reformat

[reformat: nerd] Photo Printing

2005-10-10T11:04:00.000-06:00

This New York Times article questions the economics of printing photos at home. Long story short; get them done at a lab, they look better and they’re cheaper.

Now playing: Eels - Rags to Rags

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Posted by Paul to reformat: nerd at 10/10/2005 10:04:34 AM

[reformat: personal] iPod Nano

2005-09-08T14:39:00.000-06:00

Well, I finally joined the iPod generation. Now I too can be one of those annoying guys on the train that has his music far too loud so that all of the non-iPod types are forced to listen to whatever crap I happen to be rocking at the moment.

I placed my order for a black iPod Nano last night. More updates when it arrives.

Now playing: Bettie Serveert - Attagirl

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Posted by Paul to reformat: personal at 9/08/2005 01:39:15 PM

[reformat: personal] But I Want to Print in Colour...

2005-09-04T14:47:00.000-06:00

Yet another reason to never buy another inkjet printer.

For the record, printing digital pictures on an inkjet makes them look like ass…

Now playing: Rheostatics - The "You Are Very Star" Journey

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Posted by Paul to reformat: personal at 9/04/2005 01:47:43 PM

[reformat: personal] Too Little, Too Late

2005-09-04T12:59:00.000-06:00

An interesting article on Slate talking about how the media is no longer automatically swallowing everything that the politicians are telling them.

Where was this skepticism in the run-up to the Iraq war/debacle/distraction?

Now playing: Headstones - Oh My God!

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Posted by Paul to reformat: personal at 9/04/2005 11:59:17 AM

[reformat: cars] Automobile mag posts lukewarm Jetta Review

2005-08-17T15:40:00.000-06:00

Interesting to read Automobile Magazine’s 2006 Jetta review. They seem a little lukewarm toward the new Jetta.

Their summary talks about “superb interior quality”, “numerous safety features” and “lots of standard features”. They complain about “dull styling” (really?), that the car is “pricey with options” and that the performance is hampered by weight.

“Pricey with options”? Didn’t they just say that there were lots of standard features and safety equipment?

They then go on to say that other cars in the category are:

Honda Civic
Mazda 3
Toyota Corolla

Sorry guys, but a Civic hasn’t been in the same class as a Jetta for about a dozen years now. As for the Mazda 3, the size of the car alone should disqualify it from being mentioned in the same breath as a Jetta (or a new Golf). Hell, the Mazda 3 barely compares with the old Jetta.

Don’t get me started on the Toyota Corolla.

Now playing: Ass Ponys - The Big E

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Posted by Paul to reformat: cars at 8/17/2005 02:40:07 PM

[reformat: cars] How to do a Proper Test Drive

2005-08-17T14:17:00.000-06:00

Forbes (via Autoblog)has an interesting article on how to do a proper test drive.

Seems like all of the advice they give is fairly sound. However, they mention that you shouldn’t spend too much time fiddling with the gadgets, yet it is the gadgets that I’m most annoyed with in our new Mazda 6 wagon. Of course, I’m comparing it to our Golf (and to the Jetta that it replaced), so that may be unfair.

Now playing: The Charlatans - The End Of Everything

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Posted by Paul to reformat: cars at 8/17/2005 01:17:12 PM

[reformat: personal] You Lost, Deal With It

2005-08-10T16:55:00.000-06:00

In the neverending saga that is the softwood lumber dispute, the American government was handed yet another setback. Of course, they refuse to admit any sort of defeat.

Funny to read the reactions of the Canadians involved. They all seem to acknowledge that they won the court case, but that it won’t change anything.

Now playing: Spinanes - Heisman Stance

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Posted by Paul to reformat: personal at 8/10/2005 03:54:59 PM

[reformat: cars] No Mini Touareg?

2005-08-10T09:02:00.000-06:00

The AP is reporting (via Detroit News) that VW may be delaying or possibly cancelling altogether plans for an upcoming compact SUV.

Personally, having never considered pretending to think about possibly purchasing a small SUV (or a large one for that matter), I think this is a wise decision.

