TODAY'S TOURBUS TOPIC: Shameless Self-Promotion / SP2 on CD / Mac Patch

Howdy, y'all, and greetings once again from deep behind the orange curtain in beautiful Irvine, California, where my governor can beat up your governor. :)

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On with the show...

Both Microsoft and Apple have joined forces to once again delay my never-ending home computer security and privacy series. So my post about verifying your Windows Updates and Apple Software Updates will have to wait for another week.

Before we get to the latest news from Redmond and Cupertino, though, I'm going to sneak in two pieces of blatantly shameless self-promotion. In fact, these two items are so barefaced and so brazen that I am almost reluctant to include them in today's post.

Almost. :P

Introduction to Internet Searching Audience: Everyone

Shameless self-promotion, part one: My third "book" is now available. Titled "Introduction to Internet Searching," the book is in point of fact a five hour series of online movies covering topics ranging from basic search strategies to evaluating web resources for relevance and accuracy.

Best of all, you can watch first 50 minutes of Introduction to Internet Searching online, free of charge, at

http://movielibrary.lynda.com/html/modPage.asp?ID=108

[Okay, so maybe this isn't all that shameless after all.]

The movies were recorded in QuickTime, so they'll play on both PCs and Macs provided you have Apple's free QuickTime player [which is available for free at http://www.apple.com/quicktime/download/ ]. One word of advice, though: Any online movie, even one that streams, tends to be gargantuan, so having either a broadband connection or the patience of Job is highly recommended. Either way you'll be rewarded.

Watch a few of the free movies and see if they pique your interest. If they do, and if you'd like to see all five hours of Introduction to Internet Searching, point your web browser to

http://www.lynda.com/

and sign up for a US$25 a month Online Learning Library account.

Yeah, I know. US$25 is a LOT of money, especially considering how much you already pay each month for everything else. But Lynda.com is LITERALLY the best bargain on the Internet. You see, in addition to being able to watch all five hours of my book, you'll also be able to access 126 other full-length video books at Lynda.com, including:

Learning Adobe Acrobat [7.5 hours]

Introduction to Digital Photography [5 hours]

Learning Macromedia Dreamweaver MX 2004 [9.5 hours]

Learning iLife: iTunes, iPhoto, iMovie and iDVD [5.5 hours]

Learning Microsoft Word 2003 [6.5 hours]

Learning Adobe Photoshop CS [10.5 hours]

These video books were created by some of the best software gurus on the planet [present company excluded] who show you, step-by-step, how to easily and effectively use a particular software application. Besides, name any other place where you can take a seven hour Acrobat class... AND a five hour digital photography class... AND nine hour Dreamweaver class... all taught by experts [again, present company excluded] and all for only 25 bucks a month!

And I am not just saying this because I am a Lynda.com author. I've been a paying, monthly subscriber of Lynda.com since July of 2002. Practically everything I know about Dreamweaver, Fireworks, and Acrobat I learned at Lynda.com.

To see a complete list of all 126 of the video books that you can access with a Lynda.com Online Video Library account, check out

http://movielibrary.lynda.com/html/modListing.asp

To see what new online video books Lynda.com will be publishing in the next few months, hop on over to Lynda.com and click on the "more upcoming titles" link in the page's middle column.

So, watch the first 50 minutes of my Introduction to Internet Searching at

http://movielibrary.lynda.com/html/modPage.asp?ID=108

If you like what you see, and if you want access to my complete online video book along with 126 others, head over to

http://www.lynda.com/

and sign up for a US$25 a month Online Learning Library account.

Enjoy!

Tivo is now US$99! Audience: TV junkies

Shameless self-promotion, part two.

It is hard to think of a technology [outside of the personal computer] that has had more of a positive impact on my life than Tivo. Tivo is a hard-drive based VCR that stands between your cable or satellite connection and your television that lets you:

Pause, rewind, and even slow-mo live television.

Automatically record every episode of your favorite shows and

watch them when you want.

Fast-forward through commercials when watching a recorded show

[although doing this is completely wrong and not something I condone. I especially do not condone pressing the Select – Play – Select – 3 – 0 – Select buttons to turn the Advance button on the Tivo remote into a button that skips 30 seconds ahead during recorded playback. That's something I would NEVER do.]

Access your Tivo box over the Internet when you are away from

home and tell it to record something for you.

All this for only US$12.95 a month.

