To the group I'd be working with today:
It would appear that my car's power steering decided to give out on my car, followed by a large clunking noise. So unfortunately, I can't make it to class.
But, I fixed my Jweb email so I can respond to that, or AIM/YIM at ShadowDRat. Since the topic was video games, and I have a nice shiny new copy of DDR Extreme that I bought yesterday so I can do a review on that, or a review on Silent Hill 4 if no one else has played that. If you want a roleplaying story, I can give you an funny article I wrote for criticalmiss.com about "winning" a game of D&D, or I can just list an article of good GM and/or PC tips.
Yesterday's presentations left me kind of hanging. Samantha didn't even list any way to help cure viruses and spyware. Then again, I already went over that in my presentation and linked to Ad-Aware, Spybot, and Zonealarm as well as pimping out Firefox.
The phrase, "I don't use a firewall since it didn't let me do a lot of things," confused me. Zonealarm just lets you know when something wants to use the internet, and you choose to give it access, and it's free. Most firewalls do the same. I'd recommend people spend the $30 on Norton Antivirus and just download the rest. If you update your spyware/virus definitions once a week and scan every few days, then all should be fine.
When it comes to file-sharing, I have little remorse for the people crying of lost profits, since my personal values make me buy an artist's album if it's good. Any artist that's stood on the podium to say that file-sharing is bad just sucks, and makes bad music, and deserved to lose out on money. That's how the economy works, people don't pay for bad products.
And the RIAA, whose website gets hacked and destroyed at least once a month, have a lot of crap stuff in the contracts that go between artists and the corporations, including a loss of royalties sometimes. So bands can't even get money to begin with sometimes. I notice now, however, a lot of new releases are being sold for $10-13 instead of $18-20. So there is a movement from companies to encourage peopel to buy CDs, and the consumers are getting the best deal overall.
And movies go without saying. No movie has been hurt from anything apart from being bad (Catwoman) or getting bad/little publicity (Donnie Darko). I can't find the link offhand, but I recall the MPAA blaming people with cel phones for spoiling and causing bad movie sales since they could text message during the film. When it comes to blaming file-sharing, the MPAA comes up with the best and lamest excuses.
So this is my about page. I've been using the internet for awhile, and in the last year I've spent most of my time surfing several forums, up to twenty at one point, but I'm stuck with PvP and SA for now. I also hang around Livejournal more often than I should.
I'll edit and update this later, preferably with a small movie made in Flash.
Chesterton, a former logging and mining town, is making a comeback as a tourist center. The Chesterton Logging Company built the town in 1891 and reached over 3000 people, and hit 4000 from demand for WWI planes. Afterwards, a zinc mine started at the base of Mount Freeman, replacing the logging industry. The Great Depression, however, caused the loss of the mine and the town to only 300 inhabitants. After WWII, the founding of Chesterton Regional Park created a tourist attraction. In the last 20 years skiing, hiking, and camping flourished. Chesterton is at 1200 residents, and is a major recreation destination.
In 1995 with the release of Windows 95, Microsoft brought along the first version of Internet Explorer, and went through three versions before Windows 98 came into being. IE is integrated into the operating system, which means that it comes not only packaged with Windows, but is also an important part in other major functions of the OS, such as browsing the hard drive, and non-browsing uses such as FTPing to remote sites (uploading files to a remote location online).
Netscape had a head start on Internet Explorer, coming out in 1994. When Windows 95 came out, Microsoft decided to give Netscape a run for its money, primarily by being free of charge as opposed to Netscape's fee. In addition, IE didn't have all the features that Netscape could offer in a web browser.
After several years, Microsoft caught up, and surpassed Netscape. Even after Netscape became free, there were too many addons, plugins, and extra features which slowed the browser down by a great deal, enough that users stuck with IE for its simplicity, speed, and ease of use. Microsoft paid for the usage rights to the Mosaic code that Netscape was founded on, thus having the same level of compatibility, and giving a fair shot at being a superior browser.
Currently what's left of Netscape's technology is going into Mozilla Firefox, which will be explained below. AOL taking over Netscape in 1999 sent the Mozilla team to work on a superior browser.
Since the fall of NetscapeIE has been the most popular browser for the last few years. It's compliant with almost any webpage, but this comes at a price. Many of the neat features that IE can use, like ActiveX, can also be exploited to break into and destroy computers. Even such things as images can cause problems from embedding malicious software (malware) into that image.
Windows XP recently got a big service pack update in the last month. In which it took no time at all for someone to discover another way to bypass the OS and harm the computer.
How to Fix IE's Problems
There's several ways that you can combat IE's flaws and protect your computer. First is to rid your hard drive of spyware, or ad-driven software that harms and once on your system, can allow other programs to enter and force pop up ads to come from nowhere, and even allow viruses to freely sneak in. Some popular programs, such as Bonzi Buddy and Gator, are the momst known. There are literally thousands of different kinds of spyware that can arise even from just connecting to the internet.
You can install and run both Ad-Aware and Spybot: Search and Destroy,making sure to update the definition files every two weeks.
A second way to help is with a firewall. ZoneAlarm is the easiest to use.
Lastly, a virus scanner is vital. Here's a link to a free online scanner.
Mozilla Firefox is pretty much the savior for the Internet. Hackers prey on the fact that Internet Explorer is the most used browser out there. But even so, Microsoft makes little effort to fix these problems. The team working on Firefox has only ran across two exploits, and they were patched and fixed within hours of thier discovery. IE's exploits still await fixing.
Firefox has swept the internet by not just being safe to browse with, but having dozens of features to customize it to your specifications. Even Microsoft employees have been switching to Firefox.
From custom mouse gestures to tabbed browsing, a built-in Google toolbar with popup blocking, and literally hundreds of skins to give a custom look and feel to your browsing experience. It's compliant with many websites, and stops any spyware and malware from entering your computer. This doesn't count user error, however, as downloading or giving a site access that you're unsure of isn't Mozilla's fault.
Posting to work on a few templates and get this party started.