This is what the COOLSITES Toolbar looks like. Click here for more info:
http://luem42.com/toolbar.html Click here to get it:
http://luem42.OurToolbar.com
I have published the August 31 2007 COOLSITES newsletter # 128 by Mark Donaldson.
The following is an excerpt from this weeks newsletter. To see the full newsletter with all of the COOLSITES links please click and bookmark this link:
http://luem42.googlepages.com/coolsites.html and check it each week. Thank you. Mark.
August 31 2007 COOLSITES Newsletter # 128 by Mark Donaldson
Semper Gratis (forever free)
Wherever you go if you see the user name LUEM42 that's me
COOLSITES is a list of safe, fun, useful, informative and just plain cool websites and programs that are FREE, FREE and FREE. All of the programs and websites I list are free. If I list anything that is so good but isn't free I will list the price with it.
--------------------------------------------------------------------------------
Pirillo's Picks for February 13 2007
"And if you think that's a lot of links, you should see how many
http://luem42.com/ collects every day. It's enough to make you wanna never leave the house again as long as you live" Yours Digitally, Chris Pirillo
http://chris.pirillo.com/
--------------------------------------------------------------------------------
Clif Notes Newsletter, Feb 2007
http://freewarewiki.com/ClifNotes
"The COOLSITES Newsletter - find the coolest links here. This fella named Mark Donaldson has been sending out his lists of cool sites since 2003. I'd never heard of him before last week. One day I was Googling myself to see who was posting links to my newsletter, and I found his website. I guess he's mentioned my newsletter at least 3 times. I like the COOLSITES website too, but I think it could use some reformatting to make it a bit easier to read. What I really like is the content there. Mark must really read a lot of stuff on the web and he takes the best links then tells you about them ."
http://freewarewiki.com/CoolSitesNewsletter
Welcome to Clif Notes Newsletter
August 26, 2007
Thanks for reading my newsletter. Each week, I will have freeware reviews, tips, tricks, news, and lots of cool websites for you to check out.
I hope you enjoy this week's letter. Be sure to write me for advice or yell at me for messing up.
# REVIEWS
1. Flightsimx web game - paper airplanes
2. FileMenu Tools - lord of the right click menu
3. Old Newsletter
# TIPS AND FEEDBACK
1. Search FreewareArena - most respected
2. Search Snapfiles Freeware - best organized and best comments
3. Search NoNags Freeware - great selection
4. Search alt.comp.freeware - advice and new finds
5. Here are the most recent comments
6. What free software do you need?
7. Block all bad sites - where is this program at?
8. Internet Fixes Weekend Windup
9. Comments last week
# COOL WEBSITES
1. CoolSites Newsletter this week
2. Websites I've visited recently
Go to
http://freewarewiki.com/ClifNotesNewsletter070826 to see the current newsletter at the Freeware Wiki.
--------------------------------------------------------------------------------
Security News
"The Storm Trojan / Bot continues to spread and is now using a YouTube video to lure users. The latest version has a variety of subjects and email bodies but now uses the filename video.exe.
Email subject example: Sheesh man what are you thinkin.
Upon connecting to the URL, which is referenced as a YouTube link but is actually a Storm IP, the same exploit code used in past attacks attempts to run. As in the past if users are not vulnerable they will get a page displayed that requests they run the code manually such as in the screenshot below:
Websense users with Security Suites are protected from connecting to the sites with the exploit code and from connecting to the sites that proxy connections back to main Storm servers.
For additional details and information on how to detect and prevent this type of attack: <screenshot in full alert details>
http://www.websensesecuritylabs.com/alerts/alert.php?AlertID=799 "
Websense® Security Labs(TM) has received reports of a new variant of an email attack that was originally launched early this year. The spoofed email purports to be from the Better Business Bureau (BBB). The message claims that a complaint has been filed against the recipient's company.
Previously, the email attack contained an attachment that the victim would need to open in order to become infected. The new variant is slightly different.
The new message uses a tactic employed by other, more-successful email attacks, such as the recent Storm worm. Instead of including an attachment in the email, the body of the email contains a link to an external Web site from which the payload is downloaded if the link is accessed. This method allows the attack to bypass many attachment filters at the email gateway.
Link to our previous BBB alert:
http://www.websense.com/securitylabs/alerts/alert.php?AlertID=777
--------------------------------------------------------------------------------
They tried to scam me
These are email addresses that tried to scam me so I print them here joping the spambots find them and fill up their inboxes.
soniafrancisco01 DeleteThis @yahoo.ie fileclaim DeleteThis @hotmail.com markfoster DeleteThis @yahoo.es Go bots go. Fill their inboxes.
--------------------------------------------------------------------------------
Security Links
Deja vu all over again- Sony uses rootkits, charges F-Secure. Some USB drives create a hidden folder that hackers can use to cloak malware:
http://www.computerworld.com/action/article.do?command=viewArticleBasi...mp;arti
IRC Chat Safety and Security ~ The Chris Pirillo Show:
http://chris.pirillo.com/media/2007/08/30/irc-chat-safety-and-security/
Massive Microsoft WGA meltdown fingers legit Vista and XP owners as pirates. 19-hour outage over, but users must revalidate to get back disabled features, says vendor:
http://www.computerworld.com/action/article.do?command=viewArticleBasi...mp;arti
National Sex Offender Public Registry.gov:
http://www.nsopr.gov/
New Target for Thieves Portable GPS Units:
http://www.baltimoresun.com/news/local/crime/bal-te.md.gps20aug20,0,77...5.story
Safe e-mail accounts for kids. Komando Kids:
http://www.komando.com/kids/tip.aspx?id=2935
Set up parental controls in Vista:
http://www.komando.com/kids/tip.aspx?id=3559
The College Student's Guide to Identity Theft. What college students must know about identity theft and lemon laws for cars. Internet ScamBusters:
http://www.scambusters.org/collegestudents.html
Trend Micro PC-cillin Internet Security 2007. Rated best by Consumer Reports. $49.95:
http://shop.trendmicro.com/?gclid=CPOXkpuznY4CFSc_UAodgnAyTQ
Update. Malware Scan 1.1.0.2:
http://www.freewebs.com/orbitech/malwarescan.html
Update. RemoveIT Pro v4 - SE 8.27.2007 Antivirus Software - Remove Spyware and Adware with RemoveIT Pro:
http://incodesolutions.com/
Update. Sophos Anti-Rootkit 1.3.1:
http://www.sophos.com/products/free-tools/sophos-anti-rootkit.html
Update. ThreatFire (formerly CyberHawk) 3.0.4.0 Beta Zero-day Antivirus and Spyware Protection:
http://www.threatfire.com/
--------------------------------------------------------------------------------
Covering my A$$
We normally get our credit card statement around the 20th of every month. After it was a week late I went online to check my card account and everything was normal. We called the card company and found out that the statement went out on time. It was either lost in the mail or someone took it. So the card number was immediately canceled and and a new card will be arriving in the mail soon.
In this day and age you have to cover your assets or you will lose them. Mark.
--------------------------------------------------------------------------------
And this years winner is
Last year Consumer Reports had picked BitDefender 9 as the best not free protection. This year they have picked Trend Micro's PC-cillin Internet Security 2007 Suite as the best not free protection for 2007. Across the board their suite was picked as the best antivirus, antispam and antispyware program. It costs $49.95. Of course it won't work with Windows 98/ME.
They also recommended to use Avast 4.7 Home Edition if you want a free antivirus and it will work with Windows 98/ME.
After downloading, installing, updating and testing Avast it found all of my testing virus and trojan simulators ( see my "Favorite Freeware" webpage for the simulators ) and did not produce any false positives. It also doesn't slow down my system like AntVir did and has more protection features than AntiVir. I will use Avast and uninstall AntiVir. I will leave Avast's active shields enabled and will no longer be "running with scissors".
