This Is Why I'm Starting To Hate Android

Samsung Galaxy S7 and S7 Edge customers:

Samsung may not support your device with the latest Android update.

Android's update model is broken. It's a good, powerful, customizable operating system, but there are way too many hands in the pot in determining whether or not you'll get an update. And even for critical vulnerabilities, the update process takes too long.

I bought a Note 5 in September 2015. Right about that time, Android 6, Marshmallow, came out. Marshmallow FINALLY made it from Google, to Samsung, to AT&T, to me in June of 2016, right in time for Android 7, Nougat, to come out. As best as I can tell, I will never see Nougat on the Note 5.

And Samsung phones are now explosive ordinance.

Whereas iPhones and Windows Phones get OS updates directly from Apple and Microsoft, respectively, Android is too complex and long, and even a fairly new "flagship" phone isn't always likely to get a new OS update.

The Golden Rule of Security

Last week, my job sent me to a Security + class. I now have to study and take the test for the certification.

The instructor reminded me of the Golden Rule of Security: I will not spend more (money/effort) to protect the asset than the asset is worth.

When you're dealing with an enterprise network, you may need advanced encryption and security features. But you also have (hopefully) enough properly trained and qualified employees to carry it out. You can also configure your workstation images so most of it is an abstract to your users. They don't have to think about it.

A home network is a different story. I'm an IT and cyber security professional, but my wife and children are not. I also don't have the resources and budget or an enterprise network. But the majority of my equipment and data don't require that budget or resources either.

I once locked a home network down too hard. While still married to my ex-wife, "somebody" was getting into my accounts and sending nasty messages from my accounts to hers. Taking everything at face value, I overreacted and locked everything down. I set an overly complex password to access the wireless router. I changed several passwords to a much more complex schema.

And of course, it only worked for me. At the time, I was a geographical bachelor living and working in Virginia while my family stayed in New Jersey. The job market up there sucked, so I went where I could get a decent enough job. So while I was away, for some reason, other devices couldn't access the network. They'd have to wait for me to come home every other weekend. I think my ex's parents just bought a new router and set it up.

During all of this, my ex received another message from my gmail account, signed with "Sent from my iPhone". When I have an iPhone, I never leave that line in the signature.

I consulted with several cyber professionals, and the best they could come to was that it was an inside job. I realized that my ex knew my common passwords and PINs. I changed them, and the next time I went "home", I took every possible device she could access and use out of the house.

The "hacking" stopped. I can't prove it, but it does seem like an inside job. I still don't completely understand why, but I have several theories. All I can say is, once a woman turns on you, there is no going back.

So, I've learned to apply an appropriate level of security to my network. I lock it down as best I can, but not so hard my family can't use it. My wife, at times, can't tell the difference between her Yahoo!, Google, Microsoft, and iCloud accounts. I have to accept that and account for it. I also can't expect my children to understand MAC address filtering.

One neat thing I learned in the class, for those of you fluent in the OSI model, is Layer 8. Layer 8 is the user or PEBKAC layer. And you have to account for it. Some people are completely ignorant of technology, and are proud of it. They refuse to learn. They're proud to still have "flip" phones. They don't know the difference between Windows XP, Vista, 7, 8, or 10. And they don't care. They install Weatherbug and every stupid toolbar that asks to be installed. And people like us have to clean it up when they complain their computers stop working.

A friend of mine used to have his network locked down as hard as possible for a home network. He didn't broadcast his SSID and had to manually approve every MAC address. He finally realized that when you lock it down too hard, people start wondering what exactly you're protecting. Then, having become curious, they'll try to break in. He relaxed his posture somewhat.

IoT Is A Giant Security Risk

From the first I'd heard of it, I could not get excited about the "Internet of Things". I still can't get my head around why my refrigerator and toaster need an IP address or a connection to anything but a 120 outlet.

Anonymous Conservative dives into how IoT can be used to kill you:

As everything gets networked, and networks all connect to the internet, everything will be subject to control and exploitation. As technology progresses, you realize even Orwell and Huxley never dreamt that a government functionary in some basement office of an intelligence agency could remotely access an infusion pump in a hospital on the other side of the nation, and reset it to deliver a lethal overdose to someone his agency has officially classified as a troublesome little prick.

