Computer Geek

Internet Explorer 7 review

2006-06-01T16:55:00.000-04:00

Recently tried out the latest beta of Internet Explorer 7 and here are some of my thoughts on it.

First of, it's ugly. I thought IE6 was ugly but IE7 takes the cake. The screen you see when you start is one of these run-once screens, which in this case, asks you about local settings, probably for using MSN - I don't.

IE7 is a long overdue upgrade which has some new features that other browsers have had for sometime. Tabbed browsing is probably the most important one. Instead of opening each website in a separate window, the websites are contained within the single browser window. Tabs near the top of the browser let you switch between websites. Once you've used tabbed browsing, you'll never want to go back. To open a link in a new tab (thus keeping your existing website available), click the middle mouse button or scroll-wheel. See below for a crop of the tabs.

One thing they've done with tabbed browsing that I'd like to see other browsers implement, particularly Firefox, is a preview ability. Have a lot of tabs and don't want to have to click through them one by one to remember what's in them? Click the Quick Tabs button to the left of the tabs themselves. See the screenshot on the left.

Also added is some new security features, the most obvious of which is a phishing website check. Phishing is when scammers try to trick you into giving them your login information for other websites by pretending to be them. For example, you may an email that looks like it's from your bank asking you to login and confirm your information or your account will be frozen. If you click on their link and do so, you'll actually be visiting their website though it may appear legitimate. When you "login" there, you'll actually be giving them your login information which they'll use later to empty your bank account. This phishing check compares the websites you visit against an updated list of phishing websites. I'm not sure how effective this measure will be since phising websites are often taken down within 24 hours after authorities know of them. If Microsoft knows of it, chances are the site is no longer available anyway. It's not a bad idea, though.

Two other notable features are RSS Feeds & zooming. If you're a blogging or news junkie, chances are you already know about RSS. For the rest of you, RSS (Really Simple Syndication) is a protocol used to deliver text snippets or headlines from regularly updated websites (called a feed). This way, you can look at the feed to decide if the article is worth visiting the website to read entirely. Firefox and other browsers have also had this feature for a while but it's great to see available in IE, too. I'd like to see Live Bookmarks added to IE as well.

Zooming is a cool feature that I'd like to see Firefox adopt. Opera is the only other web browser I know to use it but it can be very handy. Rather than just sizing up the font, which every browser does, zooming actually is just like with other application. The page layout is retained but it's just blown up in size. Click on the magnifying glass in the lower-right corner once and the zoom level changes to 125%. Click it again and you're up to 150%. You can also click the arrow to the right of it and choose your level from 50 to 400%. Zooming is particularly useful on websites with small graphics that you need a better look at.

IE has finally added a search engine to the browser toolbar. Of course, the default is MSN, but you can add other engines, including Google. Glad to see this feature which has been in both Opera and Firefox for some time.

If you're using IE 6, IE 7 is definitely a better browser. The security enhancements alone are worth the upgrade. Even though it's in beta, it's very stable and Microsoft seems to be pushing it for everyone. If you're using an alternative web browser such as Firefox or Opera, there's not much here you haven't seen already. And Firefox is a lot more expandable with its extensions and has always been more secure. And Firefox is definitely more attractive!

IE 7 will be the version used in the upcoming Vista release of Windows.

Fee-based e-mail plan raises eyebrows

2006-02-09T15:06:00.000-05:00

Despite its critics, this is actually a good idea. Of course, one vice president doesn't think so:

Tom Gillis, senior vice president of worldwide marketing at IronPort Systems Inc., a provider of e-mail security products to large corporations and ISPs (Internet service providers), voices common concerns.

Charging mass mailers a fee is ineffective, because spammers are awash in cash, Gillis contends.

Bzzzzz. Wrong. Spammers are awash in cash because there is no fee for email. They can send millions or tens of millions of email which cost them little to no more than a thousand emails would.

Look at it this way. Say a spammer sells a "product" for $25, and their profit is $20 (not at all unusual for spammers). Their response rate is 1 in 1000 which is quite average. Sending out one thousand spam messages would earn them only $20 (1000 x 0.001 x $20), hardly worth the trouble.

Sending out one million such messages would get them $20,000 (1,000,000 x 0.001 x $20)! What's the best way to stop spam? Figure out a technological system for charging per email for all senders. For home emailers, you could set a threshold of 1,000 messages before they had to pay any fee.

If that same spammer has to pay $0.01 per message then his profit for one million messages drops to $10,000 or half of before. That's assuming a response rate of 1 in 1,000 which is actually probably overly optimistic. If the response rate is half that, he only makes $5,000. Spam becomes much less profitable.

Sure, legitimate companies will have to pay a cost they didn't have to before but spam will rapidly disappear as it becomes unattractive (especially considering the additional risks of jail time and fines for spamming). And because most spam would disappear, companies wouldn't have to spend time and money on blocking spam. They'd also be more likely to get their messages read and not sent to an ISP spambox.

