Have you ever wanted to try out another operating system on your computer, like one of the Linux operating systems? Or perhaps you would like to run Windows 97 or even have access to some of your old MS-DOS programs or games (I loved the DOS versions of Doom and Duke Nuke 'em). Of course you can do it anytime you want ...if you are willing to erase your current Windows operating system or put in a dual-booting system that can sometimes raise havoc. But no one I know wants to erase their Windows or any other radical such solutions.
Well now, our friends at Microsoft have come up with another solution for us. It is called Virtual PC 2007 and it is absolutely free. It only works on Windows XP and Windows Vista systems, but that probably accounts for most of us. With it you can have several different computer operating systems running on your one computer and switch between them with the click of a button.
When you switch to a different operating system, the entire computer is then devoted to that other system. For businesses, this could mean that old systems can continue running while switching over to Windows, making the migration much easier. For all of us, it means using one computer for everything rather than buying separate computers for each operating system. And if something crashes in one system, it does not affect the others...you can switch right back to the other system and you are running just fine.
Another interesting feature is, with the proper add-ons, you can copy something from a program in one operating system to another program in a different operating system. For instance you can copy a document from a spreadsheet running in Linux to Excel running in your Windows.
I have always want to play with some of the incarnations of Linux, but didn't feel like buying another computer. Now I can do it on my same machine. And the fact that Linux is so much more bullet-proof, faster, and more efficient than Windows means I might just use Linux for far more than I do Windows. One day, when I have some time, I am going to give a try and let you know.
To learn more about Virtual PC 2007 and download it, head over to a special area on Microsoft's Web site that will give you all the details. Let me know if you try it out.
Wednesday, February 28, 2007
Monday, February 26, 2007
Widgets, Sidebars, and Klips - Part 2
In the last blog, I talked about Yahoo's Widgets and Sidebars, two different tools that allow you to augment your desktop with useful (and playful) items that can help you enjoy your computing experience. Today, we will continue on the subject with still another program that works along the same line as the first two. It is call Klipfolio. Like Widgets, Klipfolio is made of individual programs or Klips for short.
Klipfolio is available for free at their website. The new version 4 has improved over the original version in that it is more customizable on your screen. In fact, it may be the most customizable of the three programs we have been talking about here.
Like the other two programs, Klipfolio consists of individual small klips that you either use or discard. Although Klipfolio comes with several useful klips, there are also many additional klips on their website that you can add to your Klipfolio. It doesn't have as many add-ons as Yahoo Widgets, but it does have many more than Sidebar. For example, I am currently running the following klips on my screen: The weather for Ephrata, a to-do list, a Google search line, computer memory use, Google News, a Pop3 e-mail klip that tells me about the e-mail I have coming in to my three in-boxes, and finally, a fun little tool that can show me a live web cam aimed at the Eiffel Tower in Paris.
As I mentioned, the program is very customizable, especially in how it is displayed on your desktop. There are so many possibilities that the Klipfolio people have put together a great five minute video to show you many of the ways. I currently have mine displayed on the right side of the screen like I did with Sidebar. I've set it so that it is always on so that whatever other program I open.
But, Klipfolio can also be set to run a smaller size, a larger size, or even slip up to different parts of screen. For instance, I can have part of it running down the right side of the screen and part of it running across the top of the screen. You really need to watch the video to see what I mean.
Like Sidebar, running your mouse over the top of some of the klips opens then up to a larger screen. Adding more Klips is very easy and you can even add RSS and Atom feeds from your favorite websites. The one thing missing from Klipfolio is an analog clock. The other two programs have one and I like it. I know I can look down in the corner of my computer and see a digital readout of the time, but there is just something comforting in a round, analog clock with an hour, minute, and second hands.
Which of the three programs do I prefer or recommend? That is a tough call as I like all three of them. Each has their strengths and weaknesses. And because they are all free and easy to turn on and off, I change all the time. I can't honestly make a call on my favorite, but that is OK. The other day I had two running at the same time...Klipfolios and Widgets, the latter running just so I could have a clock.
They are all good so give them all a try. If you find one you like better, let me know as I would love to hear your opinion. And if you find an especially good klip of widget, also let me know so I can add it to my collection.
Klipfolio is available for free at their website. The new version 4 has improved over the original version in that it is more customizable on your screen. In fact, it may be the most customizable of the three programs we have been talking about here.
Like the other two programs, Klipfolio consists of individual small klips that you either use or discard. Although Klipfolio comes with several useful klips, there are also many additional klips on their website that you can add to your Klipfolio. It doesn't have as many add-ons as Yahoo Widgets, but it does have many more than Sidebar. For example, I am currently running the following klips on my screen: The weather for Ephrata, a to-do list, a Google search line, computer memory use, Google News, a Pop3 e-mail klip that tells me about the e-mail I have coming in to my three in-boxes, and finally, a fun little tool that can show me a live web cam aimed at the Eiffel Tower in Paris.
As I mentioned, the program is very customizable, especially in how it is displayed on your desktop. There are so many possibilities that the Klipfolio people have put together a great five minute video to show you many of the ways. I currently have mine displayed on the right side of the screen like I did with Sidebar. I've set it so that it is always on so that whatever other program I open.
But, Klipfolio can also be set to run a smaller size, a larger size, or even slip up to different parts of screen. For instance, I can have part of it running down the right side of the screen and part of it running across the top of the screen. You really need to watch the video to see what I mean.
Like Sidebar, running your mouse over the top of some of the klips opens then up to a larger screen. Adding more Klips is very easy and you can even add RSS and Atom feeds from your favorite websites. The one thing missing from Klipfolio is an analog clock. The other two programs have one and I like it. I know I can look down in the corner of my computer and see a digital readout of the time, but there is just something comforting in a round, analog clock with an hour, minute, and second hands.
Which of the three programs do I prefer or recommend? That is a tough call as I like all three of them. Each has their strengths and weaknesses. And because they are all free and easy to turn on and off, I change all the time. I can't honestly make a call on my favorite, but that is OK. The other day I had two running at the same time...Klipfolios and Widgets, the latter running just so I could have a clock.
They are all good so give them all a try. If you find one you like better, let me know as I would love to hear your opinion. And if you find an especially good klip of widget, also let me know so I can add it to my collection.
Thursday, February 22, 2007
Widgets, Sidebars and Klips
Back around Thanksgiving, I wrote a blog about Yahoo's Widgets and how useful and fun they can be. I still love Widgets and have them installed on my computers. If you don't remember that blog, Widgets are a small, little programs that run on your desktop giving you current information and, in some situations, games to play when you're bored.
Among my favorites are current weather, time, Sudoku, e-mail monitoring (to inform me about new mail in all four of my e-mail accounts), current news feeds, local gas price monitoring, computer memory monitoring, and a few more. There are thousands of Yahoo Widgets to choose from and they can be easily added to your collection. I've installed many of them, then deinstalled some of them as they were not that helpful to me. All-in-all, its a useful tool, and the best part...you can turn them on and off with a click of your mouse.
Today, I want to talk about another desktop tool that is very good and might be useful for you. It is called Desktop Sidebar and is available for free on the Net at their Website. It emulates the sidebar that comes with Windows Vista. It comes complete with several useful tools that you can add and subtract from your tool bar and can be placed at different locations on your screen. I have mine on the right side of my screen, just like Windows Vista does.
What is great, especially on my new wide screen flat panel monitor, is that when I have it running, it is always on my screen. When you run other programs like Word, Firefox, etc. at full screen, they do not cover the sidebar. In fact, Sidebard only takes up a small portion of the screen, but most of what is showing is very useful.