That should make you feel safe.

Then of course there are people hacking into baby monitors and security cameras in homes.

Using Virtual Worlds To Enable Telework- A Paper I Wrote

This is a paper I recently submitted for a class I took. We had a session on Virtual Worlds. I've known of Second Life for many years, but never bothered with it. I now have an account and am exploring it. While researching this paper, I discovered there does not appear to be much documented support for the idea of using a virtual world to make up for some of the weaknesses involved in telework, like being able to monitor employees and being able to maintain interaction.

I wrote this paper from the perspective of a recommendation to my employer. I have redacted mentions of my employer and specifics of the organization. Rather than leaving [REDACTED] in place of names, I've tried to generalize them i.e. "This organization". I left my reference list, which had to be an annotated bibliography. I'm sure I botched it. This paper was written in APA format. I have not yet received my grade.

UPDATE: I got a B+. I ran out of time at the end and was not able to flesh out the metrics section.

Who Hacked My Facebook Account?

Somebody has apparently hacked into my Facebook account and sent nasty messages to my wife as me. I’m trying to imagine who has the skill to pull this off, plus the time to bother to do it. I’m also wondering who could consider me important enough to mess with like this.

If you happen to know who has done this, please let me know. If a similar thing has happened to you, let me know how you dealt with it. It happened last year, which caused me to change my password. My password has apparently already been hacked again.

___________________________________________________

Upon further investigation, these messages aren't coming from my account.

CNET: McAfee's Big Blunder

CNET has a blog post about McAfee's Big Blunder. Recently, McAfee pushed out a buggy software update. It didn't affect me, as I've long since banished McAfee and Norton from my network. I'm all for keeping my computer safe, but both are far too needy for attention, and demand too much of a performance sacrifice.

I swore off Norton after their Norton Internet Security 2005. I had a copy of NIS 2003. After about 3 weeks, I'd start getting notices that Norton quarantined and deleted my email. I couldn't retrieve it. Then people would start asking me "Did you get my email?" Well, no. I uninstalled and reinstalled NIS 2003 and the same thing happened within 3 weeks. After my 3rd try, I uninstalled it and used the disk as a coaster after it wouldn't sell on Ebay.

I got a laptop for Christmas 2005. I was just getting started at the University of Phoenix and my old P-II 233Mhz Toshiba laptop couldn't keep up. I got a Compaq, which came with a 90 day trial of NIS 2005. It didn't last 2 months. NIS 2005 seemed to have to download updates every 20 minutes, and had to flash a status balloon on my taskbar to notify me of each individual step it was taking. The problem is, I like to hide my taskbar for screen Real Estate, so when an attention needy program like NIS 2005 wants to keep telling me what it's doing, it gets in the way. It also started letting me know way too frequently that my 90 day trial was running out in 89 days, 88 days, etc. Go away, Norton. Nobody likes you.

No Need To Pay For Security on Your PC. Lifehaker Says MS Security Essentials Are Enough

Most of my non-geek friends like to ask me about security. I tell them that unless they look at a lot of porn or spend time downloading pirated software, then they don’t need to worry as much. It’s not that big a deal.

Microsoft once had Windows Live OneCare. I hated the beta version, and installed it after less than 15 minutes. As it matured, I found it to be very useful, and I would recommend it to friends who asked what I though. I’ve long since had it with Norton and McAfee, although I’ve heard since they days that they gave me a bad taste that they’ve optimized their products so they don’t require as much time and attention, as well as system resources. I’m still not ready to pay for either again.

While Windows Live OneCare was a paid product, Microsoft now has Microsoft Security Essentials, which is free. Lifehaker says it works well enough that Windows users shouldn’t have to shell out money for other security products.

Symantec Video Highlights the Dangers of Shortened URLs

Lifehacker linked to a Symantec video showing the dangers of shortened URLs. What is a shortened URL? When using an application like Twitter with a character limit, it's not always possible to include a long link to a website, video, or article that you'd like to share with others. You then go through a URL shortener to create a shorter link that can be shared with a brief comment in under 140 characters. URL shorteners have been around for years, but I didn't start using them until Twitter came along.