Still, the system will require support from ISPs to implement and large companies to be willing to pay for something that was entirely free before in anticipate of future savings. Is that too much to hope for?

Massachusetts Makes Smart Move Official

2005-11-06T03:29:00.000-05:00

This article illustrates why it's better for government to use Open Source Software and open standards such as OpenOffice.org which uses the OpenDocument (OASIS) word processor format. This opinion article sums it up right at the beginning:

Switch to OpenDocument format will make state documents more accessible to the public because anyone can have the software to read the format.

Shouldn't that of itself be enough? Anybody can download the OpenOffice.org suite for free and because it's an open format, it'll be easy later to change software. That's better than having your data held captive. I particularly like this part of the article:

And let say it one more time: OpenDocument is an "open" format. Anyone, including Microsoft, can write to it.

Of course, Microsoft doesn't want to. The Redmond, Wash., giant makes its billions from locking users into its way of doing things. OpenDocument frees users. If everyone started using OpenOffice for their office documents they could decide, for instance, that StarOffice 8 for, say, $50 is a better deal than Microsoft Office at $500.

Using Gmail to...

2005-11-06T01:19:00.000-05:00

ExtremeTech has this article on October 13, 2005 on how to use Gmail in other interesting ways including to-do lists, searching rss feeds such as news and torrent updates. making notes, as a spam filter for other email accounts, and as an online photo gallery!

Gmail's spam filtering is so great I use it myself for filtering my regular ISP email. First, I set my ISP to forward all email to my gmail account. Then I turn on Gmail pop access so I can access my email in my regular email program. All my ISP email is filtered through Google's spam filters before I see it. I also have the bonus of Google keeping an archive of all my email and I can check it online when I'm not at home.

Fog Creek Copilot

2005-10-26T18:07:00.000-04:00

This is a neat service. Like GotoMyPC, Copilot lets you control a computer remotely. This can be really handy for computer technicians helping long-distance clients. GoToMYPC requires software to be installed and configured and a firewall to be opened up, something that may be too complicated to walk the client through. Copilot requires only a 30-second install and is already pre-configured once executed. It's a bit expensive at $9.95 USD for a day (GoToMyPC is only $19.95 for one month). However, they do accept Paypal as well as credit card and the cost can be passed onto the client. It also requires only Windows 98 to use.

Geominder

2005-10-02T13:53:00.000-04:00

Geominder allows you to create location-based reminders that stay attached to physical locations.

A location-based reminder can be much more convenient than standard time-based reminders - for example in situations such as:

* "When I arrive at the office, remind me to review next week's schedule"
* "When I pass supermarket, remind me to buy vegetables"
* "At home remind me to call Dave"

I don't even have a cellphone but this caught my eye. Well, I do but I don't have service anymore. Heck, I might even get one for something like this. I'm constantly forgetting to pick up things when I'm at the mall or the store.

Amazing. A program that is actually useful on a cellphone instead of all the MP3-playing, text messaging and MSN-using crap. Only looks like it's for Nokia models but at least you don't need GPS on the phone.

Television shows scramble forensic evidence

2005-09-23T03:27:00.000-04:00

Yeah, I admit I like the CSI shows particularly the original. It seems that shows like CSI are so well-known that jurors in crime investigations believe that Forensics experts can do no wrong:

"Jurors who watch CSI believe that those scenarios, where forensic scientists are always right, are what really happens," says Peter Bull, a forensic sedimentologist at the University of Oxford. It means that in court, juries are not impressed with evidence presented in cautious scientific terms.

And criminals use the shows to try to mask potential evidence of their crimes though in many cases, they're not very successful:

Rutty tested just how easy contamination is by asking a volunteer to walk around a sterile room and repeat a phrase. Rutty was able to retrieve the subject's DNA even though the man had been in the room for only a few seconds. Contamination occurred even if the subject was wearing a face mask of the kind used by crime scene investigators.

What will you do with your extra second?

2005-09-08T00:18:00.000-04:00

This article explains a number of concepts related to Unix time, UTC and TAI and is an interesting read.

A day works out to 86,400 seconds, but not exactly. Operating systems based on Unix (like Linux) use a counter to keep track of the exact time (which includes the day).

The time is presented to the user by dividing this counter by 86,400 and adding the days from January 1, 1970 (12:01 midnight) to give the present date; the remainder is used to give the time. This would be perfect except that the Earth is ever-slowing its rotation which means that every few years a leap second is added.

The problem this presents for UNIX time is that the addition of leap seconds occurs at irregular, somewhat arbitrary intervals, as the slowing of the Earth's rotation is not predictable over the long term. As such, programmers must manually factor leap seconds into programmatic date calculations for systems based on UNIX time, which is a complicated task. Different programmers and development standards handle the task in different ways, which can occasionally lead to minor problems when time-sensitive software communicates over extended periods.

