HP Sues Ink Cartridge Refillers

Hewlett-Packard is suing two companies that sell refilled ink cartridges. Last week, HP filed suit in Wisconsin against InkCycle, alleging that the company's ink violates three HP patents.

Then, on Monday, HP filed suit against RhinoTek in California, accusing them of false advertising by using packaging that indicates its refilled HP printer cartridges are new.

While the company stopped short of trying to shut down ink jet refiller companies, analysts claim that HP is losing large chunks of business (and profits) to the these kinds of companies. It is well known that ink jet printers are relatively cheap as manufacturers like HP, Lexmark, and Epson make up for these low prices with sales of ink cartridges. It is reminiscent of many years ago when Gillette gave away safety razors because the real profit was in the sale of the replacement blades.

The ramifications of the InkCycle case could spread beyond the company if it's using ink that other refillers use as well. Violating copyrights is serious and if InkCycle is found guilty, they and other companies may well have to shut down, giving the ink business back to the manufacturers.

In the Rhinotek case, HP asserts that the company's "packaging and promotional materials are calculated to give consumers the impression that defendants' cartridges are new." HP wants a requirement that Rhinotek use the words "used" and "refilled" prominently on its packaging of refilled HP ink cartridges. HP also wants all Rhinotek profits from the time of the alleged deceptive advertisements.

Rhinotek's chairman has sharply criticized HP, asserting that the inkjet cartridge refiller falsely advertises its products as new.

"I think HP is utilizing a bullying tactic," said Gerald Chamales, who also is founder of the 150-employee company in Carson, Calif. "I think consumers are tired of being gouged by what I call the cartel, which is the major printer manufacturers, led by HP, Lexmark and Canon, (and which is) forcing people to not have a choice when it comes to ink and toner cartridges."

New Worm Moving Quickly

A worm called Mytob is making its way quickly across the Internet. Like many of its predecessors, this is a mass mailing worm. But it is different in that is is evolving and changing.

Just last week, eight new variations were found and over a dozen have been found since March 1. Just yesterday, Symantec reported finding two new variations. Both new worms achieved a low or moderate threat rating from Symantec, as have earlier variants of Mytob, but the company is still recommending that people update their security software immediately to protect against the emerging threat.

All the of Mytob variants are distributed via mass e-mail campaigns, feature so-called backdoor capabilities, and attack computers running Microsoft's Windows operating system. The worm uses its own SMTP (Simple Mail Transfer Protocol) engine to forward itself to e-mail addresses that it gathers from infected computers. The threat also spreads by exploiting the Local Security Authority Service Remote Buffer Overflow in Windows, an opening that Microsoft has already addressed in its periodic security updates.

The latest versions of Mytob also attempt to block infected computers from accessing the security update Web sites of companies such as Symantec, McAfee and Microsoft, by adding text to a compromised PC's Hosts file.

Symantec has tracked numerous variations of the two new Mytob worms, with each threat being distributed from a number of different sender names and featuring a range of e-mail subject lines and message texts. Both Mytob.R and Mytob.S arrive in e-mails with subject lines that include the phrases "good day" and "mail transaction failed."

I hope your virus definitions are up to date.

The Future of HDTV

So what is the future of High Definition Television? Bigtime, at least according to a new study released today. According the market research company In-Stat, there are currently around 10 million homes worldwide that now have high-definition TV sets. And in the next 9 months, they predict that number will grow more than 50 percent to reach 15.5 million by the end of the year.

In-Stat also predicts that the boom will continue in coming years and that by 2009, the total number of households that watch TV programs from an HDTV set will be at around 52 million.

But, the company points are that there are several stumbling blocks that might slow the spread, including the need for more content and public confusion about the technology. The lack of adequate HDTV content has disappointed many consumers, even prompting some to go so far as to return the TV sets.

Of those who keep their sets, nearly 45 percent of HDTV households receive their service from a satellite TV service provider, with terrestrial broadcasters and cable TV operators accounting for the rest of the market share.

The In-Stat study also noted that the United States is one of the fastest-growing HDTV markets; the number of households with high-definition TV sets in the country went up 150 percent to 4 million in just one year. Other major markets are Australia, Japan, South Korea and Canada.

I look forward to someday having a quality SDTV set in our home, especially during football season. Its been fun to walk around Costco every so often to see how some of the sets have improved in quality and that their prices have dropped. But, we are going to wait a little longer as TV is not that big of a deal in our life.

My New Adventures with Microsoft

As you may remember from a recent issue, I had to buy a new computer because my old one dropped dead during the time I was having my web site problems. So I ordered a new, faster computer and am loving it. Its 2-3 times faster than my last one and for the most part, it has been working well.

My computer came equipped with Windows XP SP1. Where I went wrong was updating it with Service Pack 2 and some of the other security upgrades before I installed my programs. After I did that, two problems showed their head.

First, after installing Microsoft Outlook for my e-mail, the program would not retain my passwords for my mail accounts. If I left the program running all the time, I didn't have a problem after I first entered my passwords. But if I exited the program and later restarted it, I would have to re-enter my passwords again. That can be irritating, especially if you have three mail accounts.

Finally, after trying everything I could think of, I checked out Microsoft's web site, specifically their Knowledge Base. Bingo!! I found the problem and the solution. It required me to go into the Windows XP Registration file and make some changes, which is always a dangerous adventure as one small misstep can wreak havoc with your computer.

I followed their steps very carefully, double and triple checking the registration entries and deletions exactly as they spelled them out in the Knowledge Base article. At the end, I rebooted my machine with no problems and opened Outlook. And...you guessed it...it still would not remember my passwords. I decided to try Outlook Express, but it produced the exact same results.

