Still Fiddling while the ROM Burns
Now that it's after the first of the year, you may have some video that you'd like to edit or just burn to a ROM. Perhaps you scored a new video camera or maybe you've finally gotten around to starting the project you've been putting off for years: Converting all those VHS, Beta, Hi8, 8mm, and digital video tapes to a format that you'll be able to use in a few years when there are no longer players for those formats. Nero 9 claims to have all the tools you'll need.
In terms of tools, not a lot has changed between Nero 8 and Nero 9, but the company has continued to work on organizing the interface and making the tools work together better.
Nero StartSmart, the application control center, helps guide you to the right tool, even if you don't know which tool you need. Tell the control center what you want to do and it will take you to the right place.
Nero knows that two of the most often used features are playing audio files and video files, so the players are a part of StartSmart. Instead of waiting for another application to open, you start listening or watching much faster.
Help? Help? Won't Somebody Help?
In preparing this review, I asked Nero for help and Nero said that no help files ship with the product. Instead, it offered a link where I could go to download the latest help files. It wasn't a question of disc space because there's plenty of room on the installer disc for the relatively small help files. The files were probably still being prepared when it was time to start shipping.
This is actually not a bad approach because it ensures that users will have the latest help files. If you buy the product in June, you'll download files that may have been updated in June. But users could use a little help to figure out where to put the help files. It's easy enough to figure out: After you download and unzip the file, search for a file with the same name, rename the old file, and copy the new file to the directory.
Easy for me to do because I knew what to look for. Nero really needs to provide instructions for installing the new help files or, better yet, create a download that gives the user all of the help files and then installs them all on the user's machine.
If you're running Vista, you'll need to convince Vista that the file is safe. When you copy a file into the Program Files directory, Vista becomes suspicious and warns about the file whenever you try to use it. Nero does explain how to make that stop.
Start the Installation, then Go to Lunch
For reasons that are unclear, installing Nero takes nearly as long as installing Windows XP. Because setup programs work best when other applications are closed, you may want to schedule the installation around a trip to the zoo, or at least around lunch.
The download, if you choose to obtain the program that way, is a big one: 1.5GB. If you know that you won't need some of the components, choose the custom installation and tell Nero not to install them. That said, most people will probably want all of the components.
I Want To ...
StartSmart and the various applications still need some work to closely integrate all the pieces, but there are improvements this year. It's an evolutionary process. Click any of the images here for a full-size view.
To get started, you can select a type of task from the top menu, a type of job from the menu on the left, or go directly to a specific application from Nero's Start Menu. (Click any of the images for a full-size view.)
In addition to being able to play files from StartSmart, you can also rip, burn, copy, and create a back up from there. This is a welcome change. Although some work is still needed, StartSmart is helpful in leading users to the right destination. And, if you already know which application you need, you can jump right to it.
When either you or StartSmart selects an application, the launcher minimizes itself and returns when you've finished with the application.
One common destination for most people will be Nero Vision, the place where you can import and edit video files. Just about any non-copy-protected video format can be imported and edited.
Don't Forget Your Options
Nero offers lots of burning options, from simple to complex. If you want a basic disc that's closed (meaning you cannot burn more data to it and that it will work in a player other than the drive in your computer), select one of the options from StartSmart. For more precise control, select Nero Burning ROM and you can choose the type of data or multimedia CD or DVD that you want to burn. If you have a large program that you'd like to place on a lower-capacity disc (with some loss of quality), Burning ROM makes that possible, too, and you can use the recode function to allow the videos to play on a palm-top device.
If you use Nero for ripping music from your CD collection, you'll be happy to know that Nero had added support for Gracenote, which means you won't have to type artist, album, and track names. Itunes, Winamp, and Windows media player already do this. You can keep it simple (choose small file size, medium quality, or high quality) or you can make all the settings manually.
Next, if you want to edit your audio, WaveEditor handles basic editing and SoundTrax supports surround sound (both 5.1 and 7.1 multi-channel formats). SoundTrax also includes settings for transferring recordings on vinyl albums (remember those?) or tapes.
PhotoSnap provides basic photo editing and there's RescueAgent, a file recovery tool that may make it possible for you to get a file back even if you've emptied it from the Recycle Bin. You tell RescueAgent where the file was and give it some information about the file. But here's the real beauty of the feature: It also works with digital memory, so you may be able to recover images from erased or damaged camera memory cards.
Nero should highlight this feature because anyone who has ever lost one or more images to user stupidity or a technical malfunction will consider RescueAgent to be worth the entire cost of the application ($100) or upgrade ($60).
Bottom Line: Nero 9 can do just about everything you might want to do with media files and some things you haven't thought of.
With Nero, you often have several ways to accomplish the same task: A 1-click pushbutton way and a way that allows you to control all the variables. That means the program allows beginners to achieve what they want and yet doesn't stifle those who want to be fully in charge.
For more information, visit the Nero website.
Phish and Porn
The message claimed to be from the US Treasury and it wanted to warn me. "On On January 1, 2009 a large-scaled phishing attack started and has been still lasting. A great number of banks and credit unions is affected by this attack and quantity of illegal wire transfers has reached an extremely high level." Can you count the half dozen dead giveaways that this is a hoax?