For instance, on mine right now, I have several panels running, including a very readable clock, local weather, news, PC performance monitor, a slide show with several continually changing screens, access to Windows Media Player, a quick launch bar (that replaces the one running on my taskbar), an e-mail checker than monitors all new mail coming into my accounts, and a volume control for my speakers.
Now how, you ask, does all that fit on my screen? Well, each panel is collapsible and is only accessible by clicking on it to make it a little larger. Then, you can run your mouse over the area and it will expand even more to give you greater details. For instance on the weather panel, I've set it to show me the current temperature and conditions and the projected high temp for the day. When I run my mouse over it, it automatically opens a temporary larger screen with all the details. I find this very useful.
There are a few additional panels you can add from their website, especially different color schemes, but it doesn't have the wide variety of add-ons like Yahoo Widgets. Still it does provide some very useful information, which is what it is supposed to do....and it takes up far less screen space than Widgets as well as very little memory. You might like to head over to their Website and check it out for yourself. It is free and you can delete it if you don't like it...or click it off and on when you want. I have it on for most every program I use, except when I want the full use of my screen for programs such as Photoshop and Painter.
In the next blog, I will talk about another useful desktop tool called Klips.
Among my favorites are current weather, time, Sudoku, e-mail monitoring (to inform me about new mail in all four of my e-mail accounts), current news feeds, local gas price monitoring, computer memory monitoring, and a few more. There are thousands of Yahoo Widgets to choose from and they can be easily added to your collection. I've installed many of them, then deinstalled some of them as they were not that helpful to me. All-in-all, its a useful tool, and the best part...you can turn them on and off with a click of your mouse.
Today, I want to talk about another desktop tool that is very good and might be useful for you. It is called Desktop Sidebar and is available for free on the Net at their Website. It emulates the sidebar that comes with Windows Vista. It comes complete with several useful tools that you can add and subtract from your tool bar and can be placed at different locations on your screen. I have mine on the right side of my screen, just like Windows Vista does.
What is great, especially on my new wide screen flat panel monitor, is that when I have it running, it is always on my screen. When you run other programs like Word, Firefox, etc. at full screen, they do not cover the sidebar. In fact, Sidebard only takes up a small portion of the screen, but most of what is showing is very useful.
For instance, on mine right now, I have several panels running, including a very readable clock, local weather, news, PC performance monitor, a slide show with several continually changing screens, access to Windows Media Player, a quick launch bar (that replaces the one running on my taskbar), an e-mail checker than monitors all new mail coming into my accounts, and a volume control for my speakers.
Now how, you ask, does all that fit on my screen? Well, each panel is collapsible and is only accessible by clicking on it to make it a little larger. Then, you can run your mouse over the area and it will expand even more to give you greater details. For instance on the weather panel, I've set it to show me the current temperature and conditions and the projected high temp for the day. When I run my mouse over it, it automatically opens a temporary larger screen with all the details. I find this very useful.
There are a few additional panels you can add from their website, especially different color schemes, but it doesn't have the wide variety of add-ons like Yahoo Widgets. Still it does provide some very useful information, which is what it is supposed to do....and it takes up far less screen space than Widgets as well as very little memory. You might like to head over to their Website and check it out for yourself. It is free and you can delete it if you don't like it...or click it off and on when you want. I have it on for most every program I use, except when I want the full use of my screen for programs such as Photoshop and Painter.
In the next blog, I will talk about another useful desktop tool called Klips.
Tuesday, February 20, 2007
The New Daylight Savings and Your Computer
Do you remember the days leading up to the year 2000 changeover, something called Y2K? That's when so many computers had to be changed and updated to accommodate the new century date changes. Well, we have something similar happening now...and the doomsday date is 3/11/07.
That's when the new daylight savings law goes into effect. Congress changed the law so that we start daylight savings three weeks earlier than before and end it one week later than previous years. No big deal, right? Except for the rest of the world that doesn't have daylight savings or those countries that still begin daylight savings on 4/1/07 (which is most of them). We are being put out of step with everybody else so that we can conserve energy (yea, right).
But, I digress. The real problem that affects us computer users is that our operating systems, namely Windows, are still programmed to automatically change over (and back) to daylight savings on the old dates. Several other programs are affected as well. But for most of us, the problems are mainly going to be with your operating system and Outlook.
Here is the skinny...If you run Windows Vista, you don't have a problem. It is built into the system. A patch for Windows XP is available and will be pushed out with the automatic updates prior to 3/11. If you don't have your computer set for those automatic updates, you can download it now from a special Microsoft Web Page. You may read about it at on a separate Web page.
If you run Windows 2000, there is a fix, but you have to be a member of Windows Hotfix Support in order to get it. I assume that costs money. Other earlier Windows operating systems did not have automatic date changeovers, if I remember correctly, so those have to be done manually anyway.
Microsoft has also put together an overall summary Web page about this new daylight savings "bug" that you should take a look at to see if you have any other programs that might be affected. If you own a business or run Exchange Server, you really need to read this page carefully. This affects not only the server, but each user's mail program who access the server. If your cell phone or PDA uses Windows CE or Windows Mobile, you are also affected.
So, be aware of this situation and make sure everything goes well for you on March 11.
That's when the new daylight savings law goes into effect. Congress changed the law so that we start daylight savings three weeks earlier than before and end it one week later than previous years. No big deal, right? Except for the rest of the world that doesn't have daylight savings or those countries that still begin daylight savings on 4/1/07 (which is most of them). We are being put out of step with everybody else so that we can conserve energy (yea, right).
But, I digress. The real problem that affects us computer users is that our operating systems, namely Windows, are still programmed to automatically change over (and back) to daylight savings on the old dates. Several other programs are affected as well. But for most of us, the problems are mainly going to be with your operating system and Outlook.
Here is the skinny...If you run Windows Vista, you don't have a problem. It is built into the system. A patch for Windows XP is available and will be pushed out with the automatic updates prior to 3/11. If you don't have your computer set for those automatic updates, you can download it now from a special Microsoft Web Page. You may read about it at on a separate Web page.
If you run Windows 2000, there is a fix, but you have to be a member of Windows Hotfix Support in order to get it. I assume that costs money. Other earlier Windows operating systems did not have automatic date changeovers, if I remember correctly, so those have to be done manually anyway.
Microsoft has also put together an overall summary Web page about this new daylight savings "bug" that you should take a look at to see if you have any other programs that might be affected. If you own a business or run Exchange Server, you really need to read this page carefully. This affects not only the server, but each user's mail program who access the server. If your cell phone or PDA uses Windows CE or Windows Mobile, you are also affected.
So, be aware of this situation and make sure everything goes well for you on March 11.
Saturday, February 17, 2007
Spy Sweeper vs Spyware Doctor
Last weekend, if you remember, I spent a large majority of my time chasing down a phantom trojan that my CounterSpy anti-spyware software said was infecting all of our computers. It turned out to be a false positive detection and we really had no nasty trojans on any of our computers. While I was ready to forgive CounterSpy and move on with life, something else happened that made me think about changing to a different anti-spyware product.
During my ordeal, I remembered reading about two other spyware hunters that are now getting better reviews than CounterSpy...namely Spy Sweeper from Webroot Software and Spyware Doctor from PC Tools. So I decided to download both of them (trial versions) to see if they could find the phantom trojan. Of course, neither one found it, since it didn't exist. But something else happened that caught my immediate attention: Both products found more spyware that CounterSpy had missed, some of it listed as very dangerous.
Whoa, dude! Time to rethink my options. So I made a few notes while testing each of our computers as to the effectiveness of these two programs. The results on all four computers turned out the same, at least in the amount of additional spyware detected. Spyware Doctor caught far more than Spy Sweeper. Rather than give you the results on all four computers, I will just limit my report to my laptop.