As I said, I think where I made my mistake was to install all the updates to Windows XP before I installed any software. One of the security updates is what caused my problem, according to Microsoft. On our other two computers running Windows XP, the updates have caused no problems, probably because Outlook was installed first.

Rather than spend the rest of my life trying to fix my problem, I decided to try another e-mail program...Mozilla's Thunderbird. And guess what...it remembers my passwords just fine. As you may remember, I tested out this e-mail program before. The only reason I discontinued was because their junk mail program didn't do an effective enough job for me . But since I moved my web site and e-mail server off site, my new hosting service filters e-mail and my junk mail problem has pretty much disappeared anyway.

The second problem had to do with a hard drive. A year or so ago, I bought an external hard drive that is connected to my computer via firewire (IEEE 1394). The connection is fast and the drive has worked flawlessly. It stores a lot of our data and all the computers in our house have access to it so all data is stored in one place and is easy to back up.

After connecting it my new computer, I noticed that occasionally it would drop off the network, or my computer would stop seeing it altogether. After I few days, I decided something was wrong and began to analyze what was happening. After my problem with Outlook, I decided to go right to the Knowledge Base at Microsoft.

And I found the answer. One of their articles described my condition to a tee. It also said that the problem was caused by something in XP's Service Pack 2. And they had what they called a "hot fix" for it. They don't have the hot fix on their website and the only way to get it was to talk directly with a Microsoft technician.

Now here's where I got mad for a day. According to the article, in order to talk with a Microsoft tech, it cost $245, payable in advance! To e-mail a technician for support is cheaper...only $94, again paid in advance. According to the article, the technician may decide to waive these fees, but there is absolutely no guarantee. Whoa!!!

After seething about these events overnight, I went back to Microsoft's very large website and clicked on another link I found for tech support. On this page, it said I could contact Microsoft for free about my problems. What??

Being confused, I decided to try this new link. I sent them an e-mail describing my problem. In less than 12 hours, I got a very nice response from a Microsoft technician named Kelly who put the hotfix up on the web for me with a location link and a password.

And so far, their fix seems to have worked, but I will need a few days more testing to make sure. I am grateful for Microsoft's quick response, but still a little confused about the two very different ways to get Microsoft's help.

I am still loading software onto my new computer, so who knows what new problems may arise. I just hope my problems and my experiences with Microsoft will be helpful if and when you buy a new computer.

Shocking Spyware Test Results!

I seem to write a lot lately about spyware...well, at least I think I do. Being aware of this, I had planned to "take a vacation" from spyware stories for a little while and focus on other things...but I came across a few articles from respected sources that forced me to change my mind.

These articles talked about how some spyware programs are worse than worthless...they can actually put more spyware on your computer and take over your home page. But, on the good side, most of these stories pointed out that one particular software, called "CounterSpy," from Sunbelt Software, Inc. is absolutely terrific in sniffing out and destroying spyware.

Let's talk for one paragraph about the worst of the worst spyware detection software. There is a web site run by a security researcher named Eric Howes that maintains a list of rogue and suspect spyware detection software that are exceedingly bad investments for anyone wanting to keep their computers free of spyware. Not only that, some of them are not spyware detectors at all. Here is that website. You should take a look at it and hope you never invested any money in these programs.

Now for Counterspy. After reading the rave reviews about this product, I decided to download a 15 day test trial and compare it against my other two favorite spyware detectors: Spybot Search and Destroy...and Microsoft's AntiSpyware Software.

As you may remember from previous blogs, I used Spybot for some time and was very happy with it. Later, I downloaded the new Microsoft AntiSpyware and ran it head-to-head against Spybot. I was more than surprised when AntiSpyware found several more spyware products on my computer. So for the last several weeks, I have been using Microsoft as my main spyware detector and remover.

When I started reading about CounterSpy, I realized I wanted to do another head-to-head. So I downloaded it and prepared it for use. I decided the best method was to test Counterspy last. I should mention that I decided to use my laptop as the guinea pig since my new computer is still too new. I first scanned with Spypot, after downloading the latest updates. It found no new spyware.

Then I did the same thing with Microsoft AntiSpyware. First, I did an update to make sure I had the latest definitions. For test purposes, I used the "deep scan" option that took nearly 30 minutes. I wanted to do a thorough check. It found one new spyware on my computer since my last scan five days ago. So, once again, Microsoft AntiSpyware appeared to do slightly better than Spybot.

Then came the shocker. I ran CounterSpy for the first time. For the fun of it, I just ran the basic scan, not a deep one. It found, if you can believe this, 64 previously undetected spyware products infecting my computer. The software listed each one, its degree of danger, and an in-depth explanation of each one. Several were listed as very dangerous. I, of course, removed all of them.

I read that this product was good, but I didn't realize how good...or conversly, that all the other products on the market aren't doing a good enough job. Finding out that my computer was nowhere near as safe as I thought it was is a real shocker. I think I now must spend the $20 to buy CounterSpy (good for one year) to protect my computer.

I also think its high time that our government does something about this mass invasion of our privacy. I don't think it is right for anyone to put something on someone else's computer without their permission. And I don't think that hiding permission statements in mile long legal disclosures that no one reads constitutes permission.

I hope that some of you will download the free trial of CounterSpy and post your results. Remember, if you get this blog via e-mail, and if you use the "reply," everyone else will see your results, which I think would be most interesting for all of us.

If you are reading this blog on the web, just reply to the story.

Firefox Security Flaw Fixed

If you are a user of the now-popular web browser, Firefox, you should know that the Mozilla Foundation has issued a patch for a major security flaw in the browser and is advising people to update their software.

The problem is caused by a buffer overflow in legacy Netscape code still included in the browser for animating GIF images. Similar memory problems have affected previous Mozilla's browsers and Microsoft's Internet Explorer in the past. A malicious attacker could exploit them by creating carefully crafted image files that, when viewed by a victim in a browser, execute a program and compromise the system.