No comma after 2009. OK, this is a minor point that will be caught only by someone who understands the language, but I would expect messages from the US Treasury to pass by that kind of person before being sent.- "[L]arge-scaled": A fish with large scales would be "large scaled". Attacks of this nature are characterized as being "large scale".
- "...and has still been lasting": The writer meant to say that it is continuing. No native speaker of English would ever phrase it that way.
- "A great number of banks and credit unions is...": Some would argue that "number" is singular and "number" is the subject of the sentence, so the verb should be "is". Wrong, Charlie. The sense of the subject (multiple banks and credit unions) calls for a plural verb.
- "...and quantity of illegal wire transfers...": This is a twofer. The article "the" needs to precede "quantity" and a native speaker would probably say "number" instead of "quantity".
- I have 6 already (the previous was a twofer, remember) but here's an extra: Can you imagine any government official writing a message such as this?
The message goes on to say that I'm "getting this letter [Tweet! It's an e-mail, not a letter.] in connection with new directives issued by U.S. Treasury Department" and suggests that I click one of two links that will explain everything. One of the links is to a "net" domain and the other is to a "com" domain. The sender hopes that you don't remember all government agencies use "gov" domains.
Neither of the domains is registered to a government agency or any other legitimate business and I'm sure that you're surprised by this fact.
Both registrations are probably to fake names at nonexistent addresses.
My assumption, of course, was that this was some sort of phishing scheme. An attempt to obtain your banking information or credit card information. That turned out not to be the case. At least not directly.
Instead, both of the websites went to a porn portal, one that claims to provide access to all sorts of Internet fun. I didn't proceed beyond this page, though, because there were too many potential problems.
The two largest threats are enough to keep me away.
- The sites might use drive-by attacks that attempt to plant bad software on the computer.
- The sites might actually take me to a porn site, but one that starts throwing more complex attacks at the machine as I absent-mindedly wander around the site inspecting the goods.
This is a new approach and once again I must congratulate the thieves who concocted it for their attention to current affairs. Someday they'll master the English language, too.
The Internet Has Fallen and It Can't Get Up
What would happen if a major provider of Internet backbone services suddenly keeled over? Supposedly the Internet is robust and traffic routes its way around problems, but about mid day on Sunday, December 28, 2008, my connections to several websites dropped and could not be re-established. At first, I suspected a nameserver problem at my ISP and was about to call in a trouble report. Additional investigation showed that the problem was not with my ISP.
I tried to ping sites and received no response. In some cases, the names didn't even resolve to an IP address, so it certainly looked like a nameserver problem. To be sure, I rebooted the cable modem, the router, and my PC. No change. A year or so ago, I had (at Wide Open West's insistence) changed my DNS server to WOW's, so I decided that changing it back to OpenDNS might solve the problem. Click any of the images here for a full-size view.
Nothing changed. So that told me the problem wasn't with WOW and I would have to look elsewhere. In the meantime, LogMeIn had gone offline, so had Carbonite backup and my connection to AIM. I couldn't reach Google Mail, Microsoft, or the New York Times, so clearly a big chunk of the Internet was unavailable.
The Internet Storm Center reported a problem with Level3 in Detroit, based on Keynote's Internet Health Report. At the time, Level3's main Web page was also unavailable. The Internet Health Report returned Level3's status to normal within about 2 hours, but continued outages were still being reported in Detroit 4 hours after the outage began.
Level3 never mentioned the outage, which affected both Internet service and standard telephones, on its website.
The outage was relatively brief, so it was primarily an inconvenience, but some online stores undoubtedly lost purchases and IP-based telephone conversations were dropped. Despite its reputation for being robust, the Internet is actually a relatively fragile operation. That's bad because we depend on the Internet for so much these days, but it's not surprising. When bridges collapse and roadways crumble, it's clear that too little attention is being paid to the nation's infrastructure.
Nerdly News
Expensive Hard Drives Could Be a Hit
With 160GB laptop hard drives hovering around $100, who in his right mind would spend nearly $1000 to buy a 160GB laptop hard drive, particularly when the buyer must purchase 1000 of them at a time to qualify for that price! As it turns out, quite a few organizations will probably line up to buy these new hard drives from Intel.
That's right. Intel. They're solid-state drives (SSD) and Intel is now shipping $950 160GB SSDs with a 2.5-inch form factor. In early 2009, the drives will shrink to 1.8 inches.
Despite being about 10 times more expensive than standard hard drives, the SSDs will prove to be popular with users of portable computers. They run cooler on less power, meaning the computer manufacturer can offer significantly better battery life or significantly smaller and lighter computer.
In addition, SSDs aren't as susceptible to being damaged by shock or vibration. Another plus is the faster boot time solid-state drives provide. So some people who travel frequently will conclude that the benefits outweigh the extra cost.
For lower-end machines, 80GB SSDs are still available and 80GB is enough for many situations. Still, these drives will approach $600 in 1000-quantity orders for at least the next several months.
