SP2

From Ed Bott, news, reviews, tips & tricks about Windows, Office & other stuff…

The folks at Techweb claim that without SP2 or a third-party firewall, your computer will fall to hacker bots in just four minutes …

I’ll say it again: Tens of millions of computers are running SP2 successfully. If you try to install it and you have problems, that means you have an issue with your hardware or your software. In either case, it should be relatively easy to find and fix. That won’t be the case if your machine is compromised by a worm, a virus, or a virulent piece of spyware.

NewMexiKen spent umpteen hours this past weekend with a laptop infected with serious spyware. It was no fun I assure you. Get SP2, use Firefox, or get a Mac.

[Update: It wasn’t my computer that was infected!]

Announcements

1. NewMexiKen learned a few things during my self-imposed hiatus. One of those is that I want to keep doing this. Another is that Johnny Carson had the right idea — if you’re in it for the long haul, take lots of time off.

2. NewMexiKen, like Emerson, believes that “A foolish consistency is the hobgoblin of little minds.” I reserve the right to change my mind.

3. It’s time to upgrade the underlying blog software from MovableType to WordPress. Most of you won’t care, but while I fool around with the migration there may be some odd looks to the page(s) and possibly a few disruptions. Please bear with me.

4. Thanks primarily to Ken Jennings and Google (and to a lesser extent the other search engines), yesterday was by far the busiest day ever here — 1,494 visits. The previous best was 1,191.

Strong words

I’m sure everybody ever associated with Notre Dame will tell you color had nothing to do with letting Willingham go, that it’s totally a coincidence, which is like spitting in somebody’s face and telling him it’s a rain drop.

Michael Wilbon, in a column worth reading in full

The essential software

EggOn!, the egg timer add-on for Firefox.

Of course, there are issues with this (as with all) software:

  • Due to the ideological bias of some team members the soft egg setting is too hard
  • Timer does not currently calibrate to higher elevations [a major defect for NewMexiKen]

Link via Discourse.net

Word of the year

Based on your online lookups, the #1 Word of the Year for 2004 was:

Blog noun [short for Weblog] (1999): a Web site that contains an online personal journal with reflections, comments, and often hyperlinks provided by the writer.

Merriam-Webster Online

The other nine:

2. incumbent
3. electoral
4. insurgent
5. hurricane
6. cicada
7. peloton
8. partisan
9. sovereignty
10. defenestration

Finally, green means go

The always delightful Dan Neil of the Los Angeles Times reviews the new Honda Accord Hybrid. He begins:

Forget Ferrari and Lamborghini. For those of certain sympathies and convictions, the Honda Accord Hybrid may be the sexiest thing on four wheels.

Are you one of them? Take this simple test to find out:

Do you think Ralph Nader a villain or a secular saint? If the latter, give yourself one point (if you think Ralph is sexy, give yourself two points).

Do you believe global warming is pseudo-science trumped up by alarmist researchers enriching themselves on research grants, or do you believe it poses an imminent threat to life on Earth? If the latter, give yourself three points. Sports talk radio or NPR? If the latter, four points. Hummer hater? Five points. Do you know your Starbucks barista by name? Six points.

Do you believe the secret Cheney energy task force was not unduly influenced by oil and coal lobbyists? Deduct 10 points and check your watch. It might be time for your meds.

In some ways, the Accord Hybrid, which is available starting Friday, is extraordinary in its ordinariness.

Pogue’s Posts and Netflix

David Pogue of The New York Times has started a blog:

I’m the weekly Circuits columnist who reviews all things techie — computer stuff, personal electronics, cellphones, home theater gear, digital music and video — and I’ll be here each day with my musings on the state of consumer technology.

NewMexiKen is a fan of Pogue’s and has found the blog interesting in just its first few days. Here’s a taste:

As longtime readers know, I’m a big fan of Netflix. It’s mail-order DVD rental service, so brilliant in execution that it ought to win some kind of Genius Business Plan Award. You pay a flat monthly fee of $12 or $18 a month (the price recently dropped, if you can believe that). In exchange, you get to pick out two or three DVD’s from Netflix’s library of 25,000 titles. They arrive by mail; you watch ’em and send ’em back in a prepaid mailer. You can churn through a dozen or more movies a month, or you can keep the same three lying on your TV for six months. Either way, all you pay is that fixed monthly fee, with no return deadlines or late fees.