Now they can get back to planning that Jetta Sport Wagon for me. 4MOTION please.

Now playing: Richard Buckner - Daisychain

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Posted by Paul to reformat: cars at 8/10/2005 08:02:33 AM

[reformat: cars] Slightly Sweet Golf R32

2005-08-09T11:17:00.000-06:00

How would you like to drive a Golf with:

A 250hp V6 engine
DSG transmission (dual clutch paddle shifted manual/auto)
4MOTION AWD

Yeah, well me too. Take a look at this article at Dubspeed Driven.

Now playing: Kool Moe Dee - I Go To Work

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Posted by Paul to reformat: cars at 8/09/2005 10:17:39 AM

[reformat: nerd] Use Firewire to Record and Change Channels in Media Centre

2005-08-04T13:36:00.000-06:00

This was news back when all it let you do was change channels with the firewire connection to a set top box that supported it, but now it will actually also record the raw high-def stream using firewire.

Now that’s news. HD in Windows Media Centre Edition. Outstanding.

Now playing: The Smalls - Horse Thief

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Posted by Paul to reformat: nerd at 8/04/2005 12:36:28 PM

[reformat: nerd] Block More Popups with Firefox

2005-08-04T13:16:00.000-06:00

By now, you should be using Firefox for all but the most stubborn websites, you’ve got Greasemonkey installed, you’ve added the IMDB search plugin, and you’re making full use of the various extensions out there, right?

Well, now you can tweak Firefox to block the latest type of popup.

Now playing: Jimmie Dale Gilmore - Braver Newer World

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Posted by Paul to reformat: nerd at 8/04/2005 12:15:59 PM

[reformat: cars] New Passat Launched

2005-08-03T09:56:00.000-06:00

Jalopnik has a story outlining the worldwide launch of the new passat. Looks nice, and the 3.6 litre VR6 putting out 280 hp with 265 foot pounds of torque sounds very nice.

Now playing: Odds - Wendy Under The Stars

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Posted by Paul to reformat: cars at 8/03/2005 08:56:51 AM

[reformat: cars] Jetta Wagon Rumours

2005-08-02T11:28:00.000-06:00

Auto123 is reporting on a bunch of rumours surrounding the next generation Jetta wagon. The picture at right is an artist’s rendering.

Some highlites:

Possible name change and image differentiation from the Jetta sedan. This would fit with other rumours that I’ve heard regarding a sport wagon based on the Jetta platform.
4Motion all-wheel drive.
A new, direct-injection engine that is both supercharged and turbocharged.

They also talk about potential delays (‘07 or ‘08) in bringing this car to market due to re-tooling at the VW plant in Mexico. The plant is ramping up for the new Golf/GTI as well as the facelift for the New Beetle. This doesn’t bother me a whole lot as my lease on the p.o.s. Mazda6 Wagon (don’t get me started) isn’t up until March of ‘08.

Now playing: Bettie Serveert - Ray Ray Rain

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Posted by Paul to reformat: cars at 8/02/2005 10:28:03 AM

[reformat: nerd] How to smoothly reformat:

2005-08-02T10:04:00.000-06:00

PC World (via About.com) has posted a great tutorial on how to reinstall Windows without trashing your data. I haven’t tried it, but it looks like it might actually work.

Now playing: The Okra All - Stars - Conqueror's Song

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Posted by Paul to reformat: nerd at 8/02/2005 09:04:55 AM

[reformat: personal] Irony, Slippery Slope and Hell in a Handbasket

2005-08-02T09:46:00.000-06:00

A day before George Bush announced that he would sidestep the elected representatives of his people and appoint John Bolton (USAToday) as the US Ambassador to the UN, the Department of Homeland Security announced that they would be using RFID tags to track foreign visitors.

Of course, they would never use those devices to track people after they have entered the US, would they? Why must they be RFID? Could they not be simple paper documents that you would present upon demand? The spectre of having the RFID tags scanned without the subject’s knowledge is slightly (extremely) disturbing.

Doing things in the name of (supposed) security is quickly becoming the “won’t somebody think of the children” of this decade.

