Daniel Voyles

The following story is true to my best recollection, and happened a couple of years ago.

I  shy away from working on personal computers for one major reason – people who are sue-happy. A PC is a machine, it breaks mechanically as well as by software. Had a woman who asked me to look at a PC, I did, and after I had her reboot, it would not come up. I left, after doing nothing to the PC other than plugging in a USB thumb drive (software tools I commonly use are on the thumb drive).

She told me I had broken it and needed to pay to have it replaced after her ‘friend’ she gets weed from said it was non-repairable. We had a few missed phone calls back and forth, but I offered to pay 1/2 of the repair cost at a neutral shop to be nice. I should point out that she suggested I buy her a ~$1,500 laptop to replace the 5+ year old desktop her weed-buddy said I broke.

Then she contacted the MVPD who told her(according to her message) that I had likely downloaded personal information from her PC using my thumb drive (thanks for that, MVPD), and was a criminal planning to exploit that information. Finally she left me a message that said she had ‘better not find me out anywhere’ and that I should ‘come back by her house because her dogs have something for me’.

Long story short, I’m shying away from doing PC work for anyone other than immediate family. Until I am incorporated and have a much better liability policy, my family cannot afford the risk even though I love helping people.

I won’t mention her company for fear of being sued, but her family runs a local pest control company, beware.

And hell yes I accepted the offer. As of December 7th I will be working for School Center in Carbondale. The drive will suck a little, but the joy of doing what I want every day and being a part of a normal job will be awesome. I miss the routine of going into work, doing my job, and going home. It won’t be that every day, as it is a datacenter, but it’s closer than anything I’ve done recently.

I have to say that I was/am very grateful for the position I have been working for the past month and a half, but this is a great opportunity and it will not be passing me by while I sit there and wave. I am also extremely thankful for my family and friends’ support over the past 6 months while I have been looking for employment, and more recently for better employment.

At least for the next two weeks I get to whistle while I work and look forward to the future instead of wondering if this is my lot in life. I’m excited as can be, but you who know me well know I have one look, so don’t expect me to be jumping around or anything.

AAAAAAAAAAAANNNNDDDD I will get to release this stupid blog back into the wild instead of hiding it like Sloth in The Goonies.

I was having a case of writer’s block, and Mr. Hall suggested that I write about this subject.

When you buy a new PC, there is often a large amount of software trials included for you to sample and use. This is not such a bad thing if done properly. We consumers get a price break (you don’t think Dell loads that junk for free, do you?) and we can try out software that we might not know about or use on our own.

Remember, I said if it is done properly this is not a bad thing. Unfortunately most PC manufacturers load this junk software (junkware) on the operating system without providing any way to dump it. That problem is not the proper way to conduct this type of advertising.

In my opinion, when you buy a PC, it is yours. You should have the right to use it as you see fit with whatever software and customizations you choose. Not whatever junk the PC manufacturers are paid to put on the PC. Microsoft, Dell, and others do not seem to feel this way however. So, now on to how to remove the garbage.

The most simple way to remove this junk is to use Windows’ Add/Remove Software ability within your Control Panel. You should be able to use this functionality to see a list of all programs installed on your computer. Using this window, simply select the offending program and choose ‘remove’.

In a perfect world, that would handle everything and the junk would now be gone. We do not live in a perfect world, and that is not the end of some software. AOL is particularly bad about hiding in a folder and then re-installing itself or popping-up on your screen. Some other software is as bad or getting to the point of AOL, however.

To help you through making your PC truly yours, I recommend a program with a name which I hope does not offend you: PC Decrapifier (http://tinyurl.com/3yywu7). It is a great tool to remove junk from your PC. I have used this software many times with great results, however you use at your own risk as always. PC D* is free for personal use, but please consider a donation if it works for you. People make software and give it out freely to help everyone, but they need to eat too.

Baseball Mom has a situation where her children ‘accidentally’ installed a second software on her home PC. This happens more and more every day as our kids grow up around technology and often know how to use computers and the Internet better than we do.

Can you do it? Probably. Some antivirus programs contain a check to see if there is other protection software present, and others do not. In this case, Norton did not check to see if there was protection present and installed itself.

Now, should you do it? In my opinion, nope. My reasoning is that the software will possibly ‘fight’ about which is actually supposed to be protecting the system. This can make for system resources being hogged by both programs that are attempting to do the same job. This amounts to your system performing double-duty on a task that should only require one or the other program to be active.

The second reason to not double-up on antivirus software is that you will have false positives and run the risk of one program destroying the other. Antivirus programs use definitions of viruses to check your PC and remove any bugs that might sneak in past your firewall (you are running one, aren’t you?).

If you have two antivirus programs keeping you protected, when one scans files it should find the definitions from the other software. This may result in a scary moment where you are advised you have a virus. You don’t, but the definition matches, and the program is not smart enough to know the definition is not a real virus. The false-virus is then deleted, making your first program less effective.

Later, your first program scans and finds the definitions from the second program. Again, you are told you have a virus, and delete the bad file. The end result is that neither works as it should, possibly leaving you even less protected since you think you are safe and may be a little more careless with your activity.

