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LangaList 2006-05-29 Please visit our sponsors and help keep the LangaList S.E. free!
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1) Asking For Trouble
You're right to worry, Mike, he's misinformed on both counts. We've discussed this before, but the question comes up so often I guess we need an "item #1" headline now and again to make sure people don't get misled by well-intentioned but incorrect advice such as from Mike's grandson. Anything that blocks or guards any network ports can be called a firewall. But that doesn't mean that all firewalls are equal; or that any product that mentions firewalling on the box is really doing what you need. Example: Some routers do provide a pretty good level of inbound firewalling, but they usually do absolutely nothing--- nothing--- about spoofed *outbound* attacks ( "phone home" activity) caused by malware. Of necessity, routers usually assume that any connection requests originating from a local PC are legit. But they may not be; in fact, almost ALL the nastiest worms and viruses propagate via unauthorized and often covert outbound connections. In contrast, a good local, desktop firewall will stop and ask when a new program or a newly-changed program is trying to make a connection. That way, you can stop unauthorized outbound activity before it starts. Another example: Some routers include a kind of antivirus scanning, looking at the inbound packets for stuff that resembles known viruses. That's fine. But local AV tools can also monitor not just the patterns of ones and zeros, but also virus-like activity that's triggered when the malware code is activated. An AV tool on a router can't know what's happening on the hard drives and in the RAM of any of the PCs it protects; it's useless against this kind of attack. And ask yourself: Is *any* software or hardware 100% reliable? (If you find some, let me know, OK? <g>) ALL software and hardware contains flaws; nothing is perfect. Relying on any one tool to provide all your online security is placing all your digital eggs on one basket--- a basket that must and does contain flaws. Routers, with or without in-built AV tools, can be a valuable part of an overall security strategy, but they are NOT NOT NOT enough by themselves. I can't stress that enough. Relying on a single layer of defense is asking for trouble. Please see The Single-Layer Defense Fallacy How Much Protection Is Enough? http://www.informationweek.com/showArticle.jhtml?articleID=180203313 Click to email this item to a
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--------------( the above is an advertisement )------------- 2) Penny-Wise...?
CD-R's can't really be erased; but they can be recorded without "closing" the disc, which allows for later recording/burning sessions to make changes to the disc. One such possible change is to hide the old data (such as by altering the disc's table of contents). The data is actually still there, but the OS is fooled into thinking it's not. Here's an easy way to see the effect of this: When you truly erase a disk, the old files disappear and the full capacity of the disk returns. When you pseudo-erase a disk, the old files disappear, but the disk's capacity does not increase (because the old data is really still there). It sounds like your company is doing this pseudo-erasure on the old disks. I have to ask: With new disks only $0.25 or so, why on earth is your company trying to reuse old ones? If they need to save the old data, then the thing to do would be to burn all the old data and each year's new data to a new, fresh disk; and then "close" the CD with the burning software. That way, (1) the disk will never be more than a year old, and all the problems of disk longevity go away; and (2) the CD will be able to be read in any normal PC with a CD. (In contrast, unclosed CDs can only be read in CDRs with burning software active.) I'm all for frugality, but risking data to save $0.25 a year seems a bit over the top to me. <g> Click to email this item to a
friend 3) AV Tools Block Good Software
Thanks, Mike. Yes, some software needs to install itself fairly deep in the system, and may run afoul of various security tools. When you encounter an otherwise unexplainable installation failure with software that you know should be safe to install (ie mass-distributed commercial software from a known, reputable company), then it may be worth trying the install with your local defenses temporarily lowered or turned off. Just remember not to go online or do anything else with the PC until the defenses are turned back on! <g> Click to email this item to a
friend --- ( Your Clicks On Ad Links Help Keep The LangaList S.E. Free! ) --- An Inexpensive Gift For Grads And Dads (or
anyone!) --------------( the above is an advertisement )-------------- 4) Lightning Veteran Speaks
You're right, the only way to be virtually 100% safe is to completely disconnect all wires (including phone and network cables) from a PC during a storm. Clearly, people living in Florida--- the lightning capital of the world--- might do well to err on the side of extreme caution. But in less lightning-prone areas, the equation might come out differently as you weigh the inconvenience of a total disconnect against the likelihood of a major problem. Here in New Hampshire, severe electrical storms are fairly rare (although we had an uncharacteristic F2 tornado about 5 miles from my house last week...). In the bad storms, I'll disconnect everything. But to be honest, for most routine weather here, I rely on the surge protection built into my UPS. A high-quality UPS, plus the fact that I have everything backed up, is to me a sufficient measure of safety for most routine weather. But: Things get murkier with changing weather patterns. As the Earth as a whole abnormally warms, the heat-driven engine we call "weather" will produce new effects: Some areas will get warmer, others cooler; some wetter, some drier; and stronger, more-frequent weather extremes will occur just about everywhere. It's new territory for climatologists, so the old models of what's "normal" in any given area will become less and less reliable as time goes on. Coming back to the topic at hand: Because an area hasn't gotten heavy lightning in the past doesn't mean it won't in the future. So it's not a black and white thing with a once-and-for-all-time answer. Instead, it's a judgment call amidst fluid, changing circumstances. But when in doubt, pull it out; unplugging is indeed the safest way to go. Click to email this item to a
