The blog

“Lighter” Windows on the way?

The Wall Street Journal (subscription required, so no link) reports:

Microsoft Corp. said Monday it is ready to put a stripped down version of Windows on the market if it fails this week to persuade a judge to suspend a landmark European Union antitrust decision.

It wouldn’t surprise me of the recent announcement of the “Windows Light” variant in the Far East was part of this effort. Personally, I’d be very interested in a lightweight version of Windows that cost $10-20 instead of $100. At that price, anyone running an older version of Windows could probably justify the upgrade for security reasons.

If only this were true

Dana Epp passes along a “golden opportunity” for virus writers to get hired with the FBI. All they have to do is send in an application “with a list of their most successfully deployed computer viruses.” The (fake) ad promises that “all applicants will be called in for an interview.”

Heh. Wouldn’t it be great if even a couple of the fools who write viruses fell for a sting like this?

Seven rules for e-mail

Andrew Tobias has come up with seven rules for e-mail that make excellent sense to me. I’ve excerpted them here; click the link and read the whole thing if you’re curious.

1. If your entire message can fit on the subject line, put it on the subject line – followed by EOM (end of message). Nothing more.

2. Make the subject line descriptive. If you make it: SUBJ: check this out and it turns out to be yet another copy of Bush’s resume (“I was arrested twice for drunk driving . . .”) that we’ve all seen 50 times by now, it is annoying. But if you make it: SUBJ: Bush’s resume, then we can smile faintly and delete it in three-tenths of a second.

3. If your message is to one person, begin the subject line with that person’s first name.

4. If you’re sending to a large group, use “blind copies” (unless there’s an awfully good reason to have everyone see the e-addresses of all 215 recipients).

5. If you’re responding to a group e-mail, hit REPLY rather than REPLY ALL unless you really think the whole group wants to see your reply. (Ah, the boorish irony of those who REPLY ALL with the message, “I do not appreciate your cluttering my inbox – please take me off your list.”)

6. If you’re attaching a letter or a newsclip, also cut and paste it into the body of the e-mail to spare the recipient’s having to open the attachment.

7. Place post scripts before your sign off, for reasons amply elucidated in the only really important column I have ever posted in this space.

I’m not so sure about #3. I get a lot of spam that tries to fool me into opening the message by using my name on the Subject line. But otherwise, this is good advice. And as Andy notes, if he can come with three more he’ll have a set of Commandments suitable for burning onto stone tablets.

For those who don’t know Andrew Tobias, he is an expert on money management (I first learned of him by using Andrew Tobias’ Managing Your Money back in the good old MS-DOS days, before Quicken, before Windows, before even color monitors). Andy is the author of some superb books and he’s also Treasurer of the Democratic Party. He was blogging at Andrewtobias.com years ago, before the word blog had even been coined.

Check it out. This site is a daily must-read for me.

Live and legal

Steve Gilliard offers up some interesting observations about music downloads, entitled The live, the Dead and the “stolen”. It contains some interesting ideas and one glaring mistake.

It’s late and I’m listening to one of my favorite bits of music, Live Grateful Dead.

… as a live band, they were simply awesome. They played this incredibly American music, with the Blues, Country, rock, and folk music. As musicians, they were excellent together. Jerry Garcia may not have been much of a father or husband or even friend, since he loved smack over everything, but he was a great musician.

I discovered the Live Dead one New Year’s Eve, dead drunk, and having turned on WBAI, which would play Live Dead back in the day. Unlike so many bands, you could play their bootlegs and not get a cease and decist the next day. So, every New Years for years, they would play the Dead.

When the internet exploded, I realized that I could actually access these bootlegs. Like you could for a lot of bands, especially Springsteen, which had a thriving bootleg market in New York. You’re never gonna find Live Dead on iTunes or Napster. Because these are not legal recordings to begin with. Now the band, in both the Garcia-era and in the new, Dead-era, doesn’t really care. The new band will sell you a live copy of their show as you leave.

Let’s fix the error right away. Free does not mean illegal, no matter what the RIAA would have you believe. Most live recordings of Grateful Dead shows are perfectly legal. They’re not just tolerated by the band. Instead, they’re authorized and even encouraged.

In fact, The Dead are but one of many “taper friendly” bands that actively encourage the noncommercial use and trading of live recordings. At live shows, most even designate special “taper sections” where fans with (often quite expensive) mobile recording gear can set up. Right now, I’m listening to a live recording by one of my favorite taper-friendly groups, Yonder Mountain String Band, which I highly recommend.

With that aside, Steve’s point is well taken. I am not interested in buying the latest stick of bubble gum from Britney or Avril. Give me interesting, eclectic, independent music any time. In fact, I especially like the stuff that I can’t get from the large, corporate labels.

