http://www.ComputerBob.com/journal_archive/2006/01.php .
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According to its main Web site, The Freecycle Network "provides individuals and non-profits an electronic forum to 'recycle' unwanted items. One person's trash can truly be another's treasure!" Cities all over the world have their own Freecycle sites. See if your city has one.
Aren't you tired of all of the awards shows on television? It seems like there's one every other week, with a couple of new ones added to the list every year. Shame on us that nobody notices or rewards the people who actually make a difference in others' lives, but everyone gets excited every time the same pampered, overpaid entertainers take yet another opportunity to congratulate themselves.
A visitor to a British museum stumbled, fell down a flight of stairs, and
smashed three ancient Chinese vases.
And I didn't even know that
President Ford was in England.
Every once in awhile, I present a CB Award to honor someone who has demonstrated the rare set of knowledge, skills, and attitudes that I call "Making Geek-Speak Chic™." I am pleased to announce that today's CB Awards go to Steve Gibson and Fred Langa, for their years of providing valuable and easy to understand information to the computing world at large.
Except for the first two, I do all of the 10 Quick and Easy Security Tips. I don't do the first two tips because Windows updates sometimes cause problems on some computers, so I wait to make sure that updates are trouble-free before I install them on my computer.
The List of Computer Science Quotes contains funny, prophetic and cryptic quotes.
If you live in the U.S., you've probably been eating, drinking, and wearing crushed bugs for years without ever knowing it. From now on, you'll know it.
Police arrested a Boston drug dealer after
he advertised cocaine for sale.
His newest ad comes out tomorrow: "HELP WANTED: Someone to break me out of jail."
A man tries to sell a new Apple G4 PowerBook on eBay and an Internet scammer tries to cheat him. So, he decides to cheat the scammer. Is it a true story or an urban legend? Does it have a happy ending? Read it and decide for yourself.
The U.S. government has developed a theory that, if proven to be true, could make it possible for spacecraft to travel faster than the speed of light and go to Mars in only 3 hours. Stay tuned for "Gilligan's Planet."
I've never been a big sports fan. After reading The Ten Most Hated Athletes, I'm glad I'm not a big sports fan.
It's a simple concept, but it must have taken a long time for someone to figure out exactly how to create
3D Painted Rooms
with really cool 3-dimensional optical illusions.
As an in-class exercise, I used to require my college Web design students to critique this Web site's functionality and usability. In a few cases, I made some improvements, based on their valid and valuable criticisms. If you have your own Web site, take a look at Buggy Sites That Frustrate And Annoy, to find ways to improve your site's usability.
People in extremely cold northern states often devise odd activities, apparently to help keep their brains from freezing during the long, boring Winters. Where I used to live, they would create a huge castle out of blocks of ice and then stand around, taking pictures of it. In a similar vein, some bored Alaskans came up with the idea to use sprinklers to create The Ice Wall Project.
I've said it before, but it bears repeating: Be your true self in all situations. And appreciate those who accept your true self.
If you create a phony version of yourself to please others, then the more they love you, the more you will hate
yourself.
It's been many years since I wrote How To Prevent Creativity On The Job. A few months later, it was published by one national training magazine, then republished by another, and I went on to do my Masters thesis on creativity training. To this day, I think one of the best definitions of creativity that I've ever seen is "the ability to look at something and see something else." I still keep my eyes open for good articles on creativity, like How To Be Creative.
Do you like to watch television, but hate most television shows? Then you will probably agree with most of the reviews on Television Without Pity.
A Russian college professor of quantum and optical electronics has patented a
cloak of invisibility.
Insert your own lame joke here.
In the U.S., many public and private organizations require their customers to reveal their government-issued Social Security numbers, to use as account or identity verification numbers. The problem is that it creates a huge risk of identity theft to use those private numbers for those purposes. Read What To Do When They Ask For Your Social Security Number to learn how to protect your privacy and identity.
It's getting close to the time when U.S. citizens have to file their annual income tax forms. To help with that task, the Internal Revenue Service provides a list of free tax-filing companies and services.
