Refurbs Update: Still a Great Deal!
REFURBS! I posted about refurbs a couple of years ago and it's time to do it again. There are some amazing deals to be had out there! And it is easier than ever to find lots of great "refurb" deals.
I was mainly talking about computers the last time, but almost any manufactured product that you can imagine is available at a deep discount as a refurbished or "remanufactured" fully warrantied product.
Do NOT be put off by the term "refurbished". Many of these products are, in fact, brand new and never used. The rest are so slightly used that you might never notice.
Refurbished -- sometimes called "refurbs" -- has become a catchall term these days. It now seems to mean any product that's been returned to the manufacturer after it's been sold once to a retailer.
Note; not necessarily "returned by a consumer" but just sold once to a retailer and never even moved out of their warehouse.
Oh sure; refurbished can actually mean "refurbished" -- i.e., returned to the factory and fixed & cleaned up. But, these days, at least as often as not it means simply that the device was sold once and then returned to the manufacturer. That might simply mean that it was overstocked at a big-box store like Wal-Mart or mis-ordered by an end-user. In either case it was simply returned unopened.
These days, consumer liability issues being what they are, a reputable manufacturer won't want to try to resell the product as "brand new". Instead they'll sell it as refurbished "like-new" and complete with warranty and complete packaging. Cool!
Even if they were "returned for repair", the refurbished deals are still as good as new when they go back on sale. Maybe even better if you go by the "pre-disastered" strategy of consumerism. That means that somebody else worked out the kinks and shook out the bugs for you.
Lately I've been finding some fantastic deals on refurbs at a few different stores but have them gathered up all in one spot. I call it the "This'll Work Monster Savings Refurb Superstore".
The best refurb deals are not at the manufacturers sites -- though many do have sections where they sell refurbs. The best deals seems to be at places like TigerDirect.com where they seem to be making bulk deals with the manufacturers. That's my guess at what's happening anyway. You can find these deals hidden away for fantastic computers at prices that are sometimes half or better of what you'd expect to pay at a big-box discount. Full warranty, full software package, complete documentation and accessory hardware. The whole deal!
So; here's the thing. If you're shopping around for a computer -- desktop or laptop or handheld -- or a stereo or an MP3 player (including all iPod models) or even a flat screen TV (HDTV or ... whatever), be sure to take a look at refurbs! That's where the good deals are.
"Two-finger scroll" & the end of the mouse.
Who here has used the "two-finger scroll" and what do you think of it?
For myself, I think that two-finger scrolling is one of the most intriguing and brilliantly simple innovations in computers in many years. I should put that in bold: two-finger scrolling is one of the most intriguing and brilliantly simple innovations in computers -- surpassing the mouse itself.
Thank you to the unsung engineer at Synaptics or at Apple or wherever who invented this great concept. It is fantastic. (Who is that hidden geek?)
It's amazing how much of an effect something as simple as this has on the simplicity of using a computer.
For those of you who haven't seen it or had a chance to try it, find yourself a newish Macintosh laptop computer (older machines may not have the feature) and give it a try.
The simple idea is that if you put two finger tips on the touchpad then the contents of the active window will scroll in the direction that you move your fingers. So simple, but once you try it you realize that it's just amazing.
Tap two-fingers and you get the context menu -- like right-clicking in Windows; just simpler.
The two-finger'ed gestures on the touch pad make manipulating your computer so much simpler and faster.
You wouldn't think that reaching for a mouse is such a big deal, but as soon as you get rid of it you realize that it's a HUGE waste of time and effort. Just flipping your fingers on the touch pad is so much easier and makes so much sense!
There's been some talk that Apple may be patenting this wonderously simple idea and I wouldn't blame them for it, but I do hope that it becomes available for Windows computers too. I've also read somewhere that it is actually an innovation created by Synaptics, the people who make Touchpads. That would make sense, but there seems to be no mention of two-finger scrolling at their website (www.synaptics.com).
I'm already looking forward to tossing out my mouse to switch to a two-finger touchpad -- including for my desktop PC. If I could just find a two-finger scrolling driver, my mouse would be gone! (It's that good.)
I just hope that I don't have to toss out my whole Windows computer to do it!