The flaw was discovered by Internet Security Systems, a network protection company, and patched by Mozilla before the public even learned of the issue.

If you are thinking about trying out Firefox, you should know that the Mozilla Foundation released version 1.02 of Firefox on Wednesday to fix the problem. So, if you go to their website and download Firefox, you will be getting a corrected version. Existing users should should go to the website to download and apply the patch.

Mozilla is currently reviewing the roughly 2 million lines of code that makes up the Firefox browser to find similar vulnerabilities to those just patched. Last August, the organization offered a bounty to anyone who finds significant flaws in the software. The developers are looking with particular intensity at the legacy code that remains in the browser.

FTC Shuts Down Spyware Vendor

In a bold move that comes about five years after it should have, the Federal Trade Commission shut down a spyware maker that alledgedly used false scare tactics to get people to buy their products and, at the same time, spread nasty little spyware demons.

The company, named "MaxTheater" sold a product called "Spyware Assassin." To help promote sales, their pop-up ads would open in the middle of your online session to warn, in very bold capital letters, that "Your system is infected with spyware." It was easy to shut down the pop-up ad, but of course it got you thinking.

One person who did click on the ad tells the following story:

"...the program bombarded me with ads and inserted itself on top of my home page like an annoying younger sibling. It took a lot of persistence to remove all the cookies, files, and other general nonsense from the system. I would think the system was clean, and I'd happily surf for a couple of weeks and then -- boom! The unwanted Web page would show up again as my home page. It's finally gone (I think), but certainly not forgotten.

According to the FTC, MaxTheater would produce evidence of spyware even on systems that were clean, and even more galling, its $30 program did not actually remove any spyware. A U.S. court has ordered MaxTheater to suspend its activities until a court hearing next week. The court could compel the company to give back all the money it made from selling Spyware Assassin, but I doubt that will happen.

It would have been nice if the FTC folks would have done this a lot sooner...or at least take the bull by the horns and do it more often from now on.

Followup on VOIP 9-1-1

As if on cue after writing yesterday about VOIP, a news story popped up this morning regarding 911 service on VOIP phones specifically the 911 services provided by Vonage. It seems the State of Texas is suing VOIP-provider Vonage for misleading the public on the way their 911 service works.

According to the lawsuit, Texas alledges that Vonage 911 calls aren't routed in the traditional manner. Rather, most end up at the administrative offices of the 6,000 emergency calls centers rather than dispatchers. According the the Texas State Attorney General, the dangers of the circuitous route were exposed in early March when a 17-year-old Houston girl was unable to get through to police after dialing 911 on a Vonage phone after both her parents were shot by intruders.

Vonage replied only by stating that there are numerous disclosures of these facts on their web site, which I thought to be a rather strange reply. Vonage does not charge for their 911 service. If you would like to read the full text of the articles, go to:
http://news.zdnet.com/2100-1035_22-5630118.html?

After reading this story, I decided to check on the 911 service of my own provider, Packet 8. In doing so, I discovered two things...one is that they lowered their 911 service from $4.95 a month to $1.50 per month. I am glad I checked.

The second item I discovered is that Packet 8 seems to handle their 911 in the more traditional manner used by regular telephone services. Here is a description of their 911 service directly from their web site:

The three-digit telephone number "9-1-1" has been designated as the "Universal Emergency Number," for citizens throughout the United States to request emergency assistance. It is intended as a nationwide telephone number and gives the public fast and easy access to a Public Safety Answering Point (PSAP). With the emergence of cellular and Internet telephone services, there is demand to deliver a comprehensive 911 solution from these telecommunication mediums as well. Packet8 is the first Internet residential telephone service to offer "Enhanced" 911 (E911) service which automatically routes calls and computer-based "screen pops" of caller information to emergency personnel at local Public Safety Answering Points (PSAPs). Because Packet8's E911 call data is routed as emergency traffic and is accompanied by E911 caller information, callers receive the same response from emergency personnel that they are accustomed to receiving from legacy, switched telecommunications 911 services provided by traditional telephone carriers.

Packet8's E911 also provides emergency operators with a caller's location information. This information could be vital for cases where the caller is unable to reveal or communicate their whereabouts because of the emergency condition. 8x8, a signatory to the Voice on the Net Coalition/NENA (National Emergency Number Association) statement of principles, has been working with its commercial partners and NENA to rapidly deploy E911 services to Packet8 subscribers. Until now, Internet telephone service providers have either not supported 911 emergency calls or have utilized simple "10-digit routing" technique to pass 911 calls to non-emergency, telephone numbers. These "10-digit routing" techniques typically resulted in 911 calls being connected to a variety of locations including non-emergency or administrative lines of PSAPs, the "crime-not-in-progress" number of a police station, or, in some instances, invalid numbers. Packet8's E911 service, developed in partnership with Level3 Communications (Nasdaq : LVLT), eliminates these issues, and delivers on the principles outlined in 8x8's past agreements with NENA. Upon signing up for this optional Packet8 service, 8x8 will take down vital information of your stationary location so that in the unfortunate event where emergency E911 services are required you will be automatically routed to the correct group and location handling standard 911calls.

Cost: $1.50 per month, $9.95 activation fee

I would like to point out that I am not pushing Packet 8 here, it just that its the one I am most familiar with.

Is It Time To Get VOIP?

I can hear some of you now asking the question...what is VOIP?

Well, lets start at the beginning. VOIP stands for "Voice Over Internet Protocal." Still confused? In plain English, this means using your Internet connection to make phone calls.

VOIP has been around for years. In the early days, one plugged in a set headphones with a microphone into one's computer, and with the proper software, could talk to someone else on the other end who was running the same software on his or her computer.