A two-year-old Massachusetts girl was recently
summoned for jury duty.
The state Jury Commissioner cancelled the girl's summons after determining that she was too intelligent to serve on any U.S.
jury.
I'm always on the lookout for sites that have lots of good Windows tips, like Windows XP Fixes, Tips and Tweaks.
The deadly American space shuttle tragedies of the past few decades left many people wondering if the shuttle may be "unsafe at any speed." Now, one of America's most experienced astronauts has called the shuttle a deathtrap.
It turns out that a few of The Most Popular Myths In Science are actually true.
Yesterday afternoon, I received a spam email message, trying to fool me into buying a phony college degree. Even without
opening it, I knew it was spam, because it claimed to be from "Online College Educatoin." No, thank you -- me don't nead no more
educatoin.
Anyone who's ever done computer tech support knows that many tech support people are basically insecure, and it helps them feel better about themselves to tell stories about how stupid their clients are. Computer Stupidities is a collection of those stories.
She survived Nazi occupation and life under the rule of a brutal dictator, but at age 73, she was killed by a falling banana.
For $400 (U.S.D), you can buy
a wooden machine gun
that will let you
"belt your coworkers with a constant stream of up to 144 rubber bands that shoot off as fast as you can turn the handle!"
I suppose the downside of the device will be in job interviews, when they ask, "Why were you fired from your previous position?"
If you've ever felt like telling someone, "Hey, get off my back!" then you might relate to this story. A 35 year-old man was having pain in his back, and doctors discovered that it was caused by a growth that turned out to be the embryo of his unborn twin brother.
Speaking of medical oddities, a 74 year-old woman who had been inexplicably blind for 25 years, suddenly regained her sight after suffering a heart attack. Cue the choir to sing "Amazing Grace."
If you have a very dry, slightly sinister sense of humor that enjoys seeing life reflected in a funhouse mirror, you'll like
Partially Clips
- A Webcomic For Adults. It's sort of like the illegitimate child of
The Far Side and a comedy improv show.
The more you learn about anything, the more you realize that there's an awful lot more that you don't know about it. In the computer field, you also have to learn to separate the facts from the myths, urban legends, old-wives tales and good-sounding bad advice. Busting The Biggest PC Myths will help you with that task.
If you're like me (and I know I am), you've sat through (and given) more than your share of PowerPoint presentations, and you've witnessed "technical glitches" in many of them. 8 Mistakes When Creating PowerPoint Presentations tells how to avoid the most common glitches.
Now that you've armed yourself against the next onslaught of bad computer advice, and you've whipped
all of your PowerPoint presentations into shape, you deserve a break. Get a refreshing drink, have a little snack, relax
awhile, and make yourself a nice
shiny ball of mud.
Someone must have had way too much time on their hands when they wrote The Top 100 Things I'd Do If I Ever Became An Evil Overlord.
A few days ago, Star Trek's Captain Kirk, William Shatner, sold his recently passed kidney stone to an online casino for $25,000 (U.S.D). The money will go to Habitat For Humanity. It's always inspiring to see celebrities give up their most cherished personal possessions in order to help charities.
I usually shy away from intelligence tests, because I have doubts about their relevance, but last night, I took what claims to
be a
MENSA Intelligence Test. It took me a long time,
but I managed to figure out 21 of the 33 test phrases. In this, my first public statement as "a genius," I'd like to say that,
while the test was a challenge, I don't think that it was created or sanctioned by
Mensa, the high-IQ organization. Why? Because the test
appears on its own Web site, instead of being on the Mensa Web site; and Mensa doesn't spell its name with all capital letters
like the test does; and, in one of the test phrases, I had to leave out a grammatically required apostrophe in one word in
order to get the test to mark that phrase as "correct." I have a feeling that errors like those wouldn't have slipped past the
real Mensa people.
I bet if you had to choose, you would eat your lunch at your desk, instead of off of your toilet seat. Incredibly, that would be a mistake.
