Thursday, February 16, 2006

Recover Your Autoplay!

Once upon a time, Windows anticipated my every move, popping up a wizard when I plugged in my camera, or launching my media player when I inserted a music CD. Then one day (after I installed a new program, or clicked--without reading carefully--a pop-up dialog box), Windows forgot what to do with my music, photos, and other media files.

Right-clicking the drive or device in Explorer and choosing Properties will lead you to an Autoplay or Events tab where you can reestablish which program should do what when you plug in, but Autoplay settings sometimes remain stubbornly broken.

Microsoft's Autoplay Repair Wizard fixes the botched settings. Although the Microsoft download page asks you to validate your copy of Windows before downloading the wizard (how annoying!), you can, perversely enough, opt out of validation and still download the fix. Now, isn't that better?

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Wednesday, February 01, 2006

Surf With Safety!

I recently came across another weapon in the war against spyware that's so useful I can't help myself from telling you about it.

In this era of drive-by installs and unannounced browser hijacks, surfing the Web can seem like tiptoeing across a minefield: one wrong step, and you've got serious problems. For the past couple of years, I have been hoping someone would develop a tool that tests Web sites for potential safety issues, so when I found a Firefox plug-in called SiteAdvisor, I was excited. Even better, once I started testing it this tiny add-on actually exceeded my expectations, which is rare.

The short story on SiteAdvisor is that it gives you the dirt on more than a million Web sites. Its test bots constantly check sites to see whether they send unsolicited e-mail, bury users under a blanket of pop-ups, and--perhaps most importantly--contain software that could compromise your privacy. Whenever you visit a URL, SiteAdvisor's browser icon flashes one of three colors: green (safe), yellow (caution), or red (extreme caution). Then, with a couple clicks, you can head to SiteAdvisor's home page for more detailed information. According to the company, about 90 percent of the sites tested so far have scored a green rating, whereas only 5 percent haved earned the red flag for bad behavior. My favorite part about the plug-in is that it rates sites directly from search engines such as Yahoo and Google, which reduces your chances of falling victim to a drive-by install. By the way, did I say that it's FREE?

(Used with permission from CNET Networks, Inc., Copyright 2006. All rights reserved.)

Addendum: SiteAdvisor is also available for Internet Explorer. You can find it by clicking here: (SiteAdvisor for Internet Explorer)

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