Picture by ShiYali

URL shorteners can be convenient and useful. The problem is, they can also be used to hide malicious sites. How can you tell a malicious site?

If you click on a link, and immediately get what looks like a Windows notification telling you that your computer has a virus, GET OUT OF THERE! If the virus notification recommends a specific program to take care of the problem, GET OUT OF THERE! Just close the windows. If they won't go away, restart your computer.

Why I Hate CAPTCHAs

I was reading my Google Reader feeds while eating breakfast this morning. The puppy, Dustmop, was laying on my feet. That has no relevance except that when she got up, my feet were cold. I found a post on Lifehacker that I wanted to email my wife. Google Reader Mobile doesn't seem to have the ability to email a post, but the feed item itself had a Feedburner link for "Email This." I did so. I entered my email address and my wife's email address. I neglected to include a message text, because I didn't care. I figured that my wife can put together the point of emailing this link to her from the link itself. However, Feedburner insisted that I enter a message. I typed the letter "m", mostly because it was closest to my finger at that point in time. Hey, it's Labor Day, and I'm trying to save some labor! I then entered the freaking CAPTCHA, only to get the message

Figure 1: The Message

I checked and double checked, entered and reentered the freaking CAPTCHA, all to no avail. The message "Please enter the characters displayed in the box. If you are unable to see the text clearly, you may reload this window for a new image" kept appearing even though I had entered the text displayed on the screen. I tried two CAPTCHAs, and it took neither.

Figure 2: The Characters Displayed in the Box

By this point, I gave up and came upstairs to email the Lifehacker post from my laptop. I hate CAPTCHAs. Most of the time, even if I can clearly read them, the script won't take my answer. I quit using Blogger because of this.

Technorati Tags: CAPTCHAs,Blogger,post security,Lifehacker,email

Pain in the A$$words

Pardon the title. It’s late, and I’m strung out, and tired, and I’m just trying to make a point. Passwords and sign on security are getting to the point where I’m ready to just ditch my precious technology and go live on a mountain in Montana or something. I’ve tried since getting on the Internet in 1996 to keep fairly standard passwords so that I don’t have to remember (and record, which can be stolen) my passwords and logon information, especially at work where I often deal with sensitive accounts. It can be a security violation to write down a password for some of the networks that I need to access. The problem is that password standards are reaching the point where it is impossible to NOT maintain a record. What do you do when you need to access three or more networks or websites, each has a different logon, with different password requirements and change periodicity? How do you remember rand keep all of that straight? Some passwords that I’m required to keep have to be a minimum of 14 characters, with at least 1 number, one upper case letter, one lower case letter, and one special character.

PayPal just about pushed me over the top this evening. I used their system for a transaction today, and got an email later that they believe my account has been accessed by a 3rd party and had a restriction placed on it. I went through the processes to lift the restriction. The first step had to do with verifying my location. They needed a phone number. It’s been so long since I’ve done anything with my PayPal account that they still had my landline number that was disconnected more than 3 years ago when we got fed up with paying Verizon $50 a month for an open conduit for telemarketers and cut them off. Now we’re Paying AT&T (The NEW AT&T) for spotty coverage and non-connected calls, but at least no telemarketers. I input my Grand Central number, and PayPal called it. My cell phone rang as it was supposed to and I input the security code. When I hit NEXT on the web page, PayPal said that they can’t verify my location based on that number and they’ll have to mail me a letter. No CRAP PAYPAL! It’s 2008! People have like cell phones and Grand Central numbers and stuff, you freaking idiots!

Next I had to change my password. That sucked. I had to write it down, because there is no way I’ll remember it. I’ve used the same password with PayPal for years. Oh, yeah, then there were those idiotic security questions. Mostly they’re useless to me. What is your favorite restaurant? I don’t know, it changes every week. Who was your favorite teacher? I don’t know, I grew up in the Air Force, went in the Navy, went to ITT Tech and University of Phoenix. I’ve had tons of teachers. I’m not likely to remember very many. I hate those stupid security questions because most of them don’t apply to me. Who is your favorite sports team? I hate sports, I have no use for sports, and as such I have no favorite team. I’m too much of an egghead to just pick one because I’m a geek and I can’t take that kind of lying to myself.