Today, VOIP works just like a regular telephone. You use a telephone to call almost anyone else in the world who has a telephone. But, instead of using regular telephone lines, your call is routed over the Internet. It eventually comes out at the other end routed over standard phone lines to the person to whom you wish to speak (unless the other party also has VOIP, in which case it never leaves the Internet).

To have VOIP, you must have a high speed, permanent Internet connection like our Grant County ZIPP fiber optics, DSL, or cable Internet connection.

No doubt, you have seen ads on TV for Vonage, one of the best known VOIP companies, although they never use the term VOIP. There are several other companies out there offering VOIP, including traditional telephone companies like AT&T and Verizon.

Susan and I have had VOIP for over two years now, and it works just great. We have called all over the US, Canada, and Western Europe...and people have called us. When Eric was in Quwait, he would call us via satellite phone and we had a great connection.

We are using a company called Packet 8. We chose them because they were the only company at that time that could give us a local Grant County phone number. As a bonus, it turned out they were also less expensive than most companies.

For a flat fee of $19.95 per month, we can make unlimited calls anywhere in the United States and Canada. We can also call oversees at very inexpensive rates. Compare this to the $35 a month we were paying to Qwest...and that was before we made any phone calls. Long distance was extra.

Packet 8 service has been so good that we dropped our Qwest phone permanently, although we kept our cell phones for obvious reasons.

The two biggest drawbacks to VOIP is that you must dial 1+the area code for every phone call (even to your next door neighbor) and...911 service is not included in the price. For Packet 8, it costs $5 a month additional to have 911 access.

As far as the area code dialing goes, it has become easy to adjust to, especially with auto dialing now built into almost every telephone on the market today.

If you would like to learn more about VOIP, I invite you to check out this site that compares the different VOIP companies, then check out each of their websites. You might find yourself saving a little money.

Spam: The Devil is in the Details

I read an interesting article this morning that I thought might be of interest to all readers. Tom Spring of PC World magazine writes a regular column on Spam, how to stop it, and how to get rid of it.

Today's column was about how we all give permission to spammers to send us all the spam we never wanted. How? By signing up for free newsletters, downloading free software, access to web sites, and other offers.

How is that possible? You know those incredibly long and boring legal privacy policies, end-user license agreements, and terms-of-service contracts that pop up for almost everything these days? Many of them contain little paragraphs that give the vendor the right to spam you and sell your name off to anyone they want.

They count on you not to read them, and once you click the "Accept" button, they have you in their slimy little talons for as long as you have that particular e-mail name. A few years ago, I once sent my wife an on-line greeting card at her office just to let her know I was thinking of her. Within minutes, she started being bombarded with spam. It got so bad, she had to change her e-mail name.

The bottom line is that we all should read those contracts a bit more carefully, as hard as it is to do so. Even so, you will still need some sort of spam blocker these days.

As a sidebar, I read one of those short agreements yesterday (before the above mentioned article came out), after I downloaded a software I thought would help me better manage my new web site. After installation, I happened to run Microsoft's Anti-Spyware. It picked up that my wonderful new software contained a Trojan horse that would allow someone to invade my computer get access to private information. I can tell you that was not in the agreement I read.

In any case, I invite to read this very informative article. Go to:

http://www.pcworld.com/news/article/0,aid,120099,00.asp

PS: Thanks to all of you who responded to my call for help about my web site. It really helped and I was able to correct the problems and now all is well. Interestingly enough, my provider, Donobi (of course), was apparently the last of the local providers to update their DNS server so I could get access to my own web site. Their days with me are numbered.

Technology Hell and a New Service from Yahoo

First, let me apologize for not writing much this last week. I have spent nearly 10 days in what I am now calling, "Technology Hell." My desktop computer gave up the ghost and my web site and e-mail has been off-line for nearly a week. During this time, two service providers tried to rip me off for outrageous service fees, while doing nothing to earn them. And all of this as a direct result of Donobi's non-payment of fees owed to the Grant County PUD (they finally paid only moments before a court-imposed deadline).

At this moment, my personal issues are on their way to resolution. A new computer is on its way, my web site has been moved to an extremely competent hosting service at a very reasonable fee, and I will be changing over to a different local Internet service provider when my contract expires in a few days.

Right now, I am still to angry to write about all this, but it is a story worth telling and I will do so when calmer.

By the way, if you could do me an enormous favor and try to access my web site at corkrum.com and let me know if you were able to get on. Please write me at jcorkrum@yahoo.com, as my incompetent service provider has not updated their DNS server yet with my new web site IP, so I can't receive mail at my regular e-mail address or even see my own web site (Oops...I am getting mad again).

Let's move on to today's story:

Yahoo is developing a new, free service designed to let users stay in touch with acquaintances such as friends, family, and co-workers via new and existing Yahoo services. The service will include the company's first blogging tool.

It is called Yahoo 360. The new service will enter a beta, or test, period on March 29, when it will be available to select users invited by Yahoo to try it out. Yahoo will expand the scope of the beta testing in coming weeks. If you would like to be a part of this, you can join a waiting list online.

Like similar offerings from Yahoo competitors Microsoft and Lycos, Yahoo 360 provides blogging within a broader service whose main aim is to serve as a communications tool between users and acquaintances. Similar to Microsoft's Space and Lycos' Circles, Yahoo 360 lets users do things such as publish blogs, share content, and post pictures, while keeping a tight grip on who is allowed to visit the Web site.

Yahoo 360 has also been designed to let users consolidate a variety of existing Yahoo services and content in one place, with the goal of increasing users' interaction.

I really like so many of Yahoo's services, as I have written about here. During this last week, Yahoo Mail saved me as it was the only way I could write and receive e-mail's. Their "My Yahoo" service has been my favorite portal for years and I use it on a daily basis.

