Microsoft Code Leaked Online
Although not complete, a large chunk of the programming code that goes behind Windows 2000 has made its way onto the Internet at large. Microsoft has so far kept the code under lock and key because of the possible harm that can be done if fallen into the wrong hands. This leak could mean a host of new viruses coming our way, although Microsoft seems somewhat confident that they have patched everything that could be abused by someone who has seen this code. But then they seem to still be releasing patches.

A Review of the Windows Source Code

New Patches Released 1 2

Anonymous Amazon.com Reviewers Anonymous No More
If you've ever written a quick review for a product on Amazon.com's site, you probably did so under the assumption that your handiwork would be nameless, thus giving free range to voice some criticism. That anonymity was briefly removed on Amazon's Canadian site for about a week because of a glitch in their system. The glitch exposed all of the nameless reviewers to the world, some of whom were authors giving themselves glowing reviews.

New Mozilla Firefox Browser Offers What IE Doesn't
The recent problems with Internet Explorer allowing sites to easily fake the originating address for use in scams turned plenty of people off of the popular browser. Now that alternative browsers, like Opera and Mozilla, have been able to develop more stable versions, the results have improved greatly. The new Mozilla Firefox runs faster than IE, but also offers things like tabbed browsing, integrating search engine with the browser, and easier form filling. Unless a newer version of IE comes out soon, Firefox may become the browser of choice for most people.

The Trials and Tribulations of Getting a Credit Report
If you were to believe some of the spam ads, getting a credit report is as easy as typing your social security number. Well it's a bit more than that. If you don't have accurate information for the last few places you've lived and worked, you'll probably run into the same troubles this fellow did.

Microsoft Offers "Caller-ID" System for Spam
The large problem with spam blocking is the ease with which the senders can hide who they are. Otherwise one could just compile an ever-growing list of junk mail senders to block. The new system offered by Mr. Gates would require mail servers to constantly publish their IP address so that a recipient can check to see that it exists. This would be similar to somebody sending you a regular letter with his or her phone number on the envelope. You could just pick up the phone and call to confirm that the person that sent you the letter is on the other end of the line. Seems plausible, but there may be holes in it.

How to Fix the "Cryptographic Service Error"
It's a strange error that can sometimes pop up when trying to install Windows XP Service Pack 1. It can happen because of some of the things you're installing need these cryptographic services and they're not there or missing. There are a few variations on this but this article covers them all.

How to Turn Off Sending HTML Email
Although most major browsers are set up to read email that come in HTML format (with internet links and images...etc.), some don't and some people just turn it off to avoid having to see the images associated with junk mail. So when you send a legitimate email in HTML format to somebody without HTML rendering, the email will not look right. There will be HTML tags floating around and text may get wrapped in strange places, making it all hard to read. So you may want to turn off sending HTML email, which this article will walk you through.

Protect Yourself Against Identity Theft!

It is more important than ever to keep your computer free from pests, Adware, Trojans, and hacker to ols. Why? Because these pests are becoming increasing more sophisticated and dangerous and often stay under the radar of the average computer user. SurfSecret PestPatrol is designed to clean your system, protect your privacy, and make sure key loggers, Trojans, an d denial of service attacks don't leave you vulnerable. SurfSecret PestPatrol complements your existing antivirus software - and pre vents attacks that pass by conventional AV solutions.

Use SurfSecret PestPatrol to Clean Your system of spyware and Adware! - Download your free 30 day t rial now! For a limited time, we have discounted PestPatrol to $37.99 -
it will go back to its regular price of $49.99 soon. Act now!


Download a Free Trial of PestPatrol!

Choosing a Content Management System
If you're thinking about setting up a weblog or just a large scale website for another reason, you'll probably want to use a Content Management System to organize everything. Sure, it's possible to just manually edit web pages by hand and FTP them, but once you get over a certain number of pages things can get complicated. Plus, Content Management Systems (CMS) can do lots of other things, like changing layouts and creating different authors that would otherwise be much harder.

