Have you ever tried to visit a web page only to get the 404 error or another message, even though the site was working just fine an hour ago?
Down for everyone or just me does one thing. Type an URL into the site, and you'll find out if the whole world is seeing what you're seeing. Yep, it's easy to determine if if that web site you're trying to reach is actually down, or if your busted-up computer or network filters is the problem.
So much for the benign reputation of Google. A report in the New York Times Saturday, July 5th, suggests that not all is well with the search engine behemoth. Google co-founder, Sergey Brin, recently told Google staff that he had no sympathy for the parents who were upset by a 75% increase in Google day care fees — to a whopping $57,000 a year! — and, further, that he was "tired of 'Googlers' who felt entitled to perks like 'bottled water and M&Ms'."
That's what we love in our billionaire corporate entrepreneurs — a kind heart, an ability to relate to the concerns of line staff, and the milk of human kindness. Whoa, Mr. Brin, just what's up at Google? Fifty-seven thousand dollars in annual daycare fees? Way to value your staff, Google.
A few weeks back, corporate anti-virus company, AVG, notified subscribers that their free AVG 7.5 workhorse would become defunct June 1st (the company later changed that date to June 25), although even as of this writing AVG 7.5 (the free version) seems to be performing well, as the company continues to provide virus definition updates to the supposedly defunct software.
Soon after AVG made the new versionannouncement word began to filter across the Internet that the free version of AVG 8.0 would work to full capacity for only 30 days, after which the e-mail scanning facility would become defunct, requiring subscribers to update to AVG 8 PRO.
Contrary to rumours circulating on the Internet, AVG Free 8.0 does not include any "trial" or "time-out" functionality. Every option provided in the program is fully functional for the life of the product.
So, for those who loves them some free AVG, you can safely download the fully functional, and absolutely free, 8.0.1 version of AVG anti-virus here.
Microsoft has released Windows XP Service Pack 3 currently rolling out to customers across the globe. Online tech company, CNET, warns users to hold off on downloading the massive Windows XP hotfix update until the 'bugs' have been worked out.
To prevent Windows XP from automatically installing, you can surf to this site, following the directions to block the installation of the service pack.
VanRamblings brings you this announcement in the hopes of preventing potential havoc on your PC. We advise you to wait until 2009 to download Windows XP SP3, when Microsoft will make the update mandatory.
Here it is summer, the days are warm and the sun shines, and what has VanRamblings all excited? HDTV. That's right, High Definition Television.
Yes, in the sweltering days of summer, VanRamblings has signed on to the Telus HDTV package, replete with 57 channels and nothin' on (well, actually, there are more like 175 channels, and nothing to watch). Be that as it may, we're still pleased that we switched to Telus TV.
And why might that be? Because we've saved money on our home phone, Internet and TV package — with more goodies than we had before — over what we'd been paying previously. Here are the Telus TV packages ...
Being cheap, VanRamblings went for package number 1, including ...
Telephone: Telus IP phone with crystal clear reception; call waiting and call display (including call display on the TV when someone phones); 200 minutes of long distance free, and 7¢ a minute after that
Telus high speed enhanced, which doubles the speed of downloads, and makes surfing perceptibly quicker
Telus HDTV, with the essentials, and two theme packs. There's an additional $15 charge for HDTV.
Total cost of the package: $95.95 + $15 = $110.95, plus tax.
Well, hold on a minute. Things aren't quite what they seem at first glance. There were some hiccups that occurred on the way to achieving HDTV bliss.
Aiming to patch
20 critical vulnerabilities, Microsoft yesterday delivered its monthly batch of security updates — including 11 critical issues in the Windows operating system, Microsoft Office (Word, Excel, etc.), Internet Explorer and even its own anti-virus tools — matching its all-time high for monthly security fixes, its largest security batch since August 2006.
Now, it's true, you could wait for the fine folks at Microsoft to notify you about the absolutely critical updates — say tomorrow, or next week, or whenever you're on their notification list of one billion computer users. But do you really want to wait? Should you? VanRamblings thinks not.
Among the factors contributing to the unusually high volume of February patches could be the discovery of four vulnerabilities Microsoft had planned to address in its January 2007 security bulletins, but didn't.
Okay, so now is the time for you to surf on over to Microsoft's Update site (in Internet Explorer), and download and install the patches. Immediately.
In other words, what you knew about the Web when you first went online has transformed from a relatively static 'push-button' experience to a more collaborative, engaged and engaging experience ...