This new service may be interesting to use as it is only open to people you designate and is an interesting way to stay in touch with family and friends. I hope I get invited to use it.

First Look at Internet Explorer 7

Word is beginning to leak out of Redmond about the forthcoming update of Microsoft's web browser, Internet Explorer 7. As I wrote back on February 16, Microsoft shocked the world by announcing they will come out with a new, stand-alone release of IE prior to the release of their next version of Windows. It had been expected that Microsoft would follow their tradition of introducing a new web browser at the same time as a new operating system.

Many analysts claim that the new IE is a reaction to the unexpected success of Firefox. And, as much as Microsoft would like us all to believe that the forthcoming standalone release of IE 7.0 is not a knee-jerk reaction to increased competition from the open source browser, it's difficult not to view it that way.

Tougher still, after learning it's going to look a heck of lot like the upstart browser. Sources say that IE 7.0, known around Redmond as "Rincon," will not only offer tabbed browsing, but an RSS reader as well.

Add to this transparent Portable Network Graphics, IDN support, a revamped Secure Sockets Layer user interface, and restrictions that prohibit cross-domain scripting, and it becomes pretty clear that IE 7.0 is being developed with Firefox very clearly in mind.

New Satellites Will Brings Faster Mobil Services

Last weeks, a new satellite was placed in orbit that heralds the next generation of high speed communications for mobile users.

The 6-ton Inmarsat 4 (I-4) satellite, the size of a London double-decker bus, took off from Cape Canaveral and will now undergo post-launch tests and maneuvers. It is the first of three I-4 satellites that will supply London-based Inmarsat's coming menu of Broadband Global Area Network services, due in the fourth quarter of this year.

These new services will offer data speeds of up to 432 kilobits per second for applications such as video on demand, phone, e-mail, and Internet access. Inmarsat's satellite services are currently used by maritime vessels, military units, and other customers that need roaming capabilities in remote areas.

The next I-4 satellite is scheduled to fly sometime in the third quarter, and the third satellite, which will provide mostly redundant coverage for the first two, will follow at a later, unspecified date. The satellites are being built by European Aeronautic Defense and Space Company NV subsidiary EADS Astrium as part of an 8-year, $1.5 billion development plan to build Inmarsat's next-generation network.

The satellites is rated to have a lifespan of about 14 years, according to an Inmarsat.

It just keeps getting better.

Google and Yahoo Change the Way We Get News

The world's most used search engine, Google, continues to offer innovations on all its products. This week, Google announced they are offering users new tools to customize the way they get their news.

Google News gathers news from over 4,500 sources. With the new tools, users of Google News can create customized pages on the site that gathers news stories from around the Web. Users can now prioritize existing news topics such as top stories, health, entertainment or sports to change the look of the site's front page. Users also can create new categories to capture news stories that contain certain key words.

According to Google, they are not trying to offer a personalized home page like those from Yahoo and MSN, which allow users to view news or information such as horoscopes or stock quotes and quickly connect to other services such as e-mail.

While Google News is available on mobile phones and handheld devices that can read Web pages, the new customization feature is not available to them yet...it is available only on personal computers.

But, in a related story, Yahoo announced that it has given its mobile users the ability to access all of their personalized My Yahoo headlines and the first part of related stories, including those that come from RSS and Atom feeds, on most mobile phones and handheld devices in the United States.

Some time ago, My Yahoo added support for open content syndication standards like Really Simple Syndication (RSS) and Atom, which allow users to receive content from sources such as news organizations and blogs.

Burning Your Own DVD's - Part 4

In this final installment of our DVD burning series, we will look at a free DVD decryption software that allows one to make copies of commercially-produced DVD's that are encrypted with CSS (see part 3) that supposedly defeats any attempts to make copies.

Before I go any further, I again must reiterate that my discussions here about copying DVD's that are protected by copyright laws is not an endorsement of this practice. Indeed, I am still of the opinion that this practice is illegal and should not be condoned.

A friend of mine, who I will call Jack, (I am hiding his true identity for obvious reasons), has a large collection of commercially-produced DVD's that he purchased over the years. He loves movies and wanted to collect his favorites so he could watch them whenever he desired.

He also wanted to make backup copies of his movies in case of accidental destruction or if a friend borrows one of his DVD's to watch and fails to return it.

He uses a program called DVDShrink, Ver 3.2, which is available free on the Internet. This program copies the contents of a DVD onto your hard drive, and, at the same time, removes all copy protection. However, it does not burn a new CD for you.

For that, you need Nero. The good news is that if you have Nero, DVDShrink will automatically activate it and start the burning process for you. When it is finished, you are left with an exact copy of the original DVD, without any copy protection.

Jack is fortunate to have not only a DVD burner, but also a separate DVD player that came with his computer. So, he puts the original in the DVD player and a puts a blank DVD in his burner. When he starts the process, which takes about 1-1 1/2 hours to complete, it is all automatic and he doesn't have to do anything else. If he had a only burner, he would have to remove the movie from the burner drive after it was copied, then insert a blank DVD to begin the actual burning.

As mentioned in Part 1 of this article, most commercial DVD's are done on dual layer media. But because blank dual layer DVD's are still so expensive, Jack uses single layer disks for his copies. Normally, this would mean that Jack would have to use 2 blank DVD's to copy a movie. But, DVDShrink, as its name implies, allows you to compress the video down to a smaller size to fit the copy onto one blank DVD.

How does this this affect the quality of the copy? Actually, from what Jack showed me, you can compress the video a great deal without affecting quality. We compared several DVD copies with their originals. Quite frankly, I saw almost no differences in the copies. Those slight differences I did see would not be noticeable unless you had the original DVD to compare it with.