Something has got to be done about security. For the time being, I’m using KeePass on my Pocket PC to keep track of logins and passwords, but even that is getting to be too cumbersome. Somebody needs to straighten things out. I almost just closed my account with PayPal over this, because it’s a pain. At some point, security and convenience need to meet each other and shake hands and come up with a way to coexist.

Technorati Tags: Security,Passwords

Essential Wireless Security- Watch Out for this potential trick

As wireless devices and services become more commonplace, we can also expect hackers and criminals to find new ways to trap us. I've read about a certain trick that some people will use to phish for information, and today I managed to catch a screen shot of this trick in action. I'm not saying that this is the trick, but this is certainly something that you should watch out for as you go about looking for a wireless hotspot in order to do your business, check email, check sports scores, or whatever you do.

I had to reboot my laptop at work today. While using Firefox, any time I tried to type, weird things happened. I selected the address bar and began to type an address that began with c, and my Open File window came up. When I typed www, tabs started closing. I realized it was probably time to reboot, so I did.

When my laptop came back up, I saw a balloon informing me that wireless networks were available. I've never seen a wireless network here before, so I thought I'd check it out. The network said "Free Internet Access", but I noticed something: this was a computer-to-computer network, rather than a router network as you can see from this screen shot.

This is something that people will do in order to collect data. They may have their own connection through a broadband card from a cellular carrier, and they will open up another connection that broadcasts "Free Wireless Internet". You see that and needing a free wireless internet connection yourself, click on it and find a connection. The only thing is that all of your data is going through their computer, where it can be intercepted. You may be using encryption, but the possibility exists for that encryption to be broken. Your passwords and credit card numbers can be harvested for use.

Stay away from these computer-to-computer "free wireless" access points. You don't know whether any particular access point is good or not, so why chance it?

Technorati tags: security, scams, wireless security, free internet access, free wireless access

CNET's Top 5 Crapware

I haven't written about computers or technology for a while, but CNET gave me the perfect opportunity for a quick entry. Recently, CNET TV had a 2 + minute show about the Top 5 Crapware products. Over the years, many terms have sprung up to differentiate between the categories of software. Freeware is self-explanatory, being software that is free. Wares or warez are pirated or cracked full versions of programs such as Microsoft Office or Adobe Photoshop. A lot of software DRM (Digital Rights Management) has been produced to stop warez. Shareware is a type of software that typically allows a trial period before requiring purchase, but encourages you to share or pass along to your friends. Many aspiring programmers get started out with shareware, in fact, Steve Pavlina says that he got his start as a shareware games developer.

Malware is software designed for malicious purposes such as computer viruses, worms, and trojans, named after the Trojan Horse of ancient Greek history or legend. Spyware is designed to spy on you and send back information about your habits or even worse, keystrokes such as login and password information.

Crapware is a category all to itself. I'm sure that somebody has cooked up a wonderful and eloquent definition for crapware, but put simply, crapware is software that is utter crap and chances are you never asked for it in the first place. This includes unwanted browser toolbars and media players that just seem to show up. Some programs try to install trials of partner's products. Have you ever installed Intuit's Quicken and found shortcuts all over your desktop for things like Quicken Brokerage, Mastercard, and America Offline? Crapware is not limited to unwanted partner software. Some full version applications by supposedly reputable vendors can fall into this category. I actually consider Symantec's Norton Internet Security to be complete and total crapware. It bogs down my system, loses my email, blocks programs that I want to access the internet from accessing the internet, can't do the simplest process like update itself without constantly flashing a window on my taskbar to tell me what file it's updating, and it starts reminding you that you have to pay for a renewal way too early. I can't stand it. I also place McAfee's Internet Security in the crapware category after my last experience with their product. To be fair, it was the version that Comcast provides for free to subscribers, but it was an utter nightmare. It shut down my ability to share files across my home network, my Macs wouldn't even show up on it's network map because they didn't have McAfee installed (and no version was available to install), and I finally uninstalled the darn thing and decided I'd rather run unprotected than completely hindered in my normal activities. I spent 2 days searching for help. McAfee's website was actually more useless than Microsoft's (if that's possible) for finding answers, and even though I had every setting set properly I still could not connect from one computer to the other across my home network or Hamachi.

