Terry's Computer Tips - Newsletter
September 9, 2007

Terry's Computer Tips Newsletter
http://www.terryscomputertips.com
A computer tips newsletter for users of PC's.

Volume 3, Number 13 — Sunday, September 9, 2007

Part 1  | Part 2

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IN THIS WEEK'S ON-LINE ISSUE:
   1.   First Look at the New Eudora Email Program
   2.   Updates Last Week
   3.   Google Pack Now Includes StarOffice
   4.   My Computer Security Software Recommendations
   5.   WGA/WGAN Windows Validation SNAFU Followup
   6.   Feedback from Readers
   7.   Recommend my Terry's Computer Tips Newsletter to Your Friends

Welcome to the on-line edition of my Terry's Computer Tips newsletter.

My emailed newsletter is sent weekly to individuals who have subscribed to the newsletter. Click here to subscribe. It's free!

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If you find an email in your Spam folder or Bulk Mail folder that you really want to receive -- be sure to click on their button to reclassify the email in their system. It will help you and it will help others.

1.  First Look at the New Eudora Email Program

I've used the Eudora email program for a lot of years and watched as it sat, seemingly for ages, between releases.

Finally, last year, the communications giant Qualcomm (who owned it) made a deal with the Mozilla Foundation to take Eudora into open source.

This week, the first fruits of that effort are available to the public. The first "open beta" version is available for people who want to try it. You can find it via the Eudora page at the Mozilla web site at http://wiki.mozilla.org/Penelope . Penelope is the codename for the project. It's also the name of the add-on for Mozilla Thunderbird.

Where does Thunderbird fit in?

Thunderbird has been the email program and Usenet news reader from the Mozilla Foundation. More important to Eudora fans, Thunderbird is the base for the new version of Eudora.

Eudora will be released in two formats. One will be the Eudora program, which will be the Thunderbird program plus the new Penelope add-on and some additional differences. The other will be the Penelope add-on, which can provide most of the Eudora changes to regular Thunderbird users.

I downloaded and tried Eudora v8.0.0.b1 this week and played with it a little bit.

Here's what you need to know if you want to run the new Eudora v8.0.0.b1 beta version:

• Eudora's install location, by default, is C:\Program Files\Eudora (the old Eudora defaulted to C:\Program Files\Qualcomm\Eudora
• Eudora v8.0.0.b1 will migrate your existing email system, including emails and identities, into the new Eudora.
• Eudora v8.0.0.b1 should peacefully coexist with your existing email program, except...
• Eudora v8.0.0.b1 will configure each email account to check for emails every 10 minutes and to delete those emails from the server. By the way, this is the normal setup for any email program.

This last point is signifcant for two reasons. I assume that, in testing Eudora (or any other email program) I still want to get all my emails into my regular email program. Secone, you don't have much time to prevent Eudora from grabbing the current emails at your ISP.

The old Eudora stored one value for "check for emails every ____ minutes." The new Eudora has a separate value for every email account. If you have multiple email accounts, or multiple ID's that you use for the same account, you'll have to check the "Leave emails on server" on each of the identities. It also has the normal setting not to leave the emails from the server, that is, to delete the emails from the server after downloading them.

Is Eudora v8.0.0.b1 ready for regular use by normal people? No. If it was, if the programmer team thought it was, it would not be a beta version, let alone the first beta.

If you're interested in it, I suggest installing it into its default directory, disconnecting your Ethernet cable or hang up if you're on dialup, open Eudora, and change all email identities to "Leave emails on server" so you can get them with your regular email program. Then, reconnect your Ethernet cable or dial the ISP again. That way, you won't accidentally download and delete emails.

What did I like? It looks nice and looks like it will be a good program. Unfortunately, I was never a fan of Thunderbird because I use multiple outbound email servers with multiple accounts.

What did I not like? It's not for me right now. It has built-in junk mail filtering and may have an issue with the PopFile program that I use for multiple classifications, not just junk. It also lost one feature that kept me with Eudora and not Thunderbird — the old Eudora allowed (required, actually) setting of the POP3 (inbound) and SMTP (outbound) email servers for each email account.

