E-Musings Mon Immorata

Power To Da People Some .Net Framework troubles, a personal RSS feed, and what's new with Total Commender 6, Opera 7.23 and ZoneAlarm 4.5 Last week I wrote about the power of RSS. And since then I have been actively exploring the options and information available using this format. I now believe the best RSS Reader application available is FeedDemon. Not because of the many different information channels included. But because it auto-updates channel information and because overall it's a great application. I'll lament the passing of the free edition. And perforce will have to roll-back features-wise to the open-source and feature-limited FeedReader. While on the subject of errors, do write me about your experiences with the .NET 1.1 framework. There are lots of applications including RSS reader plug-in for Outlook (NewsGator), Windows terminal services managers (RoyalTS) and interestingly a .NET blogging script. However, despite installing the .Net framework at work on a Windows 2000 Server box, I can't get them to run without error (shades of my early RSS experiences). Not that anyone else in my office can get them to run either. And we're reluctantly concluded that either .Net isn't as stable as made out to be. Or a specific security update for Windows 2000 is causing the error. Any Suggestions? The past week has been very satisfying. It began with my rolling out the next version of E-Musings; my personal blog that's a near mirror of this column. What's makes my blog important technology-wise is it exposes my writings to a wider audience. And in keeping with my RSS Flavor of the Month theme, also offers a choice of RSS 2.0 feeds. This week I've really had time to play with lots of software. Leading off is responsible Web browser developer, Opera Software who released 2 successive builds -- v7.22 & 7.23 -- in under a week after some potentially dangerous vulnerabilities were found. Their most recent version, Opera 7.23, resolves a buffer overflow when processing skins (something I've personally experienced) and a patch to make the browser compatible with a recent OpenSSL update. Incidentally, all Opera with Java versions now include the Sun Java Machine v 1.4.02_1 that you can also download separately from Sun. Total Commander 6 brings a whole host of new features. The complete list is too long to mention here (I recommend downloading a copy and reading the Help file instead :). The new build's been optimized with a more Windows XP-compatible look but Windows 2000 users will find the display a bit rough around the edges. TotCMD 6 introduces Tabs used to book mark and save open folders. These can be locked (made persistent) and you can also enable a folder history to jump to a previously visited folder. In older versions you had only the back and forward arrows on the toolbar. You can also rename, duplicate, exchange tabs between panels, and save all defined tabs to a file. File move/copy too can be cached and settings modified to take advantage of drive clubbing (where there are multiple drive letters on the same physical drive unit). Pressing the F2 key during a file copy/move makes the transfer a background process. There have also been changes to the built-in FTP manager. Previously each account had individual transfer settings. You can now define global variables like passive mode, create log file, put transfers as background process which will apply to all new connections. And in the event you like to run multiple copies of Total Commander, they will now sequentially number themselves in order of opening. And double-clicking the root folder indicator in a drive view open the My Computer interface listing all drives and the Control Panel folder. Pretty neat! The proof in the pudding that Total Commander is a viable file explorer software replacement can be seen by number of cracked versions available on warez (hacked software) sites. Applications that hackers find interesting enough to use are the one for whom lots of cracks and serialz (illegal serail numbers) can be found. But although the warez universe is full of software cracks, I often need a search engine to find out what specific software really does! Finally, for those who wanna stay abreast with the latest (but not necessarily the most bug-free) software, ZoneAlarm 4.5.530 is available. New is an improved firewall and mail attachment security, as well as protection against phisher fraud -- a scam designed to steal credit card and banking information from online users by directing them to knock-off sites that look like popular sites. Zone Labs and TRUSTe are collaborating so that v4.5 Pro can verify the authenticity of TRUSTe-certified sites and separate the real sites from the fakes. As well as MyVault to store personal and financial data with one-way encryption that protects stored data even if a computer (or hard drive) is stolen. The ID Lock blocks exchange of personal information. It has 2 modes auto-block that silently blocks all personal data exchange and manual that works on a per-case basis. ID Lock also includes a safe list of user-defined (trusted) web sites. The new build is available in 3 versions: ZoneAlarm Pro 4.5.530, ZoneAlarm Plus 4.5.530 and ZoneAlarm Free 4.5.530; all including a HOSTS file lock to eliminates tampering of the Windows HOSTS file. Seems US Congress may by month-end ratify legislation to ban spam by outlawing techniques used by the most prolific spammers with penalties of up to 5 years in prison. The Bush administration supports anti-spam efforts. Of course, they also support freedom in Iraq and Afghanistan. But don't seem to be making too many real inroads on the ground. It's remarkable how a terrorist attack on all you hold dear can refocus loyalties away from bipartisan issues to those that affect a nation! The Apple iTunes format has been partially broken. Although Jon Lech Johansen aka DVD Jon who developed the DeCSS decryption software hasn't decrypted Apple's digital rights management, his QuickTime for Windows AAC, a Windows command line tool installs a DLL that dumps QuickTime streams to a file. This open source software unveils an analog hole as well as the entry and exit wounds! That's enough for this week. Next time then! Click Here to Email Me