Posted January 29, 2008 Permalink
No Respect From TigerDirect
Just about a month ago (12/27 -- this being 1/22) I placed an order with TigerDirect for a part that a client urgently needed. Their laptop system board had failed and they needed an external enclosure for the laptop hard drive so that they could retrieve business documents and data.
I placed the order immediately with TigerDirect. It was Friday afternoon so I ordered it with 2-day delivery. The part arrived on time, as usual with TigerDirect, but for the first time ever, it didn’t function.
Let me say now, before going forward, that I regularly shop at TigerDirect. In it’s various names, I've shopped with TigerDirect for many, many years. I've always been pleased with their broad selection, competitive prices and speedy order turnaround. And, until this order, I’ve never had a single item that needed to be returned, for any reason.
Continue reading "No Respect From TigerDirect"
Posted January 23, 2008 Permalink
Cool Mouse Tricks
Here's some swell Windows mouse tricks that you never knew it new. These have been around "since the wheel" -- mouse wheel, that is -- but they're still handy and hardly anybody knows that they exist. These techniques all work in "Windows Explorer" and MS "Internet Explorer" but will usually work in other Windows programs too.
Trick #1: "Mouse Scrolling" (or "auto-scrolling") - With mouse scrolling activated, moving your mouse scrolls the contents of the active window -- without having to mouse the cursor to the scroll bar! Very cool. You can tell when it is activated because a compass rose -- a circle with two or four directional arrows -- appears in the active window. The number of arrows depends on the number of directions that the active window can scroll.
There are three ways to activate auto-scrolling:
- "Click" the wheel by pressing down on it. It acts as a third mouse button and turns on the mouse-scrolling option.
- Click the right & left mouse buttons at the same time (this simulates a virtual middle, or third, mouse button.
- If you actually have a third mouse button, click that to turn on mouse-scrolling.
When you have mouse-scrolling activated, move your mouse just a tiny bit down. A down arrow will appear just below the compass rose and your mouse will begin automatically scroll down. Move your mouse above the circle with the arrows. An up arrow will appear and your mouse will begin to automatically scroll up. Moving the mouse to either side will scroll in that direction. The automatic scroll will continue until you position the cursor over the circle with the arrows again. And, the further you move the cursor away from the circle with the arrows, the faster you will automatically scroll. When you want to stop the automatic scrolling, just click anywhere.
Continue reading "Cool Mouse Tricks"
Posted January 19, 2008 Permalink
Apple Blows Off Huge Market
Apple Inc's Chief Operating Officer Timothy Cook told financial market analysts this past Monday (October 22, '07) that (a) they have sold about 1.4 million iPhones so far in the U.S. (yeow!) and (b) that of those 1.4 million iPhones, according to Apple's own estimate, as many as 250,000 may have been bought by users with the intention of unlocking them, or modifying the device to work on a network other than AT&T Inc.'s.
That is over 17%! Seventeen percent!
Consider this, Apple shareholders; if Apple itself is saying that over 17% of the buying market is actively willing to void their warranties, break their licenses, possibly break the law and, in every case, thumb their noses at the heretofore sacrosanct Great Apple then, really, what is the real size of this market?
Any basic market formulations will tell you that the market for unlocked phones &/or iPhones that work with other networks is at least as large as what you're tapping now and probably even larger. There are many nifty metaphors that fit here, but most apt is that you are leaving a huge pile of money on the table.
But instead of taking advantage of this windfall market and nurturing it with the products that it wants, Apple is threatening to wreck their phones!
Continue reading "Apple Blows Off Huge Market"
Posted October 24, 2007 Permalink
Vista 'Sleep' Changes Resolution - FIX!
Vista has a bug in it's fancy new video system. The folks at Microsoft may argue as to whether it really is a bug or not, but it is.
The symptom is this: when Vista wakes up from its low-power "sleep" mode the screen resolution may be reset to a lower resolution mode.
The Fix is below.
Many techie sites around the web have mentions of this problem but all that I've found incorrectly blame it on the computer hardware or the hardware drivers or on the Windows Vista OEM computer makers mods to Vista. These are all incorrect; it is a Vista problem.
The actual problem has nothing to do with sleep mode, per se. Rather, it has to do with programs temporarily requiring a different resolution from the Vista video system. This was never an issue with earlier editions of Windows, up thru XP, as Windows managed screen resolution differently and generally programs ran in the resolution that they are given. Period.
