December 2003 Archive

In The News

IBM reportedly may move scores of tech jobs overseas Associated Press. December 16, 2003. IBM pans to move up to several thousand skilled software jobs from the United States to India, China and other countries, which could amount to one of the biggest such actions yet in the technology industry. Internal documents show as many as 4,600 people could be affected. IBM had no comment on the story. 

A Senator from Delaware has proposed that residents of states with a sales tax should be charged sales taxes when they make purchases over the Internet. Delaware has no sales tax and, in the days before the Internet, residents of neighboring states would drive to Delaware to make purchases and save on sales taxes. Delaware merchants benefited in ways they no longer do.
    Delaware Senator Proposes Internet Sales Tax Information Week December 12, 2003 

The first national anti-spam bill was just signed by President Bush. Michael predicted it would not be enforced and no one felt it would decrease SPAM in any noticeable way. The opt-out provision is per company sending SPAM. Should you receive SPAM from 346 companies, you would have to opt out 346 times (likely with many different opt out procedures). Then too, how likely is it that every company will honor your request? 

Federal anti-spam law guts tough state remedies USA Today December 23, 2003. Quoting from the article: "... highlight weaknesses in the federal law, which falls short of its promised get-tough approach to spam. Watered down at the behest of powerful business interests, it lacks effective measures favored by several states to combat an increasingly annoying and costly problem for businesses and individuals. In fact, the new national law nullifies such potent state tools as the right of consumers to sue spammers."

After the show, this story came out: 
Ruling a blow to music industry The Baltimore Sun. December 20, 2003. In a substantial setback for industry efforts to stop music piracy, a federal appeals court ruled yesterday that the Recording Industry Association of America cannot force Internet service providers to reveal the names and mailing addresses of alleged music swappers on their networks. By overturning a lower court's decision, court eliminated a powerful tool used by the RIAA to learn the identities of computer users and sue them for downloading music. 

Our guest was David Perry of Trend Micro, the makers of PC-cillin. Their main market is the "enterprise", a.k.a. large companies. 

Up to and including the 2003 version of PC-cillin it was an anti-virus program and a firewall. No more. With the 2004 edition, the product has been expanded. It now includes anti-spam, anti-Spyware and anti-Adware features. There is also content security which can block sensitive personal information from being transmitted off your computer. The anti-virus and firewall are still part of the 2004 edition. 

The big problem with anti-spam products is false positives, messages incorrectly flagged as spam. David said PC-cillin testing showed it had only one false positive per 80,000 messages. If you get 100 spams a day, that is one false positive every two years. 

Current owners of PC-cillin can upgrade to the 2004 edition for $25. The product is not in retail distribution, you can order it from Trend's web site. There is a 30 day free trial, the product sells for $50. 

They have a real-time scanner for Spyware and Adware that blocks the programs from being installed on your computer. The new version works with all current versions of Eudora, which the prior version did not. There is no change to the Trend Micro online Housecall service. The product does not block pop-ups. 

Their anti-spam product runs on your computer and tags spam messages after they reach your computer but before your email program sees them. If you are an EarthLink customer, their anti-spam product tags spam on their email server, before it reaches your computer. Many Trend Micro customers run their anti-virus and anti-spam products on the server, rather than on each individual desktop computer. 

David felt that for 2004, spam would be a bigger problem than viruses.  

David pointed out that their firewall has default rules, unlike some other products that ask the user questions they may not know the answer to. You set the level of protection - low, medium or high. Despite the default rules, the firewall is just as customizable as any other. 

Bob needed advice on purchasing his first computer. Michael suggest a full size (a.k.a. desktop) computer rather than a laptop because it is cheaper and more upgradeable. His advice was not to spend more than $500 for the computer itself. On top of this, you will need a monitor, printer and possibly extra software. Michael felt that the largest mistake you can make is to spend too much money on the computer itself. Alfred suggested starting with an entry level package from one of the major vendors. A bundle typically includes the computer, monitor and printer. David's advice was to join a user group - a club that meets once a month - where you will meet people willing to help you. 

As for choosing a vendor, Michael warned that Dell's customer service was going downhill. A few days later, this article appeared on CNet. 
    Open letter to Michael Dell December 23, 2003 by John Dickinson 
Quoting from the story: "...my recent experience with your once-vaunted customer service demonstrated that it has deteriorated remarkably. Part of that deterioration must surely be the result of your company's remarkable growth, but no small part of it is due to the overseas talent that you have enlisted for this crucial function." 

