The magazine of the Melbourne PC User Group Editorial Ash Nallawalla ash@melbpc.org.au |
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This has been a good month. There was only one complaint about our move to Chadstone, which I handballed to the Secretary. The bonus for us Werribeeites is that the Wyndham SIG will have had its second meeting by the time you get this and will meet every 2nd Monday of the month except January.
Unslashdotted!
If you are a Melb PC Internet service subscriber, think twice before you use any software such as HTTrack to copy an entire Web site to your hard drive. One of our valuable members did this to the popular slashdot.org site, which amounted to 18,000 hits to their server within seconds, so they have just banned our proxy server's IP address. Now other 6000+ valuable members cannot access slashdot.org either.
What can you do if they (or any other site) don't unblock us? Use an anonymous proxy server or do what I do - I have web sites hosted elsewhere and I can run CGI scripts, so I use CGIProxy (free program) to surf with a US-based IP address. My sites also have an entry in the Apache configuration to block resource-hungry scripts such as HTTrack. Trouble is that you can change the referral string to anything you wish, which is why slashdot simply bans the IP address.
Just as we go to press, the ban appears to have been lifted by Slashdot, which has been appreciated by our subscribers. For anyone who is wondering what this fuss is about, www.slashdot.org is required reading for computer geeks. When too many geeks try to read it at once, it is impossible to access, which has led to the expression "to be slashdotted".
Windows XP SP2
While the consensus is that Windows XP Service Pack 2 is a good thing for most people, some people might have an incompatibility problem with some applications or hardware. That means you should read up on the incompatibilities and what others are saying. It is quite possible that the application or hardware manufacturer has posted an update on their own Web site and you need to download it.
The current issue of Brian Livingston's Windows Secrets Newsletter can be found at http://windowssecrets.com/040909 and offers some of these comments, which largely apply to some PCs in corporations, not home PCs:
- Out of 44,000 PCs at 340 companies, 10.3 percent had minor problems.
- The SANS Institute reports that 28 percent of 1500 reports mentioned "big
problems" of which 8 percent were "solvable".
- The pop-up blocker interferes with Windows Update.
- Command-line programs run without warning.
- IIS is installed on some PCs unknowingly.
- Only 15 to 17 million (out of 300 million users of Windows XP) have upgraded.
- The benefits of SP outweigh the risk of incompatibility.
- For most people, uninstalling SP2 is easy.
All the hype about Skype is true. Skype is a free Internet phone software that enables you to talk to other Skype users free of charge, or you can open an account and dial a land line number. It uses your high-speed Internet connection to carry voice, hence Voice Over Internet Protocol (VoIP). Now that there are a few VoIP products out there, each is hoping to become the winner and many are offering free connections within the same product user base.
Skype's interface resembles that of Instant Messaging programs and also has a chat window for times when you want to type instead of talking. It also supports conference calls. Its voice quality is very good but if you have an older PC like mine, it won't leave much memory for other resources while you are talking. Try it at http://www.skype.com.
As a general comment to letter writers, please use e-mail or send a floppy if you want your letter published. I will not OCR or key in a letter sent on good old paper.
Reprinted from the October 2004 issue of PC Update, the magazine of Melbourne PC User Group, Australia