Got a few minutes to procrastinate? You might like the following "digital ethnography" video that VanRamblings found courtesy of CNET News. It's all a little bit techno-utopian, but nevertheless pretty cool.
Although it's taken a number of years to get to the point where there are now a few, half-decent mp3 players on the market to consider (despite the prominence and ubiquity of the Apple iPod), it's now safe for consumers to walk in to their local Best Buy and purchase an mp3 player that will do pretty much everything they need it to do, from playing music and video, to voice recording, calendar work and everything in between.
The newest, and according to C|NET, best mp3 player is the 8GB SanDisk Sansa e280R Rhapsody, a flash-based mp3 player which (unlike its iPod competitor) includes an FM tuner, a voice recorder, access to music downloads through Rhapsody, a user removable battery, an expansion card slot, and great battery life.
They're not calling the Sansa e280R an iPod killer for nothing.
Why buy SanDisk's e280R, or Creative's 4GB Zen V Plus — also a C|NET Editor's Choice, just like its Sansa cousin (and, in the interest of full disclosure, currently VanRamblings' default mp3 player) — rather than one of the many hard drive-based mp3 players on the market?
The answer to that question is many. First off, battery life. Because it's a flash-based player and there are no moving parts inside, battery life is two to four times as great as you'd experience with a hard drive-based player.
Next up, again because it's a flash-based player (with no moving parts), whether it's Sansa, Zen V or iPod Nano, it is pretty much indestructible.
Creative and SanDisk are one up on the iPod given that they play Microsoft's proprietary WMA format, allowing for almost double the number of songs to be moved onto the player (up to 4000 mp3s on the e280R — and, really, how many people have more than 4000 songs they want to load onto their mp3 player, and carry around with them to the gym, the beach, or in the car?). Four thousand songs? Sounds great to me.
Aside from the 1.5" colour OLED display, it's scratch resistant, has a built-in voice recorder and 32-channel FM tuner, you can play several different video formats, view photos and album art, record directly from a CD, play audio books — and the player is not only light (at barely 35 grams, or an ounce and a half), it's portable and won't skip no matter how hard a workout you give it (or yourself) at the gym or on the beach.
Ran across this article earlier in the day, written by Christopher Null for PC World magazine (and, by the way, if you own a PC, and don't most of us, you oughta subscribe to PC World).
For those who are curious about how to capture streaming media (including Windows Media, Real, QuickTime and Flash media, like YouTube and Google Video), Null points you towards Replay A/V and KeepVid.com, although for the latter you'll want to download the latest version of the VLC player.
Otherwise, Null covers moving big files across the Internet (VanRamblings likes Pando, a sort of e-mail insert which allows you to send files up to 1GB), creating keyboard shortcuts, and a bunch of other useful "tools".
With Toronto, Paris, San Francisco, Philadelphia (who were the first to jump on board, way back in 2004), Chicago, Miami Beach, Fredericton (that's the sleepy village in New Brunswick, by the way), and a host of other North American and European centres offering free, state-of-the-art broadband wireless networking citywide across their jurisdictions, the forward thinkers on Vancouver City Council have finally capitulated to the public's will, and on Thursday announced a free, citywide wireless broadband network by 2010.
What does this mean for you? Well, for starters, by 2010 you'll be online, free-of-charge with a state-of-the-art high speed Internet connection 24/7 anywhere (and I do mean anywhere) across the City of Vancouver. Chances are that your cell phone (at least the new Apple iPhone) will connect through a WiMax network, which will forever do away with land-based telephones. You'll be able to surf the 'Net and send e-mails wherever you are (in your car, in the park) at will, wherever and whenever you choose.
Free. (Although, to be perfectly honest, it'll probably be ad-supported)
According to Bruce Clayman, a Simon Fraser University Physics Professor and a member of the SFU Centre for Policy Research and Technology establishing a wireless network in Vancouver could yield a wide range of opportunities, including ...
providing residential and business computers with unlimited Internet access for a one-time fee of under $50;
automating hydro, gas, water and parking meter reading;
equipping transit, commercial and private vehicles with global position system (GPS) devices, which could expedite retrieval of information on stolen vehicles and help drivers determine their locations and find addresses;
providing tourists with instant access to maps and travel information;
providing city staff in the field with access to building inspection schedules, parking ticket details and other information;
delivering maps, mugshots and other information to emergency response teams travelling to accident sites;
providing a "smart" transit system that can advise commuters about bus and other transit schedules; and
providing free Internet access to residents of the Downtown Eastside, those on low or fixed incomes
Remember that Telus ad that ran a couple of years back, the 'story' of a young woman shopping for a birthday present for her mother? She held the phone up so her sister could see the present she was considering for purchase. There was about the ad an eerie 'brave new world' quality.