CNET's brief video deals with the crapware that computer vendors install on brand new computers. Except for laptops, I've always built my own systems, which cuts down on this dramatically. My sister in law lived with some stupid jukebox program that Dell installed on her laptop asking her to buy a music subscription every time she tried to play one of her own songs, until she finally shared that detail with me and I set iTunes to her default player and uninstalled the crappy jukebox software.

If you've ever bought a new computer that made you feel like you were living in a commercial after you booted it up, then kick back with a cold drink and watch this video. If you're thinking about building your own computer, let this inspire you while you wait for me to produce a series of blog posts on building your own computer. It'll be a while though; I'm still putting most of my time into famiy, church, and and finishing my IT degree.

CNET TV's Top 5 Crapware

Technorati tags: Crapware, software, computer vendors, Dell, HP, Compaq

The Most Pointless "Security" Feature (prior to Windows Vista)

I have to ask this question: What is the point to this stupid pop-up browser question?


In more than 10 years of using the internet, I have NEVER, under a single circumstance, encountered a situation where I would answer this stupid, useless, and annoying pop-up as no. The reason I ask is because normally this is only annoying, but today I am being forced by my organization to undertake a 1 and 1/2 hour internet based training session on "Information Security", and every single time I click the next link, I have to answer this pop-up. Is there a way to turn this worthless thing off?

Basic Windows XP Home Edition Security

This tip probably applies to the Media Center and Tablet PC editions of Windows XP as well. Windows XP Professional allows for setting of administrator passwords from within the running operating system, and if you're running Pro I'm sure you know how to do this anyway.

I've come to look at computer security as a fine balance between how hard you're willing to work to keep people out and how hard those people are willing to work to break in. Chances are that a personal laptop running Windows XP Home won't be too much of a target, although the possibility exists. Security can, of course, be taken to extremes in any direction. I'm just going to talk about one of the simplest things you can do to begin to secure your XP Home system.

It's always a good idea to password protect your user account no matter which operating system you happen to be running. This can be accessed from the Control Panel under the User Accounts icon. In XP Home, however, there is a hidden Administrator account which only appears in Safe Mode. This means that you can only set the password for this account in safe mode. Most XP Home users run with administrative privileges, but there is an admin account. If somebody steals your laptop or breaks into your system, they don't need your password. All they have to do is boot your computer up into Safe Mode and access through the admin account.

Here is how to set the password for the Admin account.

Boot up your system. After the BIOS screen (bootup screen) passes, press F8. You'll be taken to a text menu. Select "Safe Mode". You don't need to select "Safe Mode with networking", and you especially don't want "Safe Mode with command prompt".

Once your system starts up in Safe Mode, select Start->Control Panel. Then click the "User Accounts". Select the Administrator Account and select the menu item for change or create password. (I don't have an XP Home Safe Mode right in front of me, so I'm not sure of the exact wording but you'll see it). After you've created a password, you may also want to enable the Guest account. This way if somebody wants to use your system but you don't want them to have access to your files and settings, they can use the guest account to access the internet or do some basic tasks.

This is not comprehensive, but it is one of the most elementary steps you can take to secure a Windows XP computer.

Norton Strikes Again

I got a call from a friend of mine yesterday with a tech support question. He had last used his laptop on a wireless network while traveling, but once he got home and tried plugging it back into his router, he couldn't get anywhere with Internet Exploder. He said the laptop was connected but IE would not connect to anything. He had already called HP and was told it might be a driver problem. It's too bad tech support desks don't hire people with real experience to offer tech support. Of course, how many of us with real experience could stand to do that kind of work for that kind of pay?

I walked him through some of the basics (does the network icon in the system tray have an x on it? etc). Then the answer came to me. I asked him if he was running Norton Internet Security. He said yes. I told him to right click on the Norton IS icon in the taskbar and select "Close" or "Exit". He did. Wouldn't you know that suddenly IE could connect to websites?

