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Windows Secrets & LangaList • Issue 86 • 2006-11-16 • Circulation: over 270,000
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For links to every subtopic in this issue, scroll down to the
Index |
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INTRODUCTION The first combined Windows Secrets & LangaList
If you have two subs or received two copies If you have a subscription to both LangaList and Windows Secrets, you don't need to do anything — unless you signed up using two different e-mail addresses. It's simple to straighten this out: 1. If you subscribed to both newsletters using the SAME ADDRESS, do nothing. If both publications know you as a subscriber, and you used the same address, you shouldn't receive two copies. You should receive a single copy of the newsletter today. If one of your subscriptions was paid, while the other was free, you'll continue to receive a single, paid subscription to the combined newsletter. If both of your subscriptions were paid, we've automatically extended your expiry date. Any unused days (counting from today) have been added together to compute your new expiry date. That way, you won't lose any of the time you've paid for. 2. If you have two subscriptions using DIFFERENT ADDRESSES, merge the two. If you received two copies of this newsletter today, it may be because you originally signed up using two different e-mail addresses. If so, you need to merge your two subscriptions so you don't continue to get duplicate messages. We've made it easy for you to merge two subs. Just use the following link. Our Merge Subscriptions page will automatically display the details of your current Windows Secrets subscription. Once you're on that page, enter whatever e-mail address you used when you subscribed to the LangaList: Use this link to merge two subscriptions When you merge two paid subscriptions, the remaining unused paid subscription days from both newsletters are combined to extend your expiry date. Make sure your mail gets delivered 1. Please set your preferences, if you haven't already done so. We support an alternate address (used only to notify you if your primary address develops a problem), and we request a general locale (country, etc.) so we can develop local content and plan free seminars in 2007. We calculate that it will require more than 9 hours for our e-mail service provider, ActionMessage, to send out our new total of 275,000 newsletters. (We can send about 30,000 messages an hour.) That means that some subscribers will get each new issue early in the morning, when the information can be acted on that day, while others won't see the issue until that evening or the next business day. In fairness, we plan to send future newsletters first to those people who've entered a general locale on their preferences page. Those subscribers seem the most eager to get our latest revelations. It's easy for you to be the first in line to get the news: To set your preferences, please use this link. 2. Put our "From" address in your address book and "safe senders" list. The only way to ensure that a filter in your corporate mail server or ISP won't trash your newsletters is for you to get our address pre-approved:  3. Whitelist our servers' IP addresses. If your company's e-mail administrators block certain Internet Protocol addresses, please ask them to unblock or "whitelist" the IP addresses of our publishing server, Web server, and in-house mail server: 69.56.202.235 69.56.202.236 216.182.80.209 64.81.161.108 That's it! We hope you enjoy our new, merged newsletter, with more contributors each month than ever before. Next issue will be Nov. 30 To fit in our new columns by Fred Langa and Scott Dunn, we're switching to weekly publication from our former twice-monthly schedule. You'll see us on the 1st through 4th Thursdays of most months, plus occasional news updates when necessary. Our continuing contributors — Susan Bradley, Chris Mosby, Ryan Russell, and Woody Leonhard — will still appear twice a month in the paid version, alternating their columns each week. Our transitional logo, Windows Secrets & LangaList, will appear atop our newsletters until the end of the year. After Jan. 1, 2007, the name will revert to simply the Windows Secrets Newsletter. Fred and I plan to maintain numerous programs, in addition to writing the columns you see here. We'll enhance the Langa blog (as the Windows Secrets blog), improve Load the Code (for mutual links), and continue sponsoring the underprivileged children around the world that the LangaList "adopted" through reader contributions. You'll see in future issues how those programs are evolving. We take vacation breaks in late August, Thanksgiving Week, and Christmas/New Year's. Thanksgiving in the U.S. is Nov. 23, so there'll be no newsletter. Our next regular issue will be sent to you on Thursday, Nov. 30. Thanks for your support! Brian Livingston is editorial director of WindowsSecrets.com and the coauthor of Windows Me Secrets and nine other books. |
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LANGALIST TIPS Free antivirus, a new firewall, and IP sniffing
Is the free AVG AntiVirus going away? If my volume of reader mail is any indication, many of you are concerned about the imminent demise of a favorite antivirus tool. Take reader Graham Gwilliam's note, for example:
The reason for the confusion is that Grisoft's main Web site is set up so that you have to read through a lot of descriptive prose about the paid version before you find the links to the free one. That's not a malicious trick or raw greed on Grisoft's part, it's just good business sense. Grisoft is doing a wonderful service to the computing community by continuing to offer a free, fully-functional and quite complete antivirus tool for personal and home use. But although that version is free to end users, it's not free to Grisoft. They paid to develop the free version, they pay to make it available for free download, and they pay still more to keep it updated. That's very generous of them, but no company can afford infinite largess. So, if you can spring for the paid version on at least one of your personal-use PCs, please consider doing so. It will help Grisoft stay in business and allow it to continue to deliver good software. But if you truly can't afford the paid version, or can't afford it on all your PCs, then fine. That's what the free version is for! And, by the way, one of the reasons Grisoft is trying to move all its customers to the new versions is that AVG AntiVirus 7.5 (free and paid) will ship with the "Security Center" in the soon-to-be-released Windows Vista. That makes AVG one of the most widely applicable AV tools in existence: Version 7.5 will run on all versions of 32-bit desktop Windows from Win98 through Vista. The new paid version 7.5 is available now from Grisoft's main site. The free version is also available either by navigating from the above site (look for the small type near the bottom of the pages) or by going directly to the free download area. Other free antivirus tools: Avast, ClamWin, Comodo, Antidote Lite Ad-Aware's new firewall gets good buzz Chances are you've heard of Ad-Aware, one of the oldest and most-popular antispyware utilities. But you may not know that Lavasoft (the publisher of Ad-Aware) now offers its own Lavasoft Personal Firewall as well. A reader named Gerry was first to sound the "heads up":
But before you toss your older firewall, note that firewalls in themselves don't need a lot of updating. Unlike antivirus and antimalware tools that require constant updating against new threats, firewalls deal with a fixed and finite number of Internet ports. (These are well-described by Wikipedia.) A firewall that stopped unwanted "port probes" yesterday will stop them just as well today. A port is either closed or open. There's not a lot of grey area there! In fact, it's because firewalls can only do so much that Sygate and other companies got into the security-suite business. Once their firewalls were doing all they could to block unwanted access to your PC, the companies felt they had to compete via add-on bells and whistles to augment or supplement their base product. Before long, what was once a relatively simple, stand-alone firewall became a huge suite of security tools. So, if your firewall — Sygate PF or otherwise — is working to your satisfaction, there's really no rush to replace it. It won't go bad or suddenly stop working. But if you want to explore alternative firewalls, such as Lavasoft's, I suggest you temporarily remove Sygate PF and try the Lavasoft firewall for the free 10-day trial. If you like it and feel it's worth $30, go for it. If you don't like it or think it's overpriced, reinstall Sygate PF until and unless you find something better. For more information: Lavasoft's Personal Firewall, Sygate Personal Firewall (via Oldversion.com), GRC.com (to test any firewall for free) Is IP sniffing a security risk? You've probably seen those targeted pop-up ads that seem to pinpoint your geographic location. Reader Dennis K. does, and they worry him:
But there's nothing nefarious going on, Dennis — at least not in regard to finding your location. Every time you go to any Web site, your browser has to identify itself (in a general way) to the site. Part of the information your browser sends is your unique IP address. Your browser has to send this so the site you're contacting knows how to send the page you're requesting back to you. All the major Internet providers, interconnectors, and data "backbones" are identified by their electronic addresses, where they are, who owns them, and so forth. Your PC's IP address is part of a range of addresses controlled by your ISP. By examining your IP address, anyone can see what ISP your data originated from. The ads use your ISP's physical location as a reasonable approximation of where you and your PC are. If you live in the same town as your ISP, the guess about your location will appear to be dead on because your town and the ISP's town are one and the same. But if — as in Dennis' case — your ISP is in a nearby town, then the guess about your location will be close but not quite precise. For more info, Wikipedia has a rich explanation of IP geolocation. There also are numerous free software tools that can tell you exactly where and how your data flows across the Web, hop by hop. For example, Tracert (pronounced "trace route"), while somewhat primitive, can provide pretty good clues as to the physical location of each electronic hop. Other tools, such as IPGEO (also free), work as a kind of phone book for the Internet, letting you look up any IP address to see what country, city, region, ISP, and ZIP code that IP address is associated with. The bottom line is that your IP address isn't secret (it can't be). Anyone can use it to make a reasonable guess as to where you are, based on your ISP's physical location. So, it's nothing to worry about. Additional resources: IP Address Locator, Mappa Mundi, Cyber Geography Research, IP2Location (a commercial site with a free demo) Fred Langa is the editor of Windows Secrets & LangaList. He edited the LangaList e-mail newsletter from 1997 to 2006, when it merged with Windows Secrets. Prior to that, he was editor of Byte Magazine and editorial director of CMP Media, overseeing Windows Magazine and others.