Welcome to that future. And much, much more. It's here now.
Click on the picture above for a complete guide to Windows Vista
Microsoft's newest operating system, Windows Vista, has finally arrived.
From here on in, if you're going to purchase a new PC computer, Windows Vista will be the operating system your computer will come loaded with. For those PC users who have are currently running Windows XP, lucky you — Microsoft has extended the life of Windows XP through til April 2009, with security updates available til April 2014.
So there's no great need to rush out and by the latest iteration of the world's most popular operating system (currently resident on more than 98% of the world's computers).
Now, there are those who take take umbrage with Vista's bloatware, and there are those who are so far outside the computer loop (i.e. those people who are still running Windows 95 / 98 / ME / 2000) that the issue of which operating system they are running is of little consequence.
For the rest of us, though, Window Vista portends the future of computing and democratic communication, wherein your computer becomes a hub that does everything from answering your phone and taking messages, to providing you with information on which food items you're running short of in your refrigerator and your cupboards, and everything in between.
Computers as the broadcast engine for personal video and corporate broadcast television onto your HDTV, and high-end streaming audio into every audio device in your home. Computers as seamless integrated machines that are invested in every part of your home and in your life.
A quarter of century on, we're still at the beginning of a communications revolution, a revolution that will give voice to the many, and a democratic future of involvement in the everyday decisions which impact on our lives.
Maybe not in this generation ... but soon, very soon.
Even though, according to esteemed, but seemingly addled, U of Calgary Political Science professor Michael Keren "bloggers are lonely people who live in a make-believe world" (such shallow analysis of the role of independent voices in the blogosphere, one might think, designed to act as a disincentive to bloggers to continue our posting written and multimedia materials), VanRamblings has decided to begin posting daily — most likely, shorter articles than previously — for the next while. Take that, Dr. Keren (hey, you wanna pay for our therapy?).
First up today, we'll point you to an article in the Vancouver Courier about Shallom Ly (pictured above), a Vancouver-based fashionista who publishes a weblog (or blog, if you will) called Stylefinds, a subjective, local (if you're living in Vancouver) and quite readable shopping and lifestyle guide.
Next up, you'll notice if you look down a bit, and to the right that there are two other new blogs in VanRamblings' blogroll — local photographer Alex Waterhouse-Hayward's "A Thousand Words", gorgeously conceived and updated daily; and the Vancouver Housing Market Blog, which offers an anonymous and engaging take on the local real estate development scene (all the while causing much consternation among various government agencies, and all those involved in one way or another in the real estate development market).
Well, that's it for today. Who knows what we'll come up with for tomorrow?
So, what’s the big whoop about Internet Explorer 7?
Well, there’s tabbed browsing for a start, with an interface that seems to this observer to be a tad friendlier than Firefox’s much earlier entry into the realm of tabbed browsing. There’s the new Zoom feature (just like Opera, the favourite next generation browser of many VanRamblings’ readers). Readily accessible zooming allows old fogeys (like me) to zoom in and out of a page and not have to strain to read the often tiny print on a web page.
There’s also a whole bunch of other new features, including security protection (with a built-in phishing filter and a one-click browser history delete facility). Mention should be made, too, of IE7’s much enhanced search feature, which now includes Google, Yahoo and AOL.
Note: A reader takes VanRamblings to task for not mentioning that IE7 is in beta version, and as such is itself insecure. Thanks to Sara for helping to keep VanRamblings on the straight and narrow (and by the way, IE6 or IE7, VanRamblings' rendering in either Microsoft product sucks. We recommend eitherFirefox 1.5 — long our default browser — orOpera 8.5). The final version of Internet Explorer 7 is set to be released in June 2006.
Update ... users report that Internet Explorer 7 is riddled with bugs: Now, Sara isn’t saying I told you so, although she might. Web maven and master of all he surveys — that would be VanRamblings’ webmaster, Michael Klassen — passes along this timely ZDNet article detailing the many, many bugs that early adopters of IE7 have found, ranging from a denial of service vulnerability to a conflict with McAfee security software, and so much more.
As is the case the second Tuesday of each month, today Microsoft will deploy the latest set of critical patches for your Windows XP operating system. These “patches” — as indicated in the latest Microsoft Security Bulletin — include critical system components and security fixes to keep those dastardly hackers out of your computer, and the regular monthly updated version of the Microsoft Windows Malicious Software Removal Tool. In order to keep your computer secure, it is necessary to download these updates at your earliest possible convenience.