As a Netflix member, I’d had nothing but good experiences with Netflix. But the other day, I ran into a customer-service issue that demonstrates just how deeply the company’s cleverness runs in its DNA.

Basically, I lost a Netflix DVD on a trip. I grumpily logged onto Netflix.com, not looking forward to trying to find its lost DVD policy and discovering what kind of penalty they were going to whack me with.

It took me about two clicks to find the answer. It told me to choose the lost DVD’s name (you don’t even have to type it in; the Web site knows perfectly well which titles you still have checked out). They charged me $20. That was it.

Well, not quite it. If you ever find the disc, you send it back in to them, and they give your $20 back.

Isn’t that just an awesome, humane, sensible policy? May that particular Netflix gene make its way into other companies’ DNA.

Amen

Christian Engeldrum of Ladder Company 61 in Co-op City in the Bronx, was killed while serving with the New York National Guard on Monday when a roadside bomb exploded near his convoy outside Baghdad. He lived through the attacks of 9/11 that took the lives of many of his friends and comrades, which took place even though his government was repeatedly warned to be on the alert for just such an attack but took no measures whatever for the protection of the nation. (He even helped raise the first flag over Ground Zero after the attack.) He lived through the still-unknown health effects on his respiratory system, after breathing the air at Ground Zero when his government lied to him about its safety. What he didn’t live through, however, was a war, which his government lied to try to tie to the attacks, in order to win the support of people like Christian, who had every right to be furious at America’s assailants, but whose duty and courage was exploited to attack people who had nothing whatever to do with it. Osama Bin Laden and Al Qaeda couldn’t kill Christian Engledrum, but his own government’s dishonesty and incompetence could. His two sons have lost a father, his wife, a husband, his parents a son, and for what? Yes Saddam Hussein is in prison, but is anyone really better off for the unending chaos and catastrophe this bunch has unleashed in Iraq? Most Iraqis certainly don’t think they are and the rest of the world hates us more than ever. Isn’t it about time we had an anti-war movement in this country to honor the deaths of exploited heroes like Christian Engeldrum and do our damnedest to minimize the number of brave mothers, fathers, sons, and daughters, husbands and wives, must follow in his footsteps?

Eric Alterman

Ms. Rosa Parks

Forty-nine years ago, as told by the Library of Congress:

On the evening of December 1, 1955, Rosa Parks, an African American, was arrested for disobeying an Alabama law requiring black passengers to relinquish seats to white passengers when the bus was full. Blacks were also required to sit at the back of the bus. Her arrest sparked a 381-day boycott of the Montgomery bus system and led to a 1956 Supreme Court decision banning segregation on public transportation.

Although her arrest was not “planned,” Park’s action was consistent with the NAACP’s desire to challenge segregated public transport in the courts. A one-day bus boycott coinciding with Parks’s December 5 court date resulted in an overwhelming African American boycott of the bus system. Since black people constituted seventy percent of the transit system’s riders, most busses carried few passengers that day.

Success demanded sustained action. Religious and political leaders met at the Dexter Avenue Baptist Church and formed the Montgomery Improvement Association (later the Southern Christian Leadership Conference) and Dexter’s new pastor, Rev. Martin Luther King, Jr., was appointed the group’s leader. For the next year, the Montgomery Improvement Association coordinated the bus boycott and the eloquent young preacher inspired those who refused to ride:

If we are wrong–the Supreme Court of this nation is wrong. If we are wrong–God almighty is wrong! If we are wrong–Jesus of Nazareth was merely a utopian dreamer and never came down to earth. If we are wrong–justice is a lie. And we are determined here in Montgomery to work and fight until justice runs down like water and righteousness like a mighty stream.

Reverend Martin Luther King, Jr., Montgomery, Alabama, 1955.

NewMexiKen

In November there were 21,256 visits to NewMexiKen from 12,906 different IP addresses in 85 countries, Guam and the European Union.

And I took ten days off.

Last Jennings item

But for the next few months, he plans to spend lots of time at home, where he will continue to read obsessively, speed through crossword puzzles and do most of the things he has always done. Except, of course, his own taxes. “H & R Block got hold of me and they’ve offered me free financial services for life,” he said, grinning as if he had just nailed a question on medieval horticulture. “So that I never forget their name again.”

From article about his loss in The New York Times

More Ken Jennings

From “The TV Column” in Tuesday’s Washington Post, which discusses today’s Jeopardy!:

Interestingly, however, Jennings is scheduled to be a guest on tonight’s “Late Show With David Letterman,” which airs on CBS, which is owned by Viacom, which also owns King World.