Now playing: Tobin Sprout - The Natural Alarm

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Posted by Paul to reformat: personal at 8/02/2005 08:46:05 AM

[reformat: cars] New VW Toys

2005-07-29T10:14:00.000-06:00

According to the German Car Blog, the new Golf will be outfitted with an optional iPod dock, allowing you to control your iPod through the steering wheel controls.

Add to that the fact that it looks like the Jetta will be getting some sort of telephone prep system (not sure exactly what that means, although the Passat and the Phaeton both have a Bluetooth option), and it looks like the Jetta will play nicely with your electronic gadgets.

Now playing: Jonathan Fire Eater - I've Changed Hotels

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Posted by Paul to reformat: cars at 7/29/2005 09:13:57 AM

[reformat: nerd] Sooper nerd music

2005-07-27T09:28:00.000-06:00

MC Frontalot
Nerdcore hip hop. Outstanding. Lovin' on "Romantic Cheapskate", a song about songfight.

MC Plus+
A little more hardcore computer nerd (some of the references I don't understand), but sweet nonetheless. C++ (see plus plus) is a computer language. This guy is MC++. Frontalot's rhythms and rhymes are better but MC Plus+ gives me the ROTFLs. "Blunt Code" is especially good, and "Dear Engineer" is a dis against engineers.

Monzy
Decided that the CS rap game needed a good east coast - west coast feud, so he wrote a dis against MC Plus+. Funny as all get out (to me).

Great stuff, although you may have to be a sooper nerd (like myself) to appreciate it.

Now playing: MC Frontalot - Front the Most

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Posted by Paul to reformat: nerd at 7/27/2005 08:28:12 AM

[reformat: cars] Gimme, gimme, gimme

2005-07-26T10:57:00.000-06:00

The new Audi Allroad looks like it might surpass the Volvo XC70 at the top of my dream car list. The old one was neck-and-neck already, but the new style takes the badass wagon factor to new heights. Besides, the Volvo has been around for quite a while now and could use a makeover.

Of course, a Jetta wagon is much more likely in my future.

Now playing: Architecture In Helsinki - Where You've Been Hiding

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Posted by Paul to reformat: cars at 7/26/2005 09:57:03 AM

[reformat: personal] Marty and Tina's Wedding

2005-07-26T10:39:00.000-06:00

A few photos from the wedding out in BC last weekend. If you have any of your own put them up on Flickr and let me know.

Now playing: Spoon - 30 Gallon Tank

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Posted by Paul to reformat: personal at 7/26/2005 09:39:42 AM

[reformat: personal] Land of the Free

2005-06-29T13:17:00.000-06:00

In the wake of the recent US Supreme Court decision to allow local governments to seize private property for commercial development in the name of eminent domain (as opposed to the old rules which basically only allowed this for infrastructure purposes), a group in New Hampshire has petitioned their local government to begin the process of seizing the house of one of the justices of the Supreme Court.

The group wants to build the “Lost Liberty Hotel” on the land currently occupied by the house of Justice David H. Souter.

link: (from BoingBoing)

Now playing: Eels - Going Fetal

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Posted by Paul to reformat: personal at 6/29/2005 12:17:08 PM

[reformat: personal] Stop Making Sense

2005-06-24T08:40:00.000-06:00

Good site with a list of rebuttals when talking to people that are against gay marriage.

http://web.morons.org/feature/marriage.jsp

Now playing: Husker Du - One Step At A Time

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Posted by Paul to reformat: personal at 6/24/2005 07:40:18 AM

[reformat: personal] Rick Mercer's Blog: Jason Kenney: Marxist Leninist

2005-06-23T16:28:00.000-06:00

Rick Mercer's Blog: Jason Kenney: Marxist Leninist

Hypocrisy, idiocy and straight up ignorance. God bless Rick Mercer. Thanks for the link Hammy.