What is that you say? You’ve set your Windows Update facility to download critical patches automatically? Well, according to Stephen Manes at PC World magazine, “Microsoft’s Automatic Updates service may be automatic, but it is definitely not instantaneous ... The only way to ensure that you’ll get updates immediately is to surf to Microsoft’s Windows Update Web site and explicitly request them.”
According to a Microsoft product manager responsible for this stuff, up to five days may elapse before every PC with Automatic Updates turned on actually gets updated. There’s no way to know whether your machine is at the front of the line or the back; the only way to jump the queue is to head directly for Microsoft’s update site. It’s also the only way to collect “optional” updates, such as new versions of Windows Media Player, which never arrive automatically.
So there you go. You’ve got your PC security work cut out for you today.
Create a Windows CD for Your Computer If You Don’t Have One
Why many computer manufacturers insists on selling computers that require you to create up to nine recovery disks rather than selling you a computer that comes with a certified version of Windows, on disk, VanRamblings will never know (a word to the wise, never purchase a computer which doesn’t come bundled with an OEM copy of Windows).
If you’re one of those unlucky folks who are stuck with a computer without an available Windows XP OEM disk, help is at hand.
Lincoln Spector, writing in this month’s edition of PC World, suggests that you download Bart Lagerweij’s free Preinstalled Environment Builder to create a bootable Microsoft Windows XP installation disk. Having this self-made disk on hand is worth anywhere up to $300 to you, and may serve to rescue you from potential disaster should your Windows XP OS go on the fritz. Save yourself a world of heartache. Create the Windows disk if your computer didn’t come bundled with a standalone Windows XP disk.
This week in Tech Tuesday, a brief potpourri of items, mostly revolving around PC security issues — everything from the latest security patches from Microsoft to a work-around for Microsoft’s Genuine Microsoft Software Check facility, and the prospect of a catastrophic attack on the Internet.
Critical Windows Patch Arriving Today
Heads up to all Windows users. The monthly patch scheduled for today includes six security updates affecting Windows, one of which is rated “critical.”
In addition, via its Windows Update process, Microsoft plans to release a refresh of its malware removal tool — the Microsoft Windows Malicious Software Removal Tool — to add detection for new virus and worm variants. Microsoft has also reported it will release one non-security but high-priority update. It is already known that a fix for a denial-of-service flaw in Windows XP will be included in the August patch batch.
Bypass Windows’ Genuine Check
Bypassing Microsoft’s automated check for pirated software may be as simple as inputting one line of code. Within 24 hours of Microsoft officially requiring users of its Windows XP software to validate the authenticity of their software, the validation method was allegedly cracked and disclosed in a public blog.
Late last week, the code snippet appeared on popular blog site BoingBoing claiming to be a way to bypass Microsoft’s Windows Genuine Advantage check. A user only needs to paste the code into the address bar of one of the Microsoft update services before pressing either the ‘Custom’ or ‘Express’ button. The code snippet allegedly disables the key check by turning off the code trigger for the check.
Microsoft Windows Genuine Advantage (WGA) is an effort to prevent users from running pirated non-licensed versions of Microsoft’s software. When visiting one of Microsoft’s update services, users are prompted to download an ActiveX control, which validates their software. Only validated WGA users have full access to Microsoft’s update services; security updates are still available to non-validated users as well.
A Credible Plan To Take Down The Internet
According to CNET Reviews’ Senior Editor, Robert Vamosi, “a credible threat to the infrastructure of the Internet exists that will give everyone who uses the Internet a rough ride ... all indications suggest that the clock is ticking toward some kind of showdown between criminal hackers and the good guys.”
At stake is the exploitation of flaws affecting the once-invincible Cisco router hardware, which currently carries most of the Internet’s traffic on a daily basis.
Cisco tried to silenceInternet Security Systems Inc. researcher Michael Lynn who was scheduled to reveal a serious flaw in Cisco Systems Inc.’s IOS (Internet Operating System). When Cisco and ISS intervened to prevent Lynn from speaking, he quit his job and gave the speech anyway.
“I admire the guy for being brave,” said Lisa Bickford, president of InReach Internet, and a board member of the California ISP Association. “It’s not easy to quit your job, but he stood by his principles. I think Cisco has some egg on its face.”
e-week contributing editor David Coursey writes that if “Cisco were doing its job, we might not need Michael Lynn to tell us about the company’s shortcomings. But, because the bad guys already know — or could be presumed to know — about the problems, only Cisco’s customers are out of the loop. Or were, until Lynn arrived on the scene.”