The following LangaList Plus tips are in today's paid newsletter:
• More free ways to capture Web content • Saving Web pages works in Opera, too • Free tool in XP for bulk file renaming • THE Rename: a good, free bulk file renamer • The best way to compact Outlook folders • Will Eudora be no more-a? • Still more on "waaaaay too much background activity" • How to organize a full screen of programs |
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THE SECURITY BASELINE The Security Baseline moves to the Web By Brian Livingston For years, I've collected the latest ratings of security products from test labs. As an outgrowth of that, the Security Baseline section has long appeared in every issue of Windows Secrets. The section is intended to make it easy for readers to select a small set of products that truly provide state-of-the-art protection against hackers. Now that Windows Secrets is going weekly, the Security Baseline section will be moving to its own Web page rather than appearing in every newsletter. I wish that the major labs would retest security products every three to six months, since threats evolve quickly. Failing that, the security products with the greatest number of Editors' Choice awards don't change very often. A weekly listing of the rankings isn't necessary. In our next issue, a link will appear to our new Web home for the Security Baseline. When reviews come out that clearly establish a new champion, rest assured that I'll write about it in the newsletter. When that's not the case, we'll simply carry a blurb that links to the latest standings on our Web page. The Security Baseline as it stands Based on the latest published tests, the best four products to give your PC comprehensive protection against hackers are (1) a Linksys hardware firewall, (2) ZoneAlarm Security Suite, (3) Webroot Spy Sweeper for antispyware protection, and (4) Shavlik NetChk Protect for update management. See details below.
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HERE'S A TIP The best stuff is in our paid version To upgrade to the paid newsletter, simply make a contribution of any amount you choose. If you do this by Nov. 29, 2006, you'll instantly be sent the full, paid version of today's newsletter. Subscribers to the paid version receive additional information in each issue. Some of the extras this week are:
Paid subscribers can access all old and new paid newsletter content Make a contribution to support our research into Windows and you'll immediately be able to read and search through scores of valuable articles. In addition, paid subscribers are entitled to download valuable content that we license for you at least once every calendar quarter. To upgrade to the paid version of Windows Secrets, please visit our upgrade page. Thanks in advance. |
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EBOOKSHELF
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USEFUL LINKS Expression Web aims at Dreamweaver Die-hard Dreamweaver fans aren't likely to switch to Microsoft's Expression Web, but some serious coders who aren't wedded to the longtime market leader are finding a lot to like in Redmond's FrontPage replacement. (By Brian Livingston, InformationWeek) More info Can you prove your e-mail isn't spam? There are some simple steps your company can take to demonstrate that the e-mails you're sending aren't spam. If you're not taking them, many recipients are now ready and willing to filter your messages into the trash. (By Brian Livingston, Datamation) More info IE 7 unbalances QuickBooks Internet Explorer 7.0 has numerous advantages over the Redmond company's five-year-old Web browser, IE version 6.0. But not if you're a user of Intuit's QuickBooks 2004, 2005, or the original build of 2006. (By Brian Livingston, Datamation) More info |
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WACKY WEB WEEK Star Wars Episode IV — in ASCII text
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YOUR SUBSCRIPTION Windows Secrets & LangaList (after Jan. 1, 2007, the Windows Secrets Newsletter) is published weekly on the 1st through 4th Thursdays of each month, plus occasional news updates. Vacation breaks occur in late August, Thanksgiving Week, and Christmas/New Year's. Publisher: WindowsSecrets.com LLC, 300 Queen Anne Ave. N. #456, Seattle, WA 98109 USA. Vendors, please send no unsolicited packages to this address (readers' letters are fine). Editorial Director: Brian Livingston. Editor: Fred Langa. Contributing Editors: Susan Bradley, Scott Dunn, Woody Leonhard, Chris Mosby, Ryan Russell. Research Director: Vickie Stevens. Program Director: Brent Scheffler. Trademarks: Microsoft and Windows are registered trademarks of Microsoft Corporation. The Windows Secrets series of books is published by Wiley Publishing Inc. The Windows Secrets Newsletter, WindowsSecrets.com, LangaList, LangaList Plus, WinFind, Security Baseline, Patch Watch, Perimeter Scan, Wacky Web Week, the Logo Design (W, S or road, and Star), and the slogan Everything Microsoft Forgot to Mention all are trademarks and service marks of WindowsSecrets.com LLC. All other marks are the trademarks or service marks of their respective owners. HOW TO SUBSCRIBE: Anyone may subscribe to this newsletter by visiting our free signup page. WE GUARANTEE YOUR PRIVACY: 1. We will never sell, rent, or give away your address to any outside party, ever. 2. We will never send you any unrequested e-mail, besides newsletter updates. 3. All unsubscribe requests are honored immediately, period. Privacy policy HOW TO UNSUBSCRIBE: To unsubscribe from the Windows Secrets Newsletter,
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