11 Jan 2010
Owners of a new Mac are greeted by the Apple experience which is consistent and clean. New PC owners are often greeted with a cluttered desktop and several “buy me” advertisements. I hear this is one of the ways manufacturers keep PC costs down.
I don’t know how many complaints I’ve heard from new PC owners about store technicians wanting $30 bucks to remove spyware that came with the computer.
Now the techs are selling a tune up for your new PC. I have worked on a few PCs that supposedly had a tune-up. Given the store relationship with PC manufacturers I would expect better. What kind of training do they give these techs? Most folks have techy friends who can do a better job.
It looks like the media is noticing… In-Store “Optimization” Is Usually Useless, Often Slows Down PCs – Optimization – Lifehacker.
31 Dec 2009
Paint.NET is free image and photo editing software for Windows. It is using one of the first things I install to a new computer. I bought CorelDRAW (with PhotoPaint) and Photoshop CS3 but Paint.NET is a handy, light weight tool for image editing.
My CorelDRAW is version 12 which I do not think works with Vista or Windows 7. I’ve used CorelDRAW since version 2. Even though I’ve also had Photoshop the Corel apps have met my needs. I guess that says something about my graphic skills. For now CorelDraw lives in a Windows XP virtual machine.
I deactivated he Photoshop license from the old Vista PC but wasn’t installed on Windows 7 yet.
Paint.NET – Free Software for Digital Photo Editing.
Paint.NET Plugins
26 Dec 2009
I had a problem authenticating www.netsnbytes.com to the Bing webmaster tools. netsnbytes.com is hosted on Google Sites, which was JotSpot. JotSpot is a wiki.
In order to add a site to webmaster tools either upload the file to the root directory or place a special meta tag between the HTML tags. Since Google Sites is a wiki there is no root directory and there is no access to the HTML HEAD section.
The solution is logical. Upload the xml authentication file from Bing.
- Login to Bing’s webmaster tools and browse to the Site List
- Click the Add a site button
- Enter the web address to the Google Sites page (there is no sitemap)
- Click Submit
- Use the link Download XML Verification file to download ‘LiveSearchSiteAuth.xml’
- Leave the Bing webmaster form open for now.
- Login to edit the Google Site
- Select More Actions > Manage site
- Under Site Content on the left select Attachments
- Click the Upload button
- Browse to where you downloaded LiveSearchSiteAuth.xml
- Click the Upload button
- Return to the open Bing webmaster form
- Click the Return to Site List button
- The Google Site should authenticate
Bing doesn’t like the long Google url’s to Sites. You can use Web Address Mapping at More Actions/Manage site/Site Settings/General to map to a domain. Of course you must have the domain to do this.
You can use these steps for Yahoo’s webmaster tools with some changes.
25 Dec 2009
Most of the Google search results for netsnbytes are for blog posts hosted on Emperor. Emperor is the Linux server in my basement but Emperor is on the DSL line.
A few years ago I got to know Apache pretty well. Apache magic allowed me to do a bit with the DSL line and no port 80 access. Apache running on Emperor, the Linux server, was the gateway to a half-dozen web servers in the basement. Those servers allowed me to research a lot of new technology as it came out. Working with Apache was a good learning experience too.
All it took was a little more Apache magic to redirect old search links to the new WordPress place here.
Apache conf excerpt for anyone interested:
Alias /wordpress "/var/www/www-apps/wordpress"
RewriteEngine On
RewriteCond %{HTTP_HOST} ^(www\.)?netsnbytes\.net
RewriteRule (.*) https://blog.netsnbytes.org/$1 [R=301,L]
My handiest resource has been the Apache Cookbook from O’Reilly. You can get it here at Amazon.
24 Dec 2009
Folks regularly ask my opinion for what antivirus solution to use. It comes with the I.T. job.
Some folks’ comments and questions are interesting even though they do not know the intricacies of computer security. It sounds like common sense. For example over the last decade the fortunes of the security vendors have sky rocketed. At the time same viruses have grown at a fast rate. There’s something not right about those trends.
I used Norton and McAfee since the ’80’s but it was getting harder to recommend them. Folks kept throwing common sense at me. Saying that Norton and McAfee were the most popular and highest rated antivirus solutions sounded hollow.
I have removed viruses from hundreds of computers over the last ten years or so. I separate antivirus software into two classes: 1) Total Security Solutions like Norton and McAfee; 2) Antivirus software like F-Prot, AVG and NOD32. I’ve noticed the folks infected more often with the total solutions and were much harder to clean up.
When it comes to keeping your Windows PC secure, all the scare tactics and overblown virus stories out there make it hard to feel safe online. The fact of the matter is that you don’t need to pay for Windows security.
From time to time we like to go on long, opinionated rants about subjects that bug us. This is one of those times. So let’s have a frank and honest discussion about Windows security, and leave the scare tactics and FUD for money-grubbing corporate marketers.
Stop Paying for Windows Security; Microsoft’s Security Tools Are Good Enough — Lifehacker.com
Microsoft Security Essentials is here: Microsoft Security Essentials
Microsoft introduced a feature with Vista called PatchGuard. It blocked access to the Windows Kernel. The Kernel is the heart of an operating system. Microsoft introduced this feature because of their new commitment to security. It should block the most dangerous viruses.
Some antivirus vendors patch the Kernel in trying to get a leg up on viruses and malware. There are viruses, called rootkits, that patch the kernel to get a leg up on antivirus software.
Sony used a rootkit to protect their music and movies. The Sony rootkit was so poorly done that it made any computer infected with the Sony rootkit less secure. Virus authors could easily take advantage of Sony to hide their viruses from antivirus software.
The race to control the kernel was an escalating battle. The vendors who were patching the kernel were not helping.
Antivirus software made by competitors ESET,[17] Trend Micro,[18] Grisoft,[19] and Sophos does not patch the kernel. Sophos publicly stated that it does not feel KPP limits the effectiveness of its software.
Some computer security software, such as McAfee‘s McAfee VirusScan and Symantec‘s Norton Antivirus, works by patching the kernel.
Kernel Patch Protection — Wikipedia
But here’s the $64,000 question: How many of you have installed “security” products from Symantec, McAfee, and others… only to find your system is much slower than before you installed it? I bet it’s a lot. Would you believe that your system is less secure too? Microsoft has something to say about this:
The Truth About PatchGuard: Why Symantec Keeps Complaining — Windows-Now.com
A Reality Check on PatchGuard — Symantec blog response to the security improvements introduced in Vista.
Requirements:
Operating System: Genuine Windows XP (Service Pack 2 or Service Pack 3); Windows Vista (Gold, Service Pack 1, or Service Pack 2); Windows 7
Links:
Lifehacker.com