Continue reading "Vista 'Sleep' Changes Resolution - FIX!"
Posted September 26, 2007 Permalink
Apple Does Windows Better Than Microsoft
Anybody who's tried to hook a new "Vista" laptop into an existing local area network ("LAN") knows that Microsoft has lost it's way in making networking easy.
In LAN history Microsoft has gone from "no network" to grudging acceptance of the early Novell on through to its "cake or death" (thanks Eddie) embrace of the concept with NT and MS-LAN Manager. Happily it didn't take them long to understand the importance of the internet protocols and to, sort of, get in line with the rest of the world.
Continue reading "Apple Does Windows Better Than Microsoft"
Posted July 28, 2007 Permalink
BitDefender Update -- Way Too Slow
A quick update to the BitDefender story.
BitDefender is too slow. Way to slow. Ridiculously slow. Unusably slow.
It's become a routine to turn off BitDefender just to do simple file moves.
It doesn't remember anything that it's scanned outside of the current session, so the next time you start up your computer you're doomed to sitting through everything being scanned all over again. Slowly, slowly scanned.
I completely turned off the HTML scanning, but even so, it still scans everything. One site that I go to at least once a day, every day, to view text based reports in a Java framework is particularly nuts making. The only parts that change is the text data. Less than 30K -- usually way less. Even so, the pages are all held for each first display of the session so that BitDefender can rescan all of the java support. For EVERY page! This is nuts.
I'm quitting it today even though I have 18 months left on my subscription. It's just tooooo slooooow! (And I thought you all would like to know.)
Posted March 26, 2007 Permalink
VPN Loses IP-based LAN Printer
We ran into a problem recently on a client's LAN where they seemed to randomly lose the connection to their IP-based local printers. It turned out, of course, to not be so random after all but actually happened whenever the client started up a VPN connection to another corporate office.
The symptom was that when they printed something it would get sent to the printer queue but then the printer queue would time out and report that the printer was off line. The client reported that everything would print when they shut down their computer just before they left for the evening.
We searched the web for solutions and found that a lot of people had the problem -- "printer connection lost when VPN connected" -- but there didn't seem to be any publicly posted solutions. Finally, with faith that two heads really are better than one, I called super tech and friend Irve Towers at New Target, Inc. down in the D.C. area and sure enough he quickly came up with an understanding of the problem and, even better, the solution to it as well.
Continue reading "VPN Loses IP-based LAN Printer"
Posted January 19, 2007 Permalink
Downloads Going to Windows "Temp"
A couple of days ago Windows suddenly stopped asking me whether it should save or open download zip files. Instead it was just sticking them into the "temporary internet files" storage and then attempting to open them with Winzip.
This was frustrating on a few levels. One was that I couldn't control where the file was being stored until after it had been openned in Winzip. Another was that Winzip couldn't always open them from temp storage to start with -- for example, a .gz file couldn't be openned because Winzip couldn't figure out where to put the temp directory it needed to make. Once it got opened I couldn't do a "save as" without some goosing around issues of the "file already being opened by".... and so on.
Apparently I or some "helpful" website had changed the settings for all Winzip file types so that I was no longer asked before the file was given to Winzip to open.
The fix is this:
- Open a Windows Explorer window and to to the "folder options" on the Tools menu.
- Select the "File Typles" tab and
- scroll down to any "Winzip" file type.
- Click the "Advance" options button.
- Check the "Confirm Open after download" checkbox.
- "OK" all the way out.
That should fix the problem for all your Winzip file types and you will once again be asked what to do with your files before they are downloaded. (*whew*)
Posted January 15, 2007 Permalink
Super Helpful How-to's & Utility Sites
I'm always grateful when I'm looking for the answer to a technical problem and I find the answer in a "how-to" published by some kind person. How-to's are all over the Internet. Thank goodness. And thank the kind authors.
The same goes for all of the swell utilities that folks put out on the 'net for anyone to use. Many are free and many are priced way below "reasonable" (and double or triple below "what the market will bear".) From the simplest batch files to boot disks to CMOS directories, burners and fixers; the generosity of the kind people who made these things is quite wonderful.