Now playing: Guided By Voices - Idiot Princess

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Posted by Paul to reformat: personal at 6/23/2005 03:28:31 PM

[reformat: personal] Rosey Grier's Needlepoint for Men

2005-06-23T13:16:00.000-06:00

This is the best link I’ve seen in a long time. Looks like the real deal to me…

Now playing: bright eyes - gold mine gutted

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Posted by Paul to reformat: personal at 6/23/2005 12:16:39 PM

[reformat: cars] Entry Luxury AWD

2005-05-09T18:41:00.000-06:00

A certain relation of mine is seemingly always just a few months from the expiry of his lease. Every three years or so (although the process itself seemes to go longer than that) we start to narrow down the choices for his next car.

His criteria are not that particular, he wants an nice sedan with all-wheel drive, leather, and some nice creature comforts, preferrably an import. The last few times we've gone through this exercise, we've arrived at VW Passat V6 4Motion. Very nice car. However, in the last three years, a couple of things have happened:

More marques are offering AWD sedans
My relation's wife has expressed interest in her own Passat
As a follow-on to (2), my relation has become interested in slightly more up-market vehicles (whether in truth or simply in perception)

Here's our list so far:

Audi A4
BMW 3 series
Mercedes-Benz C320
VW Passat (an oldie, but a goodie)
Infiniti G35x
Lexus ES 300
Volvo S60

All of these cars come in 45K-60K nicely equipped. What does nicely equipped mean? Well, the aforementioned leather and AWD in addition to some cold weather gear, sunroof, and a package or two.
Cars not on the list but in the same category (or at least, they seem to think they are):

Jaguar X-Type
Acura TL
anything domestic

More on each of those models on the list (and those that missed the cut) later.

--Posted by Paul to reformat: cars at 5/0/2005 06:41:21 PM

[reformat: nerd] Sober Up

2005-05-08T09:12:00.000-06:00

This article explains how the latest worm/virus/whatever called "Sober.P" is now accounting for 4.6 percent of all email traffic. The interesting thing is that updated computers cannot be infected.

Simply keeping your security patches up to date will completely protect you from this threat.

Windows Update

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Posted by Paul to reformat: nerd at 5/8/2005 08:08:00 AM

[reformat: personal] Dubya does Lennon and Reed

2005-05-02T13:56:00.000-06:00

join the party party

This person (these people?) have remixed some George W. Bush speeches so that it sounds like he's doing a John Lennon/ Lou Reed medley.

Spooky.

Update: The "Sunday Bloody Sunday" is a little too spooky...

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Posted by Paul to reformat: personal at 5/2/2005 12:51:00 PM

[reformat: cars] Why Blog About Cars?

2005-04-27T14:36:00.000-06:00

Why would I blog about cars? Simple. People are always asking me about cars. Or am I always telling people about cars? Either way, people seem to ask me for car buying advice.

There are many sites out there that are focused on car reviews, opinions, and industry news. With this blog, I want to focus on what you sometimes see termed "buyers' guide" information.

A review can tell you all about a BMW 330xi (of course, many of the reviewers were just treated to a 5 day getaway in Germany courtesy of BMW), but it doesn't generally tell you how that 330 stacks up against an Infinity G35.

I am going to try to focus on comparing features and prices of vehicles and let the reviewers give their opinions on the cars themselves. Of course, I wil be offering some opinions, but not full-blown reviews (for now).

Now playing: XTC - Making Plans for Nigel

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Posted by Paul to reformat: cars at 4/27/2005 01:34:51 PM

[reformat: nerd] Secure Your Wireless Network

2005-04-21T09:27:00.000-06:00

Preston Galla from Windows Dev Center has written up a nice summary on how to secure your wireless network. You’ll want to go here to read it.

Why secure your wireless network? Well, imagine the damage someone could to if they were able to snoop all of your network traffic. Online banking passwords, credit card info, private emails (although there really is no such thing), instant message conversations and anything else that you don’t want people to know about.

As well, if someone can get on your wireless network, they will have a much easier time getting into your computer and getting whatever information you have stored in there. I don’t know about you, but I’ve got tax returns, 5 years worth of emails, web site passwords and all sorts of other private stuff on my machine.