When you start the copying process, DVDShrink runs a quick 2-3 minute scan to let you know how much the compression will be if you copy the DVD onto a single disk. The program uses a percentage figure to let you know the compression factor. A 100% rating means you will get an exact copy, no compression needed. Jack showed me one DVD copy that had a compression factor down at 47% and it looked just fine.

DVDShrink also gives you several additional options to help improve compression. You can remove certain soundtracks, like the French and Spanish versions of the soundtrack, or leave out the subtitles to help improve the compression ratios. You can also just copy the movie and leave out all the extras. Or, if you are a fanatic, you can copy across two disks. There are also some additional controls you can use to improve video quality, but they add additional time to the copying process.

In short, DVDShrink is loaded with options (including burning to a dual layer disk, if you want to spend that kind of money) that can make your copies as good as the original. And, as I mentioned above, it is free, although you will have to purchase a copy of Nero. By the way, Jack got a free copy of Nero when he bought his DVD burner, so you might want to look for that also.

You can learn more about DVDShrink by going to their website.

I hope you have found this series of article to be helpful. Here are some other useful web links that you might find useful to learn more.

Learn more about which is the best blank DVD media to purchase.
Reviews on Software that copies commercial DVD's.
Learn more about all aspects of video creation.
Nero's Home Page.

Burning Your Own DVD's - Part 3

Let's assume you just went out and bought a DVD burner and some blank, high quality DVD+R disks. Now what?

Well, it depends on what you want to do with your burner.

Most burners come with free software for burning DVD's. Most are stripped down versions ("lite" is the word most used) of commercial software that the manufacturer hopes you will upgrade to the full version.

If your goal is to backup data from your computers, the free software will probably be just fine. If you are making your own home movies with a digital recorder, the software that came with your camera may have the program you need.

If you want to make copies of commercial movies, you will want a different kind of software that we will talk about later.

In most cases, you will probably want to upgrade to a quality DVD burning software. There are several of these products on the market, including good ones made by Roxio and NTI. But, the king of CD and DVD burning software is Nero, made by Ahead Software. The major testing labs such as PC World and CNet give Nero their Editor's Choice Award as the best of its class. I couldn't agree more. Nero can handle just about all your needs for DVD and CD burning.

The latest version of Nero is V6.6. It includes the ability to make dual layered copies if you have a dual layered burner. The dual layer drive is fairly new to the market, so whether you buy Nero or some other brand, make sure the edition you buy has that capability.

The one thing that Nero, or most other commercial burning software, for that matter, cannot do by themselves is make working copies of commercial DVD's that you rent at the video store. If you wish to do that, you need a special software that skirts the edges of legality.

The copying of commercial DVD's is a legal nightmare. Hollywood folks will tell that any kind of copying of their materials is illegal. They may or may not be right. A couple of years ago, they won a victory to stop the sales of a product called DVD XCopy, which was sold under the premise that people who buy commercial DVD's have a right to back up their own DVD's. The courts disagreed and said the product could be used to make illegal copies for sale. The product went off the market and company went out of business.

Recently, a California ppellate court ruled that software that copies commercial DVD's is legal, as long as it does not include a method to break the copy protection on most DVD's (most commercial DVD's are copy protected with a system called CSS).

However, since free CSS decryption software has been available for several years and can be found at hundreds of locations for free on the Internet, it is easy to integrate the decryption software with the burning software. The appellate court also ruled that since CSS decryption software is so widely available, CSS itself may no longer qualify for "Trade Secret" status.

There are several products on the market that can make copies of commercial DVD's...the best one probably being 1Click DVDCopy or DVDX Platinum. They also make it easy to integrate CSS decryption. For your information, it was a 15 year-old Norwegian lad who first published the CSS decryption software on the Internet. He was later acquitted in a Norwegian court of all criminal charges for doing so.

Now, at this point, I must say that my providing you with this information does not mean that I advocate in any way the copying of copyright-protected materials such as DVD's. I believe that at this moment in time, this kind of copying is still illegal and that commercially produced DVD's are protected by our current copyright protection laws.

That being said, in tomorrow's final installment, I will tell you about a friend's experiment with a free CSS decryption software called DVDShrink and how he uses it and Nero to back up his commercially produced DVD's.

Burning Your Own DVD's - Part 2

In yesterday's edition, I tried hard to confuse you with the different types of DVD media on the market. I gave you DVD-R, DVD+R, and DVD+R DL. Today, I want to unconfuse you by talking about the actual DVD burners themselves and why the different media types almost don't matter.

Today's DVD burners look nearly identical to the CD burners we have been using for years. There are two main types...internal and external. Internals are meant to be used as permanent attachments to your computer, whether it is a laptop or a desktop. You attach them to your computer's chassis and connect them via IDE cables, just like your hard drive (or internal CD burner). If you ordered your laptop with a DVD burner, you don't have to do anything.

The external burner, as its name implies, sits outside of your computer in its own chassis and connects to your computer via a USB2 cable or a Firewire (IEEE 1394) cable. My own external DVD burner actually has both connections.

FYI, a USB1.1 connection is probably too slow. If you want an external burner and your desktop computer does not have a USB2 connection, you can buy an internal card very inexpensively, or just save some money and buy and internal DVD burner. Internal DVD burners start at about $50 whereas externals start at about $200. I paid only $99 for my external, but I really got a rare, but good deal.

The other decision you must make when buying one of these devices is whether to buy a single layer or dual layer DVD burner. Actually, the decision is being made easier by the manufacturers as just about all new burners work with both single and dual layer media. And the dual layer DVD players are now about the same price as the single layer burners.

The other good news is that today's single layer burners work with both DVD-R and DVD+R disks, while the dual layer burners work with all three types. And, as an added bonus, all DVD burners will burn CD's also.

To put all this in perspective, if I could only afford one burner, I would buy a dual layer DVD burner since it can handle all my music and video needs, now and in the near future (remember dual layer media will be coming down in price).