Now, I have had my laptop about 3 1/2 years now, and it has been on the Internet many, many times as you can imagine. For nearly two years, I have been using CounterSpy, keeping it up-to-date and running scans quite often. Imagine my surprise when I installed Spy Sweeper and it caught 54 additional pieces of spyware. All of them were cookies and none of them were very dangerous...but still, any spyware is a bad thing.
I did not clean up those 54 items, but rather left them for Spyware Doctor to detect. I deactived both Spy Sweeper and CounterSpy so Spyware Doctor could have a clean run at my laptop. Well, guess what...Spyware Doctor reported 324 pieces of spyware, most cookies but a few of them were listed as highly dangerous. That's a big difference! And as I said above, all four computers had similar results, only the number of spyware detections differed, but there was always a big discrepancy between the number of bad guys detected.
I faced a couple of decisons...should I bag CounterSpy with over 200 days left in my subscription or should I go ahead and buy Spyware Doctor, or even Spy Sweeper as it is cheaper? Spyware Doctor sells for $29.95 and Spy Sweeper is "on sale" for $19.95. Here was something else I didn't mention...Spy Sweeper came fully active for a 15 day trial period, while Spyware Doctor would only detect...not do any cleanup unless I purchased it. My-oh-my, what should I do? Could I live without Spyware Doctor knowing that my computers had all that extra spyware on it?
I am going to keep you in suspense for a couple of paragraphs while I give you a couple of snippets from the recent PC World Review on spyware that I used in to my own final decision.
"In detecting actively running adware and spyware samples, Spy Sweeper and Spyware Doctor tied for first place, catching 90 percent of our test set. CounterSpy and Spybot brought up the rear, nailing 80 percent..."
"Three of the five apps--CounterSpy, Spy Sweeper, and Spyware Doctor--profess to fight an increasingly important category of malware known as rootkits. Spyware Doctor detected all nine of our actively running rootkits, and Spy Sweeper detected four. CounterSpy managed to nab only two. The free tools caught none. All five programs--regardless of their rootkit capabilities--found one or two inactive rootkits. According to AV-Test.org, the apps' standard code-based scanning can detect inactive rootkits, but they need special routines to find the active ones..."
"Disinfecting the spyware proved difficult: To elude security software, spyware writers continually change the way their malware behaves. In our spyware disinfection tests, Spy Sweeper and Spyware Doctor ranked first, disinfecting 65 percent of the files"...
So what did I do? I have been unhappy with CounterSpy for a few weeks now, especially when I found out that active protection mode took up over 220,000 megabytes of memory (see my blog of 1/15/07). Still, my initial decision was to think about it a little bit longer...and while I was doing so, continue running Spy Sweeper for the remainder of the trial period. But, as I started to de-install Spyware Doctor, my Internet browser popped on and I was offered Spyware Doctor for six months for $9.95. That makes it the same price as Spy Sweeper...and my tests show Spyware Doctor to be the better products.
That did it! I spent the $9.95 and activated Spyware Doctor on all four of our computers. I cleaned off all the bad guys and everything is running smoothly. It may not be quite as user-friendly as Spy Sweeper, but once I started digging into it, I discovered a whole host of amazing things that it does. I am very happy I made the decision.
I suggest you might want to download both products from their respective websites and give each a try on your computer(s). I am curious to know what your results are. By the way, you don't have to uninstall Spyware Doctor to get the special price...just go to their special web page and you can get it.
During my ordeal, I remembered reading about two other spyware hunters that are now getting better reviews than CounterSpy...namely Spy Sweeper from Webroot Software and Spyware Doctor from PC Tools. So I decided to download both of them (trial versions) to see if they could find the phantom trojan. Of course, neither one found it, since it didn't exist. But something else happened that caught my immediate attention: Both products found more spyware that CounterSpy had missed, some of it listed as very dangerous.
Whoa, dude! Time to rethink my options. So I made a few notes while testing each of our computers as to the effectiveness of these two programs. The results on all four computers turned out the same, at least in the amount of additional spyware detected. Spyware Doctor caught far more than Spy Sweeper. Rather than give you the results on all four computers, I will just limit my report to my laptop.
Now, I have had my laptop about 3 1/2 years now, and it has been on the Internet many, many times as you can imagine. For nearly two years, I have been using CounterSpy, keeping it up-to-date and running scans quite often. Imagine my surprise when I installed Spy Sweeper and it caught 54 additional pieces of spyware. All of them were cookies and none of them were very dangerous...but still, any spyware is a bad thing.
I did not clean up those 54 items, but rather left them for Spyware Doctor to detect. I deactived both Spy Sweeper and CounterSpy so Spyware Doctor could have a clean run at my laptop. Well, guess what...Spyware Doctor reported 324 pieces of spyware, most cookies but a few of them were listed as highly dangerous. That's a big difference! And as I said above, all four computers had similar results, only the number of spyware detections differed, but there was always a big discrepancy between the number of bad guys detected.
I faced a couple of decisons...should I bag CounterSpy with over 200 days left in my subscription or should I go ahead and buy Spyware Doctor, or even Spy Sweeper as it is cheaper? Spyware Doctor sells for $29.95 and Spy Sweeper is "on sale" for $19.95. Here was something else I didn't mention...Spy Sweeper came fully active for a 15 day trial period, while Spyware Doctor would only detect...not do any cleanup unless I purchased it. My-oh-my, what should I do? Could I live without Spyware Doctor knowing that my computers had all that extra spyware on it?
I am going to keep you in suspense for a couple of paragraphs while I give you a couple of snippets from the recent PC World Review on spyware that I used in to my own final decision.
"In detecting actively running adware and spyware samples, Spy Sweeper and Spyware Doctor tied for first place, catching 90 percent of our test set. CounterSpy and Spybot brought up the rear, nailing 80 percent..."
"Three of the five apps--CounterSpy, Spy Sweeper, and Spyware Doctor--profess to fight an increasingly important category of malware known as rootkits. Spyware Doctor detected all nine of our actively running rootkits, and Spy Sweeper detected four. CounterSpy managed to nab only two. The free tools caught none. All five programs--regardless of their rootkit capabilities--found one or two inactive rootkits. According to AV-Test.org, the apps' standard code-based scanning can detect inactive rootkits, but they need special routines to find the active ones..."
"Disinfecting the spyware proved difficult: To elude security software, spyware writers continually change the way their malware behaves. In our spyware disinfection tests, Spy Sweeper and Spyware Doctor ranked first, disinfecting 65 percent of the files"...
So what did I do? I have been unhappy with CounterSpy for a few weeks now, especially when I found out that active protection mode took up over 220,000 megabytes of memory (see my blog of 1/15/07). Still, my initial decision was to think about it a little bit longer...and while I was doing so, continue running Spy Sweeper for the remainder of the trial period. But, as I started to de-install Spyware Doctor, my Internet browser popped on and I was offered Spyware Doctor for six months for $9.95. That makes it the same price as Spy Sweeper...and my tests show Spyware Doctor to be the better products.
That did it! I spent the $9.95 and activated Spyware Doctor on all four of our computers. I cleaned off all the bad guys and everything is running smoothly. It may not be quite as user-friendly as Spy Sweeper, but once I started digging into it, I discovered a whole host of amazing things that it does. I am very happy I made the decision.
I suggest you might want to download both products from their respective websites and give each a try on your computer(s). I am curious to know what your results are. By the way, you don't have to uninstall Spyware Doctor to get the special price...just go to their special web page and you can get it.
