Sunday, February 4, 2007

Show #15 - 02.04.2007



[Download Show #15 as MP3]

News
  • Windows Vista Released this past Tuesday
    • OEM Version available at places like Newegg.com
    • Allows Upgrades On-The-Fly to 'Ultimate' or higher versions
    • Home Basic vs Home Premium vs Ultimate
  • TurboTax Has Built-In Upgrades Like Vista
  • Bush no longer a "miserable failure" on Google
  • Adobe releases not only the ActionScript Virtual Machine (AVM) code to open source, but also the PDF 1.7 specification to ISO
  • Sony Corp., the world's largest maker of video-game players, may report third-quarter profit fell 50 percent after its flagship PlayStation 3 lost market share to Nintendo's Wii. Sony may still exceed its full-year profit target because of a weaker yen, sales of Bravia televisions and growth at its movie unit.

Software / Hardware / Power Web Picks
  • 7-Zip Archiver
    • Zip, Cab, Tar, Gzip, Bzip
    • 2%-10% Better Compression than Winzip
    • Integrates with Windows just like Winzip
    • Free & Open Source (Winzip Standard $30)
    • Free SDK for LZMA compression format (Used in their own 7z Compression format)
  • Getting videos/files on to your PS3

Penny Pinchers

Security & Privacy
  • Securing Your Wireless Network
    • Why Secure Your Wireless Network
    • Ways to Secure Your Wireless Network
      • Stop Broadcasting SSID
      • WEP/WPA Key Encryption
        • WEP = Wired Equivilant Privacy
          • Less Secure
        • WPA = Wifi Protected Access
          • Newer Technology, More Secure
      • Limit Connectivity by MAC Address
        • MAC Address = Unique Network Card Identifier
        • If MAC Address is not on a list of approved cards, no access is granted
    • Steps to find / get to your router
      • You need to find its IP address:
        • In Windows press the Windows Key and R at the same time
        • Type "cmd" and press ENTER
        • At the command prompt type "ipconfig" and press ENTER
        • Look for the words "Default Gateway" and for the number next to them
        • Open a web browser and put that number at the top with a http:// in front (e.g. http://192.168.0.1) and press ENTER
      • Figuring out how to login to your router
        • If you know the username/login and password type it. If not look in your user guide, online, or simply try "admin" and "password" for the login and password.
        • If all else fails, reset the router and use the defaults in the book or call customer service for your router.
      • Once logged in
        • Change your password to something other than the default.
        • Find the wireless settings and rename your network to something other than the default (often "linksys" or something).
        • Do one or more of the following:
          • If not using wireless at all, disable it completely. Ultimate security.
          • Use a WEP password of your choice. You will need to type it or share it once with each computer you plan to use on the network, after typing it once on each device it should not ask again (unless you tell it to).
          • Disable broadcasting of wireless network name (SSID).
          • Use MAC Address filtering to prevent unauthorized MAC addresses from connecting. This is a somewhat advanced task.

Editorial ("Power Up")
  • Photoshop Tutorial - Designing a Web Page in Photoshop
    • Open Photoshop
    • Go to the "File" menu and select "New"
    • Make a document the size of the intended webpage (try 1024 x 768 if you're not sure)
    • Decide on your background color and select it by clicking on the color selector at the bottom of the tools palette, it looks like to squares usually black and white sitting on top of each other. Click the one in the background (known as the background color). Select your background color here.
    • Click on the "Edit" menu and select "Fill..."
    • Choose "Background Color" from the drop down list.
    • Click "OK" to fill the background of your document with the background color you choose.
    • Stay tuned next week as we cover quite a bit more in this tutorial. Leave us a comment if you need help or would like us to upload some example PSD files.

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