Global Toad News

Thanks to Russ Eggen for this tip. Apparently an easy way to help people understand what to do with custom templates is to add tooltips to the prompts. This is done by

#PROMPT(‘Filter string’,@s10),ÞbugFilter,DEFAULT(‘~’) ,PROP(PROP:FontColor,0FF0000H) ,PROP(PROP:FontStyle,400) ,PROP(PROP:LEFT) ,PROP(PROP:Tip,’Enter a new string for filter’)

The trick is at the PROP:Tip part, you should be able to use the standard Clarion PROP statements.

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There’s a new project (product?) called “freenigma” from their website:

Today, all your e-mails are stored and sent around the planet in plain text. And today you have no control over what happens to your private or business e-mail conversations and you can’t prevent others from reading them. Get your privacy back! Encrypt your private and business e-mails to protect your freedom, privacy and your business secrets.

…

Actually, we support not only Google Mail, but all large webmail services: encrypt your e-mails in Google Mail, Yahoo! Mail and Hotmail and others. Exchange encrypted content with your friends and business partners. One freenigma account can be used for all supported webmail systems!

While this is a better solution than no encryption, I still prefer a solution where your private keys are…well private, that is on your own machine.  But for people who want to have some (albeit very weak) protection for their email, I guess freenigma is a step in the right direction (though I prefer a solution that runs on a client).

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Apparently there is a new worm/exploit that people need to be aware of Microsoft has the patch available at http://www.microsoft.com/technet/security/bulletin/ms06-040.mspx. EWeek already has an article about how a machine there was effected by it, and Microsoft rates this as a “Critical” and should update immediately.  From eWeek:

On August 13 at 3:04 AM, a Windows server that I’ve been running for all of two weeks–it just replaced an Xserve G5–was attacked by a new strain of malware. This worm/trojan/backdoor/proxy/IRCbot/DDOS agent shared some characteristics with a known exploit, but it went well beyond what was described. I believed at the time of the infection, and even more strongly now, that this exploit’s latent damage potential has been underestimated. I view the terse and vague update on the CERT site regarding the less tenacious strain of this beast with a sense of foreboding.

So update your Windows machines if you haven’t applied this patch.

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Apparently Intel’s wireless drivers for Windows have problems (and not just when they are put into AMD machines) from http://www.theregister.co.uk/2006/08/24/intel_centrino_update_glitch/

Unfortunately, software installed (S24EvMON.exe) with this Wi-Fi driver is leaky, consuming considerable CPU and memory resources and thereby hitting on the performance of PCs with the software installed, researchers at net security firm F-Secure have discovered.

So if your computer seems to be a little off, and you have a Intel Wireless card you might want to update your drivers, that is when Intel releases a fix.

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Many people have heard about Dell and HP recalling batteries, now it’s Apple’s turn.  In the news at http://apnews.myway.com/article/20060824/D8JMV7600.html

Apple said it has received nine reports of lithium-ion battery packs overheating, including two cases in which users suffered minor burns. There have been instances of minor property damage, Apple said.

Personally I don’t think this all that much to be concerned about, but it’s always good to replace old batteries in any case.

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There is a nifty product called PDF-XChange that will let you print things out to a PDF, but also has a companion product that will let you edit pdfs as well.

There are, of course, other programs which are free, which can do some of what PDF-XChange can do, but PDF-XChange is a great program and definitely worth your time, and if you happen to use Soft Velocity’s Clarion development platform, you can take your programs to a new level by using the pdf generation tools that Tracker Software has.

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Sometimes a windows machine seems to just hang when opening a web connection.  You might think it’s a virus, or that something has gone wrong.

Well you might be right, or it could be that Microsoft has designed a limit into Windows XP SP2 that slows down the ability to initiate new connections in Windows. You can get a patch for this “feature” from http://www.lvllord.de/ if you want, or you can wonder why Windows is hanging.  Unfortunately Microsoft will throttle it back down whenever it updates the system, giving the whole automatic update process another black eye.

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You can now use Google’s version of Writely, sign up here.

Writely is an online word processor that does what Word does, only for free and on the web.

So you can share your documents even easier than ever before.

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There was (is) a thread at slashdot that asked:

iamjoltman writes “I’ve been looking to replace the McAfee anti-virus on my parent’s XP machine. So, I’ve been looking at the three free anti-virus choices, AVG Free Edition, avast! Home Edition and AntiVir Personal Edition. I know there are other options, but I believe any others are only on-demand scanners, and that’s not an option. So, what does the Slashdot crowd think is the best of these choices? Keep in mind, I’m only looking in anti-virus, I’ll go elsewhere for firewall or malware protection.”

I think that ClamAV offers another option, but alas the Slashdot crowd had some issues with it. Maybe they didn’t look at http://www.clamwin.com/. Whatever the reason, I like ClamAV for virus scanning.

Update:

WinPooch seems to be the missing link for ClamAV to provide “realtime” scanning.

http://winpooch.free.fr/page/home.php?lang=en&page=home

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Many of you have no doubt heard about the “data loss” issues at the Department of Veterans Affairs, and other similar instances.  What is less well known is that there are good free solutions that will protect your data from prying eyes.  The best of these appears to be http://www.truecrypt.org/, which works with both Windows and Linux and provides strong encryption of your data.

