Internet Software Tips

To err is human, but to really fuck-up you need a computer.
- Ancient Proverb

Norton Personal Firewall.

If you only have one computer on your network, you need not read this. If you have a home network, this might help. If you have Norton Personal Firewall installed on a computer it will no longer have the ability to communicate with any other computers on your home network. I can see no way to configure this. Uninstall it, but make sure you have anti-virus, anti-spyware and some software or hardware firewall, even windows firewall that comes with XP. Norton Personal Firewall may have come pre-installed with your computer so don’t shake your head trying to figure out how you installed it.

Firefox:

Firefox is, for utilitarian purposes, the best and safest browser. It had a severe memory leak but I installed an automated upgrade today (I am now at version 2.0.0.1) and it seems to be much better. There are many websites that require Internet Explorer (from now on to be called IE ) for security reasons or simply because of bad HTML, but most systems should allow you to install both browsers and you can experiment with each.

IE 7- Upgrade?

Be very wary of upgrading even though Microsoft is pushing this. The security updates are a huge plus in this version. But, like Firefox, many websites need Internet Explorer 6 or 5.5 and cannot function in 7. I don’t run any machine older than a P3 Celeron 1GB, and I do not run any OS older than XP so I don’t know the cojones that are required to run it. Many people require the use of a browser at work to access websites (such as government ones) and at home for important things like banking – you might be unable to use these websites (as I found out myself this week) with a browser other than IE 5.5 or 6. This is what is known as “industry standard”…or a monopoly.

Windows Media Player 11: Upgrade ?

It did not work out for me. I cannot get my iRiver MP3 player to talk to my thinkpad nor my workstation now - yes I did attempt to upgrade the firmware, it did not work, so now I have to use my video-streaming server to load and manage my MP3 player! That's like asking Shakespeare to write you a shopping list.

I think the rule of thumb is that maybe you should only upgrade things if it looks like you have to. "if'n it ain't broke, don't fix it!".

TWF