So, the short version is that you should not be running two antivirus programs. They will bog down valuable resources and work against each other, hurting you. What you should be doing, is using Windows’ Automatic Update, install a firewall, use an antivirus program (ONE), and not go to questionable sites.

How many of you know what a browser is? No, it’s not the lady who comes in and looks over everything and never buys. A web browser is the software that reads information (usually from the Internet), and makes it pretty on your screen. That is an overly-simple explanation, but I think it covers what we need here.

Almost everyone I know is using Internet Explorer(IE) by Microsoft. Primarily, this is because Microsoft pushes IE out with its operating system Windows. IE is just ‘there’, and works, so people use it. Unfortunately, the bad guys know this too and write malware (viruses, etc.) for Internet Explorer more than the other browsers combined. I have to admit, I first surfed the Internet using Explorer myself. The great news is that there are many free browsers to use for surfing, and they may suit you better.

Opera (opera.com) is a browser that has been around for some time. They are about to release version 10 to the public, but 9.6 is the current release. Some of the perks of Opera are that it can synchronize your information across different computers, check mail using the built-in email client, and preview news feeds from your favorite sites before you subscribe.

Opera also makes the claim that they have the fastest browser engine. This claim is hard to verify, but if speed is important to you, it might be worth downloading for a better experience.

A new entry for those using Windows is the Safari (apple.com/safari) browser from Apple. Safari has its own pros and cons. Most of its pros relate to being ‘pretty’ and being able to pass standards tests. The standards are important so that websites work properly across all browsers and everything works as it should. Unfortunately, this doesn’t really mean much to the average user. Also, Safari claims to be the fastest browser available. Are you noticing a trend here?

The last browser I will mention is Firefox (mozilla.com). Firefox (Fx) is an open-source browser from Mozilla. Since Firefox is open-source, anyone can look at the code that makes it run and find problems or fix them. Firefox also has an extensive range of ‘add-ons’ that people contribute to make Firefox able to do more than just surf the Internet.

For example, I use these add-ons: AdBlock, Xmarks, Twitterfox, and NoScript.

AdBlock stops me from seeing ads on websites. Imagine the Internet with no ads, and that’s how you can see it. Xmarks synchronizes bookmarks and passwords across different PCs like Opera does with ‘Opera Link’. Twitterfox updates me with my friends’ tweets from Twitter. Finally, NoScript stops Javascript from running without your permission, and I would not recommend using it unless you don’t mind learning how to allow scripts to run that you want.

Those add-ons make my browsing much cleaner and more useful for me. There are a great many more that do these same things, just in a slightly different way. There are also add-ons to do everything from posting to your blog to listening to music at Last.fm. Put simply, Firefox can be customized by adding and removing add-ons until you find what works for you. With its 3.5 release, Firefox promises to be faster and easier to use.

Put simply, there are choices out there to be had. My suggestion is to give one or each of these a try to see what works for you. After all, isn’t that what a ‘personal’ computer is all about?

In part I, we learned about some free and completely legal ways to watch TV and movies. In part II, there was some long explanation, and a brief bit of some information about how to watch your shows that are not well-defined. The laws contradict each other, so you are on your own down that path.

Now, I will explain the completely illegal ways to get your shows. Please know that I do not suggest doing anything illegal, but feel that you should know about these methods so that you can avoid them and any trouble that comes with using them.

The first, easiest, and most common illegal way I see of getting music, shows, and movies is LimeWire. There are legal reasons for using Lime, but the use of it is not for those reasons. Lime is used mostly to illegally ‘share’ music and other files across the Internet.

People like to claim that they are only ‘sharing’ these files with their friends or, really, complete strangers across the Internet. That, is a lie. Not about what they’re doing, but pretending that it is legal. People are taking material that they do not own the copyright for and giving it away to others. They are also downloading material illegally from other LimeWire users. Along with the illegal files comes a big risk for viruses, also something I see a lot on PCs people ask me to fix.

Up next is Bit Torrent. Torrents are similar to LimeWire, except that they are used more in legal ways, such as sharing legal discs to install Linux and other free information. Unfortunately, a lot more people use torrents to illegally download movies, music, and more from others. So, Bit Torrent is covered under this illegal section.

How torrents differ from regular downloads is that it downloads from many different users in ‘chunks’. It operates on the idea that the more you ‘share’, the better/faster you can get files. It works out well for everyone because the more people share a file, the faster it downloads for everyone.

After downloading files illegally, the most popular way to steal (yes, it is stealing) material is to rent it from the video store, borrow a CD, or find another way to get a digital copy and rip it or copy it onto your PC.

People have mentioned several times that they rent a DVD when it comes out, rip it, and keep the copy they made on their PC. Once again, this is completely illegal. These people rent a piece of copy-written material, not own it, and make a copy (that may be legal if they owned it).

There is no salvation for those who rent a DVD or borrow a CD to copy it. Ripping most anything without owning a copy yourself is stealing from those who put it out there for sale.

As always, there are exceptions: if something has been released under a license that is free to distribute, like some written works and all Linux distributions. These materials are different than most things, and are the exceptions.

