Editor's Note: Article updated on May 8, 2009. Original article published September 8, 2006.
Every family has at least one member whose risky computer behavior is asking for trouble. You know whom we mean: the kid brother who can't resist those dodgy downloads; the spouse who clicks on suspicious pop-up ads and updates without a second glance; or the cousin who returns a borrowed laptop riddled with malicious software. You have two options: become a paranoid misanthrope with motion-sensor alarms rigged to your PC, or take a few minutes to establish these four security precautions. They're not foolproof against the most persistent of malicious software magnets, but these basic tips should give novices some ideas.
Step 1: Create multiple user accounts
A no-brainer, perhaps, but creating multiple user accounts is one of the surest ways of restricting a guest's risky activities without breathing down their neck while you supervise each mouse click. Families can generate an account for each member, an especially proactive move if there have been problems in the past. Enact it thus and you, the uber-administrator, can limit others' capabilities to install programs and make systemwide changes, a move that could prevent your errant relations from executing tainted programs. To sweeten the deal, each account-holder's capability to customize their own desktop could help mow down weedy sibling rivalry. Consider adding a password-protected log-in to help maintain privacy.
User accounts make it easy to restrict guest privileges.
Make sure the "password at login" feature is enabled, so everyone who accesses the computer will be required to provide their username and password. The nuisance of compelling returning users to log in after each idle period is easily outweighed by the security benefits of maintaining multiple accounts. Besides, you can always adjust your idle-time settings to minimize the frequency of logging in anew. Here's another tip--setting up an unpassword-protected guest account on a laptop means your friends can borrow it to easily get online or use core Office functions, while the password protection on your account acts as a deterrent.
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Opera, announced Thursday that it has inked a deal with Skyhook Wireless that will bring geolocation to its browser. According to the company, those who download the geolocation-equipped Opera browser will be able to share their location with any site that supports it and get information about related products and services in their area.
Skyhook played an integral role in making the geolocation possible. The company's Wi-Fi Position System makes it possible for any computer or mobile phone with a wireless adapter to be located.
In conjunction with the release of a new Opera build that supports geolocation, the company also released an API that will allow Web developers to add the Skyhook location platform to their site, so they can interact with Opera browser users. Download the browser here.
AOL might have enjoyed its best days in the late 1990s, but the company is still the most beloved ISP, according to a new study from Forrester Research. Forrester polled nearly 4,600 consumers about their experience dealing with ISPs. AOL topped the list for usefulness and simplicity. Overall, the company's "Customer Experience Index" rating was 71 percent, putting it atop the list of ISPs across the U.S.
Visible Measures, a company that provides video tracking and measurement services, announced Tuesday that it has raised $10 million in a Series C funding round that was led by Northgate Capital. According to the company, it plans to use the funding to expand its operation.
Mortgage search site, Home-Account, announced Thursday that it has raised $1 million in seed funding from Charles River Ventures and other investors. The company will use the funding to invest in its growth for its recently launched site.
Don Reisinger is a technology columnist who has written about everything from HDTVs to computers to Flowbee Haircut Systems. Don is a member of the CNET Blog Network, and posts at The Digital Home. He is not an employee of CNET. Disclosure.
Correction at 7:55 a.m. PST: Googlesystem is not an official Google blog.
Google has inked a deal with online account migration tool provider TrueSwitch in an attempt to streamline the process of moving to Gmail from competing e-mail services, according to Googlesystem, a third-party blog that tracks the search giant's efforts.
Gmail has previously offered tools that let people import contacts and messages from other e-mail services, but the company apparently believed it was making it too hard on new users to import data and wanted to find a way to make account migration more straightforward.
According to the Googlesystem blog, people can use the TrueSwitch migration tool to bring in all their data from AOL Mail, Yahoo Mail, MSN's Hotmail, and other services.