Now playing: The Housemartins - Five Get Over Excited

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Posted by Paul to reformat: nerd at 4/21/2005 09:27:00 AM

[reformat: nerd] Virtual Tourism

2005-04-11T13:25:00.000-06:00

Google's maps site has been recently updated to include satellite images of the maps. Enter your search in the bar at the top, hit enter and then click the "satellite" link at the top-right. Sooper cool.

New and improved Wascana Lake
Future home of Erin and Tyler
Paul and Cori's neighbourhood
Fairmont

Whole communities have sprung up around this. People sharing cool places and whatnot. My favourite so far is this shot of Candlestick Park (or whatever it is called this year) taken during a 49ers game.

Now playing: The Flaming Lips - Fight Test

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Posted by Paul to reformat: nerd at 4/11/2005 10:07:00 AM

[reformat: nerd] Why Do I Care?

2005-04-04T13:29:00.000-06:00

OK, so you may be asking yourself, "What is blogging all about and why do I care?" If you come to a satisfactory answer to that, your next question might be "Ok, now what?"

I will try to answer both of those questions for you.

A blog is basically a web site. Most blogs are run by a single person or a small group of people. Some blogs are targeted towards a single interest (programming, digital photography, beanie babies, whatever) and some are more rambling in scope (this one for example).

The twist comes when you introduce syndication into the mix. Syndication allows you to use a program (a news aggregator) to keep track of multiple blogs without having to go to the website every time you want to see if they have added new content. You simply add as many blog feeds (RSS, ATOM, etc) to your program and it will periodically check for and download new postings. Very convenient.

The news reader that I use is called RSS Bandit, but there are many out there. Some are simply web-based (Bloglines), some are stand-alone apps ( RSS Bandit, FeedDemon) some are browser plug-ins (OnFolio, Pluck) and some are integrated into Outlook ( NewsGator).

RSS Bandit is free. I don't know about the others.

Once you have an aggregator, you need to add some feeds to it. I subscribe to feeds for all sorts of things.

Cars
Gadgets
Mark Cuban
Life Hacks
Mind Hacks
Programming (I'll spare you the links)
Tuner Tricks

There are blogs out there for just about anything. When you browse to the blog's website, you'll want to look for a link that says "syndicate", "RSS", "ATOM" "feed" or something like that. Copy that link into your aggregator. Lather, rinse, slack off.

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Posted by Paul to reformat: nerd at 4/4/2005 10:06:00 AM

[reformat: personal] Slim Odds, I Know

2005-03-30T13:30:00.000-07:00

If you are one of the few people (perhaps there's more than I think) that is familiar with They Might Be Giants and also took Logic 100 in school and actually remember first-order logic notation, have I ever got a link for you…

http://www.livejournal.com/community/reformat_songs/26361.html

Now playing: The Smalls - Payload

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Posted by Paul to reformat: personal at 3/30/2005 10:06:00 AM

[reformat: nerd] Google Desktop Search

2005-03-29T13:30:00.000-07:00

I have switched back to Google Desktop Search from MSN search.

Reasons:

Google doesn't install a bunch of toolbars in Outlook and Office. MSN does.
The search seems a little faster. Maybe that's just my imagination.
This plugin. It allows you to specify any file extension as plain text. This is very handy for me as I can specify all of my various source code extensions (.as, .mxml, .cs, etc) and GDS will index them. Extremely useful.
Some of these other plugins look pretty cool too.

The one feature of MSN desktop search (or whatever it was called…"toolbar suite"?..what's that all about) that I miss was the command macro abilities. For example, I had "tsc" mapped to "mstsc /v:%1" which would allow me to type "tsc computername" and it would send the command "mstsc /v: computername" to windows. (This command is basically the "Remote Desktop Connection" in XP). This was a handy feature, but the text file plugin trumped that easily.

Get Google Desktop Search.

Now playing: Man Or Astro - man? - 10 Years After World War 4

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Posted by Paul to reformat: nerd at 3/29/2005 10:05:00 AM

[reformat: nerd] Outlook Personal Folders Backup Tool

2005-03-28T13:31:00.000-07:00

Microsoft has released a handy tool for backing up your Outlook data. Essentially, it copies your .pst file to a location of your choosing so you can back it up.