If you would like to find out more about DVD burners, I invite you to check out two web sites. The first is newegg.com, an on-line computer hardware retail outlet. Here you can look at the different types of burners available and do some price comparison. I like this site as it offers some in-depth insight into each of its products and lets consumers write about their experiences. They also offer very competitive pricing and good customer service if you decide to buy.

The second site I invite you to look at is videohelp.com. This is a very in-depth site (almost overwhelming) that looks at every aspect of video. If you want more information about the subjects covered so far, this is the place to go.

Tomorrow, we will look at the kind of software you need to burn your DVD's.

Burning Your Own DVD's - Part 1

Creating your own DVD's, whether you are copying movies, making your own home movies for distribution to family and friends, making data backup disks, or even making your own music disks, is growing in popularity, especially as the hardware and software to do this has become so inexpensive.

So maybe its time I try to bring you up to speed on this fast-growing segment of personal computing. In this edition, I will talk about the media it takes to burn your own DVD's. In future editions, we will get into hardware, software and even the legalities of replicating commercial DVD's.

One reason that DVD burners are becoming so popular is that they can store far more data than a CD. The maximum amount of data that you can put on a CD is limited to 700 Megabytes...whereas a DVD can hold a minimum of 4.37 Gigabytes of data. That is over 6 times more storage capacity.

You will notice that I said a minimum of 4.37 Gb of data. That is because some types of DVD media can hold up to 15.9 Gb of data. One of the confusing parts of DVD burning is there are three main types of DVD media (actually there are four, but I am ignoring one) to choose from. Let me try and clear this up.

The first DVD type is known as DVD-R and DVD-RW. Like CD burners, which are designated as CD-R and CD-RW, the "R" stands for "Read Only" which means that once you create the media, it cannot be changed. It is a one-time burn. The -RW stands for Read-Write. That means you can burn a CD or DVD many, many times as well as erase it.

The DVD-R and DVD-RW was the first type of DVD that was compatible with the DVD players we attach to our TV's to watch movies. The DVD-R media is one of the two most popular DVD formats that people use today.

The other popular format is known as DVD+R and DVD+RW. This is a newer format and is considered by many to be better than its "-R" counterpart. It is also compatible with about 89% of today's DVD stand-alone players. I have a two year old and four year old DVD player and DVD+R disks works fine on both of them. The DVD+R is the media I personally use.

The next (and newest) type of media is called DVD+R DL. It is the same format as DVD+R, but the DL stands for Dual Layer. What is this, you ask? Dual Layer technology is what most commercial movies recorded on DVD use. Have you ever noticed when you are watching a DVD movie that about halfway through the film the picture freezes for a second or two, then continues on? This is caused by the DVD player switching from the first layer to the second.

As the name implies, a dual layer DVD hold nearly double the amount of information that a single layer DVD+R. But, that is important if you want to put a two hour movie on DVD. But you will also need a dual layer burner to take advantage of the dual layer DVD.

Cost is a big consideration in choosing your media. Because DVD burning has become so popular, DVD+R and DVD-R media prices have fallen dramatically. A high quality DVD+R and -R disk will run from about 25 cents to 50 cents apiece when you find them on sale (and there is a sale on them every week in some stores).

Dual layer DVD's are a different story. Because dual layer burners are so new, the media is still very expensive...running from $6-$8 per disk! But, have no fear...prices are guaranteed to fall in the future.

Regarding quality of disks, I have written articles in the past about the short life expectancy of cheap blank CD's. In reading articles in preparation for writing this blog, that is even more true for DVD's. If you want long-lasting DVD's you should never buy a cheap, unknown brand of blank DVD. Stick to brands like TDK, FujiFilm, Imation, Sony, and Memorex. These brand are listed in my order of preference.

Tomorrow, we will get into DVD burner hardware.

Identity Theft is Easier Than You Think

Finding someone's Social Security number, age, address, phone number and other such information is the first step a thief needs to steal your identity. Today, we closely associate phishing scams, where hackers trick you into revealing your personal information by claiming to be your bank, or e-Bay, or some other such organization where you have an account.

In fact, stealing identities is much easier than that. There are places where that kind of personal information is continuously placed on the Net and it is guaranteed not to be shut down by the government. Why? Because it is legitimate government web sites that is posting this information for all to see!

In many counties around the US, County Clerks offices are digitizing their record and posting them on the web. All kinds of legal documents are now available that contain very personal information about people's live and their personal information.

For instance, in Fort Bend County in Texas, their on-line records show a 1980 tax lien against Senator Tom DeLay that lists his Social Security Number and address. In New York City, you can get all kinds of info about Donald Trump.

But, now there are companies, called data compilers, who go out and gather all this information and sell it to information brokers, like Choicepoint, the company that recently admitted that thousands of personal records containing people's private information had been stolen.

But, there are many counties that do not publish their data on the web. For these counties, it is very inexpensive for data compilers to obtain thousands of documents on computer disk from county clerks offices. They then send them oversees to places like India where computer labor is cheap and the data is sorted and reclassified for dissemination all over the world.

I have only touched the tip of this information iceberg. You need to read a sobering article just published by SmartMoney Magazine that details even more abuse of our privacy and how information about you, me, and everyone else in America is so readily available. Go to:

http://yahoo.smartmoney.com/consumer/index.cfm?

Microsoft: No New Fixes for March

In spite of a host of claims from various security companies around the world, Microsoft says it plans no new fixes or security patches for its software for March. There also will be no new security bulletins for the month, even though we are only a few days into this month!

It is hard to believe that a company that makes the most used and open-to-abuse software says there is nothing to fix. The last time this happened was in December of 2003. Last month Microsoft issued 12 security bulletins covering 17 security flaws.

