Inside this edition:

— a quote worth remembering —

"Our enemies are innovative and resourceful, and so are we. They never stop thinking about new ways to harm our country and our people, and neither do we."  —Author: George Bush Jr.

«  Information Making News  »

"Jesus, Take the Wheel" is the first new single from the
Carrie Underwood debut album, 'Some Hearts'.
 It arrived in stores Nov. 15, 2005.
The pretty blonde, 22 year old country girl from Checotah, OK was the American Idol season four winner back on May 25, and the first Idol Champ to go country. Move over Martina McBride and Faith Hill ... here comes Carrie Underwood. For a track-by-track review of the album, read it here.

Related Links:
Official Carrie Underwood Website
Carrie Underwood Fan Site
Lyrics to  'Jesus, Take the Wheel'
Video to  'Jesus, Take the Wheel'
Listen to 30 second Song Samples from Carrie Underwood's 'Some Hearts' at CD Universe - MSN Music or Amazon.

Arizona Town Goes Wall-To-Wall Wireless... A city blanketed by a wireless Internet network, accessible at competitive prices throughout the town's homes, cafes, offices and parks. Tempe, the Phoenix suburb that is home to Arizona State University, is due to have wireless Internet available for all of its 160,000 residents in February, becoming the first city of its size in the United States to have Wi-Fi throughout. The Tempe network is being installed by NeoReach Wireless. The network uses a so-called "mesh" setup, meaning it passes wireless signals from pole to pole and automatically reroutes transmissions if one of the transmitters breaks down. About 400 antenna boxes mounted on light poles throughout the city will be used to stitch together the network. Tempe officials hope that by making high-speed Internet as accessible as water or electricity across its 40 square miles, it will attract more technology and biotech companies. An increasing number of the nation's cities are looking at using Internet access as an economic development tool. Elsewhere in the nation, Philadelphia is also developing a citywide high-speed system with EarthLink. More information at the Tempe, Arizona website.

Sony Music CD's are Corrupting Computers ... Computer experts are warning music buyers beware because a virus could get into your computer through music CD's by Sony/BMG.
Sony Music began to ship CD's with their controversial Extended Copy Protection (XCP) software, which included a rootkit technique (associated with hackers), which installs itself on computers when the CD is inserted into a CD drive. The rootkit never asks permission to install itself while it manages to bypass your security software and firewall. Removing the rootkit from a computer also has the possibility of corrupting the operating system. These discs can be identified, if you know where to look. The back side of the disc cover will contain a label that includes a sunncomm.com URL.

After a huge public outcry when virus writers started exploiting the rootkit, Sony has suspended production of CD's embedded with the rootkit and recalled millions, but some could still be in stores.

Meanwhile, a Princeton computer scientist, J. Alex Halderman, has posted an analysis of a second copy protection product used by Sony, saying that it, too, suffers from many of the same problems as XCP. That software, called MediaMax, was written by SunnComm. Sony has confirmed that their music catalog does include it. Though MediaMax doesn't resort to concealing itself with a rootkit, it does behave in other ways that are characteristic of spyware because files remain installed ... even if you decline their agreement.

How to Clean Up the Sony BMG Mess
Sophos has issued a tool which will detect the existence of Sony's DRM copy-protection on Windows computers, disable its "cloaking" function, and prevent that functionality from re-installing. The tool also detects versions of the Troj/Stinx Trojan horse which exploits the Sony vulnerability.

Microsoft's Malicious Software Removal Tool attempts to clean up the mess left behind by Sony BMG's XCP copy protection software. The tool removes the cloaking and a potentially dangerous ActiveX control, but not Sony's DRM.
The tool is also available through Windows Update.

Related Links:
Sony's Admission and Solution  •  List of 52 CDs with XCP
How to Tell If Your Computer Is Infected  •   Sony Rootkit Blog
Malicious Software Removal Tool  •   Microsoft Download Center
SunnComm/MediaMax FAQ  •   Microsoft Security Home

Which actress commands the biggest payday? ...
The Hollywood Reporter's annual survey of the highest paid leading ladies has Julia Roberts on top of their list, for the second year in a row. The 38-year-old star may be a wife and mother, but she still brings home the bacon - to the tune of $20 million per movie. Since giving birth to twins, Hazel and Phinnaeus in Nov. 2004, Roberts has reduced her roles in front of the camera in favor of spending more time with her family, but she's still perceived as the highest-paid actress in Hollywood. The Hollywood Reporter, which has compiled the highest-paid actresses list for four years, has revealed its Top Ten List in its Women in Entertainment Power 100 issue.
Read more at CBS News.

Google Announces Plan to Open a Pittsburgh Office... Google, the leading online search engine company, will open a new engineering and research office in Pittsburgh next year to be headed by a Carnegie Mellon University professor, the company said. The facility will be creating software search tools for Google. It is expected to create as many as 100 new high-tech jobs in the Pittsburgh area over the next few years. The office will be headed by Andrew Moore, a Carnegie Mellon professor of computer science and robotics who currently runs a research laboratory of 30 students, programmers and faculty members. Pittsburgh is also home to the Vivisimo and Clusty search engines which was started by Carnegie Mellon computer science students and faculty members. They offer clustered results for a selection of searches.

FDA to Consider Vaccine Against Shingles... A vaccine for older people who want to prevent shingles is under review by the
Food and Drug Administration. The vaccine, Zostavax, was developed by Merck & Co. While most vaccines prevent the body from acquiring an illness, this vaccine is unusual in that it may prevent a flare-up of a virus already in the system. People develop shingles as they age because their immunity to the dormant chickenpox virus wanes. The virus hides in the nerves, and usually starts with pain or itching in a band on the skin, followed by a rash or blisters that can last for days or weeks. Merck wants the vaccine to be available to people over 50 who had the chickenpox when they were younger. Continue reading.
Also, search information on the FDA site through their sitemap.

No more toilet paper ... High-Tech Toilet Rinses Bottoms ...
The next evolution of the toilet is the Swash, an upscale, high-tech toilet seat made by Brondell Inc. Introduced nearly a year ago, the Swash is a device that cleanses with a spray of warm water, relieving people from the hassles of toilet paper. The Swash installs directly on your existing toilet and features heated seats. Its top-of-line model comes with a warm-air dryer and a remote control. Pampering the posterior isn't cheap, the Swash retails for $429 to $549. And for what it's worth ... Mark Cuban, the billionaire owner of the Dallas Mavericks, has a $1.3 million investment in the Swash. Cuban says, "I have always been interested in innovative and cutting edge-technologies coupled with a large market opportunity." Read more. Watch a video.

    J-O-K-E  of  the  M-O-N-T-H

Two old guys are pushing their carts around Wal-Mart when they collide. The first old guy says to the second guy,

"Sorry about that. I'm looking for my wife, and I guess I wasn't paying attention to where I was going."

The second old guy says, "That's OK. It's a coincidence. I'm looking for my wife, too. I can't find her and I'm getting a little desperate."

The first old guy says, "Well, maybe we can help each other. What does your wife look like?

The second old guy says, "Well, she is 27 yrs old, tall, with red hair, blue eyes, long legs, big boobs, and she's wearing tight white shorts. What does your wife look like?"

The first old guy says, "Doesn't matter ---
LET'S LOOK FOR YOURS !!"

Find the best sites fast!
Browse the Internet with our web site directory. Quick access to over 1000 hand-picked * useful links, categorized to save you time. Experience the Ultimate Road to the Internet on ... www.route53.com

« Computer Tips: »

How to Enable or Disable the Autorun Feature
There is no option to enable or disable automatically running CD-ROMs in the user interface. This article Q155217 contains information about modifying the registry.

To enable or disable CD-ROMs from running automatically, you must edit the registry:

WARNING:
Editing the registry improperly can cause damage to the operating system. It is recommended that the registry is backed up prior to making any changes.

 1.   Click Start, click Run,
Type regedit in the Open box, and then press ENTER.
 2.   Locate and click the following registry key:
HKEY_LOCAL_MACHINE\
System\CurrentControlSet\
Services\CDRom
 3.   To disable automatically running CD-ROMs, change the Autorun value to 0 (zero).
- or -  To enable automatically running CD-ROMs, change the Autorun value to 1.
 4.   Restart your computer.

Note:
 •   This method disables automatically running CD-ROMs from here on out.
 •   However, if you want to disable automatically running CD-ROMs on each use that you insert a CD, you can press and hold down the SHIFT key while you insert the CD-ROM.

How To Troubleshoot
CD burning problems
No 3rd party software is needed in Windows XP for recording onto a CD, however problems and errors can occur. To read about specific error messages, see the KB article 324129.
If you're getting Error Messages that are caused by disc-reading issues, see KB article 321641.
To troubleshoot other error messages, note the specific error message, and then search the Microsoft Support Knowledge Base for info.

Still no luck? Try Microsoft's Keyword Directory  that lists the most frequently used keywords and query words in the Microsoft Knowledge Base.

Quick Links for Searching:
Basic Search Help
Advanced Search Help

Time for a Quiz:

What do bulletproof vests, fire escapes, windshield wipers, and laser printers
all have in common?

- click here for answer -

All were invented by
Women.

For more about
Women Inventors & Inventions
Read This
or see the
Women Inventors Index.

(to hide the answer, click it again)

How To Send e-mail to a group
If you often send the same
e-mail message to several people, such as your family, friends, or co-workers, you should create a group. Groups make it much easier to send the same message to several different people. To create a group, follow these steps:

 1.   Open Outlook Express,
 2.   Click the Addresses button on the toolbar to open your address book.
 3.   Click the New button on your Address Book toolbar, and click New Group. (This opens the New Group Properties dialog box, in which you can name the group and select members from your existing contacts.)
 4.   Click the Select Members button to add contacts to your group. When you are finished, click OK.
 3.   Your new group's name now appears in Contacts in your Address Book. To send an e-mail message to the group, simply select the group's name in the "To" field of the message, and you'll automatically send everyone in the group the same message. Read about it here.

How do I know
which OS version I'm using?
There are many versions of the Microsoft Windows operating system. Find out which one your computer is using:
 1.   Click Start, then click Run.
 2.   In the box, type winver
and then click OK.
(The window that appears will show you which version of Windows your computer is using.) Read about it  here.

Did You Know?
Any computer that doesn't have all the latest Windows patches can become virus-infected, simply by being online.
Get the updates at
windowsupdate.microsoft.com

this just in:

Did You Know? ...
Survey Results show:
One in six U.S. Internet users
have sold something online and 84 percent of US Internet users have bought online at least once, but less than a third buy online regularly.
Other statistics show
71 percent of Internet users say they plan to purchase some, most or all of their holiday gifts online this year.
Read more about:
Statisticss  •  Surveys  •  Trends

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