http://www.ComputerBob.com/journal_archive/2005/08.php .
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Diamond, formerly the hardest substance known to man, is not as hard as a new substance, created by physicists in Germany. From now on, "Aggregated diamond nanorods are a girl's best friend."
Yesterday afternoon, I was honored to be asked to give a 3-5 minute talk about domestic violence at an annual fundraising
lunch for a local women's shelter on October 7. I've spoken in front of groups many times, but this will be the first time
I'll talk about domestic violence. It won't be hard at all to think of something to say. The hard part will be thinking of
something that can be said in only 3-5 minutes. If you think you might be a victim of domestic violence, or if you know someone
who might be, please visit this site's Abuse Info section. It contains lots of valuable information and
support for victims, and for people who care about them.
From The Associated Press: Federal officials said Monday that people wanting to help victims of Hurricane Katrina should not travel to the affected areas unless directed to by an agency. Instead, Michael Brown, head of the Federal Emergency Management Agency, urged people to contribute money to organizations. FEMA listed the following agencies as needing monetary donations to assist hurricane victims:
Am I crazy? Stupid? Naive? Or fair and balanced? You decide. About 1:00 this morning, I read some posts in the
AVG Free support forums,
and learned that many other AVG Free antivirus users downloaded the same corrupt AVG update file that I downloaded the other
night, but
Grisoft has since made sure that the latest updates are OK. So, even though I knew I was taking a big risk, I decided to give
AVG Free one more chance. I reinstalled it on my Windows 98 SE computer, downloaded and installed its latest update again, and
crossed my fingers. Since then, I've completely shut down and powered on my PC several times without seeing any problems. So, it
looks like my love/hate
relationship with AVG Free will continue for the time being, but I will no longer try to stay "on the cutting edge" of AVG
updates. From now on, I'll wait a couple of days before I download and install them, to give Grisoft time to hear about and then
fix any unforeseen problems that they might cause.
If what I've read in the phpBB support forums is true, then I expect the phpBB team to release a security update very soon, to fix a newly discovered cross site scripting (XSS) vulnerability that may affect all phpBB and vBulletin forums. If your site uses phpBB forums, go to the main phpBB Support page and join their mailing list, so you'll be notified every time they release an update.
This morning, I received an email from Paulo Tadeu of Portugal, thanking me for
my review of the Zoom 3049 modem. One of the best parts about having this Web site
is that it gets visitors -- and I get email messages -- from people
all over the world.
For many years, I used it and recommended it to others. But today, I removed Grisoft's AVG Free Edition antivirus software
from my Windows 98 SE PC, and I probably won't use it again. Regular readers of this Journal know that, several weeks
ago, Grisoft released an updated antivirus engine for AVG Free that worked fine for Windows XP users, but caused lockups and
crashes for many Windows 95/98/ME users. They fixed the problem within a day or two, so I kept using AVG Free, even though the
problem had caused blue screens of death that had prevented Windows from booting up in normal mode. Since then, AVG worked just
fine for me through several additional updates, until last night, when I downloaded and installed the latest engine update.
Things seemed to be working until this afternoon, when my computer completely froze up in the middle of important work. When I
powered if off and back on, an error message told me that my Windows Registry was damaged, and that Windows had restored a
previous copy of it. At that point, my computer rebooted again, and I was greeted with a short but ominous error message, telling
me that Windows Explorer was unable to load, so I would have to reinstall Windows. When I clicked on OK (the only choice), there
was an immediate, software-forced shutdown of my entire PC. I got that same error message and forced shutdown when I tried to
boot into Safe Mode. After trying every trick
I could think of to get Windows to start, I finally unpacked my boot floppies and my Windows 98 SE CD, and reinstalled Windows
on top of itself. When it finally booted up again, it warned me that my AVG Antivirus installation was corrupt, which I had
already figured out by then. So, I uninstalled AVG and then manually deleted all references to it in the Registry. Now I'll have
to reinstall my video drivers, redo all of my firewall settings, check to see which of my applications are still working, and
reinstall the ones that aren't, all because of AVG Free.
Have you ever considered giving up Microsoft Windows and switching to one of the many versions of
Linux? Well, one guy recently did it for ten days,
and wrote
daily entries
about his experience. At the end of the experiment, his conclusions were very similar to those that I reached when
I tried several versions of Linux over 2 1/2 years ago. If you're interested in my experiences with Linux, take a look at
Review: Mandrake Linux 9.0. The good folks at Slashdot also
have a lot to say
about replacing Windows with Linux.
Today, I took our guests to have lunch with Aunt Tere and cousins Rita and Smitty. This afternoon, we did some shopping. And
this
evening, we went to the Gulf of Mexico, which is about 3 miles from my home.
Yesterday, a jury
convicted
notorious spammer, Scott Levine, on 120 counts of unauthorized access to data, two counts of access device fraud, and one count of
obstruction of justice. He faces a maximum of 640 years in prison and $30.7 million in fines when he is sentenced next January.
That reminds me of an old joke, which I've modified to fit this situation. Question: What do you call a spammer sitting
in prison for 640 years? Answer: A good start.
Researchers at the Massachusettes Institute of Technology are hard at work, developing
Jerk-O-Meter
software that listens to your cell phone conversations and tells you if you're being a jerk. Slashdot's readers have
some entertaining reactions
to that idea. The Jerk-O-Meter would probably tell them, "Be a little nicer now."
Each of us knows something that would be of value to the rest of us. Do you have knowledge about hardware, software, or
security that you'd like to share? Have you tried a piece of equipment or software that you'd like to tell others about? Are you
able to explain techie subjects in a way that non-techies can understand? Have you always wanted to live the glamorous and
exciting life of a Web author? If so, then please consider submitting a piece for this site's
Guest Articles section. Being a guest author would enhance your resume, plus
it would help build your reputation as a world-class geek. Send me an email if you're interested.
As you can see from my
Florida Photos section, I live in a beautiful place. Unfortunately, it's also the lightning capital of
the world, with some storms producing thousands of lightning strikes per hour. To protect my computer equipment from power
surges, I've always used a high-quality uninterruptible power supply that includes a heavy duty surge protector. Unfortunately,
I didn't provide that same protection to my home's television equipment. At least
not until a few days ago, when I discovered that my expensive Sony DVD/VCR would no longer power-up. Apparently, it succumbed
to a surge that came in through the TV cable during a recent storm. So now the Sony's in the trash. I figure it cost me about $30
(U.S.D) for each of the 6 times that I watched a DVD on it in the past year. A couple of days ago, I bought a new DVD/VCR, plus a
surge protector that will protect my TV equipment from power surges on the power lines and TV cable.