Spybot and Opera

If you are not running this great utility puh-lease click this box and download it. There is an excellent tutorial on the site that will give you step by step instructions on how to install, scan, etc. After the program is up and running go to this kewl flash animation and learn how to update. Folks, if you install the program and do NOT update then time has been wasted.

Several people have complained about the absurdity of Microsoft's Windows Update site. Seems they download a validation tool, the new Windows Installer 3.1 and afterwards they can no longer update. If you use pirated software don't go overboard with the 'suprised' act. If you are running legitimate copies and are having problems then you have my sympathy. During the last few attempts to update the Beach House laptop Windows Update site wouldn't cooperate. Yes, it's definitely legit and I have blown all the sand out of it. Anyone have suggestions? Now is the time to come forth and share your Windows solutions with us. Use the comments below or email.

Interested in an alternative browser? Try . The look is polished, it has some neat tools, the ability to manipulate your online persona is great and Opera is speedy. They have removed the ads. The newest version was made available a few weeks ago. With the onslaught of Gates and company not letting users have access to Internet Explorer 7 unless they have installed XP, it's time to consider other avenues. It will be interesting to see how the latest battle of the browser wars ends.

Download at your own risk and use protection when computing. If you know of a good router that will work in a dial up scenario, please let me know. As Red Green often says, "We're all in this together."

"Did you know that there are no laws limiting what a spyware program can do! Did you know that certain spyware applications can "steal" the affiliate earnings from other web sites!"
-Unwanted Links

New look at the Moon

Wikis? Wikipedia? Pretty neat sites that can be very informative. Did you know that you can post to these sites? There's a great article at CNet News.

Google is all starry-eyed over their newest collaboration with NASA. For a look at some Google space stuff go to Google Moon. Please zoom in as far as possible and see the real texture of earth's only satellite.

The Beach House schedule is being madly shifted to accomodate inclimate weather. We've a cold front coming through and rain is likely. Have a productive Thursday.

"Every one is a moon, and has a dark side which he never shows to anybody."
-Mark Twain

Google Earth, it's casual

Want a really kewl global exploration program? Try Google Earth. This is a neat program that let's you travel anywhere on the planet with just a click of the mouse. You can zoom in and out, change angle of flight, use a pushpin icon to mark important places, take virtual tours and perform many other glorious tasks while sitting in comfort at your PC. Great starting place is to take a tour of Africa. Please consider these requirements:

Minimum configuration:

* Operating system: Windows 2000, Windows XP
* CPU speed: Intel® Pentium® PIII 500 MHz
* System memory (RAM): 128MB
* 200MB hard-disk space
* 3D graphics card: 3D-capable video card with 16MB VRAM
* 1024x768, 32-bit true color screen
* Network speed: 128 kbps ("Broadband/Cable Internet")

Recommended configuration:

* Operating system: Windows XP
* CPU speed: Intel® Pentium® P4 2.4GHz+ or AMD 2400xp+
* System memory (RAM): 512MB
* 2GB hard-disk space
* 3D graphics card: 3D-capable video card with 32MB VRAM or greater
* 1280x1024, 32-bit true color screen
* Network speed: 128 kbps ("Broadband/Cable Internet").

Most new Windows computers purchased within the past two years should perform nicely. Certain graphics cards won't make the cut or need to use specific engines, "The following ATI cards are not supported: ATI Rage Mobility, ATI Xpert, ATI 3D Rage. Intel 3D graphics machines can use the default OpenGL version, but work better in DirectX (choose Start > Programs > Google Earth > Start Google Earth in DirectX). Matrox card users must use the OpenGL version. S3 cards must use the DirectX version."

My apologies about missing the past few days. Posts have been made, but the reason as to why they are mysteriously disappearing is still under investigation. Have a casual Wednesday.

"There are no passengers on Spaceship Earth. We are all crew."
-Marshall McLuhan

Vanishing thoughts

Please bear with me. For some reason posts are disappearing again. Working on it.

Clear Instructions on How To Do (just about) Everything

Verdana called from Baton Rouge the other day and was bragging on a pair of Henckel knives and cutting board that I had given her and Uncle Snake for Christmas. She mentioned the cutting board needed repairing. Voila! I checked at eHow and sure enough they have a section on How to Mend a Wooden Cutting Board.