For example, you could make a folder on your hard drive called "C:\OutlookBackup" and periodically save your personal folders there. You should then burn the .pst file to a CD or DVD and store it somewhere safe for good measure. Simply copying it to a folder on the same drive isn't really a good backup as a common cause of data loss is hard drive failure.

There is a nice article to help you out here and you can download it here. I had to re-start Outlook after installing in order to get the menu options to show up.

Make sure you put the backup file in a location that you'll remember (C:\OutlookBackup or somewhere in "My Documents").

Now playing: Southern Culture On The Skids - Greenback Fly

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Posted by Paul to reformat: nerd at 3/28/2005 10:05:00 AM

[reformat: personal] Perfectly Round Cheek

2005-03-24T13:32:00.002-07:00

Perfectly round cheek

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Posted by Paul to reformat: personal at 3/24/2005 10:04:00 AM

[reformat: personal] Yummy Toes

2005-03-24T13:32:00.001-07:00

Yummy toes

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Posted by Paul to reformat: personal at 3/24/2005 10:03:00 AM

[reformat: personal] Molly and Daddy

2005-03-24T13:32:00.000-07:00

Molly and Daddy

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Posted by Paul to reformat: personal at 3/24/2005 10:00:00 AM

[reformat: personal] Happy Baby

2005-03-24T13:31:00.000-07:00

Now THAT is a happy baby

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Posted by Paul to reformat: personal at 3/24/2005 10:04:00 AM

[reformat: nerd] Phishing Update

2005-02-22T13:32:00.000-07:00

I've been getting a lot of phishing emails lately. Most are "from" PayPal or WAMU bank. It's pretty easy to recognise the WAMU attacks as I don't have an account with WAMU, but the PayPal one was a little trickier.

The key was to hover my mouse over the link they want me to click on. I read the target URL from the bottom of my Outlook window. It wasn't PayPal. No clicky.

Now playing: Richard Buckner - Coursed

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Posted by Paul to reformat: nerd at 2/22/2005 10:01:00 AM

[reformat: nerd] Run Like An Antelope...

2005-02-08T13:33:00.000-07:00

There are people out there that want your personal (most often banking) information. One common way for them to try to ge this info is to send you a phony email from your bank asking you to click on a link to confirm your information. This is called "phishing". The link in this email doesn't take you to your bank's website, but to a website set up by criminals where they will record your information.

Not good.

There is also a new attack whereby the link in the email can look exactly like the site for your bank, but it isn't. There are other character sets out there for other languages that have characters that look a whole lot like our Roman characters, but they aren't. You can be sure that someone somewhere is registering http://www.royalbank.ca/ with a tiny umlaut over the "o".

Not good.

Rule of thumb: If you click on a link in an email, do not implicitly trust the site you are sent to. If the link is simply from a friend saying "check out http://www.homestarrunner.com/", then you've got nothing to worry about because you weren't planning on giving Strong-Bad your banking password, were you?

Now playing: Stone Roses - Standing Here

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Posted by Paul to reformat: nerd at 2/8/2005 10:00:00 AM

[reformat: personal] Sweetie

2005-01-18T13:50:00.000-07:00

Sweetie

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Posted by Paul to reformat: personal at 1/18/2005 09:57:00 AM

[reformat: personal] Bucket

2005-01-18T13:33:00.000-07:00

Bucket

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Posted by Paul to reformat: personal at 1/18/2005 09:59:00 AM

[reformat: nerd] Safe Computing

2005-01-10T10:52:00.000-07:00

This is an effort to answer some questions that I frequently get from friends/family/foes/etc regarding computers. Everything from "I need a new computer" to "I got a virus, help!" (The answers to those two requests are "Decide how much you want to spend and then go to Dell" and "Reformat and start over" respectively).

So here we go...

Privacy/Security

These are all common sense (or at least they should be).

