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============== The Computer as Washing Machine

These are boring days. Writers are churning out tons of stuff about Windows Vista because that's the only moving target around. XP has been put to bed. There's nothing happening with the OS most people are using. And there is very little happening with viruses, spyware, worms and other malware, either.

Even Mac and Linux users don't have much happening. Even the iPhone only got a bit of news before fading into the background. It's a cool piece of hardware, but everyone knows there'll be dozens of me-too products out before long, so there's no point in spending that much money on something that'll only be cool for a few months.

To be sure, there's the squabble about Digital Rights Management in Vista that's consuming a bunch of self-appointed gurus who blather on about how slowly Vista will display high definition pictures, despite users who say, "Gee, Vista runs my camcorder's HDTV output without any problems."

But I really think all this is making "news" because there isn't any news. Heck, even my partner, Rick, had to take a month off from his usual Rant. He just didn't have anything to rant about. And if you know Rick, that's saying a lot. He can rant about virtually anything.

A while back I said that eventually computers would become just another appliance like washing machines. We won't have to think about them, we'll just use them. I don't think we are there yet, but we sure are getting a lot closer.

============== VoIP Blues

Skype, the largest Voice over Internet Protocol (VoIP) vendor, reported that a software bug rendered their service virtually unusable for two days last week (August 13-17). Anyone who has used VoIP connections to technical support in India (which seems to be all companies' tech support these days) has undoubtedly suffered through bad connections as well. Time Warner RoadRunner is also selling their own VoIP service, but as often as my RoadRunner Internet connection goes down, I most certainly won't be entrusting my phone service to them.

Several vendors have recently begun pushing VoIP solutions so you can "Get rid of the phone company." Unfortunately, the state of the art with VoIP is that it is less stable than hard-wired phone lines. In addition, 911 calls don't always connect to your local emergency network, so responses to emergencies are often significantly slower.

Certainly, VoIP is a good choice for a second line, but I'm not at all sure it is ready for prime time.

============== Free Spam Filter

Here's a silly-sounding, yet actually practical solution for those of you who need but don't have a spam filter. Set up a Google Gmail account and configure it to download your current email account (fairly easy to do with Gmail). Then turn on the Google spam filters and set up POP3 access to your Gmail account. Bingo. Now Google de-spamifies your email for you.

The one disadvantage is that all spam filters generate false positives (things marked as spam that you really want) and in order to find them you have to log onto your Gmail account using your browser to view the spam folder.

If that's not too troublesome, then this solution works.

If you don't want the bother of the Gmail solution, you can try the Windows Live Mail beta at http://get.live.com/betas/maildesktop_betas . Be aware that this is a beta, which means it isn't a final product and may have bugs. I have played with it and it appears to work OK, but that's not a guarantee. It does have an excellent spam filter and is also free.

============== Wireless Hijacking

People are starting to get arrested for "piggybacking" -- using someone else's unsecured wireless connection without permission. A man in Oregon has been arrested for parking on the street and using a store's wireless connection and two different people have been arrested in England. There are several other reports of arrests, as well. So far, all of these have been people who have camped out in front of businesses for days or even weeks.

Apparently the police are willing to treat piggybacking as theft of someone else's property. I have some difficulty with this. A wireless signal is just a transmission of electrons over the air. Can I be arrested under the same reasoning for listening to the radio? I don't own the signal. The only difference is the radio station presumably wants me to listen, while the unsecured wireless network only passively invites me to use it.

In the absence of specific laws to make everyone aware of the legality or illegality of the act, it seems to me that the police are jumping the gun. In a polite society we shouldn't be convicting people of a secret crime. And if they convict those who camp out in front of businesses, will they be going after those who piggyback once -- or even worse, who aren't careful in their homes and accidentally log onto their neighbor's connection rather than their own?

But everyone should be securing their wireless networks. It is a crime to hack the network (and it should be).

============== Backup, Backup, Backup

At VCC we are starting to get a lot of failed old IDE drives in for repair. In many cases, it is too late. The drives are frequently toast. The only way to get the data off is to send them to a data recovery center and spend something around $1,000 to get the data off. For most home users, this is not affordable.

Please, please, please. Backup your data. Get a USB drive, get a flash drive, dust off the tape drive, copy to CD's or DVD's, but do SOMETHING. It has never been cheaper or easier to back up your data than it is now. And yet, so few do it. Do you really want to lose all the family pictures? Please, I hate to see friends cry -- and we're the ones they come to.

If you can make it, be sure to attend the CIPCUG meeting this weekend where Novastor will be demonstrating their excellent product, NovaBackup 8.

============== CIPCUG Notice

You don't have to be a member of CIPCUG to subscribe to this E-letter, but we do make a short notice of upcoming events.

This Saturday, August 23, Novastor will be demonstrating NovaBackup 8, the award winning backup solution for home users and businesses.

September 22: To be announced

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