A CMS is usually an interface (sometimes on the web, sometimes an application on your computer) that will take in unformatted content and spit out web pages. There are a number of ways this can be done. Most of them have a special template that takes in the content, say a weblog entry, and publishes multiple HTML pages based on the template. Other custom setups will have templates in a special coding language like Perl, PHP, or ASP that will combine the content and the template when a user requests it from a server. Most of the free CMS that are available will be of the former type.

There are plenty of varieties of CMS available, but only a few have all of the standard features and are easy to use. The biggest one of course is Blogger. Blogger is incredibly easy to set up on a basic level. You just go to their site and sign up for an account. That's just for basic Blogger though; you won't get all of the features of Blogger Pro unless you pay. Still, the interface is very easy to understand, almost like a children's telephone; large buttons with large, legible instructions.

One setback of the Blogger system is that the software stays on their server. So if you wanted to do your own customizing, like adding different categories for certain pages or anything else, you're out of luck. Also, because it's on it's own server, you wouldn't be able to publish it somewhere Blogger couldn't reach. That means, if you just were keeping the site on your local computer, Blogger couldn't reach into your own computer to write files and thus wouldn't work. If all you need is a simple weblog, Blogger is the way to go. Especially since Blogger will host small weblog sites for free.

AOL Journals is considerably similar to Blogger, although only for AOL users and with limited functionality. The real feature here is that everything is already set up if you have an AOL account. For a quick journal this is fine. Anything beyond that and you'll need something else.

Movable Type (MT) is probably the next most popular because of its ability to customize, cheap price, and large number of features. A large number of people may be turned off by the technical knowledge required to set it up. This can be a bit daunting since it involves things like setting permissions and editing a configuration file. But if you willing to put in the effort and want to do different things with your site in the future such as have multiple users, weblog comments, or create different categories, the MT is the preferred choice. MT does require that you have your own space to host the site.

The makers of Movable Type also offer TypePad, which is similar in a lot of ways, but offers more tools, particularly for publishing photo albums and weblogging by phone, and it costs a monthly fee. They host the web interface on their servers, which is a bit better to use than Movable Type.

Grey Matter is another one, similar to Movable Type. It's free to use, but requires some technical knowledge to set things up on a server. Movable Type is the more popular and has more support, although they're both quite similar.

All of these program so far have been web interfaces, which is fine, but there's nothing you can do to the site when your offline. In that case an application-based CMS like City Desk comes in handy. Without an internet connection, or if you just have a slow one you'd like to avoid using, you can organize all of your entries, edit them, edit the templates they're in, and then, when you're ready and have a connection, just upload them. It's not very customizable since you can't change the application, but it's a nice simple tool that can easily work for basic sites.

Blogger
Movable Type

Getting Rid of Leftover Files from User Profiles
Every time a new user is created, new files associated with that user. When the user is deleted, not all of those files are. If you need to save disk space, here's how to get rid of them. Right click My Computer and go to Properties. Click the Advanced tab, and under User Profiles click the Settings button. Find the deleted user in the list of profiles, select that profile and hit Delete.

Protect Yourself Against Identity Theft!

It is more important than ever to keep your computer free from pests, Adware, Trojans, and hacker to ols. Why? Because these pests are becoming increasing more sophisticated and dangerous and often stay under the radar of the average computer user. SurfSecret PestPatrol is designed to clean your system, protect your privacy, and make sure key loggers, Trojans, an d denial of service attacks don't leave you vulnerable. SurfSecret PestPatrol complements your existing antivirus software - and pre vents attacks that pass by conventional AV solutions.

Use SurfSecret PestPatrol to Clean Your system of spyware and Adware! - Download your free 30 day t rial now! For a limited time, we have discounted PestPatrol to $37.99 -
it will go back to its regular price of $49.99 soon. Act now!


Download a Free Trial of PestPatrol!

If you have any questions, comments, or suggestions regarding this newsletter, email suzanne@surfsecret.com.