The section about computer help is just short of miraculous. There are too many wonderful topics to try and list them here. You can learn how to build a web page, find out how to install hardware, clean a spill on a laptop, and many other helpful things. Be sure and read the section on How to Talk to a Computer Salesperson. This is awesome.

Topics and categories are deep in number and variety. The answers are precise and well written. Be sure and read the Tips and User Tips. Some of the User Tips are great. IMHO, this is what the internet is all about! Good luck with that cutting board, daughter of mine.

"Mishaps are like knives, that either serve us or cut us, as we grasp them by the blade or the handle."
-Lowell

Update Thyself and Browse Carefully

New updates are available this morning at Spybot Search & Destroy, and Ad-Aware. SpywareBlaster had one on the 19th. After you update run a scan with both Spybot and Ad-aware. SpywareBlaster runs in the background so don't mess with it after enabling the new updates. Don't have these great utilities? Click on Cybersouth links. There is a permanent link to this list just below the beach house picture above. Protect yo'self.

On the 19th, several alternative browsers were mentioned. Some are in a testing stage. Well, after posting about a new site that is really cool, things went haywire and the post is gone. Yep, was using SeaMonkey. They make no bones about this being in an alpha test phase, but being a creature of habit it was my first choice when tuning in the net this morning. This will be a nice browser, but just download it and take a look. Use Firefox, IE, or Opera if doing something critical online.

It's Friday and that means there's only two more days to work this week! Sorry Betuglia, won't make the car show tomorrow. Polish on that 1948 Chevy PU and win, dude!

"I'm a great believer in luck and I find the harder I work, the more I have of it."
-Thomas Jefferson

Cost of Office or WordPerfect?

Presently, a new version of OpenOffice 1.1.5 stable for Windows is being downloaded using AnalogX's BitPump. There are sites listed where you can download this super office suite in the 'normal' mode, but this is my first chance to use BitPump after downloading it over a month ago. BitPump is not the latest breaking newest whamma jamma bittorrent client, but it comes from an old reliable site that is trusted.

In the short time it has taken to create the above paragraph the download has completed and the new, free office suite is installed. This was an extremely fast download due, in part, to the time of day. If you are into downloading, the BitPump software worked perfectly. If you are a Microsoft Office or Corel Word Perfect user, OpenOffice should be easy to navigate. This was simple, very fast and not a bother. WinZip evaluation version was used to decompress the file. OpenOffice is cross-platform software that will run on Linux, Windows, Apple OSX and FreeBSD. Apple OS11 is NOT included, yet.

After creating an OpenOffice file on the hard drive, all files were extracted to this folder. Then the setup file was found and the installation was off and running. During the first few frames of setup the 'save documents as Word, Excel, Powerpoint boxes' were selected. HTML editor box was unchecked which is strictly personal preference. This is a simple install that is very clean. You can register now or later. No icons were created on the desktop, but it does auto install into the system tray which means it will run in the background. Turn this function off. It's a resource hog. Just launch it when needed instead of letting it eat up memory.

If you are not into downloading, bittorrent (BitPump) can wait. If you use office suite type software at least take a look at OpenOffice. Yes, this is a Sun Microsystems, Inc., product. If you have issues with them then don't bother. Just like Netscape is not the chosen weapon of some netizens, some folks just don't like Sun. Each to his own. This is an awesome product in my opinion; especially for those on a tight budget.

If you test drive this product your opinion will be appreciated. Please email me at cybersouth@gmail.com or click on the comments bar below. Have a casual Thursday.

"Write while the heat is in you. The writer who postpones the recording of his thoughts uses an iron which has cooled to burn a hole with. He cannot inflame the minds of his audience."
-Thoreau

Ultimate spyware project

No matter how this is spun or twisted it is still scary -> NSA location tracking patent. Is the paranoia becoming worse or does someone else shudder when reading this article? There are more frightening things in this world, but this will make you stop and think.

"I'll be watching you"
-Sting

5 Great Utilities

Here are some sites that seem to interest folks. All of these can be found at MajorGeeks and the Cybersouth links list.

Anti-Virus:

AVG - The Godzilla of all anti-virus programs.

AntiSpyware:

Spybot Search & Destroy - WOW! Just awesome.

Ad-Aware - Super! You go Swedish coders!

SpywareBlaster - Quiet and deadly!

