This post is way, way overdue. I hope you have seen Mythbusters on the Discovery Channel. It is one of my favorite shows. Me and Laura have watched countless episodes. Why weren’t there shows like this when I was in school? If so, I would have been more interested in science and engineering. This show is awesome. I love everyone on it, their ideas, and experiments. If you live under a rock and haven’t this show, check it out.

I have toyed a lot with my wireless LAN security settings and thought I’d throw my two cents into the ring about this topic. I am not as paranoid some other computer users, so bare that in mind. To me, the best overall Internet experience is done through a traditional CAT5 wire. I insist that my desktop PC be wired, but that is also to ensure a fast connection while file sharing across the network with my laptop. Wireless LAN is fast, but it is slowed down if the source and destination computers are both using wireless signals. Also, it is worth mentioning that if you have a wireless-G router and wireless-G card, then turn off the mixed signal mode (B+G), which is probably your router’s default. This will speed things up. I am using a Linksys WRT54G router, by the way.

When it comes to the security, you should certainly not run your network with security disabled. I once thought I’d maximize my throughput by turning off all security, not broadcasting my network ID, and turning on MAC address filtering. This probably isn’t a good idea. If someone wanted in, it would have been easy.

I have tried it all. I used WPA for a while, only later to realize how much it had slowed me down. Pages would fairly quickly fill up with photos and text. It wasn’t that bad. But instead, with WEP security enabled, pages popped up on my screen like changing channels on the TV. I know that WEP can be cracked in 15 minutes from what I have read, but in my opinion, this is the best of both worlds. I want speed! Today, I use WEP with a 64-bit key. I know that some security hounds are reeling. But this is what is best for my needs. It is probably a good idea to change your WEP security key once in a while. I tend to change mine every month or two.

I wonder who really cares about my network, anyway. At my house (where they are not that close together), I can see up to six wireless networks, half without any security enabled. Personally, I have no idea how to spoof a MAC address, find hidden networks, see another person’s data, or hack their security. Nor do I care. I have no need for that ridiculousness. I have my own high speed connection, thank you. Besides even if I was leeching, there are numerous open networks available practically everywhere. Who then cares about mine? Nobody. Why would someone go to so much trouble. If you use wireless networking at a business, that is a different story, and security is paramount. But for normal personal use, it is just fine. Perhaps I am a little paranoid because I do all of my online banking via my wired desktop, and never over the wireless connection.

I have some complaints about spell checking. I used to have no spell checking at all for my WordPress blog postings. Of course, I could have set up an email account to post through and check the text with my email program, but I didn’t do all that. Anyway, finally Firefox 2.0 came to the rescue and offered automatic spell checking for text entered on websites. I am so glad that this finally happened. Before, there was no Windows version of an extension for Firefox to handle this that I could find. The new built-in spell checker is great, don’t get me wrong, but sometimes if I have no idea how to spell a word and don’t care to try, I just type in something roundabout and have it correct me. The problem is that while Firefox is great at catching the misspelled words, it doesn’t do a good job of suggesting alternatives. This is very frustrating at times. I guess I am to accustom to Microsoft Word and it’s spell checking system, as it can always make out my garbage and figure it out. I have tried simply writing my posts in Word and then pasting the final versions into WordPress, but the formatting is always spaced crazy afterward and I have to manually fix it.

New to the scene, WordPress 2.1 has its own built-in checker. For some reason, the spell checking part isn’t working for me. Today, I upgraded to the newest release, version 2.1.1. Still no luck. This isn’t necessarily the program’s fault, as I have been researching how it works. It has to do with where it looks for a dictionary file, it seems. But that aside, it never is able to find anything wrong with my spellings, no matter that I type. And unfortunately, Firefox’s checker doesn’t work in this graphical text posting window that WordPress now has (and I am using now). I have to switch to the code view to have Firefox find misspellings and then switch back. How annoying. In 2007, you wouldn’t expect simple spell checking to be so difficult.

