NYPC Blog

All NYPC members can contribute to this Blog. Send your tidbits to blogsubmission@nypc.org.

Google 411

May 7, 2008

Have you heard about Google 411? It is a great voice-recognition powered directory assistance service from Google that can get you the information you need using just your phone. By dialing 1 (800) 466-4411 and saying the City and State you are interested in searching when prompted, you can receive a list of the results from Google's search. Google will automatically connect you to your selection from the list or you can have the information sent via text to your cell phone. If you have an Internet enabled cell phone you can also receive a Google map of your search selection.

This is another great little innovation that we have come to expect from Google. It is fast and free. Here is a link to more Google 411 information. And to be clear, I do not hold stock in the company. (unfortunately)
Enjoy.
Patrick McEvoy

P.S. Google will save information about your previous searches via caller ID to help improve the performance of their product. If this does not sit well with you, Google has made it easy to delete this information. As always, you should review the privacy policies of any Internet service you give information to. To delete your previously saved Google 411 searches associated with your caller ID, use the phone in question and follow these instructions from Google's website.

Privacy: Delete my information
Here's the full set of steps to delete any information we've associated with your phone number in the past:

1. Call GOOG-411, and press the star (*) key after you hear the introduction to enter the privacy menu.
2. From the privacy menu, press 9 to delete past information associated with your phone number.
3. To confirm you'd like to delete the information, enter the confirmation code when prompted. You can also press star (*) to cancel and return to your search.

After you've called GOOG-411 several times, you'll stop hearing the introduction to enter the privacy menu. However, you'll still be able to press the star (*) key to access the privacy menu.

New NYPC TV Show

June 22, 2007

NYPC just started producing a monthly half-hour TV show called Bits & Bytes. The show features tips for better computing and can be seen on Manhattan Cable TV, Public Access. It is on a few times each month, on different channels so check our calendar for the schedule.

The June 2007 show is available at Google Video. The show hosts are Steve McGraw and Kelly Heindel. On the show Mary Ginsburg talks about NYPC, Mike Ostrowe cleans a computer, Patrick McEvoy demos Skype, Fred Kahn offers Ebay advice and David Pogue talks about Vista.

Home Routers Can Be Very Dangerous

March 31, 2007 By Michael Horowitz

A new type of malicious JavaScript program can change the configuration settings on routers that still use their default password. Simply viewing a web page with a malicious JavaScript program inside it is all that it takes to get infected. If you have a router between your computer(s) and the Internet and are not sure that the default password was changed, read this: Home routers can be dangerous. VERY dangerous.

Old Versions of Flash Hang Around

January 31, 2007 By Michael Horowitz

Secunia, a software security company, has a cool utility on their web site called the Software Inspector. It examines the software installed on your machine and reports whether it is vulnerable to known bugs (more commonly referred to as vulnerabilities or security holes).

I was shocked to see that Adobe's very popular Flash software (formerly from Macromedia) never gets uninstalled. My computer, although it had the latest and greatest version of Flash installed, also had four old versions of Flash, each with known bugs. Disgracefully sloppy work from Adobe.

The Secunia Software Inspector is nice enough to tell you the exact location of these old versions of Flash. Mine were all in folder
C:\WINDOWS\SYSTEM32\Macromed\Flash\

The current version, 9.0.28 is file Flash9b.ocx. File Flash9.ocx is an older buggy version of Flash version 9. I also had two versions of version 8 and even a copy of Flash version 6 on my machine. I deleted all the old versions.

The only problem with the Secunia Software Inspector is that it is a Java applet. Applets are much like ActiveX programs and Flash itself, they run inside a web page, you don't have to download them and install them. But Java is the least popular of these competing technologies and many Windows computers don't have Java installed.

This wouldn't be a problem except that Secunia does not test your machine first to see if you have Java installed (and it has to be a recent copy of Java, old ones won't work).

What to do? Visit my Java Tester web site to see if you have Java installed and, if you do, which version of Java it is.

Extending the Trial Version of Windows Vista

January 30, 2007 By Michael Horowitz

The normal trial version of Windows Vista is 30 days, but if you know the secret handshake, you can extend this to 120 days. See Extending The Windows Vista Grace Period to 120 Days by Jeff Atwood. And, quoting the article: "Every Vista DVD includes the ability to install any edition of Vista without a product key."

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