Drive Cleaner/Editor:

CCleaner - Not so cute name, magnificent program.

You MUST update and run scans on a regular basis. You can upgrade Ad-Aware. For a few dollars it will perform automatic updates and scans. AVG's purchased upgrade is really kewl and has great flexibility. Please donate to the others. They used their time and intelligence to share superb software with us. Help them out. Even a few bucks will be appreciated.

If you have problems with installations or just want an opinion about tweaking these programs, email me. Unless you are familiar with registry editors, etc., it's a good idea not to randomly change settings. Some of these tools are extremely powerful and can flat wipe out a system if used improperly. There is work being done here to create install guides with screenshots. The links list is being revamped to provide more info and in a categorized format. This will take time. Bear with me. BTW, anyone that'd like to help, email me!

The beach house is always interested in helpful utilities. Please make contact if you have a viable piece of software that you think has been overlooked. Hey, the damned Yahoo Toolbar is NOT such an item. If you find the home sites listed slow to download, they are most likely bogged down with traffic. Click on the MajorGeeks link above and you will see speed. One last thing - when did you last defragment your hard drive?

"Getting information off the Internet is like taking a drink from a fire hydrant."
-Billy Wobblynife (known Google user)

A Flock of Sea Monkeys

Here's a another entry into the browser wars, SeaMonkey. This is an alpha test offering from Mozilla. It has very familiar looks to anyone that ran the Mozilla browser before Firefox, yet it is built on the Firefox engine. This browser is so ALPHA that it does not have a logo and there is a contest where you can submit your artwork for this project. So please, please beware that it is not considered stable at this time.

Another browser project is Flock. An email address is required before you can download it. They make no bones about their code being experimental. Am still waiting on a registration thangy in order to download and take a look-see. If anyone has info, please make contact. This is different. Worth watching, fer sure! Will keep everyone posted.

Monday morning is peaceful at the beach house and the 'end of the world as possums know it' didn't occur during the night (please see yesterday's post). Remember that today is International Talk Like A Pirate Day...just click on the link below - it's hard to explain. Stay casual today and remember that Tuesday is less than 24 hours away!


"While you are destroying your mind watching the worthless, brain-rotting drivel on TV, we on the Internet are exchanging, freely and openly, the most uninhibited, intimate and, yes, shocking details about our "CONFIG.SYS" settings."
-Dave Barry

Dream State Interrupted

It's peaceful this Sunday morning. The humidity is low and the temperature is tolerable. Sleeping with the windows open is very refreshing unless...you have the Possum Armageddon taking place just outside the window. There I snoozed dreaming of binary wristwatches and P4 hyperthreading processors when a screeching somewhere from just this side of the grave rattled the windows. Armed, I turned on the veranda light, hit the door and there was what I thought was Arnold, opossumus germanicus austriabodicus, raising holy hell with the neighbor's dog. The dog was doing low woof, woofs as it circled "my resident marsupial." 3:00am and there was a zoo in my yard at war. Fur was flying and the unfortunate wanderer was hissing and howling like a wet cat. Many sets of red, beady eyes could be seen in the periphery. Probably the feral cats Arnold ran up the trees a while ago that just had to come investigate all the noise.

Two more small dogs started up with yapping sounds when they saw me and then, low and behold, ANOTHER possum was spotted! It was standing by the fence that has been taken over by the wisteria growing in the oak tree. BTW, this is the ugliest fence in Saltillo and looks like a Munsters/Addams Family decoration in the wintertime. Pictures may follow, maybe not. Please remember, this Possum Apocalypso awoke me out of REM state. After pausing, shaking away the mental cobwebs and gathering my thoughts it was obvious what had happened. The stray possum had innocently wandered into the yard. The dogs delighted in jumping on it since they had been banned from this property some months ago by Arnold. Meanwhile, Arnold stood there amongst the wisteria and was laughing at the invader and encouraging the yappers to bark louder.

This brings a few thoughts to mind. Are the dogs really that stupid? Is there possible collusion between Arnold and the dogs? Do I need to seek a prescription for the well advertised Ambien sleep aid? Will they let me watch Friday night Sci-Fi on TV at the rest home?

