WebMaster's Rants & Raves 
If you haven't noticed, we've done tons of work on the site, and got involved with all sorts of stuff. We've been running between 55,000 and 75, 000 hits per month. That's a higher average than we've ever had. It feels great, but I think I need a brain transplant. At my age, anything is an improvement!. We've had a lot of fun dreaming up stupid crap to keep the site interesting. I think it has shown in the interest the wonderful media has had with us. Plus, we've been meeting terrifically interesting people from "Lions" to tigers. Weve even met some big cow-things!! Heh heh! We've been a little disappointed with the 17 year locust (cicada) hatch ... we thought it was going to be big in Connecticut this year, but it looks like we mis-judged how old we were when they last "struck". It looks like it'll be the 2006 or 2007 brood for CeCS. We did get a whacking big hatch in Maryland though in the Baltimore area !!! My daughter's husband manages a construction firm, and had been swearing a blue streak over the big black bugs. It seems that his power saw sounded like the mating song of the males, but louder! He out-competed all the males in the area and attracted HUNDREDS of females who swarmed all over him looking for a mate.  He said it's bad enough that they landed on his work, his arms and cloths, but he said it drove him nuts when they landed all over his hair and beard. Poor boy, any man would love to have hundreds of females after him !!!
My daughter thought it was a riot !!! Browser Helper Objects (BHO's)
However, they can also cause really bad conflicts inside of Internet Explorer and cause it to crash, lock up your machine, or even worse. Fortunately, there is a program that scans for these little web browser add-ons on your machine and lets you know that they are there, and inactivate them: BHODemon v1.0 11-27-01 Resolve Internet Explorer add-in conflicts. Company: Definitive Solutions Version: v1.0 Date Added: 11/27/2001 Size: 127 KB OS: Windows 95/98/ME/NT/2000XP User Rating: 4 Stars **** License: Free Think of BHODemon as a guardian for your Internet browser: it protects you from unknown Browser Helper Objects (BHOs), by letting you enable/disable them individually. BHODemon is free, runs in the "tray" area, and works on Windows 95 or later operating systems. BHODemon scans your Registry for BHOs, and presents any it finds in a list. By highlighting a BHO in this list, and clicking the "Details" button, you can see information about this BHO, and even disable it if you wish. BHOs are disabled by simply renaming the DLL that houses them. By renaming the DLL, instead of deleting it, you have the option of enabling it later if you wish. Why would you want to do that? Because the program that installed the BHO will not run if it can't find the DLL: Adobe Acrobat Reader, for example, won't run if you remove its BHOs. anti-web browser add-on program?  a free copy !!! If you want a quick check to see if you have any parasites running on your machine, visit doxdesk. The site will check your browser for any BHO's or other parasites attached to your browser. You owe it to yourself. Here are some cool websites:
What is Spyware? Do you unknowingly have Spyware running on your computer? Spyware is ANY SOFTWARE which employs a user's Internet connection in the background (the so-called "backchannel") without their knowledge or explicit permission. It usually comes with "free" software. Spyware incorporates silent background use of an Internet "backchannel" connection to capture your private information and "to dial home" to the spyware program's server to keep track of EVERY file you download and EVERY website that you visit. They use this information for their own profit by selling it to anyone who will pay for it. Just imagine who that might be !!! ANY SOFTWARE communicating across the Internet and absent a complete and truthful disclosure of proposed backchannel usage, without being followed by the receipt of explicit, informed, consent for such use is guilty of information theft and is properly and rightfully termed: Spyware. Avoid all "advertizing/advertizer-supported" programs, "ad-enabled" programs, or programs that use "internet technology to display ads" when you dial up. Read the User's Licence carefully ... they sleazily hide it in the legaleze. Program of the Year Award - 2002 Scan your system for ad-supported software components (spyware) and remove them. Company: Lavasoft Version: v6.00 Size: 800 KB Downloads: 621,299 OS: Windows 95/98/NT/2000 User Rating: 5 Stars ***** Requirements: Windows 95/98/NT/2000/XP License: Free Ad-aware scans your memory, Registry, and hard drives for software components from Adware, Alexa (through 5.0), Aureate (1.0, 2.0, and 3.0), Comet Cursor (through 3.0), Cydoor, Doubleclick, DSSAgent, EverAd, Flyswat, Gator, Gratisware, HotBar, NewDotNet, OnFlow, TimeSink (through 5.0), Web3000, and Webhancer. Ad-aware then displays a list of detected spyware modules, Registry keys, files, and folders, and allows you to remove them from your system selectively. This update supports removal of NewDotNet, HotBar, EzUla, Expedioware, Transponder modules, and a bunch of others, allows you to backup and restore any changes, features a right-click option to allow you to scan any folder on-the-fly, a new manual, and supports the scanning of removable drives. Note: Some advertisement-supported software may not work after the ad-monitoring components have been removed (big deal!). If you run Ad-aware under Windows NT/2000, you will need to log in with administrator privileges. If you are upgrading from a version prior to WinNT 4.0, remove the Ad-aware folder or uninstall it before installing this new version. anti-spyware freeware program? a free copy !!! a free copy !!! Keep DoubleClick, Aureate/Radiate, Conducent / Timesink, Comet Cursor, Web3000, TransCom's BeeLine, Netscape/AOL, RealNetworks, NetZip, etc. from stealing you privacy. Want to clean up Internet junk from your computer? Here's another great program for cleaning Cookies, Web page cache, URL history log, Favorites folder contents, Temp directory files, telltale Registry entries, Newsgroup subscription queue, and even resets the Index.dat file in your cookie folder (which contains all of the previous cookie info even though all regular cookies have been deleted). CleanUp! is a useful little freeware utility for anyone who wants to remove the junk left from their Internet surfing. Windows CleanUp! Utility v3.0 02/17/01 Cover your cache/cookie tracks ZDNet Rating: 4 Stars **** User Rating: 4 Stars **** Company: Steven Gould Version: 3.0 Size: 752 KB Downloads: 79,922 Requirements: Microsoft Internet Explorer 3.0 or higher and Windows 95, 98, NT Purchase Information: Free CleanUp! is a useful little freeware utility for anyone who wants to remove evidence of their Internet surfing. Similar to the Paranoia section of Microsoft's Tweak UI, CleanUp! is designed to erase system files that regularly log Internet activities. It purges your Web page cache, URL history log, and any cookie files that Internet Explorer collects during browsing. This easy-to-use, well-documented gem also lets you automatically wipe the Favorites folder contents, temp directory files, telltale Registry entries, and newsgroup subscription queue. You can also set optional settings to delete wipe these files, and other new functions. It's even handy for recovering disk space lost to cookies and cached Web pages. A modest yet friendly interface offers fully selectable cleanup levels and checkboxes for configuring individual operations. So if you want to surf without leaving a wake, download Cleanup!. Warning: don't clean your Favorites Folder if you want to keep your bookmarks. a free copy !!! |
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