Generally, if someone downloads material that is copyrighted, they are breaking the law. If anyone is ripping material that they don’t own a copy of, they are also breaking the law.

This is the simple version, but gives a decent overview. As always, this is not legal advice. Do your own research.

In the first entry of this series, I explained some of the legal ways to get your television shows legally. I feel bad that I forgot to mention Netflix. You can watch some movies instantly using their service.

Now into the hazy world of ‘questionable’ ways to get television, music, and movies. What I talk about here and how you feel it applies will depend on how you interpret it. The reason for this is that the laws in our country are designed to deal with tangible and firm things like printed books, records, and actual reels of film. These laws were written before computers were common and before written, recorded, and filmed material could be transferred all over the world within minutes.

Many laws have been written to try to close the gap between written law and technology, but they mostly fail miserably. Most prominent of this legislation is the Digital Millennium Copyright Act (DMCA). The DMCA was written by Congress, therefore it was written by people who are generally ignorant of technology (in my opinion) and who are heavily influenced by lobbyists. Lobbyists are paid by companies like RCA, Paramount, Sony, etc. So, who do you think the DMCA favors? Correct.

With that history out of the way, we can move forward with our review of the blurry area: copies of compact discs, DVDs, and other material you own. When you buy a CD, you do not get unlimited rights to do whatever you want with it. You only get a copy that you can listen to, or watch if it is a DVD.

Now, like with an article in a newspaper, there is such a thing as ‘fair-use’ that lets you use pieces of the article for parody, discussion, etc. However, you cannot reproduce the whole work without permission. That is just plagiarism. With a CD/DVD, you are allowed to make a ‘backup copy for archival purposes’ as long as you own a legal copy of the original work.

Here is the ironic part: you cannot make a backup copy of the CD/DVD if it has any kind of copy protection, according to the DMCA.

So, it is legal to have a backup according to law, but you cannot make that copy. Kind of twisted isn’t it? To my knowledge, there is no significant challenge to this contradiction so that we can know what is illegal and what isn’t.

I have gone over all of this explanation to say that if you can legally make copies of DVDs and CDs, then you could rip them to your laptop or desktop computer. Once they are on your hard drive you can watch them any time you like and not have to worry about the discs becoming scratched or lost. The discs will be safely stored in your closet.

With more and more television shows being released on DVD as complete seasons and some complete series’ runs, you could easily pick up your favorites, rip them to your PC and watch them at your leisure.

For that matter, you could find a site to download recordings of your favorite new shows and keep them on your drive. Networks say that this is illegal, and we geeks say it is no different than using a VCR to record from TV like many people did less than 5 years ago.

Use your own judgment, as I am not a lawyer and this is not legal advice. Tread carefully and read up before you make any decisions about whether to rip anything or download episodes of shows.

In a word: maybe. The most deciding factor will be if you have a broadband connection to the Internet. If you don’t know, broadband is loosely a cable, satellite, or DSL connection. Sometimes, you can even use a wireless connection from some local providers. If you are still using a dial-up connection, you are not going to want to try watching video, but you probably knew that.

Finally, you need to look and see if there are shows that you like available online. There are many, many different ways to watch your shows and movies online. To be fair, I will talk about the legal, hazy, and outright illegal ways to watch them. Hazy and illegal will be covered in the next two columns. We are in NO WAY advocating anything illegal, but you should know about them so you can avoid them.

My personal favorite site to watch shows on is Hulu.com. Hulu has a very good looking site with a lot of content to watch. If you like Fox, NBC, or Comedy Central television, you should give them a shot. There are a few commercials in some shows, and some without. The good news is that there are less commercials than a regular show (4 on average). Hulu even has movies to watch, mostly older, but totally free.

Hulu has just launched a player for you to download to your desktop. It is brand new as I write this for you, so I don’t have a lot of experience with it. If it is anything like the site, it will be smooth and easy to use. Please go check it out and let me know what you think via askageek@register-news.com .

Another site I recommend is TV.com. I have not used it much, but it has been good when I checked it out occasionally. TV.com is owned by CBS, however it has shows from different companies. Go see if it suits your taste.

A slightly different way to watch shows and discover new material is Miro (getmiro.com). Miro is available for Windows, Mac, and Linux. It truly is available for any operating system you use. Miro is a Bit Torrent (I’ll explain later) and netcast client. It will download torrent files and netcasts for you while you surf or watch other shows in its player. There are videos of all types – gardening, news, talk, etc. available for you to subscribe to in the Miro directory. All of these subscriptions are free, so go see what you want to watch/hear.

To clarify for anyone who may not know, a netcast is a video or audio show produced for download over the Internet. Netcasts are also referred to as ‘podcasts, vodcasts (video)’, and other terms. There are good and bad, just like television and radio. Torrents are downloads that pull from a lot of different places to get you the download faster. They work really well, and I will explain them better under ‘illegal’, even though they are not.

The last legal way I can think of to watch free TV is to go to the station sites and watch your favorites there. Not every station, especially cable stations, offer their shows online. A good deal of them do, so you should go look around and see which ones are out there that you like.