1) The first thing I will tell you is that you should NEVER, EVER, EVER give out personal information in an email. I'm talking SIN numbers and the like here, you can talk about who you have a crush on if you so please.

2) Go ahead and use your credit card on reputable web sites. However, if you start using EBay (where every transaction is with someone that you don't know) or some dodgy e-commerce site, take precautions. Some people recommend getting a separate credit card for on-line transactions. That might be a little bit extreme. Getting your credit card stolen is actually a relatively painless type of online fraud. What we're really worried about is identity theft.

3) If you get an email from your bank asking to verify your birth date and account number, phone them. Odds are, the email (and the site that they refer you to) aren't run by your bank.

4) If you get an email from Nigeria telling you that someone needs your help to get millions of dollars out of the country and all you need to do is fax them your driver's license and a blank cheque, don't do it. I know that this sounds obvious, but people fall for these scams every day.

Data/Backup

1) Backup.

2) Backup.

3) Backup.

"What should I backup?" you ask. Well, your documents for starters. This includes your digital photos, your term papers, your tax returns from Cantax, anything that you would cry over if it went away.

You should also backup your email and your contacts. I have a Pocket PC which syncs my contacts all of the time, so I don't back those up. I also use GMail instead of Outlook (with an ISP email address), so I guess I trust Google not to lose my email.

There are tools out there that exist only to backup Outlook or Outlook Express. Find one and use it. You can also read this tutorial that tells you how to do it manually.

When I backup my documents/source code/etc, I simply copy them to a different computer. Not the safest backup policy (i.e. in case of fire), but I figure that if my house burns down, getting the Booky Book website up and running might slip down the list of priorities.

Many people simply backup to a CD. That's a pretty good method.

Spyware/Virus Protection

1) Get an anti-virus. Use it. Update it if it doesn't update itself. I use F-Secure, but you can use Norton or McAffee if you please.

2) Don't install stupid software. Can you say "Bonzai Buddy"?

3) Get service pack 2 for Windows XP (assuming you are running XP - If you're running Windows 95, step 3a is "Get XP" and then this is step 3b) and enable auto-updates. It will do this for you automatically if you let it. Let it. If you refuse to do auto-updates, use Windows Update regularly.

4) Microsoft just released a beta of an anti-spyware tool:

(Click the "Continue" button, check the "No" option and hit "Continue", then click "Download")

I use it. It seems good (although I, of course, had no spyware on my computer). It removed the spyware that Cori had on her computer ("I don't know how that got there...I don't install crappy software" - right).

You can use Ad-Aware or something else if you prefer, although the Microsoft one is always running, whereas Ad-Aware has to be run by the user and some people have been known to forget.

5) If you have broadband (DSL or cable modem), you should (I almost put the word "must" there) get a broadband router (think "firewall"). Even in the default configuration this wll keep some bad guys out. You should at least change the password on yours though. If you get one with wireless, you must secure it properly. If you don't know what that means, either (a) don't get a wireless one, or (b) learn (I'll help).

This one should do nicely.

New Tools/Toys

1) Google Desktop Search / MSN Toolbar Suite

I actually use the Microsoft desktop search instead of the Google one for reasons that are irrelevant for most people (I can write plug-ins for it). Both are sooper handy when looking for stuff on your own computer (including emails in Outlook)

Summary

As most of my family members will tell you, my solution to many computer problems (virus, slowness, weird noises, etc) is to re-format the drive and start over. Some people prefer to mess around and do other stuff that doesn't work before they do what they call a "last resort".

You generally need 2 things in order to do this:

1) The CDs for your operating system (Windows XP) and your applications (Office, etc)

2) A backup of your data. You did backup, right?

There are other ways of solving computer problems, but this one solves all problems all of the time. A bit like using a sledgehammer as a flyswatter, but it gets the job done.

I'll get off my soapbox now.

Now playing: Main Source - Peace Is Not the Word to Play [12" Remix Version]

Update: I am using Google Desktop Search again now. See my post above.

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Posted by Paul to reformat: nerd at 1/10/2005 09:51:00 AM