Scobie.Net

“Opening and saving these file types may pose a risk to you.” What else is new from Microsoft ?

bill — Sun, 06 Jan 2008 15:40:09 +0000

Information about certain file types that are blocked after you install Office 2003 Service Pack 3

OK, Microsoft is making Vista safer, making IE safer, tightening up a variety of things (usually by disabling features or prompting you to click through a nag) and yet they find it good to make sure that Office 2003 service pack three disables certain file types (they seem to all be from the competition, btw, or things they would like to kill off) with the excuse that “the parsing code that Office 2003 uses to open and save the file types is less secure.”

So, what would be wrong in fixing that code? Oh, I don’t know, maybe then people would still be able to open older word files from the early 1990s.

And, for the geekery people, yes you can change this behavior in the registry.

Did I just loose my desktop?

bill — Sun, 06 Jan 2008 15:30:19 +0000

Intuit Alienates Mac Users With QuickBooks Fiasco

I understand that companies lost data, at an important time of the year. And, I saw Intuit, after their first few days of not turning off the update server on their end, implement pretty good customer support. But, there really wasn’t anything they could do to recover data. We lost and I still need to use them. Long live backups.

Dell warns of Vista upgrade challenges - ZDNet UK

bill — Fri, 06 Jul 2007 03:04:51 +0000

Dell warns of Vista upgrade challenges - ZDNet UK

It’s not that you shouldn’t upgrade, just that you had better really plan it and layout the money. I am still looking for a good cost/benefit for smaller businesses that really don’t have much more than even one PDC.

20+ Windows Vista Features and Services Harvest User Data for Microsoft

bill — Mon, 02 Jul 2007 16:01:31 +0000

Isn’t it wonderful that so many things can spy on you. And, we all “have” to believe that moving to Vista is better for us, keeping us safer from those malicious and malevolent malware programs. Does this remind anyone of the same logic being used by certain federales to convince us that gathering more information about everything we do is better for us. And, here I thought that the credit cards companies, banks, and insurance companies already had everything about me that anyone would want?

Keeping up with the Jones “The enemy adapts: the state of spam, malware, and phishing scams”

bill — Wed, 27 Jun 2007 11:28:46 +0000

Just as we are supposed to keep our consumer society healthy and flourishing it seems that computer bad stuff is making plenty of money, for someone. And, thinking that a Mac will keep you safe is only going to cover part of staying safe on the Internet, it seems that phishing schemes, those things that look like you have to reconfirm some financial information, are really taking off. And, how do they make money? Well, the costs are so low that if only 1 in 10,000 were to fall for it, that would be enough.

FBI Issues New Rules For Getting Phone Records

bill — Tue, 20 Mar 2007 22:53:49 +0000

And, I thought our FBI played by the rules. But, it seems that they have, and can, just call the phone company and get the records that they want. Sure, they have a letter “template” to follow, paragraph 2 in http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/content/article/2007/
03/19/AR2007031901775.html

Yet, the Justice Dept has a different take on what it happening behind the scenes. Justice Dept. Says FBI’s Failures are ‘Breach of Trust’

All Microsoft updates phone home

bill — Sat, 10 Mar 2007 03:27:06 +0000

I have gotten out of the habit of reading those wonderful privacy statements from software vendors, jaded and cynical from their weaseling out of notifying me of changed by placing the burden upon me to view their changes. And, just by agreeing once, I have agreed to any further changes, even if I don’t know about them, read them, or am notified by the company.

So, no we find out that all of those updates that Microsoft asks, nay even demands that we install, are passing information back to Microsoft. See WGA Notifications and download and install telemetry

AirPort Disk, finally a way to get your files from anywhere

bill — Tue, 06 Mar 2007 02:07:08 +0000

I have wonder, as others have, about how to get to an AirPort Disk from outside my LAN. And, finally some screen shots and enough english to give me hope.

Thanks to Ars Technica, AirPort Extreme 802.11n Wi-Fi Wireless Base Station, AirPort Disk I now know more than I did.

Office 2007 rant

bill — Tue, 06 Mar 2007 01:36:37 +0000

Why I thought Microsoft would do something that I could understand with Office 2007, I don’t know. But, here I am, stuck with someone (a so-called early adopter) who sent me a .docx file and I am on a Mac.

So, I can fire up a PC and use some remote desktop software (Remote Desktop Connection, if I am trying to stay in the Windows world :-]) or I can have fun with opening what really is a zip file of xml content. Shades of what we do in the Mac world with how programs are actually packages or folders of other items.

Or, I can just unzip that file and find the word folder and then the document.xml and drag that onto a web browser like Safari.

But, I can not rely on microsoft.com/mac to provide me with a converter, unlike the converter Microsoft Office Compatibility Pack for Word, Excel, and PowerPoint 2007 File Formats

In the beginning …

bill — Tue, 06 Mar 2007 00:06:45 +0000

… there was a web site, languishing in the wilds of the world wide web. Not really doing anything for anybody, and definately not helping the people who wanted help.

So, how to help them. And, the answer came, use a blog and see if at least one bit of news or helpful hint could be posted each day.

And, at the same time, teach scobie.net more about blogging.

The first challenge was to take the existing site and make it a blog. Luckily things were simple and white, so the Sandbox theme seemed a simple solution. Just a few minutes of making some p ages and most of the old information was now part of the blog.

So, the promise, one (or more) items a day, pulled from readings or thinkings.

Later.