Newsletter Archive

The Internet 800 Directory - http://www.inter800.com
The Internet 800 Directory Newsletter
This issue is for Friday, November 19, 2004
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Table of Contents
01. New Computer Virus
02. Christmas in June?
03. Tip Of The Week
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*01 New Computer Virus

A new computer virus started making the rounds last week and it attacks
vulnerability in Microsoft's Internet Explorer. The vulnerability was
discovered and made public, and then, just four days later, a worm
exploiting the weakness was developed and set loose to infect our
computers.

This new virus is a variant of MyDoom, but with a more disturbing twist.
In the past you had to execute the virus to infect your machine, but
with this virus you can be infected by clicking on a link.  This virus
spreads via web links and not e-mail attachments.

This new variant of the MyDoom exploits a yet uncorrected flaw in
Microsoft's Internet Explorer browser. The flaw in Internet Explorer is
known as the IFRAME buffer overflow vulnerability. By clicking on a link
sent in an e-mail, you are transferred to a site that executes the code
and infects your computer.

Microsoft said that consumers who had installed Service Pack 2 for
Windows XP at a reduced risk of being infected.

One way you can protect yourself is to use Firefox. Firefox offers
everything you need in a web browser.  In years past Microsoft worked to
improve Explorer, so it could gain the market it lost to Netscape. After
Explorer’s victory in the browser wars, they have rested on their
laurels. Rested might not be the right word, stopped would be more
accurate. They do, after all, control the market and Explorer is free,
so there's no real money to be gained from improving Explorer.
In my mind, there are so many ways that Firefox is better than Explorer,
tab browsing, pop up blocking and many extensions that can add custom
features. Visit the Firefox web site and see for yourself. This is a
better browser and the best part is that it too is free.

http://www.mozilla.org/products/firefox/

Chuck Arning chuck@inter800.com
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*02 Christmas in June?

We might as well start having Christmas in June. Or, pick a date. There
have been more erudite articles than this one written about the subject,
but I'm going to gripe about it anyway.

Whenever I start receiving Thanksgiving catalogs on Columbus Day (which
is a dubious holiday anyway), then I think, "When is Thanksgiving?".

Stupid question, because the next day I get a catalog from Neiman-Marcus
offering me private submarines for my wife and me. As much as she'd like
to bury me at sea, she can't afford it.

However, that's not the point. Used to be, the World Series, which was
baseball, ended in the Fall, which, the last time I looked on the
calendar, came around September. Then, and only then, did football
begin. Now, I was from a pretty small town, but I don't think they had
different time zones in Minnesota. Football ended some time in December,
probably just before Christmas. Then, basketball could start gearing up,
and in the Spring, so we could baseball. That was just a logical
progression. People could, would and should play football in any kind of
weather because that's the nature of the sport. If you're stupid enough
to need a helmet to crash headlong into someone else who is also wearing
a helmet, then who cares what the temperature is?

However, someone figured out that people really enjoyed watching other
people beat up other people, but the people watching wanted to do it in
a comfortable environment. Voila! Thank God for Roy Hofheinz, the
Astrodome and the invention of fake grass.
Now we can play football all year, if we have anyone left without torn
ICRs, or whatever.

Baseball is even worse. Don't get me wrong - I love all of these sports
as both a spectator and used-to-be participant. However, where did the
logic of the seasons go?

The simple answer is money, my friend, money.

If the public is willing to pay for the tickets, the concessions, the
parking and the advertising, then someday all seasons will last the full
12 months. "Why not?", say the suits. Their exorbitant payrolls to these
guys are only matched by the income that the populace creates. As much
as we can't believe that a shortstop gets $60 million, we still are the
ones that drive the numbers.

Does it kind of remind you of the Roman gladiators?

Perhaps we would all be the same if we owned one of these teams. I would
hope not. But if that's the reality, let's just start Christmas in June,
when we can all wear swimsuits.


Steven Jackson - saj@inter800.com
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Tip of the Week

Speeding Up Your Computer
It seems now days that every program you install on your machine wants
to run all the time whether you are using it or not. These extra running
programs have a bad effect on the performance of your machine.

To turn off these extra programs:
1-Click “Start”, then click “Run”
2-Type in “msconfig” and hit “OK”
3-In the “System Configuration Utility”-click the “Startup” tab
4- Uncheck the programs you don't want to load (leave the rest alone)

Un-checking these programs doesn't remove them, they just don’t start
with your computer.  This tip doesn’t work with Windows 95 or 2000.

If you have any tips or shortcuts that you think the readers of this
Newsletter will find useful, send them to chuck@inter800.com

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