And by the way, a leap second is added soon this year. So plan accordingly:

The next planned addition of a leap second is Dec. 31, 2005. On that date, 11:59 P.M. UTC will be 61 seconds long, and the clock will actually sequence from 23:59:59 to 23:59:60, rather than from 23:59:59 to 00:00:00.

Don't forget to reset your clocks!

A Brilliant New Memory Card

2005-08-11T17:23:00.000-04:00

I don't even have a camera yet I want one of these. Why? SD cards are smaller and lighter than USB sticks and this one is hinged. The link is to the NYtimes so registration may be required.

Update: As one commenter noted, you can also use BugMeNot instead of registering. I blogged about BugMeNot previously here.

Malwhere installs spyware

2005-08-05T00:34:00.000-04:00

Happened to visit the website of a free product that purports to scan your system for malware, spyware, etc. The website looks great, and there are many free products out there that are very useful to have. However, this one is actually what it claims to stop - spyware!

I discovered this through Microsoft's own AntiSpyware Beta program. As soon as Malwhere was installed I saw this warning on the right. Did a Google search and several forums are aware that this program bundles other known spyware programs with it. Don't be fooled into installing this program.

Hotmail can't verify itself

2005-07-24T00:47:00.000-04:00

OK, I know it's like shooting fish in a barrel, but it's time to poke fun at Microsoft once again. The Sender ID framework developed by Microsoft and other industry partners is...

... an e-mail authentication technology protocol that helps address the problem of spoofing and phishing by verifying the domain name from which e-mail is sent. Sender ID validates the origin of e-mail by verifying the IP address of the sender against the purported owner of the sending domain.

In principle, it's a great idea and Microsoft has already started using it with Hotmail which is owned by them. But as my cropped screenshot below shows, they need to work a little bit more on the implementation (click graphic for larger version):

It looks like they forget to register their own servers with Sender ID. Oops.

Firefox: Locating Erring Extensions

2005-07-23T13:38:00.000-04:00

Firefox is another web browser that's growing in popularity as an alternative to security-problem ridden Internet Explorer. It's a lightweight browser that is fast, has tabs and support for adding extensions and search engines.

Tabs allow you to view more than one website in the same browser window. You won't realize just how great this is how until you try it.

Firefox comes with very few features though they're enough for many people. This is by design. You can easily add new features to Firefox by installing new extensions. For example, Spellbound is a popular spell-checker for when you're filling out forms or blogging. There are also extensions for saving posts, tagging, saving your browser session (so you can start back where you left off), checking gmail, the local weather and more.

Sometimes things can go wrong though. Some extensions are poorly written or conflict with others. And that's where the topic link comes in. It's a short article on how to figure out which extension is causing the problem. I wish it had more but it's a good start for beginners.

Protecting your online privacy

2005-07-15T07:17:00.000-04:00

Did you know that websites can track you via a unique identifier called your IP address? If you have an always-on broadband connection (cable or DSL), your computer will keep this same IP address for weeks or even months at a time. Add to that many websites require you to login linking that IP address with personal information and privacy becomes an issue.

There's an organization concerned about protecting the rights of computer users in this digital age - the Electronic Frontier Foundation. They've created a tool that allows you to browse the web anonymously for free. It's called Tor. The TOR website says:

Your traffic is safer when you use Tor, because communications are bounced around a distributed network of servers, called onion routers. Instead of taking a direct route from source to destination, data packets on the Tor network take a random pathway through several servers that cover your tracks so no observer at any single point can tell where the data came from or where it's going. This makes it hard for recipients, observers, and even the onion routers themselves to figure out who and where you are. Tor's technology aims to provide Internet users with protection against "traffic analysis," a form of network surveillance that threatens personal anonymity and privacy, confidential business activities and relationships, and state security.

You can install it for Windows by visiting this page and following the instructions there. Lots of screenshots to take you through installing and configuring it. If you're using MacOS X or Linux, see this. Note that in either case, you'll be shown how to install Privoxy which works with Tor. Don't worry. It's easier than it sounds.

So far I've just used it with Windows and it works great!

Old computers find their cool

2005-07-11T23:01:00.000-04:00

From the Weekend Standard, "China's Business Newspaper":

These days people are holding on to their old desktops and laptops - for nostalgia's sake, for the kitsch value - turning yesteryear's outmoded computers into today's historical artifacts and giving them a growing value in the ever-so-hungry collectibles market.

Maybe that old TI-99/4A or TRS-80 Color Computer I have in my closet might be worth something. Then again...

Speaking of old computers, the Computer History Museum is a good place to look at them.