Friday, February 16, 2007
Best TV Listings on the Net
Back on December 12, I wrote a blog about the demise of the Yahoo TV Guide Website. Demise may be the wrong word here as the site still exists...but it is completely worthless, slow loading, and impossible to use. Here is a quick background in case you missed the previous blog:
Back in late November, Yahoo changed their very good TV listing website to a new beta version...no warning, no ability to see the old site while the new one was in beta, and no easy way to write one's displeasure with the new system. As I write this in February, not much has changed. It is still worthless and unusable.
Since my Dec 12 story, I did find a place on Yahoo's enormous Website where people can register their complaints...and boy, have they been doing just that. If you go to the site, you'll find e-mail that borders on hate mail. You just don't mess around with people's TV habits and get away with it. Actually, its been fun to read people's complaints about the new guide as most of them mirror my own thinking...and we all know how wonderful it is to have people agree with you.
Now, I hate to make such a big deal about a TV guide, but its somewhat important to me as I have Direct TV...and with 250 channels to choose from, its nice to be able to see what's on at a glance without having to run through the cumbersome guide on the TV itself. That's why I relied on Yahoo for so long. I could easily see what's on all of my stations and also see what might be on one specific station. For instance, I could click on Turner Classic Movies and see what movies they were showing for a 24 hour period...then click on one movie title and see what it was about.
Anyway, Yahoo's new site forced me to find a new TV listing Website. After, some searching, I found the AOL TV guide website. And I have been mostly happy with it. I say mostly because there are a few features I don't like...the main one being the difficulty to get back to the main page after clicking on something to get specific information. It also would not remember my personal customizations of their listing guide page each time I checked back in. But, overall it was the best site I had found up to that point.
Recently, I checked back in at Yahoo's TV listing to see if it had changed. It was still unusable. I then checked in at the Yahoo complaint center to read what people were saying lately. Nothing had changed their either...lots more complaints than the last time I checked. But I did find that some of the complaints mentioned they had switched over to TitanTV for their listings.
I decided to give it a try. Wow...was I immediately impressed. Their listings were thorough and beautifully color coded. It was easy to move around and get the information I wanted. But the one thing I noticed immediately was that I couldn't get the Turner Classic Movies listing to show me just their listings for 24 hours.
One writer to the Yahoo TV hate mail page mentioned that you can really do some fantastic customizations to your TitanTV listing page...but I found out that in order to do that, one had to join. Now I hate joining almost everything, but I decided to give it a try. Joining was free and after a thorough reading of their terms and conditions and privacy policy, I decided that it was safe.
Joining made an immediate difference. I could check in at Turner Classic Movies (and, for that matter, any other channel) and see their movie listings. I then set up my own preferences for stations to show, leaving out a whole slew of channels that I never watch. It remembered me and my preferences when I went offline, then back to the web site.
TitanTV has several other great features such as searching for your favorite shows or actors, setting reminders, e-mailing reminders, installing reminders in your calendar program(using Ical), and filtering. If you are using a TV Tuner Video Card in your computer and are connected to your computer via a cable, you can click on a listing and have your computer to record the program.
This is a good site, even if you don't use all of TitanTV's option. Check it out.
Back in late November, Yahoo changed their very good TV listing website to a new beta version...no warning, no ability to see the old site while the new one was in beta, and no easy way to write one's displeasure with the new system. As I write this in February, not much has changed. It is still worthless and unusable.
Since my Dec 12 story, I did find a place on Yahoo's enormous Website where people can register their complaints...and boy, have they been doing just that. If you go to the site, you'll find e-mail that borders on hate mail. You just don't mess around with people's TV habits and get away with it. Actually, its been fun to read people's complaints about the new guide as most of them mirror my own thinking...and we all know how wonderful it is to have people agree with you.
Now, I hate to make such a big deal about a TV guide, but its somewhat important to me as I have Direct TV...and with 250 channels to choose from, its nice to be able to see what's on at a glance without having to run through the cumbersome guide on the TV itself. That's why I relied on Yahoo for so long. I could easily see what's on all of my stations and also see what might be on one specific station. For instance, I could click on Turner Classic Movies and see what movies they were showing for a 24 hour period...then click on one movie title and see what it was about.
Anyway, Yahoo's new site forced me to find a new TV listing Website. After, some searching, I found the AOL TV guide website. And I have been mostly happy with it. I say mostly because there are a few features I don't like...the main one being the difficulty to get back to the main page after clicking on something to get specific information. It also would not remember my personal customizations of their listing guide page each time I checked back in. But, overall it was the best site I had found up to that point.
Recently, I checked back in at Yahoo's TV listing to see if it had changed. It was still unusable. I then checked in at the Yahoo complaint center to read what people were saying lately. Nothing had changed their either...lots more complaints than the last time I checked. But I did find that some of the complaints mentioned they had switched over to TitanTV for their listings.
I decided to give it a try. Wow...was I immediately impressed. Their listings were thorough and beautifully color coded. It was easy to move around and get the information I wanted. But the one thing I noticed immediately was that I couldn't get the Turner Classic Movies listing to show me just their listings for 24 hours.
One writer to the Yahoo TV hate mail page mentioned that you can really do some fantastic customizations to your TitanTV listing page...but I found out that in order to do that, one had to join. Now I hate joining almost everything, but I decided to give it a try. Joining was free and after a thorough reading of their terms and conditions and privacy policy, I decided that it was safe.
Joining made an immediate difference. I could check in at Turner Classic Movies (and, for that matter, any other channel) and see their movie listings. I then set up my own preferences for stations to show, leaving out a whole slew of channels that I never watch. It remembered me and my preferences when I went offline, then back to the web site.
TitanTV has several other great features such as searching for your favorite shows or actors, setting reminders, e-mailing reminders, installing reminders in your calendar program(using Ical), and filtering. If you are using a TV Tuner Video Card in your computer and are connected to your computer via a cable, you can click on a listing and have your computer to record the program.
This is a good site, even if you don't use all of TitanTV's option. Check it out.
Wednesday, February 14, 2007
The New Monitor Connections
For many years, ever since the advent of VGA and Super VGA monitors, there has been only one way to connect you monitor to your computer...a VGA connection. Most monitors come standard with a VGA connector that plugs directly into the computer. Just recently, I ordered and received a new wide-format flat panel monitor for my new home computer. I noticed that besides the VGA connector, it came with something called a DVI connection. No DVI wire was included and there was nothing but a VGA connector on my computer anyway...but I got to wondering what DVI was.
I began exploring the Internet and found that DVI was not the only new type of connector out there. There was HDMI, UDI, and DisplayPort. Sometimes this ol' computer world moves faster than I can keep up...which I shouldn't admit since I write about technology.
Never-the-less, I found an interesting article (not real long) on the ExtremeTech web site that you might enjoy reading to learn about monitors and all these new-fangled connections before you go out and buy your next one. I hope it is helpful.
I began exploring the Internet and found that DVI was not the only new type of connector out there. There was HDMI, UDI, and DisplayPort. Sometimes this ol' computer world moves faster than I can keep up...which I shouldn't admit since I write about technology.
Never-the-less, I found an interesting article (not real long) on the ExtremeTech web site that you might enjoy reading to learn about monitors and all these new-fangled connections before you go out and buy your next one. I hope it is helpful.
Monday, February 12, 2007
Chasing the Phantom Trojan
My weekend did not turn out exactly as planned. Far from it. Instead of painting new masterpieces, or working on photos, or driving to Wenatchee for a shopping spree, I spent a great portion of my weekend chasing down an infection in three of our computers. And, as I subsequently learned, a lot of other folks wound up doing the same thing.
