I have to give a shout out to this column because it's so darn clear and well written that . . . well, I have to.
This is for you and for my clients that see my blog.
Hate reading manuals? Want some concise hints in plain English with a blunt attitude on how to use some of the more useful but hard to understand features in Microsoft Office? Then you need to check out Crabby Office Lady's help column. (Link pops.)
I have the understanding that she started this without approval from her upper management, (they were out of town that week) but the initial feedback from readers was so overwhelmingly positive that they decided to let her write more . . . and eventually they gave her space on the official Office site.
We so need more open and frank information like this from Microsoft on their other products.
Seriously, go check it out already, what are you still doing here? :)
Friday, August 24, 2007
Tuesday, August 7, 2007
Ethanol is the new "pork"
Ethanol is a false promise.
It's not sustainable in the US, and in fact ethanol likely won't decrease our dependency on foreign oil by any level that's meaningful. It doesn't appear that it will get better either, as recent energy reports from our leaders in the field concerning ethanol are confused, if not outright lies to placate the voting public.
"Interestingly, the RFA's page on industry statistics shows that ethanol production in 2006 was 4.86 billion gallons. This is 116 million barrels. Somehow using 116 million barrels of ethanol, with a per barrel BTU value of just over half that of a barrel of oil, displaced 170 million barrels of oil. To be precise, 116 million barrels of ethanol contain the BTU equivalent of 64 million barrels of oil."
(Links open in new tab or window.)
It's not sustainable in the US, and in fact ethanol likely won't decrease our dependency on foreign oil by any level that's meaningful. It doesn't appear that it will get better either, as recent energy reports from our leaders in the field concerning ethanol are confused, if not outright lies to placate the voting public.
"Interestingly, the RFA's page on industry statistics shows that ethanol production in 2006 was 4.86 billion gallons. This is 116 million barrels. Somehow using 116 million barrels of ethanol, with a per barrel BTU value of just over half that of a barrel of oil, displaced 170 million barrels of oil. To be precise, 116 million barrels of ethanol contain the BTU equivalent of 64 million barrels of oil."
(Links open in new tab or window.)
Saturday, August 4, 2007
Another MP3 eating worm strikes
It's not the first, but it's the latest spreading infection to go after your media files. When it strikes it deletes every MP3 file it can find on your hard and removable drives.
The W32.Deletemusic worm spreads via Autoplay, a function in Windows that starts up a designated program when you insert removable media such as a CDROM or USB drive.
The best prevention is to turn off Autoplay. I've often wished that the Autoplay feature was turned off by default in Windows, it would also be nice if there was an easy way to turn it off somewhere in the user settings . . . but it's a tad more complicated.
Autoplay is not really needed anyway, it's annoying when you insert a CD that you just want to browse, and it's been the vector for virii several times in the past. Just remember that if you turn it off, and you insert a CD from which you want to install something, you will need to browse to that CD and find the Setup program manually instead of waiting for the Autoplay setup to start automatically. I like having to start setup manually better anyway, gives me more control over my system.
To turn Autoplay off, find the heading for your operating system below.
Windows XP Home
1) Create a new TXT file and open it in Notepad.
2) Paste the code below into your new text file.
3) Save the file, close it in Notepad, and rename the file to end in the ".reg" extension.
4) Double click the REG file to import the setting into your registry. Click OK when it asks if this is something you want to do . . .
5) Reboot and done for Windows XP Home.
Windows XP Professional
1) Click Start, Run and enter GPEDIT.MSC
2) Go to Computer Configuration, Administrative Templates, System.
3) Locate the entry for "Turn Off Autoplay" and Enable it for All Drives.
4) Close the Policy Editor and reboot . . . done for Windows XP Professional!
Windows Vista
1) Create a new TXT file and open it in Notepad.
2) Paste the code below into your new text file.
3) Save the file, close it in Notepad, and rename the file to end in the ".reg" extension.
4) Double click the REG file to import the setting into your registry. Click OK when it asks if this is something you want to do . . .
5) Reboot and done for Windows Vista!
The W32.Deletemusic worm spreads via Autoplay, a function in Windows that starts up a designated program when you insert removable media such as a CDROM or USB drive.
The best prevention is to turn off Autoplay. I've often wished that the Autoplay feature was turned off by default in Windows, it would also be nice if there was an easy way to turn it off somewhere in the user settings . . . but it's a tad more complicated.
Autoplay is not really needed anyway, it's annoying when you insert a CD that you just want to browse, and it's been the vector for virii several times in the past. Just remember that if you turn it off, and you insert a CD from which you want to install something, you will need to browse to that CD and find the Setup program manually instead of waiting for the Autoplay setup to start automatically. I like having to start setup manually better anyway, gives me more control over my system.
To turn Autoplay off, find the heading for your operating system below.
Windows XP Home
1) Create a new TXT file and open it in Notepad.
2) Paste the code below into your new text file.
Windows Registry Editor Version 5.00
[HKEY_LOCAL_MACHINE\Software\Microsoft\Windows\CurrentVersion\Policies\Explorer]
"NoDriveTypeAutoRun"=dword:000000B5
3) Save the file, close it in Notepad, and rename the file to end in the ".reg" extension.
4) Double click the REG file to import the setting into your registry. Click OK when it asks if this is something you want to do . . .
5) Reboot and done for Windows XP Home.
Windows XP Professional
1) Click Start, Run and enter GPEDIT.MSC
2) Go to Computer Configuration, Administrative Templates, System.
3) Locate the entry for "Turn Off Autoplay" and Enable it for All Drives.
4) Close the Policy Editor and reboot . . . done for Windows XP Professional!
Windows Vista
1) Create a new TXT file and open it in Notepad.
2) Paste the code below into your new text file.
Windows Registry Editor Version 5.00
[HKEY_LOCAL_MACHINE\Software\Microsoft\Windows\CurrentVersion\Policies\Explorer]
"NoDriveTypeAutoRun"=dword:000000FF
3) Save the file, close it in Notepad, and rename the file to end in the ".reg" extension.
4) Double click the REG file to import the setting into your registry. Click OK when it asks if this is something you want to do . . .
5) Reboot and done for Windows Vista!
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