And, in another of those incredible coincidences, “Nightline” — which airs on ABC, many of whose stations carry “Jeopardy!” — will this very night devote its entire broadcast to that show. ABC News correspondent Judy Muller will interview Jennings and show creator Merv Griffin, a “Nightline” rep told The Washington Post’s TV Team, while emphasizing that the show is about “a day in the life of ‘Jeopardy!,’ ” as opposed to, say, a show about Ken Jennings losing. Because they want to make sure we get word to you that Jennings is on “Nightline” tonight, but they don’t want to be accused of letting the cat out of the bag about Jennings losing. I’m just guessing here that the “Nightline” folks do not even realize the episode is going to air during the November sweeps.

Link via Kottke, who has updated his info.

Pickup game

An interesting essay from The New York Times Magazine on kids and sports. It begins:

Last summer, in the bright, buggy late-afternoon heat of an Atlanta playground, a few Druid Hills High School baseball players taught a bunch of little kids how to play the game.

My 16-year-old son, Lee Samuel, ran a baseball clinic with his teammates Andre Mastrogiacomo and Matt and Palmer Hudson. Here’s what the teenagers didn’t require of their players: tryouts; advance registrations; birth certificates; assignments to teams by age, sex and skill level; uniforms or team names; parent volunteers; snack schedules; and commuting to fields in distant counties in search of the appropriate level of competition.

Here’s what the players didn’t miss: almost none of the above. (Uniforms are pretty cool.)

The name game

Julia Roberts’ new twins, Hazel and Phinnaeus, cause Paul Farhi concern in The Washington Post:

Celebrity baby names these days are very . . . different. We say this not to pass judgment, but to point out one more way celebrities are not like the rest of us.

The list keeps growing. Demi Moore and Bruce Willis are the parents of Rumer Glenn, Scout LaRue and Tallulah Belle. Gwyneth Paltrow and Coldplay singer Chris Martin recently begat Apple. Sylvester Stallone sired Sage Moonblood and Sistine Rose. Courteney Cox Arquette and David Arquette are the proud parents of Coco. Singer Erykah Badu — herself on the celebrity all-name team — has a child named Puma. John Travolta and Kelly Preston named their boy Jett. Christie Brinkley’s youngest is a girl named Sailor. The late rock star Michael Hutchence named his daughter Heavenly Hiraani Tiger Lily. Long-ago rock star Bob Geldof calls daughter Fifi Trixabelle to dinner. Soccer star David Beckham and Victoria “Posh Spice” Adams’s brood includes Brooklyn, Romeo and a soon-to-be wee one who reportedly may be dubbed San Miguel. Supermodel Claudia Schiffer has a girl named Clementine, as does Cybill Shepherd. Rob Morrow, of “Northern Exposure” quasi-fame, dubbed his baby Tu, as in Tu Morrow.

We’d mention that Michael Jackson named one of his children Prince Michael, but this seems like the least Out There thing about Michael Jackson.

Link via dangerousmeta.

It’s the birthday

… of Dick Clark. America’s oldest teenager is 75.

… of David Mamet. The playwright is 57.

And it was on this date in 1835 that Samuel Langhorne Clemens was born.

He’s best known to us today for his novels about Tom Sawyer and Huckleberry Finn, but in his own lifetime his best-selling books were his travel books such as Roughing It (1872), A Tramp Abroad (1880), and Life on the Mississippi (1883).

The Writer’s Almanac has much more.

Bah! Humbug!

NewMexiKen is listening to Christmas music this evening trying to get into the holiday mood.

Of course, my preferred holiday mood is to be somewhat crankier than Ebeneezer Scrooge.

Finally, some HDTV that’s worth watching

Fred Kaplan likes what he sees on VOOM:

VOOM offers 37 high-definition channels—four times as many as any other single satellite or cable company. Its competitors both offer HBO, Showtime, ESPN, and Discovery Theater in high-definition. VOOM has all of those, plus an additional HBO HD channel, an additional Showtime HD channel, two Starz HD channels, two Cinemax HD channels, and HD versions of The Movie Channel, Bravo, and Encore. It also has 21 unique HD channels, including 10 movie channels, two concert channels, and separate channels for news, world sports, extreme sports, fashion, and classic cartoons.