On Saturday afternoon, I pulled out my laptop and decided to run a full CounterSpy scan as it had been a couple of weeks since I had done it. I downloaded the latest spyware definitions from their website and began my scan. Not too far into it, the scan said I was infected with something called "Trojan.Gromozo." Not having heard of it before, I looked it up on my desktop computer.
I found out the following: "Trojan.Gromozon is a dangerous and complex threat that attempts to install various malware components onto the user's computer. Trojan.Gromozon is typically installed through browser exploits and makes several attempts to hide itself and to disable or bypass anti-malware tools. Once Trojan.Gromozon is active, it loads various pieces of Adware onto the machine, usually the LinkOptimizer trojans and premium-rate dialers." I also found out that it was a rootkit infection, the most dangerous type of malware out there.
After my scan was completed, I took all the necessary steps to remove the Trojan from my system, following the directions on the screen. The last step call for me to reboot the computer, which I did. After it came back on line, I decided to run another CounterSpy scan just to make sure it was gone. But, Counterspy found it again. I took the same measures as before and ran a third scan. It was still there.
In the meantime (and I had plenty of time as a full scan takes 20-30 minutes on my laptop), I decided to check my new desktop computer and Susan's computer in her office. CounterSpy found Tojan.Gromozon on both those computers also. I did the same procedures on both those computers and when I ran a rescan, both computers showed were still still infected.
By now its late in the evening on Saturday night so I decided to leave it till Sunday. In the meantime, I shut down the Internet connection as Gromozon needs a Net connection to do its dirty deeds.
Sunday morning I got to work again, doing more research to see if there was something else I could do. I ran a virus scan on all three computers, but only one found a small virus (not Gromozon),which I duly erased. I then downloaded trial copies of two other highly recommended spyware catchers...Spyware Doctor and Spy Sweeper.
Those scans revealed some additional spyware that CounterSpy missed, but they did not find Gromozon. (I will talk more about these two products more in-depth in another blog.) At about the same time, I received two phone calls from friends who use Counterspy and were also being told they have Gromozon.
Continuing my research, I found out that an excellent security software company called Prevx has put out a free software product that will detect and remove Gromozon rootkits and clean up any other related Gromozon infections.
I downloaded it to all three of our computers. All three scans indicated that none of our computers had Trojan.Gromozon. By now, I was pretty sure that Counterspy was giving me a false-positive result, especially since Counterspy said it removed the infection, only to find it again on another sweep. But, still there was that nagging scary feeling about being infected that just wouldn't go away.
More research on the Net eventually took me to the Spybot Search and Destroy User Forum. There I found other folks like myself who had spent their weekend doing the same thing. One of them wrote an e-mail to Sunbelt Software, makers of Counterspy, not expecting any answer until Monday. But he got an immediate response:
Hi Brian,
Thank you for contacting Sunbelt Software. The Trojan.Gromozon detection
is an erroneous, phantom detection -- meaning that the file lpt4.ago is
not really on your system and that you are not at risk from the Gromozon
Trojan. This phantom detection is being produced by an odd interaction
between a file trace in our database and a little known aspect of the
Windows file system.
You can safely ignore this detection, which will be removed in the next
update to CounterSpy's definitions. Sorry for the inconvenience.
Warm regards,
Mike Williams
Aaaaaaaaagrh!! My weekend was ruined. I spent it chasing down a non-existent infection and all they can do is say, "Sorry for the inconvenience." Needless-to-say, I am not happy with the Counterspy folks right now. I hope my experiences will help you if you have CounterSpy and think you're infected.
Things like this make me sometimes wonder if it worth being connected to the Internet as there are so many despicable people out there who are trying to infect my computer and ruin my life and I must spend a certain amount of time and dollars trying to stay one step ahead of them. But, of course it is, as the Internet helped me eventually solve this problem and I still thinks the Internet is worth the trouble.
I think being connected to the Internet is similar to having sex. Its a lot of fun...if you take all the proper precautions.
On Saturday afternoon, I pulled out my laptop and decided to run a full CounterSpy scan as it had been a couple of weeks since I had done it. I downloaded the latest spyware definitions from their website and began my scan. Not too far into it, the scan said I was infected with something called "Trojan.Gromozo." Not having heard of it before, I looked it up on my desktop computer.
I found out the following: "Trojan.Gromozon is a dangerous and complex threat that attempts to install various malware components onto the user's computer. Trojan.Gromozon is typically installed through browser exploits and makes several attempts to hide itself and to disable or bypass anti-malware tools. Once Trojan.Gromozon is active, it loads various pieces of Adware onto the machine, usually the LinkOptimizer trojans and premium-rate dialers." I also found out that it was a rootkit infection, the most dangerous type of malware out there.
After my scan was completed, I took all the necessary steps to remove the Trojan from my system, following the directions on the screen. The last step call for me to reboot the computer, which I did. After it came back on line, I decided to run another CounterSpy scan just to make sure it was gone. But, Counterspy found it again. I took the same measures as before and ran a third scan. It was still there.
In the meantime (and I had plenty of time as a full scan takes 20-30 minutes on my laptop), I decided to check my new desktop computer and Susan's computer in her office. CounterSpy found Tojan.Gromozon on both those computers also. I did the same procedures on both those computers and when I ran a rescan, both computers showed were still still infected.
By now its late in the evening on Saturday night so I decided to leave it till Sunday. In the meantime, I shut down the Internet connection as Gromozon needs a Net connection to do its dirty deeds.
Sunday morning I got to work again, doing more research to see if there was something else I could do. I ran a virus scan on all three computers, but only one found a small virus (not Gromozon),which I duly erased. I then downloaded trial copies of two other highly recommended spyware catchers...Spyware Doctor and Spy Sweeper.
Those scans revealed some additional spyware that CounterSpy missed, but they did not find Gromozon. (I will talk more about these two products more in-depth in another blog.) At about the same time, I received two phone calls from friends who use Counterspy and were also being told they have Gromozon.
Continuing my research, I found out that an excellent security software company called Prevx has put out a free software product that will detect and remove Gromozon rootkits and clean up any other related Gromozon infections.
I downloaded it to all three of our computers. All three scans indicated that none of our computers had Trojan.Gromozon. By now, I was pretty sure that Counterspy was giving me a false-positive result, especially since Counterspy said it removed the infection, only to find it again on another sweep. But, still there was that nagging scary feeling about being infected that just wouldn't go away.
More research on the Net eventually took me to the Spybot Search and Destroy User Forum. There I found other folks like myself who had spent their weekend doing the same thing. One of them wrote an e-mail to Sunbelt Software, makers of Counterspy, not expecting any answer until Monday. But he got an immediate response:
Hi Brian,
Thank you for contacting Sunbelt Software. The Trojan.Gromozon detection
is an erroneous, phantom detection -- meaning that the file lpt4.ago is
not really on your system and that you are not at risk from the Gromozon
Trojan. This phantom detection is being produced by an odd interaction
between a file trace in our database and a little known aspect of the
Windows file system.
You can safely ignore this detection, which will be removed in the next
update to CounterSpy's definitions. Sorry for the inconvenience.
Warm regards,
Mike Williams
Aaaaaaaaagrh!! My weekend was ruined. I spent it chasing down a non-existent infection and all they can do is say, "Sorry for the inconvenience." Needless-to-say, I am not happy with the Counterspy folks right now. I hope my experiences will help you if you have CounterSpy and think you're infected.
Things like this make me sometimes wonder if it worth being connected to the Internet as there are so many despicable people out there who are trying to infect my computer and ruin my life and I must spend a certain amount of time and dollars trying to stay one step ahead of them. But, of course it is, as the Internet helped me eventually solve this problem and I still thinks the Internet is worth the trouble.
