my neighbors have not secured their wireless network. For example, one neighbor has a nice music collection. I think this is a clear indication of how the computing environment is still too difficult for the average user. With that in mind, I recently ran across an article on Ars Technica, The ABCs of securing your wireless network , that helps explain the differences between the various networking options. The short answer is use WPA protocol to ensure adequate security. For that matter, I recently threw away a wireless print server because it didn't support WPA. So, if you're running a wireless network, be sure to change the default password on your router and use WPA communication protocol.

Industry pundit John C. Dvorak recently release an article on Vista's 11 Pillars of Failure . John makes some good points including the code bloat, missing drivers, and the confusion around the number of versions. On the other hand, Robert Strohmeyer of PC World in his article 18 Features Windows Should Have (but Doesn't) , covers items as if the shortcomings are because it's not a Mac. Where John points out valid issues, Mr. Strohmeyer uses the Mac as an example instead of identifying real issues. So if you you want a refresher on why you should stick with XP until Microsoft releases the next Windows version, read John C. Dvorak's article ; If you want to see what features you're missing by not having a Mac, read the article by Robert Strohmeyer .

I originally started out this post with the idea of making a simple movie on how to track changes and delete those changes in Word. Realizing that I have Word 2000 and many others have moved on to Word 2003 and Word 2007, I decided to begin with some research to see what the differences were. In that research I found a great site to help with Word, so I'll point you there instead, Shauna Kelly's Making the Most of WORD in Your Business . If you are still reading, you might have been asking yourself, "Why making a movie on something trivial like this?" Well, Shauna has captured some specific examples for that too. In fact, she's listed 10 real examples where not minding those tracked changes has led to embarrassment (or more). Finally, if you just want to know more about tracking changes and versions in Word, here's the link to the article on Shauna's site.

Did you know that many colleges and other educational institutes have made audio and video content free through the iTunes store? iTunes U was created in collaboration with colleges and universities that were looking for ways to expand and enrich their curricula with digital content. Standford University lists 13 different categories of materials from Science and Technology to Health and Medicine to Personal and Professional Development . There is also commencement addresses from 2005 - 2007. MIT has used iTunes U as one of the delivery channels for their OpenCourseWare initiative . This is a big investment; take for example the Electrical Engineering & Computer Science category, where MIT offers 161 tracks. If you move outside the classroom, there are offerings from the New York Public Library , PBS , and others. You can find over 20 Jazz oral history video interviews and 13 audio presentations in the Small Business category at New York Public Library. I have just scratched

LifeHacker , one of my favorite sites for little tech hacks has posted a top 5 list of DVD rippers. This list is based on their reader's input, so you know these programs really work. If you're looking to rip your DVD collection, then checkout LifeHacker's article . I will say that I have successfully used 1 of the 5.

Are you still unsure of how Comcast is playing unfair with your Internet access? Remember they paid people to fill seats in an open forum with the FCC where they would scrutinized. Comcast also released a "Bill of Rights," [which] is really about informing the consumer that their Internet traffic could suffer delays. Read all about it in a recent article, Will the feds get it in gear on Web traffic? , from Therese Poletti in MarketWatch. Don't just sit back and let your geek friends try to fight this... if you or your company depends on the Internet for doing business, then you need to get involved too. Want to get another perspective? Larry Hardesty of MIT's Technology Review has also released an article on this subject . Specifically , he has information on a middle-ground proposal that will be coming from Mung Chiang, an assistant professor of electrical engineering at Princeton University.

Patrick Schmid posted Is Fast Memory Really Worth It? on Tom's Hardware recent research that concludes what I have suspect all along. Unless you are a hardcore gamer building a computer to get out every last ounce of power, there's no reason to buy the more expensive, faster memory. Many of us know that to extend the life of your computer, investing in more RAM is often a very good way to improve performance (instead of buying a new). What Mr. Schmid has shown us is save your money and don't invest in the faster, more expensive RAM. ...only significantly faster (and significantly more expensive) memory can deliver a tiny performance advantage. ... Quicker timings (low CL values) are favorable, but you shouldn’t fork out considerably more money, as the differences are small. So if you're looking to extend the life of you sluggish PC, try some additional RAM -- but don't waste your money on the more expensive stuff. On a related note, if you are looking for ways to