Several days ago, I took a container full of coins to my local bank's coin-counting machine, and got more than $76 in cash. If I had kept those coins, I could have stacked them up and made cool coin sculptures. On second thought, I'd rather have the $76 in cash.
I get frustrated when Windows displays cryptic error messages that don't really tell me anything about what went wrong.
It would still be frustrating, but at least it might be a little more fun, if Windows displayed
honest error messages.
Former Apple Computer Evangelist Guy Kawasaki's article, How to Get a Standing Ovation contains some valuable advice for anyone who speaks in public.
Here's a cool optical illusion that plays 2 different tricks on your eyes. With a little practice, I was able to see it even while sitting 5 feet away from my monitor.
How much do you know about tough-guy, action-hero, martial-arts cowboy, Chuck Norris? You can quench your thirst for Norrisology
by reading the list of
Chuck Norris Facts. It's funnier if you stop
after the first 15 or 20.
Do you use your cell phone to browse the Web? Are there sites that you'd like to visit, but they don't fit on your device's tiny screen? If so, Google provides a free service that converts any Web site into the microbrowser-friendly WAP format that your cell phone requires.
Researchers have concluded that meetings are bad for you, and lots of long meetings are even worse. I'm not sure I believe their findings. We should get together and discuss them.
Do you remember your last job interview? I bet it went much better than
this one.
Just thinking about it makes me laugh. If you like it, I suggest that you use your browser's Save Page or Save Image
function to save it on your computer, because it will disappear from that Web site in early February.
I've seen it many times, with many different titles over the years, but I think it's worth seeing again. How IT Projects Work is a set of funny drawings that remind us that the most important step in any project is the very first one - analyzing the purpose of the project.
Japanese scientists plan to drill further into the Earth than anyone has ever drilled before. If all goes well, they hope to eventually drill through the planet's hard candy shell and into its soft chewy center.
I heard that the woman who invented the cream that reduces wrinkles around the eyes, recently married the man who can recite the
first 4,400 digits of pi. Instead of wedding cake, guests at their reception were treated to pi and eyes cream.
Ba-dump bump.
You may already know that you can Boost Your Brain Power By Having A Baby, but did you also know that Having Children Is Bad For Your Mental Health? Those two stories leave me confused, but happy.
British scientists are seeking permission to create rabbit-human hybrids. Insert your own punch line here.
On Saturday, a man broke the official Rubik's 3x3x3 Cube world record by solving the plastic puzzle in 11.13 seconds. Yes, you read that correctly. When asked how he had done it, the new record holder replied, "Uh-oh, fifteen minutes to Judge Wapner," and walked away.
According to watch retailers,
wristwatches are becoming passe,
as more and more people depend on iPods, cell phones and other electronic devices to tell them the time. I usually don't wear a
watch, but on special occasions, I wear Grandpa's Watch. Even though it's 91 years old, it
keeps perfect time, and I wouldn't trade it for anything.
Do you know all of the 15 Tech Concepts You'll Need To Know In 2006?
If your hosted Web site uses the cPanel web site
administration system, you have the ability to install and use cPanel's Advanced Guestbook (AG) to allow your site's guests to leave
public comments about your site. One of my Web hosting clients has been using AG for a few years, and has been pretty happy with it,
except for the fact that automated spambots keep posting spam messages in their guestbook. Because AG doesn't have any built-in
anti-spam features, my client has had to manually delete those spam messages each time they've appeared. The other night, I
converted my client's Advanced Guestbook to
Lazarus Guestbook.
Lazarus is totally free and easy to install. It was built on AG's basic technology, so it looks just like AG and uses
the existing AG database. What makes Lazarus better is that it includes several effective security and anti-spam features, like
requiring guests to respond to a question-answer
captcha -- which spambots cannot do --
before accepting their guestbook entries. My client's new guestbook is not going to be bothered by spambots.
Pixel2Life has links to over 15,000 free tutorials in over 50 categories.
