Monday, July 23, 2007

Tech Pulse 20070718: New "Mac Worm," Connect to Your PC or Mac for Free, Batch Image Resizers, TextWrangler, and more!

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Josh and Big-O discuss the alleged new "Mac worm" and Mac security in general, how to remotely connect to your PC or Mac for free using VNC, batch photo resizing freeware apps for Windows and Mac, TextWrangler, and more!

Notes and links related to this episode:

Opening Thoughts
We have a regular recording schedule for the time being! You can listen LIVE on Wednesdays* at 8 PM Pacific / 11 PM Eastern (except July 25th). Just look for us on talkshoe.com during the hours when we're recording. *UPDATE, 1 August 2007: We've decided to change our regular podcast schedule to Thursday nights instead.

Tech News

  • Alleged Mac worm by Information Security Sell Out
    • allegedly there's an unreleased exploit that has been tested in private—this is the so-called worm
    • so far, this is no more a real threat than "Inqtana," another proof-of-concept "worm" for Mac OS X that was never in the wild
    • there's no real evidence that it even exists; the original source is just a Blogger page that claims there's a new Mac worm
    • even if it exists, it's allegedly based on a previous hole in Bonjour that Apple already patched, so Apple would simply have to release another security patch to fix it
    • even though this thing isn't even in the wild, people are already suggesting ways in which you could prevent this from spreading to your computer
      • If you're really paranoid, turn off AirPort when in public
      • If you're really paranoid but you need to use a shared or public network, go to Apple menu, System Preferences, Sharing (then if desired, take note of your settings under the Services and Firewall tabs so you can restore them later). Uncheck everything under the Services and Firewall tabs, and under the Firewall tab make sure it says "Firewall On"
      • See the comments on Slashdot and Ars Technica for more technical ideas (but try them at your own risk—especially if they involve changing system file ownership or permissions)
  • Sony releases YouTube wannabe called Crackle
Tech Tips
Josh's
  • Connect to your home computer from anywhere in the world for free using VNC
    • Why pay for commercial software when you can do it for free?
    • Software:
      • UltraVNC (server and client apps for Windows)
      • Vine Server (server app for Mac OS X, and a minimal version for Mac OS 9)
    • Choose a custom port (for security through obscurity)
      • Prevents casual would-be hackers from identifying that you have VNC running on your computer
    • Choose a strong password
    • Configure your software, set up port forwarding in your router, open the port in your software firewall
    • Test and troubleshoot while you're at home to make sure it's working properly
Big-O's
  • Getting magnets out of hard drives
Software/Hardware/Site etc. Picks
Josh's
  • Freeware batch image resizer apps - handy if you e-mail a lot of photos
    • Resize! for Mac OS X and Mac OS Classic, by K Studio - very simple interface, works great for basic batch resizing needs
      • works on Windows, too, but...
    • BIMP Lite for Windows, by Cerebral Synergy - totally awesome, TONS of features
      • batch convert between image formats (BMP, PNG, JPG, GIF, TIFF, etc.)
      • batch resize, rotate, rename, output to FTP, and lots more
  • Big-O's related pick: Paint .NET for Windows
    • great replacement for Microsoft's Paint app
    • free as in money and source code
Big-O's
  • TextWrangler from Bare Bones Software
    • freeware text editor for Mac OS X with lots of nice features
    • advanced search and replace features
    • great for HTML, XML, Perl, etc. coders because it automatically color-codes for many programming languages
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Saturday, July 21, 2007

Tech Pulse 20070711: iPhone Nano Rumors, E3, OpenOffice.org, Quicksilver and Launchy, GeekHosting.com, and more!

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Josh, Anthony, and Big-O discuss rumors about an iPhone Nano and share some E3 highlights, tech tips, and picks including OpenOffice.org and NeoOffice, Growl, Quicksilver and Launchy, and GeekHosting.com.

Notes and links related to this episode:

Tech News
Discuss some interesting recent news in the tech industry

  • iPhone Nano rumors are discussed - when might one be released? Around the end of the year, perhaps around the holiday season?
  • Highlights from the E3 electronic entertainment expo
    • Nintendo is bringing back the light gun: the Wii Zapper
Tech Tips
Anthony's
  • In Mac OS X, you can Force Quit an application from the Dock using the contextual menu
    • Right-click (or Control-click) on the application in the Dock and hold the Option key, and Quit will change into Force Quit
    • Josh and Big-O discuss ways to force an application to quit via the Terminal
      • Use the command top to find out the process ID number of the crashing application, then use kill -9 processid
      • Alternatively, killall applicationname (case sensitive, e.g. "Finder", not "finder")
Orien's
  • iPod setup and maintenance
    • Enabling disk mode for PC and Mac
      • Format it on a Windows PC, then you can use it on both
    • Improving performance
      • You can defrag the iPod hard drive (not recommended by Apple)
      • Alternatively, you can reformat and reload all songs
Software/Hardware/Site etc. Picks
Josh's
  • OpenOffice.org (Windows/Linux) / NeoOffice (Mac)
    • free and open source Microsoft Office replacements/supplements
    • support opening Microsoft Office, Microsoft Works, WordPerfect, and several other document formats
    • NeoOffice can open and save documents in the new Microsoft Office 2007 file formats (e.g. ".docx")
    • The OpenOffice.org team is working on their own official port for Mac OS X
    • Big-O warns that NeoOffice is slow on all but the newest hardware
Anthony's
  • Growl system alerts utility for Mac OS X
    • adds visual effects to system alerts, application notifications, etc. on your Mac

  • Quicksilver application launcher for Mac OS X
    • quick application launcher - faster than Spotlight on Tiger
  • Launchy for Windows mentioned by Josh
    • alt+spacebar brings it up, very much like Command+spacebar to bring up Spotlight on the Mac
Orien's
  • GeekHosting.com
    • Host your own Web site through this service, which has lots of great features at a reasonable price
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Friday, July 6, 2007

Tech Pulse 20070703: iPhone Hands-on Review!

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Anthony King (MacMod.com) and special guests Quinn McHenry (Tech-Recipes.com) and Jeff Phillips (MacTechEdu.com) share their personal experiences with the iPhone, tips about instant messaging and secret button combos, and more! Also discussed are the iPhone's unique headphone jack, the final word on Opera Mini 4 Beta vs. Safari on the iPhone... and why Josh is ticked at MySpace.

Notes and links related to this episode:

Tech News

Thursday, July 5, 2007

Tech Pulse 20070627: Opera Mini 4 Beta vs. iPhone, Anti-Virus and Anti-Spyware Tips

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Opera Mini 4 Beta launches a preemptive strike against the iPhone, but can it possibly hold a candle to the iPhone's Safari browser? Josh and Kyle also discuss anti-virus and anti-spyware solutions for Windows.

Notes and links related to this episode:

Tech News
  • Opera Mini 4 beta tries to take on the iPhone—and fails, based on Josh's testing compared with the iPhone demo videos
    • it's fairly glitchy on Josh's Treo 680, but it is still a beta
Tech Tips
Kyle's
  • Scan with Trend Micro HouseCall before installing anything
    • You can also scan with Panda ActiveScan (removes viruses, but only tells you where spyware is so you can manually remove it) and/or X-Cleaner Micro Edition (the latter is very fast and only removes spyware)
  • Kyle suggests that NOD32 is the best anti-virus available ($30, but he feels like he's donating rather than buying)
    • NOD32 is the best at detecting unknown threats with the least false positives, according to http://www.av-comparatives.org/ (as an aside, the worst overall according to the site is Microsoft OneCare)
    • AVG Free (free for personal home use) is Josh's recommendation
    • ClamWin (free and open-source)
      • Lacks on-access scanning
      • Low footprint, good for people who only need an occasional scan
  • Products to Avoid
    • McAfee products
      • except VirusScan Enterprise, which is actually pretty decent in Josh's experience, but definitely stay away from the consumer/home version as it's notorious for slowing down PCs
    • Norton anti-virus products
      • same thing for Norton as McAfee: enterprise version may be good, but avoid the home edition
  • Kyle mentioned that he reformats and reinstalls Windows ever couple months, and that slipstreaming comes in handy. You can learn more about slipstreaming at these sites:
  • Kyle also mentioned the Apple commercial "Security," in which the PC is bothered incessantly by Vista's built-in security notifications. You can watch it online here.
Josh's
  • How to avoid spyware infections on your Windows PC
    • Immunize your PC with SpywareBlaster and Spybot-Search & Destroy (both are freeware)
    • Josh explains how to set up Spybot to automatically download updates and re-immunize whenever you manually open Spybot
    • Josh recommends using a browser other than Internet Explorer (e.g. Firefox) and setting it as the default
    • Kyle suggests that on-demand scanners may not be enough for everyone, and he recommends using real-time scanners such as AVG Anti-Spyware Pro or Microsoft's free Windows Defender
    • Kyle also suggests trying Arovax AntiSpyware
  • Josh also mentions that new releases of Safari 3 Beta apparently need to be downloaded manually—don't expect the beta version to auto-update!