I Just Heard: Ewido Anti-Spyware is Now Part of Grisoft!

As you know, I strongly recommend Grisoft’s AVG Anti-Virus (which is FREE!) to everyone! And, I have recommended Ewido Anti-Spyware before as well:

My Article on Ewido from the Blog

Now, it seems that Grisoft has merged with Ewido Networks! So, they now offer Ewido on the same site and page as AVG! And, they have a great, free version! Check out their website, here:

Ewido Networks

Here’s a quote from their press release:

“GRISOFT, the maker of award-winning AVG Anti-Virus, today announced the acquisition of Ewido Networks, a leading provider of innovative anti-malware solutions. This acquisition expands GRISOFT’s AVG antivirus and firewall offerings to include comprehensive malware protection, and provide its customers with the highest level of security against growing types of malicious software spreading across the Internet.”

This apparently happened back in April of this year, but I missed it! Anyway, even if I am late in hearing about it… this is still great news! I am a big fan of Grisoft, and I know that they will do a great job with Ewido as well!

Does Your Vacation Help Spammers?

Weird question, you ask? Ah, but no! Here’s the deal. Spammers want to know, above all else, that the e-mail address that they have for you is a “good” one. So, if you go on vacation AND you set your e-mail to “auto-reply” to messages with your “happy little message” of “I’m out of the office…” Well, your auto-reply message goes back to the spammers as well, when their nasty viagra messages come in to your inbox. So, you have provided them with VERY valuable information!

So, what to do? Try this, BEFORE you go on vacation, send a message to the people that commonly (yet legitimately) send you e-mails a message saying that you will be out for a week. NOT your WHOLE e-mail list, just the main folks (you know who they are!)

Just a thought! Don’t give spammers any more info than you have to! Let’s be careful out there!

Microsoft buys Winternals

It sure has been a slow week for tech news so far… but this item is one that I have mixed feelings about. I really like Winternals… they have awesome free utilities and tools that I use all the time! I sure hope that Microsoft gobbling them up means that we will lose out on these cool tools!

Microsoft buys Winternals

I will try and stay positive! Maybe Winternals programmers will help out M$!

“As part of the deal, the software maker is naming Winternals co-founder Mark Russinovich as a technical fellow. ‘I’ve had my eye on Mark for some time,’ Jim Allchin, Microsoft divisional co-president, said in a statement. ‘The work he and Bryce (Cogswell, Winternal’s other co-founder) have completed in system recovery and data protection illustrates the depth of thinking and skill they will bring to future versions of Windows. The addition of their deep kernel-level expertise to our existing strong talent will help provide us with the edge we need to continue to raise the quality and functionality bar for Windows on both the client and the server.’ In buying Winternals, Microsoft is getting the company’s free tools, its Sysinternals community Web site as well as several paid-for software products for businesses. However, it appears Microsoft made the deal, in large part, to hire the company’s two co-founders. ‘It’s definitely about talent,’ Platform and Services division architect Jason Garms said in a telephone interview on Tuesday. ‘Mark is one of the top five or 10 people in the world when it comes to Windows internals.'”

Dr. Bill’s “Geeky Goodness” Podcast #45!

Dr. Bill Podcast – 45 – (07/15/06)
Click on the “Streaming MP3” badge below to play Streaming Audio of this Podcast.
Streaming MP3 Audio
 Download MP3
(Right-Click on the Link Above and Choose “Save” to Save the MP3 file locally on your PC.)

Click on the “Streaming Ogg” badge below to play Streaming Ogg Vorbis Format Audio of the Podcast.
Streaming Ogg Audio
 Download Ogg Vorbis Format
(Right-Click on the Link Above and Choose “Save” to Save the Ogg Vorbis file locally on your PC.)

Techno-Tubes
Geeky goodness for you this week: DJ Rappin’ Ted sings about the Internet being a series of techno-tubes! Geek t-shirts, and hats about a “Series of Tubes.” Other songs about the Senator… sigh! Help stop those that are trying to destroy the Internet! Go to “www.savetheinternet.com” and help save the Internet! How e-mail relaying works. Use a web-based email client to avoid the whole issue. Use Squirrelmail if you have a Linux server as your e-mail host. Firefox Web Browser usage in the U.S. passed 15% for the first time! Five critical security flaws in Microsoft software! Microsoft find by the European Union for breaking their laws. Media Player wars! Internet user survey finds that most podcast listeners are Mac-users or, are Trekkers! I will cop to that, I guess! Geek Software of the Week: TidyUI! A User Interface for the WC3’s HTMLtidy! Clean up and speed up your HTML Code! Microsoft admits a Zero-Day exploit for PowerPoint! A new feature of the website, Geek Projects! Our project is: How to Make your PC look more like a Mac! Very cool software called “RK_Launcher!” Well, that’s it for this week! Keep your Tubes CLEAR!

Thanks to the Bold-Headed Broadcast for a great song that is a mashup of Sen. Ted Stevens explanation of the Internet!
The Bold-Headed Broadcast!

Geek Project: Make Your PC Look More Like A Mac!

Here’s a new feature of the Blog! Every so often I want to do a “Geek Project” just for fun! Here’s the first in the series! Check it out!

RK_Launcher Desktop

Here’s how to do it! You will need the FREE, and very cool “RK_Launcher” software.