How many of The 29 Healthiest Foods on the Planet do you eat? I like 16 of the 29 foods, but I only eat a few of them regularly. I guess I'm going to have to find my old recipe for Garlic Onion Squash Bok Choy Lentil Pinto Bean Cookies.
Is your brain getting a little flabby? You can get your gray matter back into shape by doing some
Brain Calisthenics. Work really hard at them
and when you get tired and sore, remember the old saying: no pain, no brain.
100-downloads.com, contains links to 100 free Windows software applications, organized into 12 categories.
A man's family claims that his untimely death was caused by flying shrimp. I think there's something fishy about their story.
While trying to develop a healthy alternative to Green Eggs and Ham, scientists in Taiwan invented a completely new type of nightlight.
A month ago, my wife and I had a nickel that we had never seen before. On it, Thomas Jefferson was looking straight at us,
and there was a word that I couldn't read scrawled above the date. At the time, we figured that it must be a new, redesigned nickel.
Today, I learned that
we were right.
The U.S. Mint will start shipping that new nickel to Federal Reserve banks next Thursday, and they expect that people will start
seeing it in circulation in 4 to 6 weeks. So how did my wife and I have one a month ago?
Thunderbird 1.5 was released today. Thunderbird is the email companion to the Mozilla Firefox Web browser, and both are free and Open Source. I've been using Firefox since November, 2004, but I thought that the 1.0.x versions of Thunderbird were too buggy to replace Microsoft Outlook 2000 on my main computer. Now that Thunderbird 1.5 is out, I'm going to try switching to it.
I taught myself to play the guitar when I was a kid. At the time, I didn't know anything about reading music, so it made me feel good when I heard that famous singer / songwriter / guitarist, Glen Campbell, had once worked as a studio musician without knowing how to read music. Just think how famous Glen and I could have become if we had had Ricci Adams' Musictheory.net, which uses Flash animations to make music theory understandable.
If you like Steve's Weird Photos, you'll love Worth1000.
Countless people's cell phones can take and send pictures and movies, record and play custom ringtones, play
video games, display music videos and more. But many people have no idea how to use all of those features. Imagine the trouble that
this new cell phone
could cause. "Oh, just a second -- I have another call... Aaaaaiiiiiiiieeeee!!!"
It's been over 3 years since I wrote ComputerBob's Guide To Windows vs. Linux. Since then, I've tried many different versions (distros) of the alternative operating system, looking for one that could realistically replace Windows on my main computer. Unfortunately, I haven't found one that is user-friendly and works with all of my PC's pretty standard hardware devices. I'm sure I'll try again one of these days. With a few hundred distros to choose from, wouldn't it be nice if someone would create a step-by-step, automated, online interview tool that could determine my needs and then suggest one or more distros that might work best for me? Linux Distribution Chooser claims to be just such a tool. I think I'll try it the next time I'm in the mood to look at Linux.
Still no word from any of my favorite security sites regarding the remaining Windows WMF security vulnerabilities that I
mentioned yesterday. Maybe Microsoft was right that those vulnerabilities aren't important. Time will tell.
Remember the serious Windows WMF security vulnerability that we all patched last week? Apparently, that same part of Windows still contains other vulnerabilities, but Microsoft says they aren't important. So far, my other sources of security information haven't mentioned this story, but I'll let you know if they do.
Tutorialized has over 6,700 free tutorials in 500 categories. That should keep you busy for awhile.
Here's a story you don't see every day. A man finds a mouse in his house and tries to kill it. The mouse dies, but it gets
its
revenge.
I bet you thought I couldn't find any more compilations that were worth showing to you. Well, take a look at
CNet's interesting look at the Consumer Electronics Show,
The Best of CES 2006,
the often-hilarious descriptions of
The 100 Most Annoying Things Of 2005,
and the possibly useful
18 Tricks To Teach Your Body.
If you're looking for an understandable, step-by-step guide to help speed up your computer, take a look at Windows PC Tune-Up Guide.
