Dr. Bill | The Computer Curmudgeon

As you know, I strongly recommend Grisoft’s AVG Anti-Virus (which is FREE!) to everyone! And, I have recommended Ewido Anti-Spyware before as well:

My Article on Ewido from the Blog

Now, it seems that Grisoft has merged with Ewido Networks! So, they now offer Ewido on the same site and page as AVG! And, they have a great, free version! Check out their website, here:

Ewido Networks

Here’s a quote from their press release:

“GRISOFT, the maker of award-winning AVG Anti-Virus, today announced the acquisition of Ewido Networks, a leading provider of innovative anti-malware solutions. This acquisition expands GRISOFT’s AVG antivirus and firewall offerings to include comprehensive malware protection, and provide its customers with the highest level of security against growing types of malicious software spreading across the Internet.”

This apparently happened back in April of this year, but I missed it! Anyway, even if I am late in hearing about it… this is still great news! I am a big fan of Grisoft, and I know that they will do a great job with Ewido as well!

Weird question, you ask? Ah, but no! Here’s the deal. Spammers want to know, above all else, that the e-mail address that they have for you is a “good” one. So, if you go on vacation AND you set your e-mail to “auto-reply” to messages with your “happy little message” of “I’m out of the office…” Well, your auto-reply message goes back to the spammers as well, when their nasty viagra messages come in to your inbox. So, you have provided them with VERY valuable information!

So, what to do? Try this, BEFORE you go on vacation, send a message to the people that commonly (yet legitimately) send you e-mails a message saying that you will be out for a week. NOT your WHOLE e-mail list, just the main folks (you know who they are!)

Just a thought! Don’t give spammers any more info than you have to! Let’s be careful out there!

You have heard about it, but what is it? This is a great, concise description of the issues involved in “Net Neutrality!”

Net Neutrality Primer

Strange that ultra-liberal “MoveOn.org” AND the National Religious Broadcasters are BOTH on the same side in this, huh? I like what this article says, “If it ain’t broke, don’t fix it!”

It sure has been a slow week for tech news so far… but this item is one that I have mixed feelings about. I really like Winternals… they have awesome free utilities and tools that I use all the time! I sure hope that Microsoft gobbling them up means that we will lose out on these cool tools!

Microsoft buys Winternals

I will try and stay positive! Maybe Winternals programmers will help out M$!

“As part of the deal, the software maker is naming Winternals co-founder Mark Russinovich as a technical fellow. ‘I’ve had my eye on Mark for some time,’ Jim Allchin, Microsoft divisional co-president, said in a statement. ‘The work he and Bryce (Cogswell, Winternal’s other co-founder) have completed in system recovery and data protection illustrates the depth of thinking and skill they will bring to future versions of Windows. The addition of their deep kernel-level expertise to our existing strong talent will help provide us with the edge we need to continue to raise the quality and functionality bar for Windows on both the client and the server.’ In buying Winternals, Microsoft is getting the company’s free tools, its Sysinternals community Web site as well as several paid-for software products for businesses. However, it appears Microsoft made the deal, in large part, to hire the company’s two co-founders. ‘It’s definitely about talent,’ Platform and Services division architect Jason Garms said in a telephone interview on Tuesday. ‘Mark is one of the top five or 10 people in the world when it comes to Windows internals.'”

Microsoft Word had a zero-day bug, then Excel, now its PowerPoint. Really gives you confidence in Microsoft’s “Security Initiative,” huh?

Microsoft Confirms PowerPoint Zero-Day Attack

“The latest attack exploits a previously undocumented flaw in Microsoft PowerPoint, the ubiquitous presentation program used by millions of users around the world. The attack comes just days after Microsoft’s July Patch Tuesday and closely mirrors the situation in June when a zero-day Excel attack was discovered 24 hours after Patch Day. Virus hunters at Symantec linked the zero-day attack to a Trojan horse program called Trojan.PPDropper.B that arrives via e-mail from a Gmail address. The subject line of the mail and the .ppt file-name are in Chinese characters, suggesting that the attacks are emanating from—and attacking targets—in the Far East. If the PowerPoint attachment is opened, the Trojan drops and executes a variant of Backdoor.Bifrose.E, a keystroke logger that is used to steal sensitive information and send it back to a remote server controlled by malicious hackers.”

Survey results of Internet users demonstrate that Mac-users and Trekkers (Star Trek fans), are the primary listeners to podcasts! So, which are you? I will cop to being a huge Trekker, and I like Macs, but I don’t own one… so pretty close! I am probably unusual in that I listen to about 25 podcasts a week. Hummmm… maybe I am in my own category?

Podcasts popular in the holodeck

“Among those surveyed, 51.6 percent said they paid bills online, and 24.6 percent participated in online job hunting. E-mailing is still the most popular online activity at 92.7 percent, with news reading (71.5) and weather checking (63.9) in second and third place, respectively. Compared to those statistics, downloading podcasts is still a relatively unpopular activity. Overall, 6.6 percent of adults said they had downloaded audio podcasts within the last 30 days, and 4 percent had downloaded video podcasts. Since the question has only been recently added to the survey, according to the Nielsen/NetRatings spokeswoman, there is no data available for 2004 to allow for a growth comparison. (Blogging came in even lower at 4.8 percent.)”

M$ has been bad, and the EU is clamping down! They have been fined big time for refusing to give up details of their server code that would allow other companies to better design media software for Windows Server. M$ has acquiesced somewhat on its Media Player client, but they have been dragging their heals on the server side.

EU fines Microsoft 281 mln euros for defiance

“European Union regulators fined Microsoft (MSFT.O: Quote, Profile, Research) 280.5 million euros ($357.3 million) on Wednesday for defying a 2004 antitrust ruling, and warned the company to comply or face bigger fines from next month. The tough new penalty is the first of its kind and comes on top of a record 497 million euro fine the Commission imposed in its landmark antitrust decision against Microsoft in March 2004.”