Joseph asked for advice purchasing a new notebook computer. David's a big fan of notebooks but warned that they go obsolete faster than desktop machines. Alfred said not to buy a refurbished unit but instead look to a new low-end notebook. The cheapest new notebooks with Windows XP are about $700. Michael teaches a class Buying and Owning a Laptop Computer. 

Danny asked about viruses on a Mac. David said there used to be Mac viruses back in the early 1990s and there is still some anti-virus software for the Mac. Trend Micro however, does not have a Mac product. 

Jose asked about upgrading the hard drive on a very old computer. Older machines may not be able to deal with newer, larger capacity hard disks. When in doubt, ask the vendor. You can force a new hard disk in an older computer by adding a second IDE controller. Michael mentioned that he has done this with a 1996 computer that shipped with Windows 95 and a 2 GB hard disk. It now also sports a 40 GB disk that is connected to a second controller that plugged into a PCI slot. The second controller has it's own BIOS and thus overcomes any BIOS limitations the older computer might have. Michael used a Maxtor hard disk and a Maxtor controller. Alfred suggested calling Promise and giving them the exact make and model numbers of the computer and hard disk to insure the upgrade will work

In The News

Bell South, SBC and Verizon offer a slower and cheaper version of DSL (DSL Lite) with speeds around 256K downstream (from the Internet to you). There is a full page ad in today's New York Times from Verizon touting their DSL service for $30 a month. The ad didn't say, but this a promotional price only available for the first three months. The regular price for Verizon DSL (for consumers) is $35 a month. 

Hank said the break even cost for many of the Baby Bells is $27/month and they are forced to compete on price because more and more people are opting for cable. In the Northeast, there are almost 3 cable modem subscribers for every DSL customer. A broadband cable connection is usually, but not always, faster than DSL. 

Congress approved a new anti-spam law known as the Can SPAM law. Hank doesn't like it because it forces you to opt out of receiving spam from each and every company that sends you spam. There is no way to prevent a company from sending you the first spam message and they must provide a means for you to opt out of additional messages from them. Considering the number of different companies that send spam, this is not likely to succeed. 

Michael noted that much current spam comes from overseas where U.S. law does not apply. Should the bill pass, he figures that more and more spam will originate from overseas making the law irrelevant. John Dvorak felt the law would do nothing. 

Our guest was John C. Dvorak from PC Magazine. His most recent book, released in October, is Online! The Book, written with Chris Pirillo and Wendy Taylor. Amazon.com sells it for $18, Borders and Barnes and Noble also carry it. You can read his PC Magazine columns or visit John's personal web site www.dvorak.org. The web site for the book, www.onlinethebook.com is a work in progress. 

Because the Internet doesn't come with a manual.  

The book tries to cover everything there is to know about the online world: IRC, blogging, making your own web site, how to pick ISPs, FTP, Spyware and Key loggers, Usenet and much more. The target audience is not raw beginners, rather it's for intermediate users. It starts with the more fundamental material and works its way to the more advanced topics at the end. 

As for Cable vs. DSL, John prefers cable because it's so much faster. It may be more expensive than DSL on a monthly basis, but on a speed basis, it's cheaper. Interestingly, John runs both because he doesn't trust the reliability of broadband providers. 

Mr. Dvorak felt the extra speed offered by a cable modem, while not needed for everyday web browsing, is needed for a whole host of other online applications. For example, VOIP from companies such as Vonage, requires at least 700 Kbps. 

Michael asked about AOL and John said the book mostly covers version 8. Version 9 he felt was designed by committee. Up until this month, the email program in AOL v9 had no forwarding function. It has since been put back, but everyone forwards email messages all the time. John felt that version 3 was the best version of AOL. 

Hank refers to it as "America Off-Line" and while no techie would recommend using AOL, Hank often tells clients to get a copy of the AOL v8 CD. It has a full version of Internet Explorer and for those on a dial-up connection, it can save hours of download time. 

As for WiFi, the book recommends the "g" flavor which is faster than the "b" flavor and has more penetrating power than the "a" variety. 

Andy asked about web browsers. John is a big fan of Mozilla which handles the forced enlarging of text on web pages much better than IE. And it's free. He is currently using the Mozilla email program which has spam filtering built into it. The spam filters work, not great, but "pretty good". He used to use Eudora and is looking forward to trying the Opera email program of which he has heard good things. 

One big plus of Eudora is the fact that everything it needs lives in a single folder - all the program executables, DLLs and data files. This makes it extremely easy to migrate to a new computer, all you need to do is copy the folder. On the new computer a formal installation is not needed. He felt this is the way software should work. Mozilla does not work this way, making it harder to migrate from one computer to another. 