Download Site for RK_Launcher

How to use RK_Launcher:

Unzip the application, save to a directory like:

C:\Program Files\RK_Launcher

Create a desktop shortcut for:
C:\Program Files\RK_Launcher\RKLauncher.exe

Drag the shortcut into your Startup Folder:
(Right-click on “Start”, click on “Explore Users”, navigate to your startup folder, drop the icon there.)

Start the application, then position your mouse to the lower right of the separator line at the right of the Launcher bar, and right-click. Click on “Settings.” Set the settings as below, per tab in “Settings”:

Appearance:
Dock size 50 Pixels
Magnification 80 pixels
Items to manify: 7
Background theme: Default
Uncheck “Hide Indicators”
Uncheck “Hide Poofs”

Position:
Bottom

Behavior:
Uncheck “Automatically Hide”
Check “Always on top”
Check “Use Margin Hotspot”
Uncheck “Never take focus”
Uncheck “Locked add/delete/drag”
Check “Save Chnages on exit”
Check “Save items on change”
Check “Minimize to RK Launcher
Uncheck “Show new applications
Check “Hide the taskbar

Label:
Leave as is

Exclusions:
This will be done for you as you exclude items

Performance:
Quality: Normal
Other settings: Defaults are fine

You can get more cool icons for RK_Launcher from places like:

KDE-Look.org

Just be sure that they are .png icons, and at size of 128×128 pixels. I found and used a collection called “NuoveXT-kde-1.6” that had some great icons in it!

You can also “spice up” your desktop with Yahoo! Widgets (formerly called “Konfabulator”) if you want as well. (That’s how I did the clock and the weather widgets.) That software is available here:

widgets.yahoo.com

You can download and install the “Widget Engine” and then choose what widgets that you want (just be sure that you DON’T choose to install anything that you DON’T want! Pay Attention!)

Enjoy your cross between a Mac and a PC! Cool, huh?

Microsoft Confirms PowerPoint Zero-Day Attack

Microsoft Word had a zero-day bug, then Excel, now its PowerPoint. Really gives you confidence in Microsoft’s “Security Initiative,” huh?

Microsoft Confirms PowerPoint Zero-Day Attack

“The latest attack exploits a previously undocumented flaw in Microsoft PowerPoint, the ubiquitous presentation program used by millions of users around the world. The attack comes just days after Microsoft’s July Patch Tuesday and closely mirrors the situation in June when a zero-day Excel attack was discovered 24 hours after Patch Day. Virus hunters at Symantec linked the zero-day attack to a Trojan horse program called Trojan.PPDropper.B that arrives via e-mail from a Gmail address. The subject line of the mail and the .ppt file-name are in Chinese characters, suggesting that the attacks are emanating from—and attacking targets—in the Far East. If the PowerPoint attachment is opened, the Trojan drops and executes a variant of Backdoor.Bifrose.E, a keystroke logger that is used to steal sensitive information and send it back to a remote server controlled by malicious hackers.”

Geek Software of the Week: TidyUI

Are you a sloppy HTML coder? (Aren’t we all?) Well, no worries! Now you can clean up that HTML code with a UI (User Interface) to the WC3’s HTMLTidy libraries! Cool!

TidyUI Download Page

Just download the file, unzip it, and place the contents of the zip file somewhere that you know you can locate, like:

C:\Program Files\TidyUI

Then, create a shortcut to the “tidyui.exe” file. Click on the shortcut, and you have a GUI (Graphical User Interface) that will allow you to select your poor example of HTML coding, then click on “Tidy!” and “viola’!” You have clean, neat code! (Now, if I could just clean my house!)

Trekker, Mac-user, or both?

Survey results of Internet users demonstrate that Mac-users and Trekkers (Star Trek fans), are the primary listeners to podcasts! So, which are you? I will cop to being a huge Trekker, and I like Macs, but I don’t own one… so pretty close! I am probably unusual in that I listen to about 25 podcasts a week. Hummmm… maybe I am in my own category?

Podcasts popular in the holodeck

“Among those surveyed, 51.6 percent said they paid bills online, and 24.6 percent participated in online job hunting. E-mailing is still the most popular online activity at 92.7 percent, with news reading (71.5) and weather checking (63.9) in second and third place, respectively. Compared to those statistics, downloading podcasts is still a relatively unpopular activity. Overall, 6.6 percent of adults said they had downloaded audio podcasts within the last 30 days, and 4 percent had downloaded video podcasts. Since the question has only been recently added to the survey, according to the Nielsen/NetRatings spokeswoman, there is no data available for 2004 to allow for a growth comparison. (Blogging came in even lower at 4.8 percent.)”

Microsoft Fined by the EU for Defying the Law

M$ has been bad, and the EU is clamping down! They have been fined big time for refusing to give up details of their server code that would allow other companies to better design media software for Windows Server. M$ has acquiesced somewhat on its Media Player client, but they have been dragging their heals on the server side.

EU fines Microsoft 281 mln euros for defiance

“European Union regulators fined Microsoft (MSFT.O: Quote, Profile, Research) 280.5 million euros ($357.3 million) on Wednesday for defying a 2004 antitrust ruling, and warned the company to comply or face bigger fines from next month. The tough new penalty is the first of its kind and comes on top of a record 497 million euro fine the Commission imposed in its landmark antitrust decision against Microsoft in March 2004.”

1 353 354 355 356 357 394