I'm not sure of the technical issues behind it. I can pretty much sum this up with "Norton sucks". I can't say I've ever had pleasant experiences with Norton's security products. Several years ago, I was given a copy of Norton Internet Security 2003. The first thing I noticed is that it sucked more than half of my computer's performance capability away in the resources it consumed. I ran it for a couple of weeks before I got home from work to a message that Norton AV had crashed and needed to be reinstalled. I reinstalled the product. Then I started getting messages from Norton Anti-Spam that some emails had been deleted. Funny, this was about the time that my mom started calling me to ask when I hadn't replied to a question she asked. Then Norton IS crashed again and had to be reinstalled. I used the products for a while because don't you know how insecure Windows is? I got tired of emails being deleted with no chance of retrieving them, and I got tired of reinstalling both applications every 3 weeks. I finally shelved the product.

My laptop that I got last Christmas came with Norton Internet Security and a 90 day subscription to Norton Anti-Virus. This time it was the 2005 version. I didn't bother with Norton Anti-Spam for long. I don't think anti-spam programs are very effective and you can read my strategy for dealing with spam here: http://emuelle1.blogspot.com/2006/06/how-i-deal-with-spam.html. I found Norton Internet Security to be about as painful to use as always. I had one program I liked to use that for some reason I could not get Norton to allow. Any time I tried to manually input this program into Norton's allow menu, Norton locked up and I had to force my laptop to shut down and then reboot in order to recover. Whenever I wanted to run this program, I had to manually shut Norton down. When my subscription for Norton AV ran out, I happily uninstalled the suite.

Norton lately is bitching and complaining that Microsoft won't make it easy for users to switch their security center over to Norton's. I see this as a good thing. With the pains that I've been through with Norton's 2003 and 2005 suites, trust me, you're better off with the built in security center in Windows Vista. At least Windows won't suddenly start blocking Internet Exploder for no apparent reason.

If you suddenly find a your web browser not connecting, but Windows says there is a network connection, and you have Norton installed, try shutting down Norton. Then uninstall it.

The World's Most Useful Program

If I were in a position to give away an award for the most useful program, it would have to go to the creators of SpyBot Search and Destroy. The program I'm talking about is not even a program that you can download separately as far as I know, but it has long since become one of my favorites and a system essential. It is now one of the first programs I want to install when I sit down on a system.

I've always found it to be very annoying when a programmer decides that he or she knows better than you about how a program should run. One of the most annoying things about the Windows platform (I have no idea if Mac and Linux have this problem) is how many programs automatically install in your system tray, often without your consent. iTunes installs a service called iPod Service. I don't even have an iPod! What good does this do me? Real Player likes to install in your system tray, as does Quicktime and Weather Bug. What is even worse about this is that no matter how many times you run msconfig to take these programs out of your startup, the next time the program runs, it's back in there. Part of the program's initialization routine is to reinstall itself in startup, which means that you have to go back in and take it out.

Weatherbug is the worst. It's a very useful program, but it really bogs down my system when it starts up. But every time I run it to check the doppler radar, it's back in my startup. Sometimes you can work around this by using alternatives. Real Player, for instance, can be replaced with Real Alternative, which is all the fun without the bloat. When I took programming classes, I was taught to document heavily and to keep my code lean and mean. Apparently, this mentality hasn't permeated companies such as Microsoft and Real Networks, who insist on making their programs more bloated with each update.

Back to the topic: annoying and arrogant programs that won't stay out of your startup menu. The best way I have found to stop this is to download Spybot Search and Destroy. During the setup, you'll be given a screen asking you what services you'd like, ie. desktop icon, quickstart icon, etc. At the very bottom is the option to run a program called Tea Timer. This is pricelessware! This program's worth cannot be measured by our understanding of money. What Tea Timer does is sit in your system tray (this is the ONLY program that should belong there) and watches for any attempts to modify your registry or startup. Anytime a program attempts to do this, you'll get a pop-up window telling you what process is trying to do what. You can permit or deny. This way, when you watch a Quicktime file, you get a pop-up asking if it's OK for Quicktime to change your startup. You can tell it "NO!" The same goes for Weather Bug.

This program is most likely meant to watch for spyware, but I have found this to be a highly useful function of the program.

Of course, it can get annoying. Every time you install a program, even legitimate ones, you'll get all kinds of notifications about changes to your registry. You just have to read carefully, but to me this is worth it.