If you've never seen a Tivo in action, check out Tivo's interactive Flash demo at

http://www.tivo.com/1.0.demo.asp

Until recently, one of bigger barriers to getting a Tivo was its cost. An entry-level Tivo box could cost more than US$200. But Tivo is now offering a US$100 rebate, bringing the cost of a new Tivo box to just US$99.00. If you've been waiting for a time to get a Tivo box, now is the time.

Best of all, Tivo is expanding its distribution channels so you should be able to find new Tivos is almost every electronics and warehouse store you can think of.

Wait. It gets better. Rumor has it that Tivo and movie-DVD-by-snail- mail service Netflix will be joining forces soon, enabling Tivo subscribers to download Netflix movies straight into their Tivo boxes over a broadband connection. Throw in your favorite pizza delivery service and some adult diapers and YOU WILL NEVER NEED TO LEAVE YOUR COUCH AGAIN!

Is this a great time to be alive or what?! :P

Now for the shameless part. [Okay, well, I'm kind of ashamed of the diaper line. But this next part is REALLY shameless.] If you sign up for Tivo, when they ask you who referred you, type in

tivo@netsquirrel.com

Why? Well, if you buy a TiVo box and subscribe to the TiVo service, Tivo is going to reward me with free schwag. My goal is to get so many people signed up that I can give free Tivos to everyone on the planet.

Seriously though, if you've been thinking about getting a Tivo, now is the time to do it. Even if you don't tell them I sent you. :)

The XP SP2 CD-ROM is now available Audience: XP users

Now for the serious stuff.

I mentioned back on August 9th that you can get Windows XP Service Pack 2 [XP SP2] either by downloading it from Microsoft or ordering it on a free CD-ROM. The catch was that the CD wasn't yet available.

But it is now. To order a free copy of XP SP2 on a CD-ROM, just hop on over to either

http://tinyurl.com/6g675

or

http://www.microsoft.com/windowsxp/downloads/updates/sp2/cdorder/en_us/defau lt.mspx

Both addresses take you to the same page, and that last address needs to be on one line. The English language version of XP SP2 is available today, and versions written in other languages will be released over the next three weeks.

Even if you plan to download [or have already downloaded] XP SP2 directly from Microsoft, I strongly recommend that you also get XP SP2 on CD-ROM. Why? Well, if you ever have to erase your hard drive and start from scratch, having a copy of XP SP2 on CD-ROM will speed up your computer's recovery. Why wait for it to download again when you can just as easily pop in a free CD-ROM?

I also recommend that you order the XP SP2 CD-ROM today and then put it away until Halloween. DON'T install it. Yet. As I've mentioned in my last few Tourbus posts, you really should wait a few weeks before you upgrade your computer to Windows XP SP2. Why? Well, there are bound to be problems with XP SP2 that no one expects--like, for example, 40 different programs that "seem" to stop working once you install XP SP2 [see http://tinyurl.com/4uvng ]--and I would MUCH rather these problems happen to someone else's computer instead of yours. By waiting a few weeks [or even months], you give Microsoft and the other software vendors time to fix these unforeseen problems.

You need XP SP2. Just not until Halloween. And when Halloween comes around, I promise to send out a post telling you everything you need to know in order to [hopefully] make your upgrade as painless as possible.

Apple OS-X Security Updates Audience: All Mac OS-X users

On Tuesday Apple released a patch that fixes FIFTEEN security holes in Mac OS-X 10.2.8, 10.3.4, and 10.3.5. These security holes impact a bunch of different programs on the Mac, including the Safari browser.

Fortunately, getting the patch is a snap.

1. Under the Apple menu choose System Preferences

2. In the View menu choose Software Update.

3. Click Update Now.

4. In the Software Update window, select the items you want to install, then click Install. [You are looking for Security Update 2004-09-07, although you really should get all of the updates that are available.]

5. Enter an administrator account name and password.

6. After the update is complete, restart the computer if required.

7. Repeat until Apple tells you to go away.

Or, if you want, you can skip those seven steps and just manually download and install the patch at

http://www.apple.com/support/downloads//

To find out more about this particular Mac patch, check out either

http://docs.info.apple.com/article.html?artnum=61798

or

http://www.internetnews.com/security/article.php/3405051

I hope this helps.

That's it. Have a safe and happy weekend, and we'll talk again soon!

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