I think that I'll start a list here of handy how-to and utility sources. Not sure how far it'll go. If you know of some that I should add, please send me a note. Hmmm... this would be an excellent use of a wiki, wouldn't it.
How-to sources:
Rimu Hosting has a swell how-to list at http://rimuhosting.com/support/howtolist.jsp
Utility sources:
Bootdisk.com has emergency bootdisk images for every imaginable OS. Only a donation requested otherwise free. http://www.bootdisk.com/
Linux "distros":
Ubuntu is one of, if not the, coolest human-oriented distros on the planet. Meant to be installable and workable for non-geek humans and it gets very, very close. (You can see the misses if you search the Ubuntu wiki, but otherwise the Ubuntu folks really close in on their goal.) Find it here, free and easy: www.Ubuntu.com/welcome
FYI:
"Distro" is geek jargon replacing the dry expression "distribution package". To speak of a distro for Linux is to speak of a package of software that includes some particular version of the Linux kernel with a particularly chosen and assembled set of the necessary extras to really make the given distro a useful operating system.
Each distro has a reason for existing that sets it apart from the others. Sometimes the differences are subtle but they can be quite significant. Don't give yourself a headache looking at all the distros but do make sure that you're getting one that does what you expect Linux to do.
Posted December 11, 2006 Permalink
BitDefender Antivirus - Slimmed but slow
As promised; I switched out the overly complex and demanding "BitDefender Plus v10" for just plain "BitDefender Antivirus v10". It seems a lot different.
I have a feeling that the folks at BitDefender would argue with me on that point, so I'll emphasize "seems" and give a little explanation.
First differences: faster installation and way less things to configure before it gets settled in and started. The firewall is not present in this version, and the antispam is missing. Happy to see the antispam out of the way, but do make sure that your Windows or other firewall is turned on.
Still here: antispyware is included and integrated but still essentially operates separately -- as it should. The anti-rootkit scanner at first appears to be missing, but is actually down in antivirus scan settings. It's not immediately clear if the rootkit scanner runs with the deep system scan or not. More on this below.
A couple of updates were required to bring the program up to date, but this process was way less intrusive than the Norton AV update. Particularly in that BitDefender allows you to opt out of immediately rebooting your computer. (Wake up Norton. It's not nice for force a reboot.)
Continue reading "BitDefender Antivirus - Slimmed but slow"
Posted October 24, 2006 Permalink
Update Your Computer … Please!
Is your computer running kind of "slow-ish" these days?
Is your web browser taking you to places you don't ask for? Sometimes just opening all on it's own?
Do uninvited messages or videos just appear on your computer screen – whether you’re cruising the web or not?
Symptoms like these and others that you might describe as "it just isn't working right" could indicate that your computer has been infested with "malware" and you need to remove it. Soon.
“Malware” is the general name for the endless line of viruses, worms, "trojan horses" and other programs that try to get into your computer. Just in the last 4 to 8 weeks, a new onslaught has been coming. Computer owners who apply a little protection can avoid having their computers infested by these interlopers.
Whether you’ve seen the symptoms or not, you need to protect your computer. It’s easy to do, doesn’t take long, and is very important. Putting it off can risk having your computer down for hours or days or even having it permanently damaged.
Continue reading "Update Your Computer … Please!"
Posted October 23, 2006 Permalink
BitDefender Plus -- OK, but...
Trying out the BitDefender Plus v10 computer security suite. About two weeks into the 30 day trial and about to pull the plug. Like some features, particularly in the antivirus component, so will probably try the antivirus-only version after this just to see if the shortcomings are different or removed in that version and if the positive features -- are those "longcomings"? -- are still present.
What's to like or not like about BitDefender Plus? On the positive side, it isn't ugly. At least not totally.
On the positive side also, it has a really nice coordinated Windows management console with one of the easiest to understand and use "startup" listings to be found. That startup console by itself is almost enough reason to keep the program. Except:...
On the negative side:
Here's a sample: one scan through my computer found to "magnet" items in the registry. "Magne2t" and "magne3t".
The log report for the scan says where in the registry the listing was found, that the registry entry was deleted and that the system was "updated". OK. What is it and why did you remove it. No clue. The initial log entry links to the BitDefender online "Virus Encyclopedia", but doesn't go to the listing for "Magnet". Clicking "M" in the encyclopedia goes to a list of things with "M", but they don't seem to be in alphabetical order. And, finally, going through 3 pages of "m's" finds no entry for "magnet", "magne2t" or any variations. Further; searching the entire BitDefender site comes up with "no entries found to match...".