"You are never too old to set another goal or to dream a new dream."
-C.S. Lewis

Remnant of the Past

If you have visited here often then you know that Brian Roberts, CEO of COMCAST, is not held in high esteem. He manages a crew of baboons that is disguised as a board of directors. Can we say baboonzilla? Well, the horrid G4TV has returned a show to our airwaves that was a staple of the wonderful TechTV that COMCAST destroyed. It's Call for Help. I still miss my all time favorite TV program, The Screensavers. What a wonderful show and the stream of information was astounding. Well, monkeyboys probably didn't have the mentality to understand the content so they outright killed it.

Leo Laporte is the anchor of the show. Leo has been around for a while and was the first person seen on ZDTV's The Screensavers back in May of 1998. Good to have him back on the air in this country. This is a Canadian based show so most of the people calling are from north of our border. That may change with time. Another thing that has to be taken into consideration is that these folks are Apple Nazis. Still, the content is interesting since Apple OSX is based on FreeBSD and many things are parallel in the Apple, Windows, Linux, Unix world nowadays. In all fairness Call for Help does supply an ample amount of information about Windows PCs.

If someone wanted to break into the TV business, a TechTV type station would be most welcome. Lord knows this station had many many major advertisers when it was abruptly taken off the air. Since G4TV (COMCAST's pitiful replacement of TechTV) is slanted towards the 7 and 8 year old audience that likes gaming, I refuse to have a gaming console at the beach house. Well, there is a PC or two...

"The higher a monkey climbs, the more you see of his behind."
-General Joe Stillwell

Act of Congress

Congress has a new draft concerning broadband legislation. You can read about and download a PDF copy at ArsTechnica. This has to do with VOIP (internet telephone service), video over internet, protection against monopoly strangleholds on broadband service, etc.

It's late, and a long day has transpired. After fighting to stay awake during Battlestar Galactica it's time to sleep.

"A dreamer is one who can only find his way by moonlight, and his punishment is that he sees the dawn before the rest of the world."
-Wilde

Communication Breakdown

Is anyone having problems with their email, cell phones, internet connectivity or long distance service? My cell phone has developed a mind of its own. Seems early every morning it downloads numbers that have called or messages left hours ago. Strange. Several people have voiced problems with email, most notably Bellsouth subscribers. Yesterday, a Yahoo bizrate account that had been working decided to kill the SMTP and stopped sending email. Sounds like a server problem to me. No doubt we are still under the influence of hurricane Katrina.

Up early and must make haste to avoid the heat potential that will be with us during the afternoon hours. Hope Thursday finds you casual and happy!

"I had to grow up and learn to listen for the unspoken as well as the spoken."
-Eudora Welty

Opinions are needed

Read yesterday's post? Inquiring minds want to know about your favorite wordprocessing software. Go click on comments and make a statement. If you hate Word say so or think WordPerfect is the uber bomb, let us know! Is anyone using the FREE OpenOffice for Windows? It's awesome in Linux. You can save as Word, Excel documents in this great office suite. It can be downloaded at OpenOffice.org. Comment!

There was a note added yesterday that links to the SouthernPhried article Get Out Your Cyber Windex. Has it been mentioned that ALL inquiring emails get a reply? Emails are great because they help with focus on different subjects. Several emails and IMs have been received asking about Windows newest addition to their operating system family, called Vista; you can use this link and get Microsoft's take on their newest wonderchild or click on the one above and have access to several links that are informative, well-written and have no built in prejudice.

Okay, now that I've written almost the same thing for two days it's time to shower, brush my teeth then go pull some cable. Comment here at this post or yesterday's it doesn't matter. Have a casual Wednesday.

"What would you rather have to plow a field — two strong oxen or 1,024 chickens?"
-Seymour Cray

Let's type

Wow! There's a new posting tool. It’s called Blogger for Word. Instead of using the cold, extremely small window I now have Microsoft Word - which means many neat tools and room galore. How many times have posts been lost when trying to publish? No more! This is the first post within Word.  Oh yes, ye shall know mine not so humble opinion within a fortnight.

Ah, word processors. What's your favorite? Word? WordPerfect? OpenOffice? Notepad? DOS prompt? Just click on the comments thangy below this post!

"Our greatest weakness lies in giving up. The most certain way to succeed is always to try just one more time."
-Edison

NOTE: Interested in the upcoming Windows Vista operating system that will supercede XP next year? Please read today's post at Southernphried titled Get Out Your Cyber Windex written by yours truly.

