GuruNews, Volume 9 Number 1, 1-8-09

Thu Jan 8 21:34:20 EST 2009

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Vol. 9, No. 1                   

1-8-09

1 A new year, a new start           

2 Old and New      

3 Vista relief, IE8, Windows 7, iGiveUp

4 Bookmark boon  

5 Stuff

Welcome to our ninth year of GuruNews/84Online.  It amazes me that we've been around this long and continue to grow our readership every week.  We've outlived the radio show and a few membership shakeups, all the Service Pack snafus, viruses and malware aplenty, the RIAA/MPAA war on customers, Windows Activation, exploding Sony batteries, Vista, you name it and we've made it through.

The readers, of course, are the reason.  You folks continue to read and enjoy and discuss every week, email us questions and suggestions and accolades and smackdowns as you see fit, and every one of those are read and taken seriously.

All along you've guided and shaped the newsletter, sometimes submitting articles and even becoming members yourselves.  This year will be no different.

This is your chance to mold the structure of our content.  Make suggestions for added content or subjects for the lead article, changes you'd like to see to the different sections, the overall look of the newsletter etc.

The lead has always wandered from serious tech news and warnings of dire threats to political rants to product reviews to pure educational.  Should that mix change?  Should there be more of one type, less of another?

The news covers tech, period.  Should it maybe branch out to a little techy science news, or concentrate more on one OS or another?  Let us know your opinion.

The download section is actually a mix of downloads and websites and range from useful utilities to productivity tools to fun and games and even outright humor.  I think it's a good mix but do you?  More downloads, split the websites to their own section, leave it alone?  

The email and cartoons are what they are.  Matt picks an email question each week that he feels is either the most interesting or applies to the most people and they're printed verbatim.  We never divulge the name or email address of the reader asking for help.  That brings up yet another question that I'll ask below.

The cartoon is basically a political 'toon, just as in newspapers.  As a matter of fact, many of the drawings Terry does for the newsletter end up in newspapers.  They either illustrate a point he sees in the lead or they reflect current events.  Sometimes they celebrate approaching holidays or pay tribute to the recently dead, but they always apply to the content or our times.

They are the visual depiction of the stupidity, or irony or general hilarity of life, with or without computers and electronic gadgets.  They illustrate the best of us and the worst of us and they elicit both laughter and hate mail.  They are pictures of joy and greed and compassion and callousness.  That can't and won't change.

Now for the question.  With email questions and general comments that may be used, should we continue to exclude names and email addresses or include names?  A few readers have voiced the opinion that they'd like to get a mention so other readers know who they are.  Is this OK as a blanket policy or should we leave it alone?  Or would you like to mention in your emails the fact that we may use your name?

One section I will add is one on current threats.  2008 may be over but its progeny of malware like driveby installs and browser exploits remains.  Malware is rampant and often specific steps should be taken to protect yourself.  I'll start this up next week.

So there you have it, week one.  Email us or me directly or any of the section writers.  Tell us what you think and we'll do our best to keep the newsletter not just something to read but something to look forward to.

Kevin Mefford, Editor

pcguru at microdome.net

Terry Wise

www.ratland.com

Tech News of the Week

Get a nice shiny new computer for Christmas only to get stuck with the Vista gag gift?  Here's some help:

http://tinyurl.com/9kpeaz

IE8 is coming, get your blockers while they're hot:

http://tinyurl.com/a6bykw

The good news:  Windows 7 is just around the corner to replace ME II.  The bad news:  It's based on ME II:

http://tinyurl.com/8otu5g

Just so this doesn't become a complete MS fest, behold the latest Apple patent (Warning:  Vaguely disturbing sketch on page):

http://www.theregister.co.uk/2009/01/02/apple_glove_patent/

Copy us on the good stuff!

Matthew Dattilo

thepcgurus at gmail.com 

www.mattstodayinhistory.com

Download of the Week

If you're not happy with Firefox's favorites manager, and want a visual way to manage your bookmarks, consider Tidy Favorites. This one download is a Firefox and Internet Explorer add-in, and displays thumbnails of your favorites inside a Firefox tab. You can easily copy, delete, and update them, drag and drop them inside the tab, resize them, rearrange them, and quickly search through them all. It's free and you can get it here:

http://www.download.com/Tidy-Favorites/3000-2378_4-10803385.html 

Carlita Lupino        

Cards57 at gmail.com

Email Question of the Week

Q:  Merry Christmas first of all.  I have a few tech questions--nothing broken, just need to know a few things.

1.  Concerning external hard drives, besides storage amount and size of the drive itself, are there any other factors to consider and any brand names especially to consider or avoid?  Do all of them work by plugging into a USB port just like a jump drive?

2.  We are looking for a DVD player and possibly one that can record from VHS to DVD--any especially good or bad models and companies or features to consider?  Blue ray doesn't matter that much to us unless the trend is toward all blue ray all the time.

3.  We switched from AT&T Worldnet to the new AT&T, got a new e-mail address too which we're barely using now.  But can you set up Outlook or Outlook Express to download e-mail from both addresses or must it link to or use only one at a time?  The addresses are both ones ending in @att.net but the one we are using now, the old one, is on an older server and could not be upgraded to the new AT&T if that makes sense.

4.  Finally, what is Windows Live mail and how does it work?  I see it as an option for default e-mail and was curious.

Thank you very much.

A:  Merry Christmas to you and yours as well ;)

    To answer your questions in order:

1.  Ignore brand names, consider usage.  Will you want to use the drive with multiple computers or leave it in place?  That makes a difference because you can get enclosures based on laptop drives, which will fit in a shirt pocket and can draw power through a USB cable, or PC drives which are better suited to stay in place due to size and the fact that they require a separate power cord.

Also once you decide on a physical size I would suggest going with a raw hard drive and an enclosure and building your own.  Most of the pre-built external drives are difficult to get into and if the original drive fails or if you need more space it's nice to be able to just swap the drive rather than replace the entire unit.

Nearly all of these drives connect through USB so don't worry about that part.

2.  No clue, I capture VHS to record DVD through a home built DVR.  I'd say you're safe with big brand names like Pioneer or Samsung.  I refuse to buy anything that says Sony on it due to their poor treatment of customers with the whole spyware/rootkit thing and the exploding batteries they make.  

And don't worry about Blue-Ray, it's not being integrated into the mainstream very fast.

3.  Both Outlook and Outlook Express can be set up to get multiple email accounts.  Click Tools and Accounts or Email Accounts and it should be easy from there.  Let me know if you need help with this and I'll give you a hand.

4.  Windows Live mail is like a new Hotmail.  I guess it's OK to use but I don't.  If you want to set up an account it should be fine and no different than any other webmail server.

Kevin Mefford

pcguru at microdome.net

Contact info and legal stuff

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