Terry's Computer Tips - Newsletter
December 12, 2005

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

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Volume 1, Number 26 -- Monday, December 12, 2005

IN THIS ISSUE:
   1.   Another Sony BMG Music CD Security Risk
   2.   Updates Last Week
   3.   How to Advertise for Free
   4.   Firefox v1.5 Exploit Reported
   5.   Removing Windows Components - A New Trick?
   6.   Hidden File Extensions in Windows
   7.   Turning Off the "Hide File Extensions" Setting
   8.   Another security issue with file extensions
   9.   Recommend my Terry's Computer Tips Newsletter to Your Friends
   10.   Send me some email!

Welcome to the online version of my Terry's Computer Tips newsletter.  My free, emailed newsletter includes a special "Just for Subscribers" article, an announcement that the new issue of Terry's Computer Tips has been published online, and the table of contents for the issue.

The emailed newsletter is sent weekly to individuals who have subscribed to the newsletter, have received an email confirmation notice that required them to confirm their subscription request, and who confirmed their request.

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1.  Another Sony BMG Music CD Security Risk

Last week, the Electronic Freedom Foundation and Sony BMG made a joint announcement. They announced that the SunnComm MediaMax copy-protection software, installed on some Sony BMG music CDs, opened a security hole in Windows computers that were used to play the CDs. The list of CDs affected by this problem can be found at http://www.sonybmg.com/mediamax/titles.html .

Sound familiar? Only 6 weeks ago, the story broke about the other copy-protection software used on other Sony BMG CDs. That one was First4Internet's XCP system, and was a much worse problem.

This time, after a request from the Electronic Freedom Foundation, Sony BMG arranged for a third-party to verify the security hole and was able to prepare fixes for the computers before the news went public.

Software fixes are available on both SunnComm's and Sony BMG's web sites at: http://www.sunncomm.com/support/updates/update.asp and http://www.sonybmg.com/mediamax .

In this case, the security hole was not as wide nor as easily used as it was in case of the XCP-protected CDs. However, anyone who had write access to the computer's file system could replace an automatically executed file with the file of their choice. These might be local users (users on that physical machine), even "Guest," or might be someone accessing the computer via a local network and "Windows File Sharing,"

While almost everyone is running Windows XP today (at least in the Windows PC world), this security issue apparently affects only Windows XP, Windows 2000 and Windows 2003 Server issue.

It is not that WinMe, Win98, etc are safe, through. Since no earlier system protected the files based on the user's security level, those operating systems are subject to this type of security risk whether they have played one of these CDs or not.

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2.  Updates Last Week

Microsoft (operating systems, email, web browser, office suites):  None. The next scheduled release date for security and other updates from Microsoft is Tuesday, December 13th -- tomorrow!

Firefox (web browser, www.mozilla.org, free):  Current version 1.5.

Opera (web browser, www.opera.com, free):  Current version 8.51.

Eudora (email, www.eudora.com, options: paid, sponsored or free/lite):  Current version 7.0.0.16.

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3.  How to Advertise for Free

I found this cool and free advertising opportunity this week, and I immediately signed up for it. If you have any form of web business or web site, you can use it to help your search engine rankings.

Surprisingly, the point is not to get direct business from the ad! The point is to get higher search engine rankings from the link you post to your site.

Many posters seem to be missing that point, as they post their URL as plain text and not as an HTML link (there's a wizard to make the link, if you don't know how).

Search engines like blogs and spider them frequently.

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Free Advertising Blog
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Introducing a brand new way to get FREE and MASSIVE traffic to your site for years to come.

Mike Filsaime has done it again… this time, with Free Advertising Blog.

As you know, some of the best ways to get traffic to your site are through the search engines. And as you probably know, search engines love Blogs.

If you know how to use Blogs you can easily get more traffic to your website just by posting your keywords in the title and having your Blogs indexed.

Other ways to get traffic to your site is to use popular free traffic exchanges. Most don’t work, but many do. And when you know what you are doing, you can kill your competition.

Finally, you can kill 2 birds with one stone. Now you can advertise for free on a new BLOG that actually allows you to place your ads for free on their site.

The reason this is good is because you get all the benefits of placing your ads on a BLOG and you all get to advertise for free.

Most people would look at this as a no brainer. Although most webmaster do not like people to advertise on the Blogs, this site was made just for that.

It is free to join and thousands are flocking to this service to drive huge traffic to their sites in ju8st days by simply posting one little ad on their home page.

Anyone looking to increase their profits should look into http://www.terryscomputertips.com/freeadvertisingblog

Sign up for free, and you can post one ad per week. But, pay attention and be ready -- there is a special one-time offer. If you upgrade to the Elite membership level, you will be able to post 2 times per day, 5000 characters including HTML -- AND you get has some special bonuses, too. I passed on it and wish I had not. Unfortunately, it was a on-time offer. There is still a "psid" Pro option, but it doesn't get the bonus extras or the ability to post 2x/day.

If you have a on-line business of any kind, or even a hobby web site for which you want to get higher Google rankings and more traffic, check it out. For free, you can post once per week, text only.

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Looking for a cool and unusual gift item?

Do you need a gift for that person for whom it is impossible to shop? Maybe she is your mother or he is your father-in-law, or he's a sibling, or she's your new girlfriend. How about some art or stained glass? A replica airplane? Maybe a fossil for that old fossil you know?

The Museum Store Company has a very interesting selection of replicas at very reasonable prices.

Give a Piece of History from the Museum Store Company.com

Or, for the computer fanatic or video game warrior in your house

Check out ThinkGeek. ThinkGeek.com offers unusual tools, toys, t-shirts and more for the would-be geek in your house.

Find out what's on Clearance at ThinkGeek!

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Continued in Part 2

Volume 1, Number 26 -- Monday, December 12, 2005
Part 1 | Part 2 | Part 3

Copyright © 2005 Terry A. Stockdale.  All rights reserved.