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Download of the Day: AntiVir PersonalEdition (Windows/Linux)
Windows and Linux only: Rid your system of viruses and keep them at bay with Avira AntiVir PersonalEdition, which joins the ranks of such esteemed free anti-virus tools as Avast, AVG and ClamWin. The program promises to detect and remove more than 80,000 threats, including trojans, worms, dialers and the like. It can stop master-boot-record viruses and previously unknown viruses, perform scheduled scans (at whatever times you specify) and fetch virus-definition updates automatically.I use clamav on the desktop (ClamWin) and on email servers. It works great, it's open source, and they've got the fastest response time I've seen on new definitions (even a great scanner can be useless without fresh definitions).
Clam usually detects new threats before the commercial products I use, and when I submit 0day samples, the clam team responds a lot more quickly.
I will give this new one a look, but it will be a tough sell for me to switch.
What wifi sniffers can find out about you
New York Times tech writer David Pogue - who says he's not one of the "privacy paranoid" - describes his shock when someone tracked his online activity on an open wifi network at a public coffee shop while he browsed and emailed. Using the free Mac program Eavesdrop, Pogue said this packet sniffer grabbed: Every copy of every e-mail message I sent *and* received.A list of the Web sites I visited.Even, incredibly, the graphics that had appeared on the Web sites I had visited.IM traffic is also sent in the clear (and read by strangers). http://www.lifehacker.com/software/ask-the-readers/ask-the...
@resource:
I use http://www.wireshark.org/ on Windows.
@englishman:
Good postcard analogy. You can improve security by using S/MIME or PGP to encrypt individual messages before delivery.
Wiis Hit Amazon In The Morning
Make sure you set your alarm early tomorrow, kids, as you'll get another chance to score a Nintendo Wii at Amazon. It's unclear what may be tacked on to this particular sale, but don't be surprised to get the bundle screwjob. From the product page:Wii Available for Purchase 12/29: The Nintendo Wii will again be available for purchase on Amazon.com on 12/29, Friday morning, at some point between 7am and 11am PST. We will be limiting purchases to one per household.They just added:
Note to those purchasing a console: Due to the unique nature of this product and the handling required, the promised shipping date may not be accurate. While we expect that most units purchased will ship within the next week, the date indicated immediately after completing your purchase may reflect a different ship date. We encourage you to be patient and check back later.
Strengthen That Wii-mote Strap
Those Wii-mote straps are so lacking. Gamers from America to Japan (and soon PAL territories) have sent their Wii-motes on an express train to damage. Here's a quick fix: Knot up some braided fishing line to keep that 'mote securer. For stupid high-jinx galore, substitute fishing line for a rubber-band. Hilarity.Dental floss might also work if you're not a fisherman IRL.
Download of the Day: Remote Desktop (Windows)
Windows only: The IntelliAdmin weblog points out an updated release of Microsoft's Remote Desktop Client with lots of added features, like: Network Level Authentication Server Authentication Plug and Play redirection TS Gateway support Monitor Spanning 32-bit color and font smoothing If you have a dual monitor setup, the monitor spanning is an especially good addition, and the new client feels like it's got a little extra snap to it.In general, I find RDP to be a lot faster than VNC, and it can also be tunneled through SSH or Hamachi.
I upgraded for the multiple monitors and am disappointed that it only works when the source and target machines have the same monitor layout and resolutions. The option is also not available from the gui.
From the online help:
"Remote Desktop Connection supports high-resolution displays that can be spanned across multiple monitors. The monitors must be the same height and aligned side by side. To have the remote computer's desktop span two monitors, type Mstsc /span at a command prompt.
This feature is sometimes called continuous resolution. To toggle in and out of full-screen spanned mode, press CTRL+ALT+BREAK."
Other than that, it's got the new Vista look and feel like Defender and IE7, and appears to have a nicer interface for connecting local drives and devices. It reminds me of how MS started rolling out Win98 features in Win95 (active desktop and quick launch bar bundled with IE, etc).
@Morton Fox:
You can save login information in the previous version (in a roundabout way) by using the "Save As" button to create .RDP files for individual machines. You can just double-click the files afterwards to connect.