On a lighter note, I’m pleased to see that most email programs today offer spell check as you type, including Thunderbird. If you use the full Outlook, as I do, it only works on plain text. It works for formatted text as you type only if you choose Word as your default message composer. If you take this route and have an older computer, it may speed things up a bit if you change your options in Word to not check grammar as you type, but check only the spelling. Despite the processor and memory usage, and my feelings toward Microsoft, I think that overall, Outlook and Word combined offer the best email composition you can get. Strike me dead for saying that. Especially considering my recent harping on composing messages in plain text.

I just bought myself a new Samsung 19″ LCD monitor for my computer. It is awesome. For years I have longed for a bigger screen, but never wanted to spend the money on it. Now that prices are low, I finally picked one up. It is so awesome. Sure, the computer powering this operation is a six year old Pentium-III 933Mhz, but it runs smooth for my day-to-day stuff. The real productivity boost is having this giant screen. With 19 inches, I can set my screen resolution to 1280×1024 and I can see so much more than I did before. I once tried that resolution on my old 17″ LCD and it was just too small to appreciate what I was looking at. It is more feasible with a screen 19″ or bigger. I tell you, it is like having a whole new computer. I can have so many more windows open at once without running out of screen room. It makes the whole experience of being at the computer so much better.

At the stores, I have noticed a trend toward widescreen monitors. While this is how I prefer a TV, I don’t need this so much on my computer. My Dell notebook has a 17″ widescreen and I love it. But for a desktop computer, the 19″ widescreen offerings are just too small. You gain extra room on either side, but less top-to-bottom room. If you are looking at web pages, you have to scroll a lot more to see what is below. The 19″ widescreens looked to me like a 14″ screen with some added to the side. I don’t have anything against a wide dimension to the screen, but if you go that route, make sure it is 22″. If I could afford one right now, perhaps I would buy one of those. But the message here is that it pays to have a screen that is larger than your 15″-17″ monitors of yesteryear. If you have the means, I highly recommend picking one up.

Laura bought me a guitar for the Playstation2 and the Guitar Hero game for Valentines Day this year. Laura went above and beyond and bought me the wireless guitar from Red Octane (who also make the Guitar Hero game series). It was totally unexpected. I hadn’t had feelings for or against it or its premise, despite loving the karaoke games that are on the market. I really hadn’t paid much attention Guitar Hero beyond watching a few people play it at Best Buy over Christmas.

Now that I own it, the game is simply terrific! I didn’t know how much I’d be into it when I first heard about this game, but all that changed once I had the instrument in my hands. I have never owned a wireless controller of any kind for a game system. I recommend the wireless guitar for sure. It is an incredible amount of fun. It looks like a toy, but don’t be fooled. Each song is stunningly complex, even at the Medium level. The fingerings and chords truly do mimic natural guitar handiwork. And the game gives you an incredible feeling of power when you rip your first few chords. The song list is quite good. I had never heard of most of the songs in this game, since they tend to be of the hard rock and metal variety, but the guitar work in each song is quite catchy, and I grew to like each of them after only one or two attempts. Overall, the game is truly awesome. Highly recommended! I can’t wait to get Guitar Hero 2 someday!

If you have been to bittorrent.com and have downloaded the BitTorrent client for Windows, it is critical that you make a change in the program’s setting before you use it. In the settings you can change the appearance of the progress bar. If you leave it on the default, the Piece Bar, you are really over burdening your computer. My aging P-3 processor could barely handle that and run another app at the same time. It was having to do too many calculations to give me the visual representation of what was coming and going. My suggestion is to just turn off the Piece Bar and use the Ordinary Progress Bar. Or just turn off the bar altogether and it will simply show a percentage of overall completion. It is just as well. The program runs much smoother this way, and lets you multitask with other programs while transferring files smoothly in the background. Why they set the Piece Bar as the default is beyond me.

A few years ago, I was not impressed by the free anti-virus programs that were available. At the time free programs like AVG left a lot to be desired. I had preferred to stick to the big boys like Norton and McAfee. Well, times have changed. Now that I own both a laptop and a desktop PC, I am not about to pay twice to keep them both protected.