friend 5) USB Chicken/Egg Solution
Thanks Ben! (BTW: Bart's PE coverage is here: Click to email this item to a
friend 6) Last Days To "Recommend And Win"On May 31, I'll choose three more monthly winners who each will get a FREE
ONE YEAR SUBSCRIPTION to the LangaList Plus! edition. (If your name is drawn and
you're already a Plus! subscriber, your current subscription will be extended by
a full year.) Click to email this item to a
friend 7) Help System Needs Help
Although it's great to image a "perfect" setup so you'll have that as a fallback in case of disaster, it still a good idea to make images or other backups even if the system isn't perfect, so you can at least get everything else back. Any image or standard backup is better than none, even if it's imperfect; so it's worth doing, no matter what. As for helpfiles, yes, they can sometimes get munged, just like any other file. But if your system reports many help files as corrupted, it may be the help system itself that's a problem. You see, help files are just html/text or compressed html/text; they're pure content. Your OS's help system opens, displays, and manipulates that content when you call on the help file. This is analogous to your word processor and the documents you create with it: The documents stand alone--- just as the help files do--- but the word processor software (like the help file system) actually opens the documents to let you work with them. If the actual help file itself--- the content--- is what's
munged, then the usual technique is to find the offending file and delete or
rename it; and then reinstall/repair the software whose file it was, so a new
helpfile will get copied to your hard drive. Microsoft has detailed instructions
for repairing the Helpfile in an Office app, for example, but the same general
technique should work for other software as well: If it's the help system that's messed up (and I suspect that's the case with yours, Nanette), the "Help - Diagnostics" page at http://helpware.net/htmlhelp/hh_diags.htm offers a free download that can perform a basic test of your OS's help system to make sure the pieces are in place. Other tools, both general and specific, are available at http://helpware.net/downloads/index.htm (And: wow--- this newsletter started in 1997, so you were onboard early, Nanette! Thanks for reading!) Click to email this item to a
friend 8) And *Another* Code Load Success StoryAfter his site was listed in the last "Load The Code" section, code-loader Ian wrote:
Do you have a home page or website? (It doesn't matter what size.) Please
click over to http://langa.com/code.htm
, and maybe you can join the thousands of LangaList readers who have "Loaded the
Code!" (If you've already "Loaded The Code" and are wondering if your site will
appear here or on the Langa.Com web site, please see
http://langa.com/link.txt ) Manually Browse All Posted-to-Date Sites Starting At Trimmer Assist David Aaron Sercel Art "Distant Cousin" Sneesh Beverlee Rate My Makeup Free and Low Cost Business Resources PC Tips Thai Resources Scituate Harbor, Massachusetts Click to email this item to a
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--------------( the above is an advertisement )------------- 9) Music File Sizes
Music on CDs is usually stored as uncompressed WAV files: In the recoding studio, the live music is "sampled" at a very high rate, taking a series of rapid-fire audio "snapshots" of the music. These are converted into the familiar ones and zeros of a WAV file. Just as a movie creates the illusion of smooth motion from a series of still pictures, playback of digitized music creates the illusion of smooth sound from the series of samples. (But movies typically run at 28 frames per second; music is sampled at many tens of thousands of times per second. Digitized music is much "smoother" to the ear than movies are to the eye.) In the WAV format, 10 seconds of silence will occupy the same amount of disc space as 10 seconds of the loudest, most raucous head-banging heavy-metal music; or 10 seconds of a full orchestral crescendo. The music doesn't matter, and has no real effect on the file size. It's the sampling rate that matters most in WAV files. But clearly, 10 seconds of silence doesn't *have* to occupy much space at all, and that's where compression comes in. MP3, WMA, and other formats use various tricks to squeeze the duplicate or unnecessary bits out of the stored music, leaving behind instructions for the playback software to reconstruct the original data. "Lossless" compression means that all the original data can be reconstructed, bit for bit, giving you a playback that should be indistinguishable from the original, uncompressed recording. The files can be smaller than WAV files, but sound just as good. "Lossy" compression trades off some fidelity for even smaller file sizes; the more audio fidelity you're willing to give up, the greater the compression can be and the smaller the files can be. At very high compression rates, the music files will be tiny, but the resulting music will be somewhat muddy and muffled. Microsoft's audio format--- WMA, used by Media Player--- is actually pretty good, offering a wide range of compression from lossless on down. And it also has "variable bit rate" compression that adjusts the compression level on the fly: Musically complex passages may get very little compression, for example, but silence or near-silence may get heavy compression. This provides a nice tradeoff between space-efficiency and audio fidelity. Some competing software now also offers variable bitrate compression. So, in a nutshell, that's why there's a difference in file sizes: You're probably seeing MP3 and WMA files on the download sites; the files on the actual commercial CDs are in the larger WAV format. If the vendors have done their job right, your ears won't hear the difference. Click to email this item to a
friend 10, 11, 12, 13, 14) Plus! Edition Only:Today's LangaList Plus! Edition contains about 40% more content including:
Why not take NO RISK look? Plus! Edition info: http://langa.com/plus.htm Click to email this item to a
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--------------( the above is an advertisement )------------- 15) Just For Grins
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