Office 2007

This alone may make it worth upgrading to Office 2007 when it's released: Support for the PDF Format in Office “12”

Startup programs

Just saving this for future reference. Does a good job of covering how programs load at startup and what to do about it: Startup Program Loading

Buzz words

Amateurization - that's a new word (to me anyway). There wasn't anything on it on Dictionary.com, but there's this interesting blurb: (Weblogs and) The Mass Amateurisation of (Nearly) Everything... (plasticbag.org).

We all know where the Web has been, but where is it going in this post-tech-bubble-burst world?

Hex Colors

I'm always searching for one of these charts. Might as well blog it so I can find this one again.

Web Design Group's RGB Values Page

Back to Blogging

So, I decided to get back to this blog's original purpose, keeping track of interesting web design and scripting sites.

I'm currently working on a page for accepting credit card payments. For developing the validation script, here's a good place to start: Credit Card Check Digit Validation.

Death of a Blog
Ok, I just don't have enough time for blogging anymore. *shrug* The reason for keeping this blog in the first place was so that I could keep track of interesting articles on web design and ASP. Which was fun for awhile, but now it's become old to me. What used to be new and exciting has become mundane and commercialized. I guess the blog comment SPaM was the last straw.

While I'm on a soap-box rant, Yahoo has become just plain evil in the pursuit of the almighty "click-thru" dollar. Google is heading down the same path.

Blog comment SPAM
Take a look at the comments on my previous entry - there are now people SPAMMING Blog comments! When I checked this morning, there were 13 different comments, all with a link to a web page (probably with a script for injecting malware of some sort too). Obviously, it's a program that searches for certain keywords on known blogging sites and then inserts the comments.

Guess everyone is going to have to turn off comments now. *Sigh*

Well, duh!

Here's an interesting quote from this article - IE7 being developed to resist spyware:

"When users run programs with limited user privileges, they are safer from attack than when they run with Administrator privileges, because Windows can restrict the malicious code from taking damaging actions..."

Uhm, didn't we learn that in Computer Science 101? Ok, I know not every computer user in the world has a degree in CS, but for crying out loud, shouldn't the software developers at Microsoft know this? I would venture to guess that a large percentage of the security problems found in Windows and Internet Explorer is because MS simply did not follow basic common sense.

Yahoo Messenger is just ... Evil

I've long suspected that Yahoo IM was bad, this article confirms it - Yahoo IM users get more than they bargained for.

Here's a quote from the article: "By accepting Yahoo's 'typical' installation of YIM with Voice, it will also download Yahoo's Search Toolbar with anti-spyware and anti-pop-up software, desktop and system tray shortcuts, as well as Yahoo Extras, which will insert Yahoo links into the Internet Explorer browser. The IM client also contains "live words," which will automatically show an icon when the user highlights words online and then hyperlink to Yahoo search results, definitions or translation tools. Finally, the installation will alter the users' home page and auto-search functions to point to Yahoo by default."

Ok, how is this different than any other Spyware? Including "anti-spyware and anti-pop-up software" is just a way to kill off the competition!

To me, YIM is just another trojan-horse spyware program. End of story.

Got Spyware? Part 2

I had mentioned this in a previous blog entry, but several so-called anti-spyware products advertised on Google are very suspicious. On this list of known "rogue" products, my suspicions are confirmed: Spyware Warrior: Rogue/Suspect Anti-Spyware Products & Web Sites.

This list is a good resource for those still struggling with spyware and trojan-horse infections.

New stuff

Ok, so I jumped into the iPod scene a little late in the game, but with the recent purchase of my Shuffle and upgrading to the new version of iTunes, I just discovered the wonderful world of "podcasting" - audio (sometimes video) feeds that you can get via RSS, and of course, on iTunes. Here's my favorite so far: The Dawn and Drew Show! - Podcasting from Wisconsin.

I'm now considering getting a better iPod so I can store more of these great indie broadcasts to listen to.

