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November 18, 2009
November 11, 2009
November 4, 2009 October 28, 2009 October 21, 2009 October 14, 2009 October 7, 2009 |
PDF Reader 2009 is a scam. New study of 30,000 laptop computers showed Asus was most reliable followed by Toshiba, Sony and Apple. HP came in last. Joe felt the difference between all machines was very small. Some Xboxes were banned by Microsoft from the online service for stealing software. Large companies are eliminating IT jobs.
We had two guests from Microsoft: Brian Johnson and Peter Laudati. Our topic was Windows 7: Whats new in Windows 7? The taskbar now includes icons for applications that aren't running. This used to be in the quick launch toolbar in Windows XP. Aero peek is new. Windows 7 is more scalable. Remove languages to save disk space. The Starter Edition has no Aero interface and no media center. Where is media center? It's not on the Start menu. UAC defaults to less nagging in Windows 7. Windows Live Essentials has to be downloaded to get Microsoft's free email program. Listener phone calls.
RECYCLING: Sunday, November 22, 2009 From 8AM to 3 PM
PLACE: Manhattan, 93rd Street and First Ave, east side of the avenue
Bring in cell phones, computers, laptops, copiers, fax machines, IPods and PDAs, modems,
monitors, keyboards, mouses, printers, stereo and radio equipment, telephones and telephone equipment,
televisions, typewriters, speakers, digital cameras, VCRs and DVD players. Of course, all e-waste collected
will be recycled in an environmentally responsible manner here in the U.S.
www.uppergreenside.org
environment.meetup.com/230/calendar/11761426/
No more fund raising. About Oracle buying Sun. Apple and Microsoft issued bug fixes. Best Buy will be selling an Acer laptop for $250. Yahoo is sponsoring free WiFi in Times Square but only a few hours a day. A lawsuit against Sony. A lawsuit against the Amazon Kindle. Patenting business practices. GPS on cellphones. Hanks EVDO modem problem. Standby vs. Sleep vs. Hibernation. Listener phone calls.
Everyone liked the photo editing program inPaint, which specializes in removing undesirable objects from still images. It does this by reconstructing the selected image area from the pixel near the area boundary. A personal license is $39.99 and there is a try-before-you-buy download. The demo is fully functional except that you can't save your work.
A recent patch to IE8 needs to be patched. A court ruling about metadata in word processing documents. Differences between Windows 7 Ultimate and Enterprise.
Fund raising. We offered our Gold card tech support for $200 a year, a DVD with free software applications that we recommend and use (we call it a toolkit) for $75, and a Password Reset CD for a $55 donation to WBAI. These premiums can be ordered at any time - just go to the Premiums page on our site.
Sony has initiated a voluntary recall for certain AC power adapters which may short circuit and pose a potential electrical shock hazard. This only applies to some of the AC power adapters model VGP-AC19V17. At Sony's website you can check if yours is being recalled.
Alfred reviewed the Easy-Link USB Data Sharing Hub from Hawking Technology. Rather than transferring files over his LAN, Alfred uses this USB to USB device because its much faster and you don't need to install software to use it. It only works with Windows computers (2000, XP, Vista) and costs under $30.
Microsoft is opening retail stores to sell computers. Why? Problems upgrading to Windows 7.
Fund raising. We offered our Gold card tech support for $200 a year, a DVD with free software applications that we recommend and use (we call it a toolkit) for $75, and a Password Reset CD for a $55 donation to WBAI. These premiums can be ordered at any time - just go to the Premiums page on our site.
Fund raising. We offered our Gold card tech support for $200 a year, a DVD with free software applications that we recommend and use (we call it a toolkit) for $75, and a Password Reset CD for a $55 donation to WBAI. These premiums can be ordered at any time - just go to the Premiums page on our site.
The Time Warner SMC 8014WG modem/router has a security flaw. No more Microsoft Works, it is being replaced by a "starter" edition of Office, offering stripped down versions of Word and Excel.Dells' market share is slipping. Danger lost data. BIOS SLIC and Windows activation.
The director of the FBI can no longer do online banking. His wife won't let him after almost falling for a phishing scam. More people are recommending not using Windows at all for online banking. There were a ton of bug fixes for Windows. Adobe Acrobat also fixed a critical bug. Mac OS X has a bug that wipes out user files. Michael recommended inSSIDer for scanning for WiFi networks. Fund raising. Our guest was David Perry of Trend Micro. David generously offered free copies of Trend Micro Internet Security for anyone donating for one of our three premiums - but only during the show.
Our guest was be Leo Notenboom of askleo.net a computer question and answer web site. Formerly an 18-year Microsoft emplyee, his weekly newsletter reaches over 83,000 readers.
Stats for the Internet at large show that fewer people are using Internet Explorer and more are using Firefox.
The iPhone was caught fibbing. The majority of them do not support on-device encryption, yet when talking to an Exchange server they said that they did. After upgrading the iPhone operating system, such that it started to tell the truth, some users could no longer get their email.
If you are buying Windows 7, in addition to chose an edition you also need to chose between the full version, the upgrade version or the OEM version. We discussed the differences. NewEgg is having a sale now on the OEM version - the cheapest edition just got cheaper.
Microsoft Security Essentials was released last week and we reported some problems with it: it does not scan incoming email, it has been poor heuristics and it does not report when the virus definitions are out of date.
Our main topic was safe online banking. Online banking just got more dangerous. Malicious software (that, so far, only infects Windows computers), known as crimeware, can drain your bank account after you have successfully logged on to a banking website. That is, while you are using the bank's website, so too is the crimeware software. Silently, in the background, it transfers money out of your account. The software doesn't need your password, it just waits for you to enter it. Even two factor authentication is useless as a defense. We discussed how two such crimeware programs work. What to do? It's a debatable point whether Windows should be used at all for any online banking. We debated it.
Articles about crimeware software that drains your bank account while you are logged on to an online banking website: