Computer Info – January 9, 2002

 

This Week’s Program

            Did you receive any new software over the holidays that you would like to share with the group -- bydemonstrating it– telling the group about it – or maybewe could install it on the laptop and learn about it together.We will check out the following websites and, of course, the usual question and answer session.

 

Interesting Websites

Inspirational Hymns 

            http ://www.mamarocks.com/inspirational.htm

 

John Wayne tells Why He Loves America (it takes awhile for the music and audio to come in, but it is worth it)

            http://www.mamarocks.com    then scroll down near the bottom and look for the link.

 

International Newspapers Online.  This site provides links to English versions of newspapers and magazines around the world.

            http://newsdirectory.com/

 

Check for a local hometown newspaper

            http://www.hometownnews.com/

 

Radio in Windows Media Player

            Use your Windows Media Player to listen to radio stations worldwide via the internet.When you open Windows Media Player, you will find RADIO TUNER listed on the left hand side.

            This will allow you to search for a radio station by location.It tells you what the minimum connection speed is to obtain un-interrupted transmissions.If you enjoy the station, you can place it in YOUR PRESETS – so you can easily return to it.

 

RealPlayer or RealOne?

            Thought I would check about RealPlayer, only to find out that it has now become RealOne.

            But, they do have an archive page whereyou can still download the older versions of the RealPlayer.As the page starts out, users have told them that for some of them, only the older versions works.This has to do with what age your computer is.So, if you need one of the older versions, please check here.

                        http://proforma.real.com/real/player/blackjack.html


 

Get Your Security Patch

            The security hole that they are now talking about deals with the UPnP – which is Universal Plug and Play.This is a feature that comes with Windows XP and Windows ME.It is a normal feature in Windows XP which is always loaded when Windows XP is installed.It is included in Windows ME but is not installed during the installation of Windows ME – but, some computer manufacturers turn this feature on when they install the operating system on your computer.It can be installed in Windows 98 and 98SE as an extra program (called Internet Connection Sharing) that is obtained from another source (not the Windows 98 or 98SE CD).

            To check if you have this feature,go to your CONTROL PANEL – ADD/REMOVE PROGRAMS – the WINDOWS SETUP tab – double-click on COMMUNICATIONS – scroll down and look for UNIVERSAL PLUG AND PLAY.If you find it there and there is a checkmark in front of it, remove the checkmark 

            You can read about it at the Microsoft website at

http://www.microsoft.com/technet/treeview/default.asp?url=/technet/security/bulletin/MS01-059.asp?frame=true&hidetoc=true

                                                or

http://www.cert.org/advisories/CA-2001-37.html

            What is UPnP??Universal Plug and Play (UPnP) is a standard that uses Internet and Web protocols to enable devices such as PCs, peripherals, intelligent appliances, and wireless devices to be pluggedinto a network and automatically know about each other. With UPnP, when a user plugs a device into the network, the device will configure itself, acquire a TCP/IP address, and use a discovery protocol based on the Internet's Hypertext Transfer Protocol (HTTP) to announce its presence on the network to other devices. For instance, if you had a camera and a printer connected to the network and needed to print out a photograph, you could press a button on the camera and have the camera send a "discover" request asking if there were any printers on the network. The printer would identify itself and send its location in the form of a universal resource locator. 

            Has Microsoft learned their lesson:Do not enable Internet servers to be running, by default, in consumer computers. The last time Microsoft did this, the server was called "File and Printer Sharing". The insecurity of that decision has caused untold customer damage through the years and it still causes serious problems.

            ALMOST NO ONE uses or needs to have Universal Plug and Play enabled today. Yet every copy of Windows XP sold has it enabled and running by default.

            So for most home users, DISABLE IT.