Download of the Day: Opera Mini 3 (Java Phones)
Java phones only: Share photos, view RSS feeds, shop securely and more with Opera Mini 3, the latest version of the popular web browser for phones. The new photo-sharing features enable you to publish shots snapped on your cameraphone directly to a blog, forum, or e-mail. Another new feature, Content Folding, collapses long menu lists into one expandable button for easier navigation. Opera Mini 3 also promises secure connections for online banking and shopping.Update for Treo users http://my.opera.com/community/forums/topic.dml?id=168423/...
@fxb
Ditto on the Treo 650 crashes. I tried uninstalling/reinstalling to no avail. It's now unusable for me. Looks like it's a known problem http://my.opera.com/community/forums/topic.dml?id=168105/...
Download of the Day: Fasterfox (Firefox)
Windows/Mac/Unix (Firefox): Performance-enhancing extension Fasterfox has been updated to support Firefox 2.0. Fasterfox allows you to tweak many network and rendering settings such as simultaneous connections, pipelining, cache, DNS cache, and initial paint delay. Dynamic speed increases can be obtained with the unique prefetching mechanism, which recycles idle bandwidth by silently loading and caching all of the links on the page you are browsing.It can also get you in trouble with some site owners.
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Fasterfox#Forced_Prefetch_con...
It does speed things up though. :)
Call for Help: Set up a home e-mail server?
Reader Dave, owner of three home PCs (including an older Windows 98 system), posed an interesting question: I know I can configure Outlook to download the e-mail from my ISP to each machine individually, but then I end up with mail scattered over three different machines. I would like all of the incoming and sent mail to reside on one of the machines, and if I want to use the other two machines out of convenience, be able to have all of my e-mail available. Can you give me some pointers?I've never tried saving a PST on a network share, but I used to use MS Briefcase to sync my Outlook PST from laptop to desktop. Later, I tried Unison and rsync, but ultimately ended up sticking with SyncToy for simplicity. It was a pretty significant hassle setting up the Outlook profiles on each machine to use the right PST, and about the same amount of work to sync Thunderbird profiles (although I found more help on forums for TB than OL).
Nowadays I try to use IMAP over POP whenever possible as it's a no-brainer on the client side.
Another workaround would be to access your email via the web (assuming your ISP offers it and you can live without the rich Outlook client).
I second pkscout's comment on the difficulty level of a DIY mail server. It's not for the faint of geek. If you're up to the challenge and have time for a for a weekend project, I recommend trying postfix, dovecot, and squirrelmail on fedora linux. Keep in mind you'll also need to register your own DNS domain and have a static IP address (or a dynamic DNS service like http://www.dyndns.com/).
If you don't want to run your own entire email domain, you can just setup the server the same way and use somtheing like fetchmail to suck in email from your ISP. Your server will download mail from your ISP on a schedule and deposit it in your home IMAP mailbox, which you can then access from any of your PCs via Outlook or the web.
http://howtoforge.com/installing_a_lamp_system_with_fedora...
Opera browser comes to BlackBerry and Treo
Opera Software announced today that Opera Mini, the free web browser for mobile phones, is now available for BlackBerry and Palm Treo smartphones. Opera Mini promises a faster delivery of web pages and better overall user experience. There are three ways to get the browser: 1) Point your phone's current browser to http://mini.opera.com; 2) Send an SMS with the word OPERA to 96077 (SMS charges will apply); 3) Visit the Opera site and use the download wizard.I use this over the default (Blazer) whenever possible since it's so much faster. I'm willing to put up with the minor annoyances (asks your permission to connect to internet on every launch, crashes occasionally) for the speed boost.
JVM instructions and download are here:
http://www.palm.com/us/support/jvm/download.html
I also use the tweaks recommended for KMaps (another app that requires Java):
"Once you installed Java, go to your "Prefs" where you will find a new "IBM and Java" section. Tap it and under Global Preferences change the Memory Heap Size and Thread Stack Size to maximum."
http://kmaps.ulocate.com/download.html
@smigs: I haven't found an update option. I just check mini.opera.com in Blazer from time to time.
@info_fiend: I run it on a Treo 650. Install JVM via hotsync then install Opera over the air from Blazer. http://img47.imageshack.us/img47/6910/operaminicq4.jpg