A year ago, I figured my laptop was more at risk than my desktop machine, so I bought Norton AV 2006 and installed it on there. It is a fine application and it has done a great job of protecting me during the past year. It is a solid, reliable protector. A few annoyances ate away at my nerves, though. The worst of them, it would complain when I have my Windows Automatic Updates setting set to notify only. Personally, I don’t want it set to fully automatic. Norton complained by telling me that items needed my attention. Another annoyance was Norton going through a quick scan of hot areas on the drive upon every boot of the system. It would take two minutes after seeing the desktop on boot before Norton gave the okay that it was running properly. While this is an added level of protection for the paranoid, I could not find a way to turn it off. A month ago, I started receiving warnings that my subscription was about to expire and that I’d need to pay $20 to renew the virus signature updates for another year. I did not want to do this.

After viewing the processes running on my machine in the Windows Task Manager, I was stunned at the number of programs running to prop up Norton. I looked them all up online and their maker is Symantec. Keep in mind that I only have the standalone Anti-Virus, not the full-blown Internet Security Suite. It should not take six or so processes to fulfill my anti-virus programs needs. I know the program runs background updates and another client to protect the Norton core files, but all told it is just sucking too much life out of the computer.

AVG has come a long way. It doesn’t use as many system resources to function as Norton does. For some odd reason, in AVG, you can set the scheduler to check the drive for viruses every day, but there is no other option for the frequency. It is every day or not at all. To that, I say not at all. I will do it when I feel like it.

After you install the free AVG, click the system tray icon and go to the AVG Control Center. From there, click the Email Scanner line and choose Properties. In the properties window, click Configure. In this window, uncheck the boxes to Certify Mail. The certification is a little attachment to your messages saying the message is virus-free. It is really annoying. Turn it off!

You can find the free AVG AntiVirus here: free.grisoft.com.

GMail has been up and running for years. I don’t know how many users they have, but I am sure it is a massive number. A lot of people have been using the service for years now. Despite a few enhancements, nothing has radically changed with the service that I can see. I don’t understand why they still are clinging to the idea that it is still in beta. Having proved itself for years now, it is more than ready for prime time. Drop the “beta” tag and let’s go!

If you use Windows and want to use an excellent free firewall, try Comodo. It is totally free, and the firewall claims to be leak-free. I have been frustrated at times with ZoneAlarm, which I have used off and on for a few years (free version). It is slow to load and I don’t entirely trust the configuration I have to put it in to use my home network’s file sharing. Also with ZoneAlarm, the snappiness of my Internet connection seems to suffer, especially on my slower PC. I haven’t noticed as much of a performance hit from Comodo.

A while back, I used to use Kerio Personal Firewall, until they pulled the plug on the free version. Now, I have been using Comodo for over a week and I am very happy with this program. I did have a little trouble understanding how to set up trusted areas for my home network, but once I figured it out, it made sense. You only have to put in an IP address that you trust (or a range of addresses). For example, entering 192.168.1.101 (or whatever the local IP is of the another computer you are accessing) gives you free-flowing access to share files back and forth on your network to that machine. Be sure to set it on both computers if you install Comodo on each of them.

The Windows Firewall, which is included in XP SP2, only protects your inbound traffic. While that is the largest threat, you are technically safer using a two-way firewall. You shouldn’t have to spend money for that. Thanks to Comodo, you don’t have to. And you don’t have to put up with ZoneAlarm. That’s music to my ears.

I have gone back to using plain text formatting in my outgoing mail. I’d noticed a lot of people sending me replies in plain text and decided to turn off my HTML formatting to give it a try. This is how it used to be long ago before the days of colored text and crazy font sizes. I have found it takes away a lot of the hassle in composing messages if you keep it plain. Plus, you benefit from smaller message sizes, which help keep the overall size of your mailbox to a minimum.

Plain text is noticeably easier when I compose messages in Gmail or Yahoo Mail. I have never liked the default Arial font that each mail program is set to for HTML messages. In order to select a different outgoing font, you have to pull down a list and choose it each and every time you compose a message. This is absurd. Plain text formatting solves that. Each recipient can set their own font and size for this text in their mail programs. I hope every computer user realizes that fact. Don’t think that you always have to read plain text in the basic Courier or Typewriter font.

Of course, if you are going to send a birthday greeting or something of that nature, it would probably pay to send those particular messages with colors and HTML formatting. Otherwise, why bother on a normal basis? A lot of people who email me like to compose messages in the smallest fonts imaginable. I wish they didn’t. Simply use plain text.