Do you remember when banks used to brag about their great customer service? Nowadays, it seems like most banks are huge,
impersonal businesses that only care about turning your money into their money. When my wife and I first moved to
Florida, we opened checking, savings, and CD accounts at the Bank of America (BOA), because they had a lot of local branches. Over
time, we discovered that only one of those
branches is open on Saturday mornings, and it always has 12-18 customers waiting in line. Then, a few days ago,
I took a container full of coins to BOA, but they told me that they don't count coins for their customers anymore. They
suggested that I take my coins to a local grocery store, where the coin-counting machine keeps 10% of the coins that it counts.
I have a better idea. I'll take my coins -- and my checking, savings, and CD accounts -- to
BankAtlantic. They
don't have as many local branches, but they'll give me totally free checking and several gifts for
switching my accounts. Plus, they're open 7 days a week, with some branches open until midnight. And
they'll count anyone's coins for free.
That sounds like customer service to me.
Are you famous? If so, are you dead or alive? Dead People Server contains information on over 3000 famous dead people, and Dead Or Alive tells whether over 7,000 famous people are dead or alive. I visited both sites and was surprised to see how many of my favorite famous people are dead. And also how many people who I thought were dead but who are actually still alive.
A couple of days ago, I noticed that it said "JayLo" on the rear license plate of a car that I was about to pass. I figured that the driver must either be a big Jennifer Lopez fan, or maybe someone who looks like her. As I went by, I glanced over and saw a very old white couple, probably named "Jay" and "Lois."
My mother- and father-in-law sent me a really cute floor mat with a photo of a doxie that
looks exactly like my dog, Max. I laugh every time I look at it, so I'm going to hang it on the wall
of my office. UPDATE: My wife helped me hang it on the outside of our front door -- looking out the window of our
storm door -- where it will greet everyone who comes to visit us.
IMPORTANT: Some time Thursday afternoon, Microsoft surprised everyone by releasing their official patch for the latest Windows security vulnerability, instead of waiting until January 10, as they had previously announced. You can get the official patch at Microsoft's Windows Update site, or you can read more about it and download it directly from its own Web page. Ilfak Guilfanov, the creator of the unofficial Windows security patch that everyone has been using for the past few days, now says "I urge everyone to download and install the official patch. You do not need my hotfix anymore. If you have previously installed it, please uninstall it now. It can be uninstalled before or after applying the official patch from the Add/Remove Programs window." The exact path to uninstall Ilfak's unofficial patch in Windows XP is Start / Control Panel / Add or Remove Programs / Windows WMF Metafile Vulnerability Hotfix 1.4. If you are one of the many people who installed Ilfak's unofficial security patch, you should feel pretty good about it, because, according to Steve Gibson's Web site, "Ilfak reports that he checked-out Microsoft's new replacement GDI32.DLL and it permanently does the same thing as his temporary patch." Don't run Ilfak's vulnerability testing software after you install the official Microsoft patch -- that testing software was not designed to work with the official patch, so it may incorrectly tell you that your computer is still vulnerable.
Microsoft has no plans to release an official security patch for Windows 95, 98, and ME.
Steve Gibson's Web site says,
"Microsoft has now 'reclassified' the WMF vulnerability in Windows 95, 98, and ME as non-critical (instead of
just fixing it!). This means that it will probably NOT be updated and patched to eliminate the WMF handling vulnerability that
those older versions of Windows apparently still have. (This vulnerability still needs to be confirmed.) So, if Microsoft does
not produce an update to repair those older versions of Windows, (we) will make one
available."
The Internet serves many different purposes, including communication, education, and many forms of entertainment. Of course, it also provides many ways to waste time, if that's what you want to do.
Late last night, I heard from my friend again. By disabling his computer's Ad-Watch software, he was able to successfully run
the unofficial Windows security patch and then re-enable Ad-Watch.
