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Show Notes:
Teaser
Intro Music.
Contact info.
Items of note:
On an upcoming episode of The Geekcast, I will be interviewing former Screen Savers and current Call For Help host Leo Laporte. Stay tuned, the audio is coming soon.
Do you want your tech question answered on the show, send it in text or mp3 form to geekcast@gmail.com
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Tech news:
Apple’s Tiger update will patch a major Dashboard vulnerability. Currently Tiger allows widgets to auto-install on a user’s system. A malicious widget could be put onto your dashboard without your knowledge. Over three dozen fixes are expected in the 10.4.1 update, code-named “Atlanta”. After installing the update, you will be prompted before a widget is downloaded. It has also been rumored that Atlanta will correct minor issues with at least four of the default widgets included with the retail version of Mac OS X 10.4 “Tiger.”
Bill Gates says the iPod success won’t last. While in Frankfurt, Germany, Bill Gates says Apple shouldn’t get too comfortable atop the portable music playing world. “I don’t think the success of the iPod can continue in the long term, however good Apple may be. I think you can draw parallels here with the computer. Here too, Apple was once extremely strong with its Macintosh and graphic user interface, like with the iPod today, and then lost its position.”
Mozilla releases Firefox security update. A security update for Firefox has been released in a move that follows the public disclosure of exploit code for two “extremely critical” vulnerabilities. Version 1.0.4 addresses vulnerabilities that surfaced earlier this week, includes several security fixes, as well as a fix to DHTML errors that were encountered on some Web sites.
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How To: Clean your registry
When you install and uninstall lots of programs, your Windows registry is usually cluttered with items that you no longer need. These lingering items could potentially cause errors or even slow down your system. Like every other part of windows, your registry should be maintained.
A word of caution that making any changes to the registry are usually instant and can cripple your system if you do not know what you are doing. Please be sure you back up your registry before beginning and never change anything you are not sure of. Creating a System Restore point before proceeding doesn’t hurt either.
With that said, you should check out TweakNow RegCleaner. This free program is an easy-to-use way to clean up that messy registry. Once installed and running, TweakNow will show you areas to scan on your system. Once you select all that you want it to check, click the scan now button. It will go through looking for items that can be removed and flag them for how safe they are to delete. Yellow items are things it is unsure about, green are safe to delete and blue items are entries it cannot identify. A safe way to go is only delete items that are green.
TweakNow RegCleaner can be downloaded for free from http://www.download.com/TweakNow-RegCleaner/3000-2094_4-10380794.html?tag=lst-0-1
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Music: The Transfer- Down With Everything
http://www.thetransfer.com
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Ask A Geek:
This segment will return in a future edition of the Geekcast.
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Hack:
Kill your harddrive before discarding your PC
When you format your harddrive or delete all the files from disk, the files themselves still remain. You are only deleting the reference to the file and marking that section of the drive as available for writing. If you are donating your computer or even throwing it out, you should make sure all your personal data is not recoverable. One way to do this is to use a ‘Kill Disk’.
A kill disk is a floppy disk (or any bootable drive) containing a program that your PC can boot to. It erases all data on your drive not by removing its reference but by actually writing 0′s to each sector on the disk. By doing this enough times, your data is truly un-recoverable and your important data will have no chance of being used by someone else.
To use Kill Disk, install the program onto a floppy disk. If you computer doesn’t have a floppy drive, you can use a CD or USB key. Please note that you may need to change your boot priority in order to boot from a different drive before your harddrive. Once installed, insert the disk, reboot and follow the steps. ONLY KILL YOUR HARDDRIVE IF YOU ARE 100% SURE YOU DO NOT NEED ANYTHING ON IT!!!!!! It is vital to remember that you cannot get your data back once this process starts and aborting it when it is not finished will not work.
Active @ Kill Disk is free to use and can be found at http://www.download.com/Active-Kill-Disk-Hard-Drive-Eraser/3000-2092_4-10188745.html?tag=lst-0-1
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The geek’s view:
Segment will return in a future edition of the Geekcast.
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Contact info.
Outro music / sound clip.
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