I think being connected to the Internet is similar to having sex. Its a lot of fun...if you take all the proper precautions.
Saturday, February 10, 2007
Videos May Clog the Internet
Our friends at Google are now warning that the increasing amount of videos available on the Net, may someday soon clog the Internet and slow it down to a crawl. Services such as YouTube, which is owned by Google, are proving tricky for Internet providers to deal with and new video developments could create even more problems.
"The web infrastructure - and even Google's - doesn't scale," said Vincent Dureau, Google's head of TV technology. "It's not going to offer the quality of service that consumers expect."
Surfers around the world already use sites such as YouTube to watch videos online, but video file sharing services are increasing pressure on the Internet's capacity. More and more companies are popping up on line offering free (and illegal) movies for downloading. Just this week, Wal-Mart went on-line with its movie download site...and I already told you about being able to watch movies on the NetFlix's web site...and there are many more sites that we haven't even mentioned here. Movie downloads take up a lot of bandwidth, and although the amount of available bandwidth is huge, it is not limitless.
One of the unwitting culprits is BitTorrent, a technology already used by millions of people to obtain high-quality video over the net. And while BitTorrent is controversial because many people use it to download movies illegally, the system's creators are expected to launch a legitimate movie download site in conjunction with some major studios.
And despite the relatively small number of users, research indicates that systems such as BitTorrent are already responsible for more than 50% of all Internet traffic! Some executives fear that without improvements and additions to the available bandwidth, video download services could clog up the Internet and cause online gridlock.
If you are not familiar with it, BitTorrent is revolutionary because it makes downloading faster than any of the traditional methods; perfect for large files such as video. Instead of allowing people to swap complete items, such as music tracks or entire TV series, it breaks each piece of information into tiny fragments.
"The web infrastructure - and even Google's - doesn't scale," said Vincent Dureau, Google's head of TV technology. "It's not going to offer the quality of service that consumers expect."
Surfers around the world already use sites such as YouTube to watch videos online, but video file sharing services are increasing pressure on the Internet's capacity. More and more companies are popping up on line offering free (and illegal) movies for downloading. Just this week, Wal-Mart went on-line with its movie download site...and I already told you about being able to watch movies on the NetFlix's web site...and there are many more sites that we haven't even mentioned here. Movie downloads take up a lot of bandwidth, and although the amount of available bandwidth is huge, it is not limitless.
One of the unwitting culprits is BitTorrent, a technology already used by millions of people to obtain high-quality video over the net. And while BitTorrent is controversial because many people use it to download movies illegally, the system's creators are expected to launch a legitimate movie download site in conjunction with some major studios.
And despite the relatively small number of users, research indicates that systems such as BitTorrent are already responsible for more than 50% of all Internet traffic! Some executives fear that without improvements and additions to the available bandwidth, video download services could clog up the Internet and cause online gridlock.
If you are not familiar with it, BitTorrent is revolutionary because it makes downloading faster than any of the traditional methods; perfect for large files such as video. Instead of allowing people to swap complete items, such as music tracks or entire TV series, it breaks each piece of information into tiny fragments.
The technology then finds a multiple number of sources which already have the files and downloads all the separate fragments to your computer simultaneously. The results are then reassembled into the finished article so that you can watch the video on your machine. The system works well because it plays on one of the fundamental tenets of the Internet - that people are able to download files much faster than they can put files onto it.
But BitTorrent cannot be used to watch videos on the Net at places like YouTube and Netflix and download sites like Wal-Mart are at one location...so again BitTorrent cannot be used. This increase of videos on the Net and the resulting clogging of the Internet pipes is a story that will begin unfolding sooner rather than later and bears watching.
Wednesday, February 07, 2007
Kodak Shocks the Printing World
Kodak has finally realized that its future is digital, and has entered the printer market with a
huge bang. The company's three new printers promise to slash the per-page cost in half, compared to traditional ink jets from Epson, HP, and Canon. The ink cartridges are priced so low they're almost giving them away!
The three new printers are the EasyShare 5100, 5300, and 5500. All three are all-in-one printers and all use a six-color, two-cartridge ink system. The black cartridge will have a list price of $9.99 (list) while the five-ink-color cartridge lists at $14.99. Kodak claims that the new printers and cartridges let consumers print the same number of pages at half the cost of other consumer ink jet printers, and that when the Kodak Photo Value Pack is purchased, the cost of printing a 4-by-6-inch photo will be as little as 10 cents.
And what about paper? The Kodak printers will work on other manufacturer's paper, although most of the other makers use a gel-based photo paper that is quite expensive. Kodak instead uses a new porous paper that is cheaper yet gives equal if not better pictures using the new photo-printing technology. The net result is that Kodak says it will match competitors when it comes to print and image quality but at half the price.
I believe we can expect Kodak's new printing technology to have a dramatic impact on the current photo-printer makers, whose expensive solutions have contributed to their bottom lines for years. Imagine what it could mean to Epson's (or HP's, or Canon's) profits if the company is suddenly forced to cut profit margins on current photo-printer supplies without having a lower-cost solution in place.
huge bang. The company's three new printers promise to slash the per-page cost in half, compared to traditional ink jets from Epson, HP, and Canon. The ink cartridges are priced so low they're almost giving them away!
The three new printers are the EasyShare 5100, 5300, and 5500. All three are all-in-one printers and all use a six-color, two-cartridge ink system. The black cartridge will have a list price of $9.99 (list) while the five-ink-color cartridge lists at $14.99. Kodak claims that the new printers and cartridges let consumers print the same number of pages at half the cost of other consumer ink jet printers, and that when the Kodak Photo Value Pack is purchased, the cost of printing a 4-by-6-inch photo will be as little as 10 cents.
The Kodak Easyshare 5100 All-in-One Printer ($149.99 list) includes print, scan, and copy capabilities. Kodak claims a print and copy speed of up to 32 pages per minute (ppm) in black and white and 22 ppm in color, and that it can output a 4-by-6 color print in as little as 28 seconds. It can print photos at up to 8.5-by-11, and documents up to legal size. The 5100 includes a 100-sheet main tray plus 20-sheet 4-by-6-inch photo tray. It can print photos from PictBridge-enabled cameras or a USB drive without involving a PC, and can print wirelessly via a Bluetooth connection.
The Easyshare 5300 All-in-One Printer ($199.99 list) shares the 5100's features plus memory-card slots as well as a 3-inch color LCD display for photo viewing and cropping directly from the printer. The Easyshare 5500 All-in-One Printer ($299.99 list) shares the features of the 5100 and 5300 printers (except the color LCD display is 2.4-inch) and adds fax functionality, a 35-sheet automatic document feeder, and a duplexer attachment for two-sided printing.
The first two models will go on the market next month. But here is the minor catch...the 5100 and 5300 will retail exclusively at Best Buy. The 5500 is expected to begin shipping in May 2007. Online shoppers will be able to purchase the printers in April 2007 at the Kodak Store.
Kodak's secret for low price ink is a technology that puts the print heads in the printer itself and, using a new concept called nano particle pigmentation, just drops the ink through the print heads that are in the printer, which allows them to print a high-quality image that is instantly dry.And what about paper? The Kodak printers will work on other manufacturer's paper, although most of the other makers use a gel-based photo paper that is quite expensive. Kodak instead uses a new porous paper that is cheaper yet gives equal if not better pictures using the new photo-printing technology. The net result is that Kodak says it will match competitors when it comes to print and image quality but at half the price.