Late last night, I got a phone call from a friend who had run the unofficial Windows security patch
that I recommended yesterday, and afterward, the vulnerability testing software told him that his computer was still vulnerable. To
help him solve that problem, I found
a security forum that is dedicated
to answering questions about the unofficial security patch. In fact, the forum is moderated by Ilfak Guilfanov,
the man who created the security patch. According to
this forum thread,
the problem that my friend reported occurs when people are running other security software that prevents the
unofficial security patch from doing its work. Currently, the recommended work-around is to disable the other security
software, then run the unofficial security patch, then re-enable the other security software.
IMPORTANT: For many years, I have trusted Steve Gibson's Web site to provide me with important information and tools to maximize the security of my Windows computers. This morning, I learned that Steve highly recommends the unofficial Windows security patch that I mentioned here on January 1, 2006. He says that it is a safe and completely effective way to fix the newly discovered Windows security vulnerability, while still allowing Windows to display thumbnail images. He also says that Microsoft's temporary fix that I have been recommending provides some protection, but is mostly ineffective. Starting right now, I recommend that you install the unofficial Windows patch instead of Microsoft's temporary fix. Before you make any changes to your computer, please read Steve Gibson's entire recommendation, which contains:
If you are going to run the unofficial patch, and if you already followed my instructions to run Microsoft's temporary fix, then you should follow those same instructions to undo Microsoft's fix by simply re-running it without the /u part. In other words, if you already ran the recommended command:
regsvr32 /u shimgvw.dll
to unregister the shimgvw.dll file, then you should now run the command:
regsvr32 shimgvw.dll
to re-register it. Because Microsoft's fix provides some protection for your computer, do not undo Microsoft's fix unless you are going to run the unofficial patch, or your computer will have no protection at all.
On my Windows XP computer, I ran the vulnerability testing software, which told me that my computer was not protected, despite the fact that I ran Microsoft's temporary fix a few days ago. Then, I installed the unofficial patch, which took just a few seconds. Afterward, the vulnerability testing software said that my computer was protected, but I was still unable to view thumbnail images in Windows Explorer. So I undid Microsoft's fix by running the command shown above. After that, the vulnerability testing software confirmed that my computer was still protected, and Windows Explorer was able to display thumbnail images again.
Do you remember Christmas, 1996, when the hottest gift for children was
Tickle Me Elmo?
Unfortunately, like many child actors, Elmo had a hard time dealing with sudden fame and fortune, and now it appears that his
well-publicized drug and alcohol addictions, and his numerous arrests for petty theft, left him
more than a little jaded.
Several days ago, I moved my clients' and my Web sites and accounts to BliksemHosting. Then, 3 days ago, I received a bizarre phone call from BliksemHosting. That same evening, I moved everything back to my previous Web host, Bright-Byte. I have updated ComputerBob's Guide To Web Hosts with some details of why I left BliksemHosting.
If anyone knows any reason why these two should not be joined in the bonds of holy matrimony, let them speak now or... oh, never mind -- they're already married.
Yes, today is my birthday -- thanks for remembering! How old am I? About 15 years older than most people think I am, which is
old enough to not want to answer that question.
A little while ago, I received an email message from my cousin Rita, alerting me to an InfoWorld article that says that the temporary shimgvw.dll Windows security fix that Microsoft and security Web sites recommended 2 days ago may not completely fix the latest serious Windows security vulnerability, because that vulnerability may actually be in the Windows gdi32.dll file instead of shimgvw.dll. After I read that, I did a Google news search for "gdi32.dll" but I found only 2 other sites that mentioned that possibility. One of those 2 sites described an unofficial patch that they think might completely fix the security vulnerability.
Based on what I know right now, I still recommend that you unregister shimgvw.dll, as I recommended in this Journal on December 30, 2005. I also recommend that you remain ready to do something else to fix that Windows security vulnerability in the near future, as soon as several credible sources are able to agree on exactly what you should do.
The past year was a very memorable one for me, with many sad events and losses, both globally and personally. Looking back, I
know that I'm one year older, but I'm also one year wiser, and at this stage in life, I'm willing to accept that arrangement. I
wish you all the very best in 2006. May your joys overpower your sorrows; may your faith give you
the strength to always be who you need to be; and may you bring faith, hope and love into the lives of others.