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The TrueSwitch migration feature is being added to Gmail's Settings menu. After inputting the e-mail address of the account they would like to import, users will be asked to enter that account's password and decide what they want imported. They will also be able to label the imported messages to distinguish e-mails sent to the old account and those sent to their new Gmail account. It will take 24 hours to 48 hours before the messages appear in Gmail.
Using TrueSwitch could significantly lower the barriers to switching to Gmail. Some Yahoo Mail and Hotmail users are loath to switch to Gmail and lose their data, so they instead decide to stay put.
The TrueSwitch import tool apparently is being rolled out over the next few days, though it's not clear when it will be available to all users.
Don Reisinger is a technology columnist who has written about everything from HDTVs to computers to Flowbee Haircut Systems. Don is a member of the CNET Blog Network, and posts at The Digital Home. He is not an employee of CNET. Disclosure.
(Credit:
AOL)
It's been a busy two days for AOL Mail. On Wednesday, AOL launched a beefier version of the AOL Mail gadget for iGoogle. On Thursday, AOL won a few more fans with the introduction of its beta feature AOL Sync.
AOL Mail for iGoogle improves upon the previous gadget by replacing the preview-only capability with functionality that lets you compose, reply, and fully manage your in-box from the iGoogle page.
AOL Sync beta, launched today, targets mobile and desktop users with the ability to sync their AOL address book and calendar in real time to Microsoft Outlook, the iPhone, BlackBerry, phones running Windows Mobile, and phones made by Nokia, Motorola, and Samsung.
You'll get started on AOL's Sync site, where you'll sign in to get access to the mobile or Outlook plug-in. On that end, AOL has turned to Funambol, which brings open-source push synchronization to companies like AOL.
It's a little disappointing that AOL Sync beta won't yet sync e-mail, but we're always big fans of two-way syncing and if this beta catches on, message-syncing would be the next logical step.
Updated at 11:30 am PT.
On Tuesday, AOL released AIM 6.8 for Windows. The version update of the chat client, which AOL is calling a "refresh," adds a mobile slant. One of the new features lets you share photos with buddies on the T-Mobile network (U.S. only) when you drag or import a photo into the instant messaging window. Friends can save the image or respond with a photo of their own, which will pop up in your IM window.
Two integrated plug-ins for AIM Chat and AOL Mail are also new additions. Clicking on the talk bubble at the bottom of the interface gains you entry to a chat room. To preview new e-mail messages, you'll click the envelope button that also resides below your buddy list. You can also open your in-box from there to manage e-mail, and can add more AIM plug-ins from the AIM Gallery.
AOL on Monday quietly released a brand-new version of its instant-messenger application for Mac users. Called "AIM for Mac beta 1," it's a replacement for version 4.7, which has remained untouched since February 2004.
Back then gas was a little over $1.50 a gallon.
Unlike the changes in oil prices, those four years have amounted to little more than what was offered in previous iterations of the program, or Apple's iChat application which comes pre-installed in every Mac computer. In the new version users can change emoticon sets and tweak background chat wallpapers--all things that you can't do with the current version of iChat. There's also tabbed browsing and contact search which the previous version did not have. Otherwise, it's largely playing catch-up to the PC version, which has received the most attention and is currently on version 6.8.
Also worth noting is how much the market has changed since the latest Mac release. iChat and third-party applications like Adium, Digsby, and Pidgin have the upper hand with compatibility for other protocols. AIM for Mac is currently limited to AOL and Yahoo contacts, while the others support things like Jabber, ICQ, and XMPP. In a more frequently fragmented market, with newcomers like Facebook and Google, these open platforms simply end up being more appealing.
AIM for Mac looks quite similar to iChat, although without the audio and video logos to let you know who is ready for media chatting.
(Credit: AOL Inc.)Despite the uncomplicated version number, open-source, multiclient chat app Pidgin 2.5 doesn't include any major improvements unless you're fascinated by bug-fixes or are a big MSN-messenger user.
Available for Windows, in a portable version, and for Linux, the update features support for Microsoft's Live Messenger offline messaging, and personal messages. The latter will show up as Status messages. Live Messenger's non-face Smileys should be updated, too.
Other improvements are much smaller in scale: Group and Chat buddy list entries now support custom buddy icons via the context menu, and there's the usual spate of stability improvements across the board. I had noticed some stability issues with Yahoo IM in the previous release, version 2.4.3, and so hopefully those have been resolved, too.
AOL has upgraded its AIM Express software, an online Flash-based application that replicates many of the features of the regular downloadable software (add your own review here).
Among the new AIM Express 7.0 features are tabbed conversations, status messages, text-message support to communicate with buddies' mobile phones, and compatibility with Microsoft's Internet Explorer 6 and 7, Mozilla's Firefox 2 and 3, and Apple's Safari 2 and 3.
The software is an example of the growing utility and sophistication of Web-based applications. Instant messaging, though, is somewhat more amenable to the task: it doesn't require the heavy processing burden of a spreadsheet, and not being able to work while offline isn't a big deal given that the whole point of IM is to chat with contacts on the network. Moving applications online poses some compatibility issues with various browsers or with software foundations such as Flash, but it can sidestep myriad other compatibility issues such as operating-system compatibility.
AOL also announced a new version of AIM for phones using the Windows Mobile operating system, including the Motorola Q, Samsung BlackJack, and some Palm Treo models. CNET Download.com editor Jessica Dolcourt reviewed the AIM for Windows Mobile phones beta in June.
Social-networking savant Flock has announced a re-branded version of its browser aimed at fashionistas. At the very least, it's aimed at people who like the color pink and lipstick marks on their advertising. Called Gloss, it's a pink-and-purple themed edition of Flock 1.2 that comes with fashion-related feeds and bookmarks pre-loaded.
The Gloss rebuild of Flock shows the pinker side of browsing.
(Credit: Flock, Inc.)The list of baked-in feeds for the Windows-only Gloss includes Cosmopolitan, TMZ, Glam.com, PopSugar, and These Boots Are Made for Stalking.
Gloss is getting pimped as a "fun" version of Flock, although I could've sworn that Flock received the same PR campaign comparing it to Firefox. Either way, it's hard to argue with a browser that promotes itself as a place where, "Your friends are always there--just like celebrities in rehab." It's hard to argue, of course, because sometimes it's better to just walk away. Slowly. Beyond having the topical feeds included and the new color scheme, there doesn't seem to be much of a reason to get Gloss.
Flock itself has also received a couple of upgrades. The Flock 2 beta (download for Windows and Mac) goes up another point, incorporating the Firefox 3.0.1 security patch along with other bug-fixes. The Flock people are promising a lengthy beta cycle, so expect there to be at least one more update.
The official version of Flock (download for Windows and Mac) also gets a bump up, addressing bugs and security holes fixed in Firefox 2.0.0.16. Again, no major roadwork going on here, but it's definitely a good idea to upgrade to ensure that old exploits don't cause you grief.
(Credit:
CNET Networks)
Pandora may be one of the better-known music-discovery apps to premier in the iTunes App Store yesterday (download | review), but it isn't the only free Internet music-streaming and discovery service-turned-iPhone-application out there. One of my iPhone-blessed colleagues here at CNET also heartily recommended AOL Radio.
AOL's channel of recommendations tops the category listings on this simple vertical app, followed by category genres from Alternative to Sports talk and World music. Clicking a category streams content by radio station or by predefined collection. All songs play on a darkened screen powered by CBS Radio. The artist's name and available album art are displayed when available. Below is a options button that can be "tapped" to save the song or find it on either iTunes or AOL Music.
All of these are useful functions of streaming media, but what won my colleague over is the ease of streaming local stations by selecting the city from a tab.
AOL Radio may not offer the same element of excitement or surprise as Pandora's music-picking engine, but with a song and station history, favorites, local stations, and collections, it's a viable contender for those who aren't as interested in rating songs or having an algorithm pick their next jam.