Continue reading "BitDefender Plus -- OK, but..."
Posted October 12, 2006 Permalink
Norton & McAfee Are In Danger
The Norton and McAfee antivirus programs already control -- cal it "own" -- most of their market for antivirus prophylactic software. They've both been in the antivirus business for a long time and in McAfee's case from even before it was an actual business. This should give them both the maturity and confidence to move forward and lead the technology.
Unfortunately they behave more like competing sub-teen siblings; spending more time on "look at me, look at me" gestures and over-applying the cosmetics then on really focusing on being a competent and dependable tool.
The result, for both of them is that their antivirus programs seem to have become less reliable for the task at hand and much more of an irritating drain on user and machine performance. They are bulky and hyper-active and annoying to the point of distraction and this is all opening the door for competitors. Heads up Norton. Wake up McAfee.
Posted October 10, 2006 Permalink
AVG Antivirus - Low Price, Medium Performance
I need a new antivirus program. I've been using Norton 2003 for years and the 2001 version before that. Symantec has officially dropped the "2003" NAV engine from support, and I've installed and subsequently "dealt with" enough of the follow on versions ('04, '05, '06 and '07) for other people that, if I can avoid it, I'd just rather not let them around my computer. Norton AV has become a hog of computer power. I'm guessing that NAV programmers and testers all have high-powered state of the art computers and, thus, little view of the real-world personal computing environment.
Norton: too demanding and degrading to computer performance. McAfee has become a lot worse than Norton. Need a new antivirus program. After years of being loyal to these two, I'm forced by them to give up and try out the other AV players.
Downloaded "AVG Antivirus" for a 30-day trial of their paid version. I didn't take the free version because word-ol-mouth already told me that it "wasn't as good" (that is, as reliable at finding malware) as the paid version. Of course "free" is a great price and not to be ignored on hearsay alone, but if the paid version of AVG works OK then it must be noted that the price for it is not just fair but it is a lot better than the other players in the market.
Based on what it says at the AVG website, the functional differences between the free version and the single-system paid version are minimal, but enough to make me decide to go for the paid one -- if it works out during the 30 day test.
Continue reading "AVG Antivirus - Low Price, Medium Performance"
Posted October 4, 2006 Permalink
Software Comparison Sites
There are some amazingly generous and helpful software comparison sites on the web that don't get thanked enough for the service that they provide to the web community. These are the open and free "grid comparison" sites. (Coining "grid sites" here and now).
Three that we've used more than once are: "OpenSourceCMS", "ForumMatrix" and "WikiMatrix". I'll say thanks here, in my way, with this quick mention and links to these three. If you have others that you like, please write to me and let me know. Maybe we'll do a comparison of grid sites. (pepper@w3pg.com)
What these sites do is build a database of comparable features for a type of web software. The three mentioned respectively compare the engines for content management systems ("CMS"), web forums (also called "BBS" or "bulletin boards") and wiki engines.
Continue reading "Software Comparison Sites"
Posted September 25, 2006 Permalink
Laptops Get Noisy Around TVs
If you've been trying out one of the video download services and/or using the DVD player in your laptop to play DVDs on your TV, you may have noticed your laptop making little announcements from time to time, complete with whoosing and dinging sound effects. Once or twice is cute, but three times or more is no fun.
What is happening is that your laptop's infrared ("IR") system is detecting the infrared signals from your TV remote or, sometimes, from your TV itself. This can happen with any laptop, Windows or Mac, that has it's infrared service turned on and it's supporting software set to alert you when it discovers another IR device nearby.
You can try to turn off the alerts but, unless you postively know that you have a need for IR support, it's probably better to just turn off the IR system in your laptop altogether. Doing that gets rid of the noise and it eliminates an unneeded drain on your battery.
Continue reading "Laptops Get Noisy Around TVs"
Posted September 21, 2006 Permalink
phpMyAdmin mystery error
There is an arcane error message in the otherwise most excellent "phpMyAdmin" MySQL management web application. It looks like this: "The additional features for working with linked tables have been deactivated. To find out why click here." The link goes to a list of phpMyAdmin configuration settings and one of them will be clearly highlighted as the source of the problem.