Trend Micro PC-cillin Internet Security 2007 Suite. Rated best by Consumer Reports. $49.95:
http://shop.trendmicro.com/?gclid=CPOXkpuznY4CFSc_UAodgnAyTQ
Free antivirus - avast! 4 Home Edition Download:
http://www.avast.com/eng/download-avast-home.html 15.5 meg
I had BitDefender 8 installed as a scanner to backup and compare the results of any test for viruses and trojans. When I went to use it it reminded my that it's one year registration was about to expire. So I went to their website and found out that Bitdefender is offering it's version 10 scanner for free. When I downloaded and installed it it said it would expire the same day as BitDefender 8. I contacted BitDefender and they told me to use their uninstall tool to remove BitDefender 8 first. Apparently BD 8 puts a secret registration key in the registry that has to be removed before installing BD 10. Download and use their uninstall tool and then get BD 10 which doesn't have any active protection but can be used as a manual scanner. You must be online when you install BD 10 if you never had BD 8 so you can create an account. If you do have a BitDefender account just click "skip this step".
Please follow the next steps in order to be able to use BitDefender 10 Free Edition:
1. Uninstall BitDefender 8 from your computer using our uninstall tool:
http://www.bitdefender.com/uninstall
Access the link and when the window with the BitDefender file appears, please choose the "Save to disk" option. Download the tool, run it, restart the computer.
2. Download the BitDefender 10 Free Edition kit from our website:
http://download.bitdefender.com/windows/free/winfree/en/bitdefender_free_v10.exe 21 meg with a 10 meg update.
When I did this it still didn't work. I tried to do it every way I could think of but it still wouldn't work. It so munged my system that I when I decided I had had enough and tried to uninstall BD 10 it wouldn't. So I uninstalled manually and rolled back my system with scanreg restore.
Because of this I am no longer recommending BitDefender. Try it at your own risk. As for a backup scanner I will use the online scanners that you can find on my "Specialized Search Engines" webpage at:
http://luem42.googlepages.com/search.html . Just use Ctrl F and search for "online virus scanner". Mark.
--------------------------------------------------------------------------------
I mourn for thee
Richard Jewell was falsely accused by the FBI and all of the media for the Olympic Park bombing in Atlanta during the 96 Olympics. Each media outlet spent hours reporting him as the primary suspect in the bombing. When the FBI determined that he was not involved the media outlets spent a few minutes reporting it. When a serial bomber was caught, connected to the Olympic Park bombing in Atlanta, confessed and was convicted the media outlets spent a few minutes reporting it.
The FBI erred but the media did him a major disservice. The media should have spent the same amount of time exonerating him as they did accusing him. He was a hero who risked his life helping the victims of the bombing. This is why I take everything the media says with a lot of grains of salt. Shame on the FBI and media.
This week Richard Jewell was found dead in his home of complications from diabetes. May he rest in peace. Mark.
Richard Jewell Dies at 44:
http://www.11alive.com/news/article_news.aspx?storyid=102383
--------------------------------------------------------------------------------
A really cool Gmail trick
If you use your Gmail address to sign up for websites, newsletters, etc. you can use a trick to see if they send you unwanted email or sell your address to others. Normally you would use your email address such as me DeleteThis @gmail.com but you can use a plus sign ( + ) to mark the address because the plus sign and everything between it and the @ sign will be ignored. As an example if you were to sign up for my newsletter and wanted to make sure I'm not lying when I say I won't use your address just sign up as me+coolsites@gmail.com. The newsletter will go to me DeleteThis @gmail.com but be marked as going to me+coolsites@gmail.com . Then you can use Gmails filters to send that unwanted email to the spam folder or even just delete it. Mark.
Spam Control for Gmail Users. This is a cool trick to find out if the place you just gave your gmail address to is sending you unwanted email.
http://www.lockergnome.com/nexus/theoracle/2007/08/09/spam-control-for...ail-use
--------------------------------------------------------------------------------
COOLSITES Toolbar
I have created a new webpage that describes the COOLSITES Toolbar and has plenty of pretty pictures. Please check it out at :
http://luem42.com/toolbar.html . You can download the toolbar at:
http://luem42.ourtoolbar.com .
Please suggest links to be added to the toolbar by contacting me at
http://luem42.com/contactus.html
--------------------------------------------------------------------------------
COOLSITES 110 cool links
I harvest what I believe to be the best links from the best sources that are safe, fun, informative, useful and just plain cool. I categorize them and edit their descriptions for clarity.
To see the full newsletter with all of the COOLSITES links please click and bookmark this link:
http://luem42.googlepages.com/coolsites.html and check it each week. Thank you. Mark.
General