In the last days of February, Microsoft pushed out a patch for a bug that had the capacity to crash some Windows systems running other vendors' antivirus and firewall software. The bug affected only computers running Windows XP with Service Pack 2 installed along with Windows Server 2003 and XP Tablet PC Edition 2005.

According to the Denmark-based, IT security company Secunia, security managers should not consider the absence of security patches from Microsoft a reason to relax. Secunia has issued advisories of 30 unpatched or only partial fixed security holes on MS Internet Explorer 6 alone.

Other security companies are saying the same thing. But, according to Microsoft, happy days are here again...well, at least when you are working with Microsoft products.

Donobi Gets Another Extension

After a hearing this morning in Grant County Superior Court, the judge extended the temporary restraining order against the PUD for one more week. This means that service provider Donobi and its customers will not be turned off today.

My sources who attended the hearing said the judge stated that by next Friday, 3/11/05, Donobi is to pay off all its debt to the PUD (well over $100,000) or he will remove the order and the PUD can disconnect Donobi from the Grant County ZIPP fiber optic system. The judge made no mention of the over $96,000 deposit that the PUD is demanding from Donobi.

So for one more week, Donobi customers do not have to fear a disconnect.

I hope this gets settled soon as I am getting tired of this story.

On Changing Providers

Just to let you know, my web site and e-mail may be off line for a short time tomorrow (Friday, 3/4/05) as I am changing my Internet service provider. When you change providers, you need to obtain a new IP address. For most users, that is not a big deal as the number is provided to your computer behind the scenes, so to speak.

But, because I have a web site and my own e-mail server, I need a static IP address and it does take a little time to not only supply my system with the new address, but I also have to tell DNS servers around the world that corkrum.com now has a new IP address. The same applies for e-mail. All this takes a little time.

Because my art business relies on Internet sales and e-mail's, not to mention my web log readers, I cannot afford to be down. So, as much as I would like not to change providers, certain circumstances that have been well documented in our local papers have forced me to make a business decision to change providers.

Please understand that this is my decision and is not a recommendation for anyone else to do the same. I am just letting you know that I may be having some connection difficulties tomorrow because of the changeover.

Feel free to contact me if you have any questions.

Updates

Every once in a while, I like to write a blog that updates you on stories I've written here in the past. Life and technology is always changing, so I thought you should have the latest information.

1. New Version of Firefox. The fastest growing alternate web browser keeps on growing. In that spirit, the folks at Mozilla thought they would be releasing an updated version of their fine product about now. However, they just announced that it will probably be May or June before it is released as they want all the time they can have to make sure it works properly.

2. Latest on Donobi. I recently wrote a blog saying that all Donobi customers on the Grant County Fiber Optic System (ZIPP) were safe from disconnection and that everything had been taken care of regarding their overdue bills and security deposit. As you may know, that turned out not to be true. While I went away to do an art show, the PUD apparently refused to accept their letter of credit so we were right back to square one. Donobi got a temporary restraining order from our local Superior Court, thereby delaying disconnect. That order expires on 3/4/05 (this Friday) and the judge has said he will not extend it further. What is going to happen is unknown at this time. I will try to keep you informed when I learn more.

3. More on the PUD. Our PUD is in trouble again...this time with the State Auditor's Office. The latter has issued a report saying the GCPUD violated state law and its own practices in four separate instances in 2004. The biggest apparent violation was in dealings with Internet/TV provider VIB. It is a very complicated story, so if you want to learn more you can read about it at: http://www.columbiabasinherald.com/articles/2005/03/01/news/news01.txt

4. More on Spamfighter. I wrote about a month ago that I was trying out a free spam killer program called Spamfighter. I just wanted to let you know that I have deleted the program and have switched to a new one. While Spamfighter was good, it only caught about 60% of the junk mail. I had to manually delete the rest. And it did not do a good job of learning. I continually got many of the same pieces of junk almost daily, even though I told the program numerous times that the mail was junk. I will let you know about the new one after I test it for a couple of weeks.

5. More on Netflix. Last week, I wrote a 3 part blog on my experiences with Netflix and Blockbuster. In that report, I mentioned that you could pretty much count on a two day delivery from Netflix. In the last few days, I have been getting almost all my DVD's overnight. I can only attribute that to the opening of the Netflix Spokane warehouse. Yesterday, I did mail two DVD's back to them, but only one arrived in Spokane this morning, according to their website. But, whatever the case, Netflix seems to be improving its already great service.

6. My son is home from the Middle East. Just to let you all know on a personal note that my son Eric is home permanently from the Middle East. He and his fellow National Guardsman (mostly from Washington State) did their one year tour over there and are now home. Actually that isn't quite true. Eric is back at Ft. Lewis for demobilization, whatever that is. And he must be recertified this month as a combat medic. In April, he is being sent to sergeant's School in the Midwest. He will be completely done with his service around the first of May. Thanks to all of you who kept him and his fellow soldiers in your prayers.

What's Happening at PMA 2005

This week, the PMA trade show 2005 is underway in Orlando, Florida. What is PMA? Actually it stands for Photographic Marketing Association, which means the major manufacturers of digital cameras are then in force to show their newest wares.

Highlights, for me at least, include the newest Canon Rebel XT SLR that is now an 8 Megapixel camera. That explains why I have been seeing bargain prices on the 6 Megapixel version.

I was also impressed with the new storage devices that allow you to download your pictures in the field without carrying your laptop around. There is now one that includes a DVD burner for far more storage than the traditional CD-R. For me, that would be very handy, especially in Europe where you don't want to leave your laptop in your hotel room, or even carry it around, for that matter.

If you have an interesting in digital cameras, I suggest you head to the following web site to catch up on all the latest equipment. Go to:

http://reviews.cnet.com/4520-6451_7-5664718-1.html?