These are swell clues, but there's nothing that actually says what you should do about it. Here's the answer for this particular error message.
The highlighted item is the name of the table that phpMyAdmin is looking for in it's own database.
The problem is that this table either doesn't exist or, more likely, has a different name.
If the name is different from the table in the database, just change the name that is entered in your config.inc.php file to match the actual name in the database.
If the database doesn't exist then check the phpMyAdmin docs for how to use the setup script to create it. If the database is there, but the table isn't, use phpMyAdmin to create it.
Posted September 13, 2006 Permalink
David Pogue is a Charlatan
There. I've said it. David Pogue of the New York Times is a charlatan. A pretender to knowledge that he does not possess.
David Pogue has the position of personal technology columnist for the New York Times and also contributes his technology expertise to CBS News. That he has a large vocabulary and is able to effectively rub two words together there is no argument. The man can write. That he edits a wonderfully helpful and readable series of "Missing Manuals" and books of technical "Annoyances" I not only do not deny but I praise, use and recommend them. The man can edit a tech book like nobody else.
There's no doubt that he is a fan of techie gizmos. He certainly is able to discern good from bad and speak to their attractiveness, fun and/or their utility and usability. And most of the stuff that he writes from the viewpoint of techie-gizmo-fan is, if not spot on, then at the very least it worth reading and considering for the real-user point of view.
But when he goes off as an "expert" he really goes off. Off the track. Off the planet. Out of touch with facts. Unresearched. Goofy. Wrong.
Continue reading "David Pogue is a Charlatan"
Posted August 11, 2006 Permalink
Interland ISP Going Lame
We've been working with a client who, via some previous "web designer", had been signed up for hosting with some little rinky-dink hosting ISP with a typical mish-mash of features and services and a throw-back home grown management interface. When we came on the account to rebuild the site in MT the client had just re-signed with the ISP on an annual contract.
It turns out that they were actually re-signing with Interland. Cool. Or so you'd think. The assumption -- or the hope -- would be that Interland takes the list of customers and then convert them over to their big professionally run system. Especially so with this rickety old thing that the client was on.
Not so. Not even close. In fact what seems to happen is that Interland sends out the bill and enters the customer name in their billing database along with an indicator of what old ISP system they are on, and that's it.
So when the customer logs on to the Interland admin interface and tries to do something with their account, they can't get past the billing stuff and a crazy-making how-to demo that won't go away no matter how many times you click the "stop showing me this" box.
A lot of rummaging around on the Interland site will never uncover what you need to do to deal with your account. The assumption they make is that you know who your (client's) previous ISP and where the old management interface for that system is (we didn't and neither did the client). A lot more rummaging around will uncover a phone number and then a lot of waiting gets you a reponse that says (a) your old admin interface is 'here' (a URL is provided) and (b) go away and don't bother us because you're not really an Interland customer. (Implied, "we just bought your account and contract and now collect the money, but otherwise you're on your own.)
How strange. Interland has grown based on reasonable quality if not actually high-quality service, and now their growth is fueled by acquisition of the customer lists of smaller firms. Unfortunately Interland doesn't seem to understand that they also acquire some responsibility to those customers. If they keep being so off-hand with their customers, these acquisitions will start to fuel their decline.
Interland used to a fast horse in the hosting ISP race, but -- right now at least -- Interland is pulling up lame.
Posted June 4, 2006 Permalink
Great Free Antispyware
Microsoft "Defender" Antispyware
Get Microsoft "Defender". It's free. It works. What's not to like. Get it.
This is "pro" level software. In other words, this is the level that you'd have to pay to get from Ad-Aware, Spybot and Webroot. These companies all have good products and worth the price, but their free "intro" versions don't match the features in either their own for-pay "pro" versions or those in the free "Defender". It's almost like an offer you can't refuse.
There's certainly no point in turning it down.
You can download "Defender" at www.Microsoft.com. Defender used to be called "Microsoft Antispyware". They bought from another company awhile back and have been beefing it up and making it more "microsoftish". It's very easy to install and use. Most of the options have been simplified -- to the point where some computer techs may want some put back in -- so that installation and setup is a snap. Defender doesn't get every malware threat and it is NOT a replacement for antivirus programs, but it excellent at the worst of the spyware / adware nuisances.
