Wednesday, August 20, 2003

Grousing Again About This...

I love my TiVo but I don't love the fact that so many TV networks play fast and loose with start/stop times. I have, of course, a recent example...

This evening, since Leno and Letterman are in repeats, I set my TiVo to record an episode of the old Banacek show off the Hallmark Channel. The episode was scheduled to run from 9:00 to 10:30, which was what TiVo recorded. If the Hallmark folks had actually broadcast the show from 9:00 to 10:30, all would have been swell.

But the start of my recording was the last few minutes of Son of Flubber, which was what was on just before. The Banacek episode didn't commence until around 9:04.

At its close, Mr. Banacek was just about to reveal whodunnit when the recording ended. I'm guessing the show actually finished around 10:35.

This was not a huge loss for me since Dick Van Patten was playing one of the suspects. If Dick Van Patten's in a mid-seventies Universal mystery show, you can just about bet the farm that he's guilty. (And also, I'd seen the episode before and remembered that.) But there had to have been some folks out there who had never seen the show, set a TiVo or VCR for it...and didn't get to find out how it ended. Yes, you can program your TiVo to record a few minutes beyond the scheduled end time but (a) who thinks to do that? And (b) that limits your ability to record another show right afterward on another channel.

I've groused about this before and will probably grouse again in the future. Perhaps if enough of us grouse, TV networks will start airing their shows when they say they're airing them. I don't see how they benefit from the way it is now. The folks who recorded Son of Flubber didn't get the whole thing, either.

• Posted at 10:51 PM · LINK

Quick Comment #3

Hmm...Quick Comment #2 wasn't so quick. No wonder I'm behind on this assignment.

• Posted at 6:21 PM · LINK

Quick Comment #2

The Internet is lousy these days with worms and viruses and trojans and things that want to sizzle your cable modem. The folks at Microsoft allowed some features into Windows 2000 and Windows XP that have made life way too easy for those who think it's fun to invade or crash others' computers. If you want to learn a lot about the problems and can deal with some high-tech lingo, visit Steve Gibson's website. For years, Mr. Gibson has been warning about these vulnerabilities and is now politely saying, "I told you so."

Even if you can't understand most of what he posts there, you can use an online service he provides called Shields Up! When you run it, it will attempt to contact your computer and, in effect, break in the way a malicious intruder might. It will alert you to potential weaknesses in your system and possibly send you in search of a good firewall program.

On the 'net these days, you need a good firewall (preferably, a hardware firewall) and a good virus checker. And it's becoming more than a matter of your own safety. If you allow yourself to be vulnerable, you make yourself a menace to both friends and total strangers.

One other point: We should make it a matter of Internet Etiquette that you should not post e-mail addresses. One of the major sources of mailing lists for those who send out spam is addresses posted on websites. They send out "spambots" (robotic scanners) to surf the 'net and record any text that appears to be in the form of an e-mail address. So if you post someone's address, you're setting them up to receive spam and perhaps a worm attack as well. The current Public Enemy #1 in the virus/worm world is a thing called W32.Sobig.F@mm, which harvests e-mail addresses posted on the Internet and then bombards those addresses with infected messages. (For info on W32.Sobig.F@mm, including removal tools, click here.)

It is possible to post an e-mail address in an encoded form so that the spambots cannot read it. But unless you're going to go to the trouble of doing that, you shouldn't post e-mail addresses — yours or anyone else's.

Lastly: We really don't like Spyware, which is a general name for software that you get on your computer — often without knowing about it — that tracks information about you and sends it on to someone. Some free programs you download will quietly put a piece of Spyware on your computer. Sometimes, just going to a website will install it, either as a cookie or a scripted program. However you get these things, they're bad news so you might want to scan your system for Spyware. There are several programs available for free that do this but the two best are Ad-Aware and SpyBot. Neither will catch everything so I run each of them once a week or so.

Back to work...

• Posted at 6:07 PM · LINK

Quick Comment #1

Tomorrow (Thursday) morning, I'll be a guest on the most excellent radio program of my pal, Paul Harris. I'll be on around 10:30 AM Pacific time, which means 12:30 St. Louis time. You can listen online over at Paul's website. But if you go over there, you'll find RealAudio recordings of past guests on The Paul Harris Radio Show and you'll probably find someone there more interesting to listen to than me. All I'll be doing is talking about my book, Mad Art, which chronicles the splendid illustrators for Mad Magazine. And don't forget to check out Paul's weblog.

• Posted at 5:43 PM · LINK