Outlook Rant

I think I have established that I use Outlook a lot, and I have been using it steadily for several years. I began using Outlook probably with Office 2000, though I may have been using it for email with the 97 version. I had always preferred the built-in email client that came with Netscape's classic web browser up through version 4.0. I think Netscape finished with 4.9 before selling out to AOL which did nothing to really improve the browser. I was using 6.0 for a while, and I think I might have downloaded 7.0, but by then I had given up. I had a computer at work with Outlook on it, so I started using Outlook at home to keep standardized. Later on when I quit buying refills for my Franklin Planner, I went looking for ways to adapt the Franklin method to Outlook.

In all this time of using Outlook, I really can't believe how little the functionality of the program has actually been improved. Outlook 2003 added some pretty colors and the ability to flag a message, but I still maintain that none of the developers use Outlook and they don't realize how frustrating it is to have already bought it and then you need to spend even more money on add-ins to make it useful for anything more than an email client and a very basic task and calendar display.

I want to rant on some email features or lack thereof. First off is the lack of a real security mindset. Outlook either ignores security or takes it to extreme levels. This morning I was reminded of how stupid this is. I got an email newsletter with links in it. When I went to click on a link, Outlook told me that links had been disabled and I have to click the Information Bar to turn them on. When I click the information bar, I get three options, one of which says "Turn links on (not recommended)". Excuse me, BUT THIS SENDER IS ALREADY IN MY SAFE SENDERS LIST!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!! I don't understand how it can make sense to Microsoft to add a sender to a safe sender's list and still disable links until you manually enable them. What is the point to having a safe sender's list? I may explain my method for dealing with spam in another post, I won't take the time here.

Also, for some reason, some of my emails have the message that says "to protect your privacy, some images have been turned off" and you have to click the info bar to show the images. Perhaps I should google this one, because I don't know what the point is when again, the sender has already been placed in my safe sender's list.

This isn't part of Office per se, but annoying nonetheless. When a program wants attention, the window will flash. We all know that. But why can't programmers set up a routine so that if you acknowledge the program once, it will leave you alone for a few minutes? Norton is the worst. Anything Norton does constantly notifies me that Norton is doing something, so that anything else I try to do becomes painful. Any window I'm in keeps flashing to inactive and the Norton window flashes my taskbar. Since I keep my taskbar hidden, this always seems to happen when I need to do something at the bottom of the page and the taskbar keeps hiding it.

I guess we'll have to live with it until either I learn to program or somebody else comes up with something better. Speaking of which, I remember back in 1998 or 1999 when I was on the Bash Microsoft bandwagon. Sun seemed to be leading the chorus, along with Oracle and everybody else. We all spoke of how shoddy Windows 95 and 98 were and how Microsoft is keeping down everybody else.

Suddenly, I woke up and realized that nobody has come close to doing what Microsoft has done. Nobody was producing a comparable product. I stopped complaining at that point.

Microsoft One Care Live Beta and Internet Explorer 7 Beta 2- 2 products I WON'T be using

I have been hearing a lot in Microsoft newsletters about Windows OneCare Live beta. I decided to break down and install it. The 90 day trial of Norton Internet security that shipped with my laptop is running out and feels the need to remind me every singe day of the impending expiration of my trial "subscription". I don't intend to renew it. I will probably run the WinXp firewall and a freeware antivirus such as Avast Home Edition.

I decided, however, to give Windows OneCare a try to be fair. It's free, so why not? I went through the installation, which was easy enough. As soon as got around to rebooting my system, I realized that I would not be using Windows OneCare in it's current state. I wish I could report that I tried out the maintenance functions available and spyware scans, but I could tell right away that continued use of this program will aggravate me too far.When I booted up, I noticed that the "1" in my system tray was red. I clicked on it, after fighting with Norton Internet Security lock ups for a while dealing with granting OneCare access to the internet, and the very first thing that I saw is "You don't have automatic updates turned on. Click here to turn on automatic updates." The very next thing I saw said "click here to purchase". I immediately went into Start-> Control Panel -> Add/Remove Programs and uninstalled Windows OneCare Live beta.