Needless to say, Cisco was far from thrilled with Lynn’s disclosure and quickly filed suit in the Supreme Court. This past week, Lynn and his attorney agreed to a permanent injunction that prevents him from using any Cisco code in his possession for further reverse engineering or security research. The permanent injunction does not prevent Lynn from doing further research on Cisco products provided it is done legally.
The next Windows operating system, previously known by the code name Longhorn, will be called Windows Vista.
With a developers test release of the new operating system scheduled for August 3rd, and a broader consumer beta release expected later this year, Microsoft allegedly took eight months researching potential names for the upcoming version of Windows. The new name débuted this past Thursday before roughly 10,000 attendees of a Microsoft sales conference in Atlanta (here’s a short video presentation of the event).
Among the key features of Vista are a new searching mechanism, lots of new laptop features, parental controls and better home networking. There will be visual changes, ranging from shiny translucent windows to icons that are tiny representations of a document itself, as well as the ability to launch applications 15% faster (and boot up 50% faster) than Windows XP does, and resuming from standby in only 2 seconds. According to Microsoft, Vista’s three design goals also include enhanced security, new ways to organize information, and seamless connectivity to external devices.
Given that 90 percent of the world’s personal computers run Windows, and given that Windows XP will become obsolete late next year, chances are that you’ll be switching to Windows Vista over the next 18 months.
Just when you think you have Microsoft’s Bill Gates’ next move figured out, he goes and does the opposite.
Reversing a longstanding Microsoft policy, Gates told those attending the RSA security conference in San Francisco this past week that the company will ship an update to Internet Explorer separately from the next major version of Windows, currently using the code name Longhorn. A beta version of a secure and fully featured Internet Explorer 7 will début this summer, Gates said in his keynote address to conference participants.
In announcing the plan, Gates acknowledged something that many had been arguing for some time — that the browser itself has become a security risk. “Browsing is definitely a point of vulnerability,” Gates said.
Gates also ended speculation about whether Microsoft would shift to a paid model for their recently released (and invaluable, it turns out) AntiSpyware tool, when he announced that the company will continue to provide customers with its new anti-spyware software free. The pledge comes after the company had been testing its AntiSpyware application — technology it acquired with its purchase of security software maker Giant Software.
“Just as spyware (Windows Media Player video) is something that we have to nip down today, we have decided that all licensed Windows users should have that protection at no charge,” Gates said.
Although a little late in arriving, VanRamblings offers insight into 7 essential pieces of free software that will enhance your computing life.
Irfanview: Who says that altruism is dead? Certainly not Irfan Skiljan, that’s for sure, the creator of one of the web’s most popular free downloads. A compact, fast and friendly image viewer that supports all major graphic formats (including bmp, dib, jpeg, gif, animated gifs, png, pcx, multipage tiff, and tga), Irfanview offers a free, scaled down Photoshop-like tool featuring drag-and-drop support, directory viewing, TWAIN support, slide shows, batch conversion, and modifications — such as colour depth, crop, blur, and sharpen — as well as plug-in support for most video and sound formats, including mp3, avi, audio CD, and wma. IrfanView wraps just about every feature you could desire in an image viewer in a free download. Heck, it’s the best image viewer around.
Adobe Reader: This nifty little piece of software allows you to read the common pdf (portable document format) files that are created by Adobe’s Acrobat software. In addition to the standard features found in the standalone Acrobat Reader client, Acrobat Reader offers PDF viewing from within your Mozilla Firefox (plug-in technology at work once again) or Internet Explorer (via ActiveX technology) browsers.
Tweak XP Pro: Tweak-XP Professional adds more than 56 time-saving productivity improvements to Windows XP. In addition to tuning Windows XP to run faster, Tweak-XP has easy-to-use functions that allow you to tailor Windows XP to meet your personal needs. This useful utility provides you with the opportunity to remove My Network Places, or other icons, from your desktop, prevent Shortcut to from being appended to new shortcuts, offers a memory optimization function and supports as many system enhancements as you’ll require to ensure a safe and satisfying computing experience. Click here to download.