I believe we can expect Kodak's new printing technology to have a dramatic impact on the current photo-printer makers, whose expensive solutions have contributed to their bottom lines for years. Imagine what it could mean to Epson's (or HP's, or Canon's) profits if the company is suddenly forced to cut profit margins on current photo-printer supplies without having a lower-cost solution in place.
Monday, February 05, 2007
Weather Watcher
For some time, Susan has used a program on her desktop called "Weatherbug." It's a free program that puts the current temperature down in the lower right corner of her computer right next to the clock. With it, she always knows what's going on weather-wise in our little town. If you click on it, it opens up a larger window showing updated forecasts and more information, as well as some commercials.
The other day, Susan came to me and said she thought her computer had been infected by a virus or a hacker. To make a long story short, that didn't turn out to be the case. She had logged on to a website that had been hacked by someone in Germany who was bragging. Anyway, to be on the safe side, I ran a CounterSpy scan. And guess what I found...576 pieces of spyware, all associated with Weatherbug!
Needless to say, that was the end of Weatherbug on her computer. But, I know how much she liked having the current weather conditions being displayed on her screen all the time, so I set out to see if I could find a replacement for her that was safe. And after only a little looking, I did.
The program is called Weather Watcher and is available free for downloading. It works pretty much the same way, putting the current temperature down by your system clock. But, with Weather Watcher, if you just run your mouse over the temperature, it opens up a small windows showing you more information such as humidity, wind chill, wind speed, and more if you wish.
The program comes loaded with options that allow you to define how it works on your system...what to display, when to update, how much to show in the little window and how much to show in the big master window. You can even tell it what to do when you right-click or left click.
To be honest, I liked it so much that I also installed it on my computer at home. The user reviews I read on it were all good, so you might want to take a look at it...if you like the idea of knowing the temperature without having to open up a web browser. There is, of course, no spyware or adware included, which is very nice...and it takes up only a very tiny amount of memory. Its a good little program and the price is sure right.
The easiest way of getting it is to go to the Download.com website.
The other day, Susan came to me and said she thought her computer had been infected by a virus or a hacker. To make a long story short, that didn't turn out to be the case. She had logged on to a website that had been hacked by someone in Germany who was bragging. Anyway, to be on the safe side, I ran a CounterSpy scan. And guess what I found...576 pieces of spyware, all associated with Weatherbug!
Needless to say, that was the end of Weatherbug on her computer. But, I know how much she liked having the current weather conditions being displayed on her screen all the time, so I set out to see if I could find a replacement for her that was safe. And after only a little looking, I did.
The program is called Weather Watcher and is available free for downloading. It works pretty much the same way, putting the current temperature down by your system clock. But, with Weather Watcher, if you just run your mouse over the temperature, it opens up a small windows showing you more information such as humidity, wind chill, wind speed, and more if you wish.
The program comes loaded with options that allow you to define how it works on your system...what to display, when to update, how much to show in the little window and how much to show in the big master window. You can even tell it what to do when you right-click or left click.
To be honest, I liked it so much that I also installed it on my computer at home. The user reviews I read on it were all good, so you might want to take a look at it...if you like the idea of knowing the temperature without having to open up a web browser. There is, of course, no spyware or adware included, which is very nice...and it takes up only a very tiny amount of memory. Its a good little program and the price is sure right.
The easiest way of getting it is to go to the Download.com website.
Friday, February 02, 2007
Blank CD's and DVD's Part Two
In the last blog, I pointed out two very important facts regarding blank CD's and DVD's...one is that the big name companies who put their names on blank media are almost always not the original manufacturers...and two...big name companies are always changing manufacturers. I made it sound like it is a crap-shoot going to a store and buying blank media. And that is exactly what it is. You never know what you are going to bring home.
That is no way to do business if longevity of your files, photos, and music are important to you. But, there is an answer. There are two good manufacturers that will give you peace of mind when it comes to your backups.
The first one is expensive. These are CD's and DVD's made by Mam-a using a formula originally created by Mitsui.. Their disks are very special in that they use 24K gold in their manufacturing process. Their CD's have a rated life of 300 years and their DVD's are rated for 100 years. They also have an excellent silver-based media which was used for quite some time by Kodak for manufacturing their disks (Kodak, which had a great reputation for high quality media, is no longer making blank media).
Their gold CD's range in price from $1.50 to $2.00 each, depending on quantity purchased. Their gold DVD's are about $3.00 each. The silver CD's are around a $1 each, as are their silver DVD's. As I said, this is not a cheap solution, but it may be arguably the best.
The second manufacturer that will give you incredible quality at a much cheaper price is Taiyo-Yuden. They actually invented the CD-R all those years ago. Their disks are manufactured in Japan and sold under their own name. They also manufacturer disks for other companies. I once bought a package of Fuji DVD's and found them to be manufactured by Taiyo. No guarantees that today's Fuji's would be of the same manufacture.
The one thing that I didn't mention yesterday was that in the manufacturing process, a few unscrupulous manufacturers of blank, unreliable disks have forged their products to read that they are made by Taiyo-Yuden. One way to tell if a disk is a forgery is if the disks read that they are Taiyo's, but are not made in Japan.
So, for us, this means we must find a reliable dealer who sells genuine Taiyo's. Fortunately, there is such a place. Several articles I have read all point to one place to purchase genuine Taiyo's...the on-line Supermedia Store, based in Southern California. I have been dealing with them myself for well over a year and found them to offer good prices and great service. They also have good sale prices every so often. I heartily recommend them for your backup media.
Taiyo blank CD's and DVD's run from about 25 cents to 50 cents depending on several different factors. They due have a "value line" as well as "premium" line. I have read several comments by users and most cannot tell the two lines apart. Since their is so little difference in price between the two lines, you could just stick with the premium line.
As far as other lines of blank DVD media are concerned, Imation is a good product. I recently scanned an Imation disk made over 6 years ago and it is still in good shape. And some of the high-end TDK's are still made by TDK. But, I have simplified my life by just ordering Taiyo-Yuden disks from the SuperMedia Store and everything has worked out just fine.
I hope these blogs have been helpful to you. For more reading on this subject, check out the following Web links:
The Best Blank DVD Media
The Myth of the 100 Year CD-ROM
CD and DVD Longevity
How to Choose CD and DVD Archival Media
How to Tell Fake from Real Taiyo Yuden
That is no way to do business if longevity of your files, photos, and music are important to you. But, there is an answer. There are two good manufacturers that will give you peace of mind when it comes to your backups.
The first one is expensive. These are CD's and DVD's made by Mam-a using a formula originally created by Mitsui.. Their disks are very special in that they use 24K gold in their manufacturing process. Their CD's have a rated life of 300 years and their DVD's are rated for 100 years. They also have an excellent silver-based media which was used for quite some time by Kodak for manufacturing their disks (Kodak, which had a great reputation for high quality media, is no longer making blank media).
Their gold CD's range in price from $1.50 to $2.00 each, depending on quantity purchased. Their gold DVD's are about $3.00 each. The silver CD's are around a $1 each, as are their silver DVD's. As I said, this is not a cheap solution, but it may be arguably the best.
The second manufacturer that will give you incredible quality at a much cheaper price is Taiyo-Yuden. They actually invented the CD-R all those years ago. Their disks are manufactured in Japan and sold under their own name. They also manufacturer disks for other companies. I once bought a package of Fuji DVD's and found them to be manufactured by Taiyo. No guarantees that today's Fuji's would be of the same manufacture.
The one thing that I didn't mention yesterday was that in the manufacturing process, a few unscrupulous manufacturers of blank, unreliable disks have forged their products to read that they are made by Taiyo-Yuden. One way to tell if a disk is a forgery is if the disks read that they are Taiyo's, but are not made in Japan.
