View 396 January 9 - 15, 2006 (original) (raw)
Monday January 9, 2005
I am home from Las Vegas and the Consumer Electronics Show. The first CES Reports, and the first installment of my annual Orchids and Onions column for 2005 (meaning part one of the January 2006 column) are up at www.byte.com. It will take me a while to catch up from a week in Las Vegas, but I'll get there.
CES is best characterized as information overload: it is row after row of yet another this or that, and you have to keep reminding yourself that these are yet another miracle, something we all hoped for a few years ago: now these marvels are here, competing on price and color.
The best gadget of the show hands down was the Celestron Star Scout, which is a GPS and gravity sensor box about the size of a JVC Camcorder: point it at a star, and it tells you what star you are looking at. Alternatively, tell it what star you want to see and it will guide you to it. Amazing. Also I have the new Kodak EasyShare V570 dual lens shirt pocket camera that takes 5 megapixel photographs from wide angle to telephoto, and will stitch wide angle shots into a panorama. I think I am in love.
There are dozens of show reports from different magazines and services, and the press were out in full force. My reports are similar to my columns, mostly my impressions of what was going on -- I am told this style is called "informed opinion" in journalism schools but since I never went to j-school I don't know -- there will be four of them, with pictures, over at http://www.byte.com/ where you will also find my columns. One of my "informed opinions" is that a subscription to the on-line BYTE, which includes access to Dr. Dobbs and a whole bunch of other CMP publications, is about the best deal on the Internet. And don't worry, I won't be doing pitches for BYTE subscriptions very often. This week's column is the first installment of my annual Orchids and Onions parade with User's Choice Awards, and if you were thinking of subscribing to BYTE anyway, this would be a good week to get around to it.
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Today's BYTE column at www.byte.com contains a favorable reference to an anti-virus program called Avast! which is available for free download and use. I was using it when I wrote that part of the column and I rather liked it. I have since found problems: it's rather annoying and when I finds a virus in a mail attachment you can't just tell it to ignore it on the theory that you will delete the whole thing; it stops Outlook from downloading until you do something; and for some reason Outlook kept closing down and had to be restarted.
The second problem may be due to improper settings, since I was (as I usually do when I begin evaluations) simply using Avast! in its default settings. I can't prove that the third problem, Outlook closing down, was due to Avast!, but last night Outlook closed over a dozen times; this morning I uninstalled Avast!; and I have had no problems with Outlook since, so the diagnosis seems positive. Of course I'm now operating with no anti-virus at all (having become disgusted with Symantec's Norton) but that will change shortly.
There is a WMF vulnerability fix out from Microsoft; it seems to have come with the weekend Microsoft Update package. As always, if you're running Windows I strongly recommend that you check for updates and install them. I use Automatic Update and that works. I am fearful of someone hijacking Windows Update, but friends inside the Microsoft programming community tell me they worry about that more than I do, and it would take a conspiracy of several people inside Microsoft working with outside bad guys to do it. I sure hope that's right.
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The Founders' Constitution
Jerry
Below is a link from the University of Chicago which opens into the complete text of the five-volume reference, "The Founders' Constitution," edited by Philip B. Kurland and Ralph Lerner. It's 475forthehardboundset,475 for the hardbound set, 475forthehardboundset,60 for a reduced-format and $45 for a CD-ROM version.
I have the first volume in a trade paperback 8.5x11-inch format, apparently no longer published. It's a mere 713 pages of print that is smaller that that in paperback novels, but very clear.
What's it all about? Only all the essential references to the sources from which the Constitution sprang. Not only do we have all the various philosophers, but court cases, laws, bills of rights and legislative debate (the debate on the Second Amendment in the House of Representatives is highly illuminating, for example).
It is the most important sourcebook for studying our Constitution. And all of this hugely expensive work is available free online:
http://press-pubs.uchicago.edu/founders/
I am extremely grateful to the University of Chicago. The link is now in my Bookmarks. Don't miss it.
Ed
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You may or may not find this amusing:
http://www.ifilm.com/ifilmdetail/2667497?htv=12
You may also hate it.
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Jerry
A quick look throught the Avast! support site finds
http://www.avast.com/eng/faq-email-problems.html#idt_6940
This suggests that YES there is an issue with Outlook and the MSN Toolbar.
Peter
I suspected as much. I have had no problems since uninstalling Avast!
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