Dave Winer , who pioneered the development of weblogs, syndication (RSS), podcasting, outlining, and web content management software posted yesterday a terrible experience he had with Comcast . It makes me ask again, "Given the choice, why are you still paying Comcast any money?" Then this morning around 9AM the service went down. ...The recording said I was talking to their legal services department, Press 1 if you are stealing content, 2 if you are using too much bandwidth, 3 if Comcast hates your guts, 4 if you're a criminal. (I don't remember the exact wording, this wasn't it, but the implication was that I was guilty of abuse, me, a paying customer, in good standing. By pressing a button I was admitting to doing something wrong.) ... It would be easy to cut back. Not sure I will though, cause I hate to be lectured and threatened by companies I pay $180 per month to. Let's recap for a moment. (1) Comcast decides that P2P traffic is using too much bandwidth

Virgin Media CEO Neil Berkett wants to make more money for his company by charging content providers to deliver their content faster to Virgin customers. So if you are a small company that cannot afford the blackmail fees or a Virgin Media customer who accesses content from smaller companies, be prepared for slower connection times. This is why net neutrality is important. For Virgin Media customers, this will be like watching the big 4 networks on TV and picking up your favorite content on your AM radio. If you are an existing customer, its time to let Virgin Media know how you feel about this; if your not a Virgin Media customer, it's a good time to tell them why your not. Learn more about Net Neutrality at SaveTheInternet.com .

Microsoft plans to finally stop selling Windows XP after June 2008 (with a few exceptions). For many of us, this means switching to Mac or Linux is better than going to Vista. The people at InfoWorld decided that they didn't like those options, so they have started a petition drive to encourage Microsoft to continue selling XP. With just 76 days plus change as of this post, you too can be part of this petition ( signed by more than 100,000 people ) by visiting SaveXP.com . Read more at MSNBC .

If you are a regular reader, you know I am a big Firefox fan. I just wanted to let folks who didn't know that Firefox is soon to release their next version, Firefox 3. Further, they are on their 5th beta right now, so I know they are close. With that though, a simple reminder: wait for others before you install any new or beta release on your primary or main computer . As much as we might want to new features and functions, it's rarely worth the risk of causing a real headache by happening to have the one machine that the software runs into trouble with. If you want to learn about what new features are waiting for you in Firefox 3, there are several sites that have posted reviews of the beta releases. Laptop Magazine posted an article on Friday and they talk about the following features: Star button One-click site info Improved OS integration Tags Resumable downloads Matt Asay of CNet also posted a brief statement on beta 5, and despite the typical bugs of a beta, he's c

Do you have files that you do not want others to see? Perhaps you keep your tax returns archived on your hard drive. Or your employee's files at work. Using a very simple, free program you can protect those files from others accessing them using TrueCrypt . Version 5.1a was released March 17, 2008, so you know this isn't some beta software you're running. From the TrueCrypt website, here are its main features: Creates a virtual encrypted disk within a file and mounts it as a real disk. Encrypts an entire partition or storage device such as USB flash drive or hard drive. Encrypts a partition or drive where Windows is installed (pre-boot authentication). Encryption is automatic, real-time (on-the-fly) and transparent. Provides two levels of plausible deniability, in case an adversary forces you to reveal the password: 1) Hidden volume. 2) No TrueCrypt volume can be identified (volumes cannot be distinguished from random data). Encryption algorithms: AES-256, Serpent, and Twof

To claim a blog with Technorati , you need to create a post with some custom code -- Technorati Profile . Since I have moved off of Blogspot and onto my own domain ( http://www.CHRISdotTODD.com ), I need to reclaim my blog. For those unfamiliar with Technorati, it's a site that tracks blogs. Currently tracking 112.8 million blogs and over 250 million pieces of tagged social media... Technorati tracks these links, and thus the relative relevance of blogs, photos, videos etc. We rapidly index tens of thousands of updates every hour, and so we monitor these live communities and the conversations they foster. While I'm at it I thought, "Why not see if there are any Technorati Add-ons for Firefox ." Here's what I found: Technobar : displays Technorati linked websites to the blog you are viewing Technorati Search Engine plug-ins Rank Status Bar : displays the page/blog rank on Technorati Who is this person? : when highlighting a name, it will search Technorati and other

If you're like me, you have multiple sources of audio, and getting them all into one iTunes is a problem. Sure if you're ripping a new CD, iTunes makes it easy; but if you're merging existing digital collections, it can be very time consuming and error prone. No longer is this a problem with the iTunes Library Updater (iTLU). You can run iTLU through a GUI or from a console (which allows scripting). The following features are supported with iTLU: Adding new music or video clips to the iTunes library Removing entries from the iTunes library that point to non-existing files Synchronizing the iTunes library with one or multiple directories Updating iTunes track information with meta information out of the media files (for example ID3 tags in case of MP3 files) Updating your iPod (initiates a synchronization) iTLU appears to be only available for Windows, but is completely free and comes with a short manual in English and German. If you want to clean up your iTunes, this is a