Mike asked John Dvorak about Linux. John sees a bright future for the OS: it's free, the applications are getting more mainstream, Open Office is a "fabulous" product, the GUI is pretty much like Windows, it's high quality, bullet proof and resistant to the thousands of Windows viruses and worms. If he owned a company with thousands of PCs, he would put everyone on Linux.  

John was asked what happened to his radio show. He's not doing it any more and hasn't for the last couple years. His radio show was on the air for 10 years. 

Anthony gets an error when he runs a faxing program - not enough memory. He found this puzzling because he has very large capacity hard disks. John felt it was a RAM issue, Michael felt it was a virtual storage issue. One way to tell if the "memory" in question is virtual is to re-boot and run the program just after Windows starts up. If another program has a memory leak, it won't effect the faxing program immediately after booting. 

In Windows 2000 you adjust the swap file size and location using:
  Control Panel => System => Advanced tab => Performance Options button => Change button 

Paul asked about retrieving the license key from a Windows XP computer. Hank knew of a free program to do this, the Magical Jelly Bean Keyfinder. It retrieves your Product Key (CD key) used to install windows from your registry. It can copy the key to clipboard, save it to a text file, or print it. Keyfinder works on Windows 95, 98, ME, NT4, 2000, XP, Server 2003, Office 97, and Office XP. Another such program is ViewkeyXP which is also free

In The News

The department of Homeland Security wants companies to tell them their computer defense strategy. The administration is reconsidering its support for a plan that would require publicly traded companies to describe their hacker defenses to securities regulators.
  Homeland Security chief warns tech firms to cooperate on cyber crime The Associated Press December 4, 2003.

Current DVD recorders use red lasers. To get more data on a disc, the next generation of DVD burners will use blue lasers which have a shorter wavelength. There are competing standards for blue laser DVDs, also called HD DVD. The DVD Forum endorsed a Toshiba/NEC standard called AOD. It competes with another format called Blu-Ray from Sony, Philips and others. None of this is relevant to current DVDs. Alfred said the story behind the story is that the NEC design has advantages in Digital Right Management so that Hollywood studios prefer it.
  Next Gen DVD Standard Fuels Format War Tech News World December 2, 2003.
  Establishing a DVD Standard  Reuters December 1, 2003

To clear up an issue from last week, Microsoft was not aware of the seven new bugs in Internet Explorer. When they were announced to the public is when Microsoft heard about them. 

41 more sued over music downloads USA TODAY December 3, 2003 

Dave Chan, a consultant, reviewed the Pharos GPS product. Global Positioning Satellite systems tell you where you are. His product connects to a Windows PDA such as an iPaq. It took over 2 minutes to get its bearings. In a car it took a half hour to lock in and get a map. The unit requires maps to be in your computer that you transfer to an iPaq. He felt it was not practical. The list price is under $250. It speaks and tells you where to turn and warns you if you are off route. 

Alohabob PC Relocator Ultra Control

Alohabob moves applications, files and settings. However, it won't move Windows Media Player, anti-virus programs, Internet Explorer and CD burning programs. 

Hank said it comes with 2 cables, a crossover Ethernet and a parallel. It can only move to an equal or greater OS. For example, you can't go from Windows XP Pro to Windows XP Home Edition. Also, you can not migrate from Windows 98 SE to plain old Windows 98. You don't need this program for moving data files. Hank prefers to re-install applications on the new computer. The product sells for about $60.

Alohabob was reviewed in PC Magazine in June 2003: Alohabob PC Relocator Ultra Control 4.5.9.12. The magazine reviewed a handful of migration utilities and preferred Desktop DNA Professional 4.5, from Miramar Systems.

James gets errors about missing and corrupted files when he tries to boot his HP laptop. Hank suggested calling HP and getting a Windows CD. With this disc, you can do a repair install of Windows. Hank also has an HP laptop and his experience has been that although they don't come with Windows CDs, HP will send you one if you ask for it. 

A caller wondered if their computer would run faster with the swap file on a different hard disk from Windows. Hank said it would, but that you have to be sure the two hard disks don't share the same channel in the IDE controller. It does not matter if they are Master or Slave, but they should not share the same channel. Alfred does this on his computer. 

Patrik's computer is sluggish - there seems to be something using all the processor horsepower. Hank suggested System Mechanic from Iola. In addition, scanning with the two popular free anti-Spyware programs was recommended. These programs are Ad-aware (www.lavasoftusa.com) and SpyBot Search and Destroy (www.safer-networking.org).

Kevin had the home page on his web browser changed. It was suggested that he run a firewall program, such as ZoneAlarm and also run both the previously mentioned anti-Spyware programs.