October 2008

(Ed. note: This month Jim covers a variety of topics including the sound system at the meeting, efficiency of anti-malware programs, add-ons for the Firefox browser and new procedures to stimulate membership participation.)

If you can’t see, if you can’t hear, SPAUG is not doing its job of making the monthly presentation worthwhile.
We have gone to quite a bit of expense and effort each month to assure you have the best of both of these worlds.

We have put into place an audio system that, even in a small room such as is at the American Legion, allows everyone to hear well and to not have the attendant problems that seem to be plaguing some other monthly meetings. Several members present are known to have hearing problems and I am aware of some that do not attend because they cannot hear. I’m trying to lure them back without being overbearing with the public address equipment for normal-hearing members.

There are a few things that have been designed, chosen, and accomplished that are aimed at assuring a good result for the membership. To assure success, you need to:

1. Have an amplifier with either an equalizer or notch filter. Totally reject any amplifier with only base and treble controls as it will be worthless. If presented with a non-conforming situation, tell them that they have the wrong equipment and gracefully exit. Suggest they purchase an external equalizer to make up for the deficiency.

2. Plan for and test for the ability of any microphone to be held a foot in front of any speaker enclosurewithout causing feedback.

3 If any of tests allows feedback, readjust the notch filter or the equalizer until they do not. 630 cycles (Hz) is an awfully good place to set a notch filter of equalizer selection. The resonant frequency of any room will vary and the starting value will go lower as the dimensions change – generally downwards as the room size increases. Low ceilings may even increase the resonant frequency.

4 Train the users to create a cone of silence in front of the microphone by pointing the microphone directly at their mouth no more than two inches away. This will further block any possible feedback and will assure that the full tonal range of the voice will be amplified.

5 If auxiliary wireless microphones are in use, assure that the microphones are on a frequency as far from each other as possible. If they beat, (induce extraneous noise because of proximity of signals) move the receivers even further apart to stop each receiver from causing intermodulation distortion with its twin.

Firefox has a number of add-ons that make the computer experience much more enjoyable. Review these popular ones:
• NoScript – Except for trusted sites of your choice, blocks all the animations and unwanted junk.
• OpenDownload – Firefox omits the RUN command in the Download box. This supplies it.
• AdblockPlus – 21,709,844 people can’t be all wrong!
• FlashBlock – 1,009,362 and Hank can’t be all wrong!

At the last Planning Committee meeting, several membership-oriented procedures were put into place:
• We are going to try to get some more members to use the SPAUG CD to demonstrate programs that they use.
• Get evaluations on ISPs from members.
• Have longer break times to encourage dialog between members.
• Encourage more small groups by assigning collaboration tasks.
• Encourage newcomers to join into small groups.

VIRUS.GR is the only independent anti-virus evaluator known to me of just how effective several anti-virus programs are. There are some lessons to be learned from the list.

• FREE is not always BAD.
• PAID is not always GOOD.
• ADVERTISED is not a guarantee of ANYTHING.
• NEW is not usually a guarantee of OK.
• OFFSHORE is not a guarantee of SERVICE.
• PUSHED by Micro Center is not a guarantee of HIGH RANKING.

To put the whole anti-virus marketplace into perspective, there is so little authoritative information out in the real world that the consumer is literally clueless and defenseless to decide what anti-virus to buy/purchase/download/steal/trust.

It is a sad state of affairs when at the point in time that the virus-generators are just now beginning to set up for yet another push of malware in our direction, that the average consumer doesn’t stand much of a chance to make the right choice. The consumer just doesn’t have any valid information upon which to make a choice,

The table on the Virus.gr website, when perused, does give you a general indication of what to avoid and a bit of quantitative feedback.

For instance, the “big boys” of Symantec (83%) and McAfee (87%) don’t fare very well at all when a free anti-virus by Avast (94%) and AVG (95%) both miss less than half of the paid programs. Avast has the unique capability to do a free-standing anti-virus scan as it is installed and thereafter at the discretion of the user. Further, it seems to be much more effective at cleaning up computers that have “gone bad”. It is my anti-virus of choice for this reason.

Why don’t I use even the Kaspersky (98%) which also has a free version and is supposedly better? Because I like the pre-scan function when the Microsoft programs are not running and all viruses are exposed without the protection of the Microsoft routines. A program running at boot time has absolute access to the hard drive (HDD) and thus the viruses cannot hide in some other routine. They are naked to the world. An untested thought: use Avast to check out the computer and then use Kaspersky to continue thereafter. Do NOT use more than one anti-virus simultaneously.

Details of the Controlled Testing can be found on the Virus.GR website.