It will protect your browser settings and it will watch for malware plugin activity. When you add this to the antispyware protections that are now included in Norton and McAffee antivirus programs, you'll be safe from most of the malevolent stuff going around the 'net.
It's bad luck for Ad-Aware and Spybot that Microsoft has decided to step onto their field. But good luck for consumers -- so go for it.
Posted May 8, 2006 Permalink
419 Fraud in Postal Mail
If you've been around email at all over the last 10 years or so then you'd recognize the infamous "419" or "advance transfer" fraud. Sometimes also called the "Nigerian 419" or "Nigerian Prince" scam; this is the one where somebody in a far off country needs your help to recapture and secure the illegally frozen assets of a deposed African royalty. It doesn't have to be African, of course -- it's just that that's where the bulk of these fraudulent pleas have been coming from.
It seems that not only are they not limited to Africa as a geographic point of origin, but now they are also no longer limited to email as the transport media of choice.
My retired parents received a hardcopy letter via the U.S. mail a couple of weeks ago that purported to be from a financial services professional in the Netherlands. It came as regular postal mail, complete with Nederland stamp and postmark and it almost had them fooled. They've never heard about "419" scams and such, but fortunately they've heard of some of the other tricks that are played in the mails and so didn't fall for it.
Continue reading "419 Fraud in Postal Mail"
Posted May 7, 2006 Permalink
Super Useful DNS Tools
I was putting up a domain for a local charity (www.PawlingLibrary.org) the other night and, as sometimes happens, didn't quite get all of the details correct in our name server configuration.
As also sometimes happens in these situations, things look fine from "inside" our server and the problem only occured "outside" on the 'net. To borrow from the Bard; therein lies a major rub.
To check name server issues outside on the internet you generally have to wait for your name data to propogate around the 'net. This can be a long, long time.
Thank fully some folks who are both smart and very nice have put some tools out on the 'net to help with just these situations. And some other folks have generously gathered a few together in one place.
The simplest but sweetest of the sweet DNS tools on the web is at DNSreport.com. Barebones to the marrow, but directly to the point of checking your current DNS records as seen from out on the 'net. No waiting for propogation out and around the 'net. Just go-now-and-check the authoritative server for the domain you're checking and report back what you see.
It has two fields. One checks thecurrent DNS authoritative record based on a domain name that you give it. The other field is for checking the MX record for either a domain name or for a complete internet email address. Saahweeet.
The super handy and very thoughtful collection of DNS tools on the web is at DNSstuff.com. However you need to lookup a domain or an IP address, the tool you need is listed and linked to at "DNS Stuff".
They have them assembled by "Domain Name Tests", IP address tests and "Hostname tests". It includes links to spam database checks, remote pings, traceroutes, DNS timing checks and, of course, the aforementioned "DNSreport.com." DNSstuff is a wonderfully helpful site and highly recommended by yours truly.
This'll work, for sure.
Posted April 19, 2006 Permalink
Windows Mystery "Activator"
We were poking around in Windows Task Manager today on what turned out to be an unrelated matter, but while there found a strange bird called "ACTIVATOR.EXE".
Didn't care for that name; it seems a little over the top, so searched Google. Not much luck there. Searching for "activator.exe is" narrowed it, but the references where for something else. One was for a component to a legitimate graphics program that I don't have and the other was for a worm or virus spelled differently: with a zero instead of an "O".
While that was going on I was running a search to try to find it on my system. Did find it and did find out that it was legitimate. In this case, "ACTIVATOR.EXE" is the little tray application for managing terminal sessions run by "SecureCRT". (A terminal emulation program that I appreciate very much.)
So I'm sticking this entry out for Google to find and hopefully be of help for the next person wondering about the mysterious stranger in the Task Manager list of running services.
I'm sure there must be other versions of Activator.exe. Send a comment here to add it to the list.
And to SecureCRT and all other publishers of mystery programs; as good as you are, please add a little something to your module names to identify yourself as the author/owner of the stuff you cause to run in my computer. You know like, "SCRTActivator.exe" or something like that. What ever you pick, please be consistent. Thanks.
Posted January 25, 2006 Permalink