Thunderbird and the new Eudora have separate settings for the POP3, but once common set of SMTP servers for all outgoing emails. It does not appear that I can tie an individual email address to a specific SMTP mail server. That causes problems when the email server wants to validate that the user is authorized to send email via the server.

For now, I looked at beta #1, tried it and promptly uninstalled it. I'll look at again, later, when it is closer to release.

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2.  Updates Last Week

Microsoft (operating systems, email, web browser, office suites):
Microsoft releases almost all updates once per month, on the second Tuesday. This week did not include Patch Tuesday.

Firefox (web browser, http://www.mozilla.com, free):
No new version this week. Version 2.0.0.6 was released on August 1, 2007. This was a security update.

Opera (web browser, http://www.opera.com, free):
No new version this week. Version 9.23 was released on August 15th. This release of a recommended security upgrade, in addition to having several other changes and bug fixes.

Netscape (web browser, http://browser.netscape.com, free):
No new version this week. Version 9.0b3 (beta version) was released during the week ending August 18, 2007.

SeaMonkey (web browser, email, HTML editor, newsreader; http://www.mozilla.org/projects/seamonkey; free): No new version this week. Version 1.1.4 was released on August 3, 2007. This was primarily a security update.

Eudora (email, http://www.eudora.com):
No update last week. Version 7.1.0.9 was released October 11, 2006. Eudora is now free, with no ads and no "paid mode" option.

The first beta version of v8 (v8.0.0.b1) was released this week.

Mozilla Thunderbird (email, http://www.mozilla.com/thunderbird, free):
No new version this week. Thunderbird version 2.0.0.6 was released on August 1, 2007. This is primarily a security update.

OpenOffice (office suite — spreadsheet, word processor, presentations, graphics, web design; http://www.openoffice.org; free): Version 2.2.1 was released during the week ending June 16th. This is a security fix and bug fix release, with no new features.

3.  Google Pack Now Includes StarOffice

Google made a big change in the Google Pack last week. The free Google Pack software package started out with free Google applications like Google Earth, Google Desktop, the Google Photos Screensaver and Picasa (the photo-editing program that Google purchased).

Google began including other programs like Firefox (with the added Google toolbar), Adobe Reader, RealPlayer, Spyware Doctore (Starter Edition), Norton Security Scan ,Google Talk, and Skype.

Now, you can add Sun Microsystem's StarOffice to the list! What's StarOffice?

We have to go back four or five years for the answer. Sun Microsystems purchased an office suite and named it StarOffice. Originally available for Linux, Unix and Solaris, StarOffice was a complete suite including spreadsheet, word processor, database, fonts, themes and more. Some of these were from the original and/or developed by Sun. Others were licensed third-party products incorporated into StarOffice.

After a couple years, Sun created a public relations coup with its contribution of much of the StarOffice source code to the open source movement. Sun created an unusual open source license for this, not the usual Gnu Public License (GPL).

The GPL would allow anyone to download, share, use, change, distribute and sell a product. There are a lot of conditions, but two important ones were that: (1) if you sold it, you had to make the source code available for free; (2) if you modified a GPL-licensed program and distributed the modified program, you had to make the source code of your modifications avialable;.

The license for OpenOffice allows anyone to use, but restricts redistribution and prohibits selling it by anyone other than Sun Microsystems.

With the license they created to released the StarOffice source code to create OpenOffice, Sun has the rights to incorporate OpenOffice into their product(s). That's what's in StarOffice — OpenOffice plus more add-ons like fonts, themes and a different database than the one in OpenOffice.

Should you get StarOffice with the Google Pack? If you don't have a good office suite, you should. If you already have OpenOffice, you may want to or you may not. Like any other derivative, a given version of OpenOffice will be available first, and then it will be incorporated into the next version of StarOffice.

Tip: if you already have Google Pack, you won't find StarOffice as one of the available downloads. It looks like you have to uninstall in order to get Google to show you the entire set of applications that are available.