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Vol. 5, No.38
9-22-05
1 Online community
2 Identity theft
3 Firefox update, Google Wi-Fi, massive copyright infringement
4 New versions of Open Office
5 Make Firefox pretend to be IE
On Monday, 9-19-2005, Amy Marie Craighead died. I didn’t know this woman personally, nor have I ever had a conversation with her of any sort. I read her postings and saw the pictures she’d posted in the forums at www.fark.com.
Back in the 90s pundits were saying that the Internet would make us all shut-ins, killing the need to interact with other people at social functions. Why venture out when we could talk to people all over the country and the world while remaining in the safety of our houses or apartments? They said it would be the end of communities, of neighborhood barbecues and friends at work who would gather at bars and restaurants when their shift ended.
No physical connection, just a cold anonymous presence in cyberspace where we could be anyone, be anything, without ever leaving the confines of our own four walls.
Man, were they ever wrong.
As the Internet has evolved so have online relationships. They aren’t always cold and impersonal and anonymous. Often they are between people of like mind who meet through forums and chat rooms and email lists and often result in lasting friendships and on rare occasions even love.
Our own small PC Guru group started as online and studio collaborators and now many of us are close friends. Sites like www.louisvillemojo.com have forums and have frequent parties at local establishments where users can meet each other in relative safety. The aforementioned fark.com has parties all over the country where users can get together and meet each other in person.
Rather than result in a more introverted and anonymous society I think the Internet has actually led to a richer and more varied cultural and personal experience for all of us, which brings me back to Amy.
http://forums.fark.com/cgi/fark/comments.pl?IDLink=1676538 serves as an online wake for Amy (known as “Auspicious” on Fark). It demonstrates the deep emotional bonds that people can develop in an online social setting even without meeting each other in the flesh.
I have friends in Australia, New Zealand, California, New York and so many more locations due to the Internet. We are close, we swap pictures of our children, we keep each other updated on the happenings in our lives and we share secrets. Just like my friends from school that I still keep in touch with. The pundits from the 90s were wrong.
From Amy’s Fark thread I think Thresher says it best:
“As my eyes are
filled with tears
and my heart is filled with sorrow
I know another Farker
won't be laughing
from the clever bits we'll write tomorrow
But tonight
we'll speak of sadness
and loneliness we will feel
Yet I know your family
loved you
both virtual and real”
God bless you and keep you Amy, you will be sorely missed…
Kevin Mefford, Editor
Terry Wise
Tech News of the Week
If you're a
Firefox user (and if you're not, you probably should be),
there's an update
that fixes several security flaws---get it while
it's hot:
http://www.techtree.com/techtree/jsp/article.jsp?article_id=68225&cat_id=582
Is
Google planning to become a Wi-Fi service provider? Signs point to
yes:
http://fr.sys-con.com/read/132574.htm
Speaking
of Google, look for them in a courtroom near you (if you live
in
California). The search engine company is being sued for
"massive
copyright infringement", which could prove to be massively
expensive:
http://www.internetnews.com/bus-news/article.php/3550626
Copy
us on the good stuff ;-)
Matthew Dattilo
thepcgurus@gmail.com
www.opaquelucidity.com
Download of the Week
We’ve mentioned Open Office many times in these pages and this week they released two new versions.
Stable version 1.1.5 has the standard features (word processing, spreadsheet, presentation module etc.) plus a few glitch fixes and security patches. 2.0 Beta 2 is also available for the more adventurous among you. Of course Beta means not really finished and still in testing so install at your own risk.
You can get both versions from www.openoffice.org.
Email Question of the Week
Q: I was wondering if you had any
suggestions about making
Firefox look like IE to a banking site? One
bank I use (which shall
remain nameless for now) will not accept my login if
it comes from
Firefox, and forces me to use IE to access my account. I
have asked
them several times to support Firefox, but so far no luck.
Not a big
problem, just an aggravation.
Thanks.
A: This issue starts me on my soapbox about
how the Internet should be
universal, no matter what browser, what operating
system, or what
Internet connection you have. Whatever you use to get
on line should
allow you the same Internet that the next guy has. It's
silly to
restrict things based on one browser, because in the Mac world,
there is
no good version of IE, and in the Linux realm, none at all.
This means
you have to be running Windows with Internet Explorer, and in
my
opinion, that's not right.
For your problem, though, there is a
cure. It's one of my favorite
extensions for Firefox, but never thought
to put it in my Extension of
the Week column.
First off, go to
https://addons.mozilla.org/extensions/moreinfo.php?id=59
to download and
install User Agent Switcher. After you have done that,
restart Firefox
and in the Tools menu, there will be a new item called User
Agent
Switcher. Go into the sub menu and pick "Internet Explorer 6
(Windows
XP)". Then, go to the site that was restricting based on
browser and it
should work just as it would if you had to open it in
Internet
Explorer. There is only one site that this won't work
correctly for,
and that is Windows Update. It will actually load that
page, it just
will sit there because it can't retrieve the program on the
computer
that lets it run.
Hope this little fix helps you browse the
web a little better, and on
your own terms. If the team can be of any
more help, please let us know.
Daniel A. Williams
daniel@thepcgurus.com
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