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With Sql 2005, Microsoft has come out with the new Sql Native Client. This should be used to replace MDAC 2.8 for Sql Server connections (In my Opinion), though Microsoft only makes the suggestion for Sql Server 2005. From Microsoft:

Microsoft SQL Server Native Client (SQL Native Client) contains the SQL OLE DB provider and SQL ODBC driver in one native dynamic link library (DLL) supporting applications using native-code APIs (ODBC, OLE DB and ADO) to Microsoft SQL Server. SQL Native Client should be used rather than Microsoft Data Access Components (MDAC) to create new applications or enhance existing applications that need to take advantage of new SQL Server 2005 features such as Multiple Active Result Sets (MARS), Query Notifications, User-Defined Types (UDT), and XML data type support.

Basically, I think that installing the Native Client might make sense if you have had problems with Sql Connections and want to use the latest drivers.

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In article at eWeek, Channel Insider (which is advertiser supported, which means that they tend to write with a slant towards what their advertisers want), I found this perplexing paragraph

Although Dell is has had a rocky relationship with the No. 1 direct-selling PC maker, opting to bypass channel and its partners, the Round Rock, Texas, vendor has managed to thrive by providing low-cost desktops and notebooks to reach end-user customers for its notebooks, desktops and servers.

As with most things, apparently writing for eWeek is more about who you know than what you know, as this fellow (Scott Ferguson) apparently can’t write english, and who knows if he can write in any other language.  I don’t think I have ever seen such a confusing use of is (he didn’t use was so I guess that is something to be thankful for).

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Dell has taken some flack for overheating laptops. Apparently the batteries on some models would overheat. If you have a Dell laptop, go to this page to see if you can get a replacement [or if you even need one, well we can all use a newer battery for our machines ]

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From MonstersAndCritics.com we read about how the newest bondoggle of the favorite corporate son is putting troops at risk, both now and in the future:

Defense Secretary Donald Rumsfeld`s cyber-dream for the U.S. Army has become a cyber nightmare.

….

Unprecedented billions of dollars have been poured into FCS and it has been given top call on Army resources even while U.S. combat troops in Iraq went short of low-tech body armor and steel protection for their combat vehicles.

However, a recent Congressional Budget Office report warns that the FCS program could eat up half the force`s annual procurement budget.

….

But if the FCS fails, the Army`s entire combat strategy will be at risk. At Rumsfeld`s prodding, the Army has been developing a new generation of tanks that is supposed to be faster and more maneuverable, but will have far less army than many battle tanks of the past quarter century. That idea has already been thrown into doubt by the devastating effectiveness of improvised explosive devices, or IEDs in Iraq. Over the past year-and-a-half, they have been the biggest killer of U.S. soldiers in the war there.

But if the FCS fails, the new generation tanks will be at a devastating disadvantage on conventional battlefields too. The FCS was supposed to give U.S. land combat formations an overwhelming advantage in action. However, each of the three communications systems that the FCS relies upon now has significant problems.

You can read entire article for more information.  I am in favor of the Army using Tech, just that they should use the best and most reliable tech, because when tech fails in combat people die. (Of course people die in combat anyways, but that’s another tale).

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CNet reports that we may all be able to play windows media on Linux a lot easier now, thanks to RealNetworks efforts and legal wrangling with Microsoft (I am not a big fan of Realplayer on Windows, but it seems that they do some things right), here is an excerpt of the article:

The media delivery software company and Novell made the announcement at the LinuxWorld Conference and Expo here. Novell said it will include the tool in its Suse Linux Enterprise Desktop 10 in the fourth quarter.

Currently, Linux users can play Windows Media Video (WMV) and Windows Media Audio (WMA) content if they install closed-source modules, said Jeff Duchmann, general manager of client and digital rights management technologies at RealNetworks. That will change as the result of a licensing deal RealNetworks has signed with Microsoft and its settlement of an antitrust suit against the software giant. It will release open-source code to play the files as part of the Helix Community project it launched to bring RealNetworks

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At http://arstechnica.com/journals/apple.ars/2006/6/26/4449
there is this interesting information:

Back in March, we reported about a poor MacBook Pro user who posted photos on Flickr along with an account of having come home to find his MagSafe connector melted. Thanking his cats for apparently disconnecting the MagSafe accidentally (see, I told you guys!), he thought that perhaps if it hadn’t been disconnected that a more disastrous catastrophe could have occurred.

Apple was very swift in replacing the MacBook Pro and also very swift in requesting that the pictures be removed from Flickr immediately. Mr. Mulder, having been taken care of by Apple, complied and the internet world hasn’t heard about melting MagSafe connectors since. Until now. 

Apparently this information may or may not stay around, as it appears that Apple really doesn’t want people to think that just having the power cord plugged into their new Mac might cause them to have to move to a new home.  Which it probably won’t.

This is really more of a problem with the goofy Mac system of going into standby AS SOON AS you close the lid, even if you told it to shut down (this is the default method).  Personally I never liked standby because it’s just too easy for something to happen, and then things just don’t work right.  If a computer goes into standby the system should have some method to flip the system to hibernation at 5-10% regardless, rather just tell the hapless user, too bad, your system didn’t shutdown properly, hope everything is ok.

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In amazing turn around, the RIAA has agreed that since the person they want to sue is dead, the case should be dropped.  While this is a victory for common sense, it doesn’t neccesarily bode well for much else, because why should they have even been suing dead people for supposedly downloading copyrighted music?

More at http://recordingindustryvspeople.blogspot.com/2006/08/report-that-riaa-has-dropped-this.html

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