Why? For one thing, I can't stand automatic updates. Because Microsoft has finally produced an operating system than can run overnight without crashing, I have gotten into the habit of being able to walk away from my computer in the middle of what I was doing and coming back later to pick up. It irritates me to get up in the morning, sit down at my computer to check email, and find my desktop and a stupid balloon sticking out of the system tray that says "Windows downloaded an important update". I have been working with Windows since 1996 and I think I know when to update my system. It's not like the stupid balloon doesn't pop up every 15 minutes when an update is available to remind you to download the update. I hardly think my computer is any less secure if the update is released at 3 AM and I don't find out about it until 5:30AM. And so, realizing that Windows OneCare will not ever give me a green light without enabling this frustrating idiot function, I decided that I in turn will not give Windows OneCare a green light. You are the weakest link, You're fired, good bye!

For the same reason, I realized that I will not be using Internet Exporer 7 Beta 2, which I learned was available today. I have come to really appreciate Maxthon, which is the undisputed king of browsers. Maxthon is tabbed, built on the IE engine so that pages won't have problems with certain sites like they will Firefox, and my favorite feature, tabs can be saved for later. I can reboot my computer and literally pick up on each page I left off on. I can find a site that sounds interesting, open it in a tab, and come back to it when I feel like it.

I downloaded IE7 Beta 2 this afternoon. As soon as I opened it, I got a notice that my security settings place my computer at risk. However, it would not tell me what setting exactly places my computer at risk. I could select from either "fix my settings for me", "open security settings", and "help with security settings". Opening my security settings did not show me any indication of what IE7 could possibly have a problem with, so I closed security settings and closed the little notification bar at the top of the tab. I opened another tab and the notification came back. I realized that once again, unless I was willing to turn the settings of my computer over to the wizard of Redmond, I could not use the product.

I suddenly find myself wanting to carve out time in my schedule to learn how to configure Linux for my needs. My enthusiasm for Windows Vista just died.

MSN Spaces and Why Is Rebooting Such A Pain?

I'm going to officially stop posting on MSN Spaces. It's a pain. I like that it offers more features than Blogger, but blogger is highly reliable. With MSN Spaces, it seems that the longer you spend creating a thoughtful and useful blog entry, the higher chance that the blog will not be available when you hit the submit button. Because I have no idea if anyone even reads my blog (I can't get my wife to) I don't want to go to that much effort only to find that my message didn't post because "this space is unavailable". Normally a back button will fix it, but that's just getting to be too much work. I'll come back here for my productivity and technology thoughts.

I got a new laptop for Christmas. Wow, it's amazing. It's a Compaq V2414NR. I like it. I'd like better battery life, but hey, we can't have everything. It came with a 3 month trial of Norton Antivirus and Internet Security. I didn't have good luck the last time I used either. I had the 2002 version. They'd run fine for a few weeks, then tell me that they crashed and had to be reinstalled. That got to be too much of a hassle. I've also found that Norton products really bog down my system a lot, although this laptop seems to have enough juice that I don't notice.

This morning, I checked email and Norton told me that it wanted to run Live Update. OK, it asked me if I wanted to. I clicked "OK". The next few minutes got really frustrating. The Live Update window kept flashing. I would click on it, bring it to the surface, then go back to the window I was working in. It would start flashing again, requiring me to repeat this process all over again. I work with my taskbar minimized, so every time a window wants attention, it brings the taskbar up and covers up the bottom of the screen. It always seems to find a way to do this when I need to work near the bottom of the screen, so I can't exactly ignore it. This got really frustrating. Then it wanted the infamous reboot. I can't understand why, whenever I reboot my computer, the same applications decide to lock up each and every time. I have "ccApp", which I found was Norton, "CiceroUIWndFrame", which is part of the Microsoft Office speech recognition (does anyone actually use it?), and one more that I can't think of right now. Sometimes, Microsoft ActiveSuck likes to lock up too. Why do the same applications never shut down each and every time we reboot our computers?

I'd also like to comment that I hate the Caps Lock key. If I now have a feature to disable the touchpad on my laptop, can't someone come out with a feature to disable Caps Lock? I don't use AOL or anything, so I really don't use it...