From time to time I mention some free download available from Microsoft, the previous entry being an example. To check out all of the available downloads, go to the Windows XP download page or to the more general site at the download center.
At this latter site, you can also sign up for a newsletter that will keep you apprised of the latest download news. The only catch is that you have to have a Microsoft Passport account.
Microsoft has a free program to create a composite image from parts of other photos. It is called “Group Shot” and is described thus
Group Shot helps you create a perfect group photo out of a series of group photos. With Group Shot you can select your favorite parts in each shot of the series and Group Shot will automatically build a composite image.
Although Microsoft seems focused on group pictures, there’s seems no reason to limit it to that. However there are restrictions. The Help File says
Group Shot creates a composite image from a series of photos. The photos must be of the same scene, taken from the same point of view within a short period of time. The application uses regions that you indicate to build a composite image automatically.
Go here to download.
Found in the Neat Net Tricks Newsletter
If you don’t have a LCD monitor to tweak as described in the previous entry and would like one, PC World also has a guide on how to buy them.
Aside from using the ClearType adjustment discussed previously, there are other things that can be done to ensure better viewing with an LCD monitor. PC World has an article giving a number of these.
Did you ever wish that there was something you could do against the phishers? A new site has just opened that should help you report the phishers to someone who might be able to do something. A new group called the Phishing Incident Reporting and Termination (PIRT) Squad is described in this press release. It says
CastleCops and Sunbelt Software Announce Anti-Phishing Task Force; Companies Join Forces to Give the Public a Resource to Report and Stop Phishing Scams
Suzi Turner writes about it at ZDNet
Now you can go to the PIRT site and follow the instructions on how to report your phish. There are detailed instructions on how to view the email source (the html code) with different email clients and detailed instructions for how to copy and paste the source and phishing URL into the tool.
The staff will analyze the email and confirm the phish, notify the appropriate agencies, contact ISPs and do whatever is possible to have the phishing site shut down.
The Sunday Times of London has a piece on how companies are using Google to find out more about prospective employees. This wouldn’t be a big issue if Google’s accumulation of information about every little thing that we do and every peccadillo we commit didn’t begin to add up to the sort of dossier that only the FBI used to have. The article cites this example
Mary-Anne sent a perfect CV, properly spell-checked, with her application for a cracking new job as a programmer at a leading computer systems firm. She had the skills, she had the grades, she had the experience from another blue-chip firm.
The trouble arose when the prospective employer Googled Mary-Anne
But when Mary-Anne’s application arrived, according to a recruitment consultant working with her prospective employer, they ran her name through Google. Up popped something she hadn’t mentioned on her CV. She’d been a contestant in two topless modelling competitions.
That was the end for Mary-Anne’s prospects. And for a reason that had nothing to do with her skills and qualifications for the job. The article goes on with more examples of a development that means less and less privacy. Among the disturbing factors is the fact that raw information is very subject to misinterpretation. Further, it subjects us to the whims and biases of others. And the information never goes away. It just sits there on Google’s servers waiting to be called up. Would you like to be judged on everything you said ten years ago? As the article says
Whether that extra, often innocent, information matters is purely up to the person doing the Googling, and there is no appeal.
Is it fair to use such information  some of it untrue, some out of context  to make decisions about our futures? Which is real: our cyber persona or our living, breathing persona?
I suppose you could argue that it means that people should be more discreet and careful about what they do and say but I find it disturbing that I might have a nanny overlooking everything I do. Consider this blog. Everything I write here is preserved. I might have a moment of stupidity and say something dumb. Will somebody pick on that twenty years from now? Maybe there ought to be a statute of limitations.
These days many systems are likely to be using USB external drives of one sort or the other. Also, hard drives have become very large and many systems have partitions (or volumes as they are now called). The result is a plethora of drive letters. Windows XP may not always assign letters the way you like but you can easily change letter assignments if you wish.
Assignments of drive letters can be added, changed, or deleted in the Disk Management Console . There are several ways to open the console but using the Start-Run line is the way I do it. Enter “diskmgmt.msc” into Run (without quotes). The management console lists all the drives or partitions on your system. Find the entry for the volume of interest and right-click it. To make a change, click “Change Drive Letter and Paths”. The figure shown below will open.
Clicking the “Change” button in the figure above opens the window shown below. Scroll to the letter you want, select it, and click “OK”. Then click “OK” again and close the Disk Management console.
Another day, another Internet Explorer bug. There are now three that have been announced in the last few days and those are the ones we know about. Who knows what else there is? So far Microsoft has issued no patches but their security blog says
Our initial investigation has revealed that if you turn off Active Scripting, that will prevent the attack as this requires script.
If you use IE as your browser, follow my advice at surfthenetsafely.com and disable Active Scripting in the Internet Zone. Put secure sites, like your bank, that need scripting into the Trusted Zone. Go here for details.
I am hoping that anybody reading this is too savvy to fall for all the scams out there but the phishers are getting cannier and sneakier. They are hard at work to remove your money and the schemes are proliferating. Steve Bass mentions a couple. Here goes the refrain again- don’t click on links in email, no matter how legitimate they seem unless you know for sure they’re safe. The phishers are very good at making scams sound on the up-and-up.
As long as I am mentioning useful sites, let me point out another of my favorites, Tech Support Alert. Its author, Ian (Gizmo) Richards, works hard to evaluate a lot of software and Internet resources and has put together a lot of worthwhile information for computer users. He also has a newsletter that I find quite informative. This is an excellent place to go if you want to know about the best freeware, the best anti-malware programs, and much else.