In some cases, I can find cool stuff through online communities that use FTP servers and peer-to-peer sharing systems like BitTorrent. (Not Kazaa. Never Kazaa.) Some enlightened artists make their coolest stuff available for free as well. YMSB, for instance, is currently distributing a soundboard tape of a great live show from last year’s Telluride Bluegrass Festival.

And there are rays of hope for commercial servers, too. Emusic.com relaunched itself today with precisely that goal. They’re even selling live recordings from independent bands. I subscribed to Emusic for a while and found a lot of great stuff there. I suspect I’ll sign up for the new service soon.

.NET Framework SP1

Charles writes: “After downloading and installing SP2 the first upated listed in the Windows Update was a critical update – .NET Framework 1.1 Service Pack 1. In a SP2 chat converstaion today I was told it was OK to install on top of the SP2 Update. Is this also your understanding or what is your opinion?”

Absolutely, it’s OK to install. The Web page for the .NET Framework 1.1 Service Pack 1 provides this information:

The primary focus of Microsoft .NET Framework 1.1 Service Pack 1 (SP1) is improved security. In addition, the service pack includes roll-ups of all reported customer issues found after the release of the Microsoft .NET Framework 1.1. Of particular note, SP1 provides better support for consuming WSDL documents, Data Execution prevention and protection from security issues such as buffer overruns.

SP1 also provides support for Windows XP Service Pack 2 to provide a safer, more reliable experience for customers using Windows XP.

An increasing number of programs require the .NET Framework. If you’ve installed one of those programs, this is a must-have update.

Spyware removal help

If you’re looking for help getting rid of spyware, see this article from michaelhorowitz.com: How to Remove Spyware and Malware from a Windows computer.

The following is a blueprint for removing any and all malicious software from an infected Windows computer. This is not customized for a particular malware program, but applies to any and all malicious software. The intended audience for this are computer nerds and, as such, some details have been omitted. If you are not a computer nerd and think your computer may be infected (see Symptoms section below), print this page and give it to your local techie.

Lots of other good stuff at Michael’s site, too. Start at the index page and poke around.

Help me clean up sleazy ads

Longtime readers of this site may have noticed that I included Google ads when I implemented a site redesign the site a few months back. I like Google ads because they’re unobtrusive and they’re targeted. I’m not going to get rich off them, but they help pay the hosting fees.

Lately, though, I’ve noticed that some sleazy ads are starting to show up here. In particular, I’ve seen two ads in recent days for so-called “PC scans” that promise to find problems on your PC and then offer to “fix” them for you – if you pay them $29.95 or more.

I’ve done enough research on these sites to know that they are as close as it gets to out-and-out ripoffs. I am grateful to Google that they allow me to block any domain that I choose. I’ve blocked the two sites in question. The downside for me is that I lose the opportunity to make a few pennies off these sleazy sites. The upside is that I get to sleep better at night knowing that I’m not serving as a portal to rip-off artists.

Unfortunately, these creeps are like spammers. They change domain names regularly, and it’s just a matter of time before they show up again, selling the same crap under a different name.

You can help me out. If you see a Google ad that you feel is inappropriate, Send me a note. Be sure to include enough details so I can check it out, especially the full URL as it appears in the ad. Remember, I may not see the same ads you do, so details matter.

Thanks for your help.

Metadata myths

Stephanie Krieger has an excellent debunking of some myths about the “hidden” parts of files created by Microsoft Office applications: The Whole Truth About Metadata in Office Documents:

Some producers of add-in applications referred to as metadata scrubbers would have you believe that there is a grand conspiracy brewing within your very own documents that only they can solve for you. Even some articles from highly respected publications contain misinformation — the whole topic seems to have turned into an out-of-control, global game of telephone!

The whole article is worth reading. Also, if you use Office, be sure to check out Stephanie’s new blog, Arouet dot net.

Hawk: WMP 10 rocks!

Thomas Hawk’s Digital Connection has a rave review of the new Windows Media Player 10:

Having used the program for a number of years I think it is quite simply a brilliant piece of software — a masterpiece developed by extremely talented engineers in so many ways. Even more spectacular is that is free. Microsoft gives it away. If Microsoft didn’t give this software away I’d gladly pay money for it. I love it.

He lists nine good points and five bad points. When I get some time, I’ll offer some responses to the criticism, because there are some easy work-arounds.

Anyway, I have to say I love WMP 10 as well. I use it all the time and have few complaints. As for the music store, I just don’t care. I don’t believe in paying 99 cents a track for inferior copies of the original tracks on CD.