Coding simplified

Here's a bit of BASIC code everyone should understand:

10 GOSUB LOOK_FOR_HOLES
20 IF HOLE_FOUND = FALSE THEN GOTO 50
30 GOSUB FIX_HOLE
40 GOTO 10
50 GOSUB CONGRATULATE_SELF
60 GOSUB GET_HACKED_EVENTUALLY_ANYWAY
70 GOTO 10

This comes from an article that divulges many super points about keeping our machines safe -> The Six Dumbest Ideas in Computer Security. Please read this article. It helps one understand the immensity of security problems. Props to Zonk at Slashdot for a great heads up.

Time to return to the bench. Wish the 'n' in the last word, in the last sentence was an 'a'. Embrace Monday and hang on, Tuesday is not too far away.

"Time flies like the wind. Fruit flies like bananas."
-Groucho Marx

Money, speed, and lack of C8H10N4O2?

Interested in seeing which CEOs are winning and losing? Try the CEO Wealthmeter. Looks like Mr. Ballmer needs to quit throwing chairs and pay more attention to the boys n' girls at Google. This site was discovered while standing around the "water cooler" over at ZDNet: Nice site that has been around for many years. Wish they'd bring back ZDTV since the goobers in the COMCAST boardroom have ruined TechTV.

Want to test the speed of your internet connection? Try CNET's Bandwidth Meter. Please remember this is not the do-all, end-all verdict about your connection. Many factors come into play when using such a test; location, time of day, conditions of external phone line/trunks, condition of cable system, weather, how many buzzards are sitting on the wire at the time of the test, etc. Using Firefox? Download the Bandwidth Tester extension.

It's late and a long fought battle with three PCs started early yesterday. They have worn me down. Time to rest a few hours then return to the front. Thanks goes out to bondoelvis about the tip concerning the broken link in yesterday's post. You can now click on the Firefox button at the bottom of that post and it will transport you to things wonderful. Have a righteous Sunday.

"If you can't sleep, then get up and do something instead of lying there worrying. It's the worry that gets you, not the lack of sleep."
-Dale Carnegie

(C8H10N4O2=caffeine)

Flaming canine, the fat lady singing and other stuff

DON'T download the beta test version 1.5 of Firefox. The beta version has been in use at the beach house for several days and it has some problems. That's why it is a "beta." Firefox is certainly recommended. Use the very stable version 1.06. It is a super alternative to Internet Explorer. Since Microsoft won't let anyone other than XP users have Internet Explorer 7 when it is issued, you may really want to look into other ways to browse the internet. Here is an excellent Firefox installation guide.

Opera is another browser available. The latest incarnation is version 8.0. You can download an ad driven copy here -> Opera. After using the ad free version for a while it has to be reported that this is a nice browser. It's just not worth $30.00 or so when Firefox is a free download that does a better job. The verdict is not completely in on Opera, but it is not happy with Blogger and has a few other issues. Anyone using Opera? Post a comment or email. Be nice to get different opinions.

Several other browsers are available. Go to MajorGeeks and click on Browsers in the 'Files' list. There are many alternatives and a lot of add on tools in this list. Avant and Maxthon have been used here and found not impressive, especially Avant. Netscape is getting good reports since they adopted the Firefox engine. Just remember that Netscape was the whiner that created all the hoopla about Internet Explorer being bundled with Windows for free back a few years ago. NOTE: It is sad that MajorGeeks actually has a link to the gross, putrid Yahoo Toolbar in this list.

"Life is a great big canvas; throw all the paint on it you can."
-Danny Kaye

Arnold is enjoying the nice weather

Occasionally old pages that have been recommended are revisited. I've mentioned Weather Watcher at Singer Creations several times and thought it would be nice to see what has been going on at this site. If you noticed no link this site then good for you. Sorry, while browsing around I noticed one of his sponsoring links is the awful Weatherbug. ANYTHING connected with Claria, in my not so humble opinion, sucks!!! No one despises this junk more than your resident possum watcher. All right, enough with the negative vibes. Time to be happy!

Get outside. Go for a walk. Eat lunch in the park. Grab the kids, wife, girlfriend, boyfriend, the dog or cat and watch the sunset. Have a casual day.

"Those who bring sunshine into the lives of others, cannot keep it from themselves."
-James Barrie