So, for us, this means we must find a reliable dealer who sells genuine Taiyo's. Fortunately, there is such a place. Several articles I have read all point to one place to purchase genuine Taiyo's...the on-line Supermedia Store, based in Southern California. I have been dealing with them myself for well over a year and found them to offer good prices and great service. They also have good sale prices every so often. I heartily recommend them for your backup media.
Taiyo blank CD's and DVD's run from about 25 cents to 50 cents depending on several different factors. They due have a "value line" as well as "premium" line. I have read several comments by users and most cannot tell the two lines apart. Since their is so little difference in price between the two lines, you could just stick with the premium line.
As far as other lines of blank DVD media are concerned, Imation is a good product. I recently scanned an Imation disk made over 6 years ago and it is still in good shape. And some of the high-end TDK's are still made by TDK. But, I have simplified my life by just ordering Taiyo-Yuden disks from the SuperMedia Store and everything has worked out just fine.
I hope these blogs have been helpful to you. For more reading on this subject, check out the following Web links:
The Best Blank DVD Media
The Myth of the 100 Year CD-ROM
CD and DVD Longevity
How to Choose CD and DVD Archival Media
How to Tell Fake from Real Taiyo Yuden
Thursday, February 01, 2007
CD and DVD Disintegration Revisited
About 18 months ago, an artist friend gave me a CD containing some scans of her original work. She needed a few prints done which I gladly did for her. She called me recently and need a couple more prints. When I tried to access the CD, I could not get it to read the files. I used two different computers with four different CD/DVD drives in an effort to get her job done. Nada. I finally ran a scan on the disk itself using one of the tools in the V-Com System Suite 7.
The final result was that there were several bad spots on the CD and it could no longer be used. It had been properly store during the last 18 months...in a jewel case, standing vertically and stored in a drawer in a normal, temperature-controlled environment. It had suffered what is rightly or wrongly termed CD Disintegration. Oh, and by the way, the brand name on the CD was Hewlett Packard.
It has been a while since I touched on this subject so I thought today was a good day to revisit it. When burnable CD's were first introduced several years ago, we were told that this media has a long life and we can expect safe storage for at least 100 years. Over time, this has turned out not to be true in about 99% of the cases. Most burned CD's have a much, much shorter lifetime.
Here are some hard truths you need to know about CD-R's and CD-RW's:
I started buying blank CD's years ago when they were on sale at stores like Fry's. They were generic, and cheap. The subject of CD disintegration had not cropped up yet. Recently, I examined the first 12 disks that I had used to back up my work over time. All of them had gone bad. In my case, it was not a major loss. Most of them contained digital scans of my slides and I still have my slides. The final versions of my artwork and photos are stored on three separate hard drives as well as these backup disks, so nothing important has really been lost. But still, I need quality backups that won't be lost over time.
Since I became aware of disk disintegration, I have been replacing my cheap disks with quality disks. I have also thrown away about 100 of the cheap blank disks, having learned my lessons. I keep a few around for non-archival jobs, but they are separated from my good disks.
Most writeable CD's and DVD's are manufactured in the Far East by companies that you have never heard of. As mentioned above, they label them with the brand name of the company that ordered them produced. There are several different types of chemical compositions of CD's, some much worse than others. So how do you know who manufactured the disks you are buying?
For DVD's, I use a program called DVD Identifier, which is a free download from the creator's Website. It reads the manufacturer's information off the disk. For most of us, the name means little or nothing. But you can look up the info on another website (too long to name) that has taken the time to tell you whether a particular manufacturer is good, bad, or something in between.
For CD's, I use a program that came with my Nero CD/DVD burning software called Nero CD-DVD Speed. It not only identifies the manufacturer, but will test what transfer speed is best for the particular disk. I recently found out you can download this for free at cdspeed200.com.
In the next chapter of this blog, I will tell you which brand(s) of CD and DVD media you can reliably use to make long-lasting archivals of your data. In the meantime, perhaps you should check on your own CD's and DVD's that you made two or more years ago to see if they are still good. You may be in for some nasty surprises.
The final result was that there were several bad spots on the CD and it could no longer be used. It had been properly store during the last 18 months...in a jewel case, standing vertically and stored in a drawer in a normal, temperature-controlled environment. It had suffered what is rightly or wrongly termed CD Disintegration. Oh, and by the way, the brand name on the CD was Hewlett Packard.
It has been a while since I touched on this subject so I thought today was a good day to revisit it. When burnable CD's were first introduced several years ago, we were told that this media has a long life and we can expect safe storage for at least 100 years. Over time, this has turned out not to be true in about 99% of the cases. Most burned CD's have a much, much shorter lifetime.
Here are some hard truths you need to know about CD-R's and CD-RW's:
- Music CD's that you buy in stores are not burned like we burn CD's in our computers. They are pressed, much like the old LP records that CD's replaced. Therefore you normally don't have to worry about their disintegration as they have an entirely different chemical composition. Same with commercial DVD's.
- In most cases, the quality of CD's is directly related to its price. The cheaper the disks, the shorter their lifespan.
- In 98% of the cases, the true manufacturer of a blank CD is not the company whose name appears on the label.
- Companies whose name is on the label of a CD constantly change manufacturers, even those who had reputations for quality. For instance, I have told a lot of people that CD's sold under the TDK label were very good...and they were. They were one of the few CD sellers that manufactured its own disks. The last batch of TDK CD's that I bought at Costco were manufactured by a third rate CD company in India.
- As a rule, blank DVD's, even good ones, have a much shorter life than CD's. A good rule of thumb is about 1/3 less lifetime.
- Never use CD-RW or DVD-RW for archival storage as they have a much shorter lifespan.
- If you wish to use DVD's for a storage media, get the best possible brand you can, then make sure it is DVD+R, rather than DVD-R. DVD+R has superior error correction and writing method.
- Most commercial CD/DVD burning software will give you the option to verify a disk after it is burned. Make sure you do it.
I started buying blank CD's years ago when they were on sale at stores like Fry's. They were generic, and cheap. The subject of CD disintegration had not cropped up yet. Recently, I examined the first 12 disks that I had used to back up my work over time. All of them had gone bad. In my case, it was not a major loss. Most of them contained digital scans of my slides and I still have my slides. The final versions of my artwork and photos are stored on three separate hard drives as well as these backup disks, so nothing important has really been lost. But still, I need quality backups that won't be lost over time.
Since I became aware of disk disintegration, I have been replacing my cheap disks with quality disks. I have also thrown away about 100 of the cheap blank disks, having learned my lessons. I keep a few around for non-archival jobs, but they are separated from my good disks.
Most writeable CD's and DVD's are manufactured in the Far East by companies that you have never heard of. As mentioned above, they label them with the brand name of the company that ordered them produced. There are several different types of chemical compositions of CD's, some much worse than others. So how do you know who manufactured the disks you are buying?
For DVD's, I use a program called DVD Identifier, which is a free download from the creator's Website. It reads the manufacturer's information off the disk. For most of us, the name means little or nothing. But you can look up the info on another website (too long to name) that has taken the time to tell you whether a particular manufacturer is good, bad, or something in between.
For CD's, I use a program that came with my Nero CD/DVD burning software called Nero CD-DVD Speed. It not only identifies the manufacturer, but will test what transfer speed is best for the particular disk. I recently found out you can download this for free at cdspeed200.com.
In the next chapter of this blog, I will tell you which brand(s) of CD and DVD media you can reliably use to make long-lasting archivals of your data. In the meantime, perhaps you should check on your own CD's and DVD's that you made two or more years ago to see if they are still good. You may be in for some nasty surprises.
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