Computer Tips -Tech Info

Microsoft Vista is now out, the next version of Windows, successor to XP. While Windows XP will continue to receive updates into 2014 there are many that might be eager to upgrade and move to the latest greatest. (Note to those: Service Pack one may be en route THIS calendar year, so unless you like to bleed on the edge…. you MIGHT hold off until that’s out.) But those that do look at getting Vista are met with a dizzying array of choices.

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Shocking bit of news here…. (sorry, I couldn’t help it.) This is a serious piece though. Apparently the Dell models listed above (Inspiron) and their other 17″ cousins may be affected by a rather peculiar, but serious problem. The screws on the bottom may be putting out 19-65 volts AC (oops.) From the linked article, this issue can be worked around by using the 3-pronged (read-grounded) power adapter that is available for the laptops. (However, Dell has not said anything publicly, it sounds as though the 2 prong adapter may be standard for these.)

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Here’s a followup to one of the first big stories that I posted on… the Sony rootkit – there has been a settlement with the FTC (Federal Trade Commision). It has yet to be approved but, affected customers could see up to $150 to cover cost of repair (rootkit removal/etc.) They(Sony) must also allow the cds to be swapped. Under the settlement Sony does not admit breaking any law.

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I’ve spent much of my time the last few years looking at windows support from the linux side of the fence. Certainly linux boot disks and the like are among the most useful utilities that I’ve used. However, I am reminded from time to time that there is a good share of freely available utilities on the Windows side of things. http://www.mdgx.com/ is a site devoted to not just the free windows and dos utilites and add ons… but to quote the site…

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Of course, you

shouldn’t

be using Windows 98 anymore, it’s unsupported (i.e. no security updates.) However the reality is that there are quite a few Win 98 installs out there perking away. But, with the recent law change with regards to the start/end of Daylight savings time in the US… many Windows 98 users may have to resort to changing the time manually. There is another way though..

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It seems silly with multiple machines to download the same file multiple times. At some level it’s not THAT inconvenient. It really depends on your connection speed and the size of the files in question. For Ubuntu and other systems based on the .deb package format and apt-get there is a nice option for setting up proxy’ing to allow a single download of deb files for install on multiple machines. That option is called apt-cacher. There’s a good wrietup here on the setup of this cache -ing software.

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I want to make a note of this here… Microsoft has announced that XP Home and Media center editions will get extended support on par with that of XP Pro. Essentially this means security updates for these versions of the OS should be available until 2014. Previously support for XP Home was to have ended as soon as December 2006, but was then extended modestly until after the release of Vista. The “Home” oriented products weren’t given the same length of support as the “Professional” or Business class products at that time. This announcement puts the two versions of XP on par with Pro.

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There are some tools that I make use of almost daily. Either because something strikes my curiousity or because of necessity to find out a bit more about a computer issue. DNS lookup tools fall into the category of “must have” for the kind of stuff I wind up doing. Whether it’s a whois lookup to see who is a contact for a given domain, looking to see when a domain expires or just looking up reverse dns information to find out where the machine is located that’s been trying to enter the ssh server. Of course, spam blacklist lookups are handy too. I’m adding a few links to the sidebar for some of the more useful of these…

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In the past when installing an upgrade version of Windows it meant having your original disk handy to prove that you were REALLY eligible for an upgrade license. What this meant is that if you wanted to follow the advice of MOST in the TECH community you could do a clean install. That’s right, wipe the disc and start from scratch, provide the disks when asked and then the installer would be on it’s way. Well, sorry, the joy is over. (Actually… there wasn’t a whole lot of JOY in it… but… it’s now worse.) Now, with Vista, it is required that you have the previous version of Windows that you are upgrading installed on the disk.

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In the US and Europe and many more developed parts of the world we take our internet connectivity these days for granted. (And some go into panic attacks when it’s not available…) In some parts of the world though internet connections are not as wide/broad and peak usage times can make for very slow viewing, or can interfere with other vital communications. Linux excels at SO many things and this is something we could use linux to help with…

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