Blogging takes a strange turn...
This is just too creepy for words. I remember hearing something about this case on the evening news. Just one of those stories you listen to in the background while eating dinner.

Then I read this story online about how law enforcement had been monitoring this person through his blog. Check out the link in the story, Blogger is still hosting it:
Wired News: Cops Watched Sex Offender's Blog. Go back a few months and you can read all about his dementia.

I spent a few years working in forensics back in the 1980's. I had the bone-chilling job of reading through the journals found in a couple of cases, which had been entered as evidence. My skin crawled as I noticed some similar patterns to this guy's blog.

Access your data
So you've got a database and you need to get it out on the web. Well here's a good place to start:
ASP SQL Tutorials.

Then once you realize it's not working, try here: Why do I get database-related 80004005 errors?

That should keep you busy for a little while, at least. Later on, I'll be exploring the same techniques with .NET and ADO.NET - so stay tuned.

Free Software

These guys were always my favorite HTML Editor, now CoffeeCup is giving away free SiteMapper Software for a quick way to create a site map. These pages are a nice addition, especially for large web sites.

Knock, knock - anyone home?

As proof that nobody reads this blog, I had a really bad typo in the last post and nobody commented.

Where did your OS come from?

In the process of researching my spyware problem, I also came across this little tidbit - Microsoft is now requiring users to authenticate their version of Windows before allowing any security patches to be downloaded from windowsupdate.com. So, if your Windows 98 is a copy from the bargain bin at your local computer show, you may be out of luck.

Microsoft: Legit Windows or no updates

Got Spyware?

Ok, maybe I'm a bit obsessed with this topic. But, quite ironically, after my last post in December, my laptop was invaded by some very malicious Spy/Adware. I put up with the endless popup ads for a couple of weeks, but then my virus scanner kept catching backdoor trojans and keyloggers that were being installed on my system. Obviously, the Adware was going beyond just being an annoyance, but rather was an attempt at owning my computer.

The first bit of advice that I found was to download and use the latest tool from LavaSoft, Adaware SE. I had been using a previous version, but several sites recommended upgrading to the new version. Another trustworthy removal tool is Spybot Search and Destroy. A new Microsoft program, that they acquired by purchasing Giant Software, is Windows AntiSpyWare (Beta).

But, beware of other advertised Spyware tools as they themselves may be trojans.

Update: From my experience, I'd recommend using both Adaware SE and Spybot S&D. Spybot found 6 additional items that Adaware missed, including a Data Source (DSO) exploit that was reported back in 2002. I'm astonished that Internet Explorer is still subject to an exploit reported three years ago! So, I'm relatively sure that my laptop is now spy/adware free, but I'm still going to switch to Firefox as my default web browser.

Have you checked for Spyware today?

This past year seems to have been a banner year for Spyware and other web browser hijacking schemes. I've seen a couple of friend's computers completely taken over by these little nasties.

Anti-Spyware Test Guide is a very comprehensive list of both good and bad anti-spyware software packages that are out there.

Another thing that I've thought was suspicious, is that most of the anti-spyware sites advertised on Google are themselves suspect. It just goes to show that you can't always trust what you see on the 'Net.

Upgrade...or else

This article is actually dated before the discovery of the iFrame exploit, which makes it rather ironic. Microsoft's position has been that if you want the latest security patches, you have to upgrade to WinXP. So, all those WinME, Win2k (any Win98 and NNT users out there?) are out of luck.

The other side of the coin is you have to have fairly new hardware to run WinXP, which is my main problem. I don't have the extra cash to buy a new laptop. I'm guessing a lot of other folks don't either.
Want secure IE? Then upgrade to XP... - ZDNet UK News

Scary stuff
Once again, it's not safe to browse the web using Internet Explorer (was it ever?). As they state in this article, vulnerabilities in IE 6 allows a malicious web page to install and run code:
Secunia - Advisories - Internet Explorer HTML Elements Buffer Overflow Vulnerability