Video without the nonsense

2005-07-04T03:40:00.000-04:00

Sometimes I really pine for the days when programmers spent more time streamlining programs and fixing bugs and less time making eye candy. My wife found a video player like that. It's called Twins Video Player.

Twins loads fast and plays a variety of video formats including Real. It's great for older machines or those that just want to spend their CPU cycles more wisely. Did I mention it's free? Click on the topic title get grab it.

BugMeNot

2005-06-26T09:51:00.000-04:00

If you hate having to register at a news site just to read one article, check out this website. Just enter the address and it gives you one of several login and password combinations. I've used it a bit and it seems to work with most sites.

Firefox users might want to get the BugMeNot extension to make it even easier to use. Then you just have to right-click at a login in box at a website requiring login and choose BugMeNot to generate a login and password, which are both then pasted into the boxes.

Slamming spam the Industry Canada way

2005-06-26T05:14:00.000-04:00

ComputerWorld Canada is a weekly newspaper that I receive. This article was interesting. Evidently, Industry Canada was using a free tool (not mentioned which) to block spam and it was only succeeding in catching 21 per cent of the spam. Now they're using a tool which is a modification of the Bell Brightmail solution (they use it for blocking spam to their customers) and it blocks more than 90 per cent of all spam, boosting productivity.

What I find amazing is that Industry Canada was using a spam tool that only caught 21% of the spam! It must've been written in the early 1990s. Eek. Heck, using the mail client in Mozilla would've gotten them over 85% spam blocking with only a couple of weeks of training. I'm sure that Thunderbird would be just as good. At the server end, they could've used Spam Assassin.

OpenOffice.org Writer vs. Microsoft Word

2005-06-24T06:23:00.000-04:00

Here's a thorough review of OpenOffice.org Version 2 Writer as compared to Word 2003. The author writes:

Both are adequate for most users' purposes, so I focused on functions that power users are likely to want:

Styles
Templates
Outlining
Bulleted and numbered lists
Tables
Headers and footers
Indexes and tables of content
Cross-references
Conditional text
Master documents
Drawing tools
Unique features

OS Security: Linux vs. Windows

2005-06-19T01:52:00.000-04:00

Much has been said about the security of Linux vs. Windows. Some columnists have noted that Linux tends to have had more patches released for it in the last year than XP. I won't argue that point. But I will argue that you can judge security based simply based on the cumulative number of patches.

First, you're basing apples with oranges. The typical Linux distribution (Red Hat, Fedora, SUSE, Mandrake, etc.) contains a lot more software than does Windows. To be fair, you'd have to compare Windows XP with all the programs you get in typical Linux distro such as a CD burning program, office software, SSH server, web server, ftp server, anti-spam software, photo editor, etc.

Secondly, you need to compare the severity of Windows vulnerabilities with those of Linux. Not all vunerabilities can be treated the same - they're not. A typical Windows vulnerability tends to be much more serious than a Linux one. Don't believe me? Take a look at the recent list of patches (see the link). Here's a quick analysis:

Of the ten recent vulnerabilities, three are rated as Serious and are capable of "remote code execution". If you're running with administrator privileges (and by default, every Windows XP user is), that gives a remote attacker the ability to take over your system. Four other vulnerabilities are rated only as Important. However, they also allow for remote code execution. The last three are rated as Moderate. So of the 10 recent patches, 2/3 of them could allow an attacker to take over your system.

Several vendors have issued a common statement pointing out this very flaw in the Forester study Is Linux more secure than Windows?

Linux has vulnerabilities that are found that can execute remote code, but only with the privileges of that application with that vulnerability. Unless you're using Linspire, you don't run Linux with root privileges. So anything you execute doesn't have the authority to corrupt or infect the OS or run other processes it doesn't normally have access to (like running code to change other code).

Spam Kings: Book Review

2005-06-19T00:42:00.000-04:00

Spam Kings by Brian McWilliams and published by O'Reilly calls itself "The Real Story behind the High-Rolling Hucksters pushing porn, pills and @*#?% Enlargements".

Written like a high-tech cat-mouse game, Spam Kings tells a riveting story of many of the biggest online peddlers of spam and the the computer activists trying to stop them. The personalities themselves and their motivations make for fascinating reading.

Some of the most interesting sections detail the rise of a neo-nazi who became a millionaire selling penis enlargement pills and a computer newbie who joined and anti-spam activist community to track down and punish spammers like him. As spammers and activists taunt each other over email, the newsgroups and instant messaging, the spam industry grows, threats and counter-threats boil over and history is made.

Along with these two major players, you'll read about others who peddled pills as cures for cancer, stock scams, diet pills and pirated software. Surprisingly, not even all the spammers are in it for the money as one man searches for videos of men tickling themselves!

The books is also revealing in that the line between spammers and anti-spammers isn't always clear as some cross over.

Though it's a large read, at 333 pages in hardcover, Spam Kings was difficult to put down. I highly recommend it.