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Vol. 5, No. 36                                          

 

As I said last week a natural disaster like Hurricane Katrina usually brings out the best in us, but to some individuals it provides a convenient outlet to do their worst.

 

On the best of us side states are sending State Police officers, National Guard members and equipment, Fish and Game officers and Fire Department water rescue teams.

 

Factories, schools, grocery chains and others are transporting non-perishable food, personal hygiene products, water, diapers and any number of other items by the truckload while simultaneously running fund drives for noted charities like United Way, the Red Cross and the Salvation Army.

 

Sports teams have stepped to the plate, so to speak, with donations matching those team members make, donating the proceeds from games or entire series and holding fundraisers at games to allow fans to give.

 

Individuals are the most generous.  From you donating blankets to the local High School drive to Kurt Schilling providing housing for a family of nine refugees for a year.  From your next-door neighbor giving blood to Celine Dion’s million-dollar donation to the Red Cross, from the corner grocery manager with the pickle jar for change to Al Gore flying 140 people to Tennessee for medical care and shelter, each of us does what we are capable of to help.  And it ALL helps.

 

Unfortunately I’m not here to report the good stuff.  This is a technology newsletter so I’m here to report the bad things, and maybe protect you along the way.

 

Hackers and virus writers are busily crafting new malware programs to use in social engineering emails, hoping to trick users into clicking links or open attachments and infecting their systems (http://news.bbc.co.uk/2/hi/business/4209182.stm).

 

Phishers are setting up scam websites right and left (http://blogs.washingtonpost.com/securityfix/) and spewing emails with obfuscated links (http://www.hopkinsmedicine.org/katrina/scams.html).

 

I’m going to change my usual advice a bit here and will likely retain this position.  NEVER trust a link in an email that has anything to do with your personal financial information.  I don’t care if it says it came from your bank, your favorite charity or even this newsletter.  Personal messages or other trusted sources with links to programs, pictures or interesting articles are fine but even those should be avoided when they come unsolicited.

 

Currently it’s WAY too easy to lose your identity and credit record to others.  This can happen if you don’t even own a computer (remember all the recent data thefts from major credit card processing facilities?). 

 

I hate to sound so cynical but I have to be a realist in this case.  Email addresses are easily spoofed and online thieves are very good at convincing you of their legitimacy.  Even the Nigerian 419 scams, that have been going on since the introduction of the fax machine, have netted millions if not billions of dollars over the years from unwary people, despite a glut of publicity on the subject.

 

Even if you make your way to a legitimate donation website you can’t be sure your money will actually go to victims.  The folks over at www.somethingawful.com (and I strongly caution you about that site, the name pretty much says it all) are truly taking donations for the Red Cross.  They used PayPal for this venture so they could get physical addresses for the donors in order to send them somethingawful.com stuff like t-shirts and coffee mugs if they donated more than $10.

 

Since the site’s servers are located in the affected area and were at the time operating on emergency power they thought that might induce a bit more generosity, and it appeared to have done so.  They recorded close to $30,000 in donations in just nine hours but PayPal decided that much activity on a new account was suspicious and froze it.

 

You can read the whole sordid account at http://www.theinquirer.net/?article=25915 among hundreds of other websites.

 

Needless to say, I would recommend against donating to any site using PayPal since they may freeze and/or confiscate the funds without warning.  And I will most certainly avoid using PayPal myself in the future. 

 

We’ll get back to the MythTV box soon, I promise…

 

Kevin Mefford, Editor

pcguru@microdome.net

 

 

 

Terry Wise

www.ratland.com

 

Tech News of the Week

 

Apple rolled out a new member of the iPod family on Wednesday, making
us wonder how long it will be before MP3 players are too small to see:

http://www.apple.com/ipodnano/

Just when you thought you were bored with the normal "slow down your
PC and delete your stuff" worms, a new one shows up that helps you
avoid adult sites and showers you with quotes from the Koran:

http://www.pcworld.com/news/article/0,aid,122432,00.asp

The battle over a common standard for the next generation of DVDs is
still raging, but Samsung is ready with a player that will accommodate
them all:

http://www.redherring.com/Article.aspx?a=13465&hed=Blu-ray%2C+HD-DVD+Player+Seen+&sector=Industries&subsector=EntertainmentAndMedia

This news is several weeks old but for those of you who have an
interest in Suse Linux and never wanted to pay for the retail box,
there is now an Open Suse site which not only lets you download the
latest and greatest version of the distro but also gives you access
to the Betas of the next version:

http://www.opensuse.org/Welcome_to_openSUSE.org

Copy us on the good stuff ;-)

Matthew Dattilo
thepcgurus@gmail.com
www.opaquelucidity.com

 

Download of the Week

 

Not exactly an earth-shattering utility that will cure Malaria and keep the cats away from your birdbath, MSConfig Cleanup does exactly what it says.  When you use the handy Msconfig utility in Windows 98, XP or ME the items that you uncheck remain in the list.

 

MSConfig Cleanup from http://www.get-in-control.com/msconfig-cleanup/ removes whatever you uncheck, making maintenance quick and easy.  If you’re a bit of a neat freak it’s a must-have ;)

 

Email Question of the Week

 

Q:  How do I remove an e-mail address from the Block Senders list that was
put there accidentally?   I use Outlook Express.

 

A:  In OE click Tools/Message Rules/Blocked Senders List.  Once there,
click once on the name you want to remove to select it, then click the
Remove button on the right.

Hope that helps and keep us posted :)
 
Kevin Mefford 

pcguru@microdome.net

 

Contact info and legal stuff

 

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