PowerDesk: Absolutely the best file management utility available, and a must have alternative (or replacement) for the cumbersome and annoying built-in Windows Explorer, PowerDesk offers a simple, fast and easy way to organize and manage files, digital photos, MP3 music files and web images on your PC. In just one, two or three clicks, you can customize your PC: rename, move, copy, zip, label, colour code, search, view, prioritize, convert, and use your files the way you want to use them. Try the fully functional free version of PowerDesk 5 — you won’t be sorry you did.
Windows XP IP Config Tool: Windows XP offers several methods for finding out your IP address and performing other tasks that help you troubleshoot network settings, but some are easier than others. This free tool identifies your IP address, subnet mask, and default gateway, and allows you to easily verify the IP-address assigned to your system, as well as release and renew your IP address when your network broadband connections goes on the blink. Think you don't need it; just see how much easier life is the next time you phone your Internet Service Provider for assistance and s/he asks you for your IP address. Here’s an essential tool that’ll give you the answer with one click of your mouse. To download this free utility, click here.
WinZip: The reigning essential utility tool of the PC world, WinZip’s Classic interface accommodates both first-time and experienced users. With WinZip you can quickly and easily compress and decompress files, folders, and entire folder trees to save storage space and reduce e-mail transmission time, as well as encrypt and decrypt your sensitive documents. WinZip 9.0 features tight integration with Windows Explorer, support for most Internet file formats, and one-click zipping and e-mail.
And, last but not least, the ...
DivX Player (with DivX Codec) 5.2.1: Although the latest version seems to be a bit glitchy, and as the folks at Download.com suggest, you may wish to wait for a version later than 5.2.1, the DivX player remains, nonetheless, an essential PC download. If you read through the reader reviews you'll run across a pretty happy bunch of campers who praise the DivX player for possessing just about every codec necessary to properly play audio or video you download off the ’Net.
The first order of business when purchasing a new computer — or in keeping your existing computer safe — revolves around ensuring that your computer is saved harmless from external malicious intrusions: malware of all sorts, including viruses, Trojan horses, worms, spyware, adware and any other sort of infection which might impact on your computer’s ability to perform the tasks you set for it.
Herewith, then, six pieces of essential free software to download and install.
Anti-Virus Software: Now, you could go out and purchase Norton Anti-Virus and pay anywhere from $35 to $99. Or, you could download and install a very effective Anti-Virus alternative, AVG Anti-Virus Free Edition 7.289, which includes automatic update functionality, the AVG Resident Shield (which provides real-time protection as files are opened and programmes are run), free Virus Database Updates for the lifetime of the product, and AVG Virus Vault for safe handling of infected files.
A firewall: Perhaps the most effective free firewall is ZoneAlarm 5.5.062.004, which includes four interlocking security services: a firewall, an application control, an Internet lock, and Zones that control the ‘door’ to your computer, allowing only traffic you understand and initiate. Just be sure that during setup that you don’t opt for the paid version.
Anti-Spyware programmes: The two best free anti-spyware programmes are Spybot - Search and Destroy and Ad-Aware 1.05, which together will eliminate spyware from more than 22,000 different companies spying on you through your computer. Another must-have security tool, and recent addition to the anti-spyware arsenal, is Bazooka Adware and Spyware Scanner v1.13.02, which detects a multitude of spyware, adware, Trojan, keylogger, foistware and trackware components — in only seconds.
In addition to the programmes above, smart computer users run the latest version of the McAfee Stinger, a stand-alone utility used to detect and remove specific viruses. McAfee Stinger is not a substitute for full anti-virus protection, but will root out viruses, Trojans and worms missed by the programmes above. Stinger utilizes next generation scan engine technology, including process scanning, digitally signed DAT files, and scan performance optimizations. If your computer is acting up, and you’ve run a scan employing the programmes mentioned in the first part of this article, McAfee Stinger will likely find the malicious miscreant that has infected your system, even when the other programmes haven’t.
On Tuesday January 11, 2005, return for more essential programmes to install in order to take full advantage of your computer’s capabilities.
Since first alerting you to the release of Windows XP Service Pack 2 in the August 17 edition of Tech Tuesday, a number of glitches with the upgrade have surfaced. This isn’t surprising. As VanRamblings has noted previously, people are going to have some problems with SP2, one of Microsoft’s most intrusive and potentially disruptive updates ever.
In today’s Tech Tuesday, we’ll examine some of these concerns.
Heads up to all Windows users. The monthly patch scheduled for today includes 
Bypassing Microsoft’s automated check for pirated software may be as simple as inputting one line of code. Within 24 hours of 
According to CNET Reviews’ Senior Editor, Robert Vamosi, “
