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December 18, 2005

Windows software on the cheap.

Semi-annual round up of free software to prop up the Windows immune system, office software and assorted utilities. I'm restricting these lists to products I have used in the last month. Firewalls, AntiVirus, Anti-Spyware and office software.

Firewalls

Kerio personal firewall and Zone Alarm

Both are firewalls that will ask every time an application tries to get to the internet, but will remember what you tell it. You do need to be aware of what programs you run that need access to the internet. Sure, they're a pain for the first hour (or when you first run an application), but once configured are excellent.

Anti Virus

Grisoft Anti Virus Guardian
Avast Home edition

Either of these are an excellent choice to protect your computer. Virusbulletin has both products detecting 100% of wild viruses as of December 2005.

Anti-Spyware/Trojan

Prevention

JavaCool SpywareBlaster
Prevent the installation of ActiveX-based spyware, adware, browser hijackers, dialers, and other potentially unwanted software. This will not remove anything already installed

JavaCool SpywareGuard
An anti-virus program scans files before you open them and prevents execution if a virus is detected - SpywareGuard does the same thing, but for spyware! This will not remove anything already installed.

Removal

All removal tools work better when run in Safe Mode (reboot the computer, tap F8 before the Windows boot up screen and select Safe Mode from the list). Safe mode is low-res.

SpyBot Search & Destroy Consistantly excellent removal tool.

LavaSoft AdAware The other excellent removal tool.

Merjin CWS Shredder
Cool Web Search is one of the most tenacious and hard to remove annoyances I've ever come across. This removal tool is constantly updatad, and will take it out. New versions of CWS (the thing you want to be rid of) will actually shut down removal tools as they are being loaded. If this occurs, you can run Merjin's SmartKiller to zap it, then run the CWS Shredder.

Office Software

Microsoft has cornered the market here. Everyone who uses a spreadsheet or word processor and shares data will, at some point, need to save it as excel or word formats. These office suites are more than happy to open and save in Mircorsoft formats.

AbiWord
If you just need a word processor and don't have MS Word, this is an excellent solution.

OpenOffice
Writer, Calc (spreadsheet), Impress (presentation) and Base (database). This is the complete MS Office replacement, with MS Office file compatibility.

Scrawled illegibly by Meathe at 12:00 PM

December 15, 2005

Building restoration.

Taking a water-bus down the Grand Canal, I found this curious sight. There's nothing particularily special about it at first glance. Even clicking through to the higher resolution image, theres nothing much out of the ordinary. However, the second building on the right is not quite normal. Like a lot of buildings in Venice, its facade is undergoing repairs. The entire front of it is covered in scaffolding. What I found unusual was that the scaffolding was covered with tarpaulins, which were painted to look like the front of the building they conceal. A aesthetic way to disguise something that would otherwise appear completely out of place.

Scrawled illegibly by Meathe at 12:56 PM

Moveable type, typekey and comments

IMAGinES, a fellow MT-er chanced upon this place in a google query for a MT problem. (I think). The disclaimer: I am not an MT guru. MT is something I have had the occasion poke at once or twice. I take no responsibility for bad stuff that may happen following these steps (conversely, credit is always good).

Unfortunately, my blog is on 3.16, not 3.2, which gives slightly different error messages, so I can't recreate it (I'm also lazy and don't want to set up a 3.2 test box). It seems like the message is given when the signature can't be validated. The code tries to validate the typekey token and timestamp (and a few other things which would seem ok).

Things to check:
Weblog config/Preferences: Triple check the TypeKey Token. Make sure it is correct and that there are no whitespace characters at the end of the line.
mtconfig.cgi (was mt.cfg prior to 3.2): Make sure you're using the setting "TypeKeyVersion 1.1" (I think this will be the case if its a clean install, it may not be if its an upgrade).

If its neither of these, then the most likely cause is a bad timestamp on your host. Time in unix (linux, etc) should always be set to GMT. If you have shell access, the following commands should output GMT identically (if you type fast enough so the seconds don't tick over)

date -u
perl -e 'use POSIX; print strftime("%a %h %d %H:%M:%S UTC %Y\n", gmtime(time))'

If you don't have shell access, you'll need your host to verify this.

Good luck.

Scrawled illegibly by Meathe at 10:54 AM

December 08, 2005

Another photo post

I am not good at taking photographs. However, every now and then, I take one I actually like. I know its not technically excellent, but I think its rather nice regardless. Clicking on it will get you a big version (300kb or so).

Pictured is the Ducal Palace (right). Always much more than a residence, it was White House, Senate, torture chamber, and prison rolled into one. Later, new prisons (right) and the Bridge of Sighs (the name is a confection of the romantics who imagined the sighs of the prisoners crossing it) were added.

Scrawled illegibly by Meathe at 12:01 PM