The prices are high, but there's an oversupply of components in the marketplace at the moment. Both Toshiba and Samsung have announced plans to ship similar devices soon, so prices could begin to edge lower. But with 500GB hard drives for desktop computers selling for less than $100 and 1TB drives selling for not much more than $100, don't look for SSDs to take over the desktop anytime soon.
Soon is a relative term. Check back with me this fall.
The FBI Director as a Spammer
From Clarksburg (which could be West Virginia, Maryland, California, Massachusetts, New Jersey, or ...?), Jeff wrote with a copy of a spam that's somewhat similar to the one describe in "Phish and Porn", except this one claimed to be from the "FBI" warning about transactions with the Nigerian government. "I really loved the way they didn't capitalize Bureau or Investigation, their misspelling of government, and their adding a "s" to the word information throughout the e-mail. The topper though, was [FBI Director Robert] Mueller's e-mail address being at hotmail and not a govt. one." That pretty much says it all. But we'll take a look at and thoroughly dissect this piece of rubbish.
Here's the message (left column) on the right, I'll comment about the message.
Assistant Director in Charge Joseph Persichini, Jr
ATTENTION:
We believe this notification meets you in a very good present state of mind and health. We the Federal bureau of investigation (FBI) Washington, DC in conjunction with some other relevant Investigation Agencies here in the United states of America have recently been informed through our Global intelligence monitoring network that you presently have a transaction going on with the NIGERIAN GOVERMENT as regards to your over-due contract payment which was fully endorsed in your favor accordingly.
It might interest you to know that we have taken out time in screening through this project as stipulated on our protocol of operation and have finally confirmed that your contract payment is 100% genuine and hitch free from all facet and of which you have the lawful right to claim your fund without any further delay.Having said all this, we will further advise that you go ahead in dealing with only the UNION BANK NIG.PLC office accordingly as we will be monitoring all their services with you as well as your correspondence at all level.
In addendum, also be informed that we recently had a meeting with the Executive Remittance Director of the UNION BANK NIG.PLC, in the person DR.EFFIONG EBONG along with some of the top officials of the Ministry regarding your case and they made us to understand that your file has been held in abase depending on when you personally come for the claim. They also told us that the only problem they are facing right now is that some unscrupulous element are using this project as an avenue to scam innocent people off their hard earned money by impersonating the Executive offices of the union bank Of Nigeria
We were also made to understand that a lady with name Mrs. Patricia Brown from OHIO has already contacted them and also presented to them all the necessary documentations evidencing your claim purported to have been signed personally by you prior to the release of your part contract fund valued at about US$8,000,000.00 (Eight million united states dollars) but the UNION BANK office did the wise thing by insisting on hearing from you personally before the go ahead on wiring your fund to the Bank informations which was forwarded to them by the above named Lady so that was the main reason why they contacted us so as to assist them in making the investigations.
They further informed us that we should warn our dear citizens who must have been informed of the contract payment which was awarded to them from the NIGERIAN GOVERNMENT, to be very careful prior to this irregularities so that they don't fall victim to this ugly circumstance. And should in case you are already dealing with anybody or office claiming to be from the Central Bank of Nigeria or other bank and offices which is not the below bank, you are further advised to STOP further contact with them in your best interest and then contact immediately the real office of the UNION BANK OF NIGERIA only with the below informations accordingly:
NAME: DR.EFFIONG EBONG
OFFICE ADDRESS: UNION BANK NIG.PLC,Central Business District, Cadastral Zone,
Abuja, Federal Capital Territory, Nigeria.
TEL: 234-80-3944-5411
Email : unionhomeremittanc@live.com
NOTE:
In your best interest, any message that doesn't come from the above official email address and phone numbers should not be replied to and should be disregarded accordingly for security reasons. Meanwhile, we will advise that you contact the UNION BANK office immediately with the above email address and request that they attend to your payment file as directed so as to enable you receive your contract fund accordingly.
Ensure you follow all their procedure as may be required by them as that will further help hasten up the whole procedures as regards to the transfer of your fund to you as designated. Also have in mind that the UNION BANK of Nigeria equally have their own protocol of operation as stipulated on their banking terms, so delay could be very dangerous. Once again, we will advise that you contact them with the above email address and make sure you forward to them all the necessary informations which they may require from you prior to the release of your fund to you accordingly.
All modalities has already been worked out even before you were contacted and note that we will be monitoring all your dealings with them as you proceed so you don't have anything to worry about. All we require from you henceforth is an update so as to enable us be on track with you and the UNION BANK of Nigeria. Without wasting much time, will want you to contact them immediately with the above email address so as to enable them attend to your case accordingly without any further delay as time is already running out.
Should in case you need any more informations in regards to this notification, feel free to get back to us so that we can brief you more as we are here to guide you during and after this project has been completely perfected and you have received your contract fund as stated.Thank you very much for your anticipated co-operation in advance as we earnestly await your urgent response to this matter.
THANKS FOR YOUR ANTICIPATED COOPERATION AND UNDERSTANDING.
BEST REGARDS
Robert S. Mueller III
Federal Bureau of Investigation
J. Edgar Hoover Building
601 4th Str, NW Washington, D.C. 20535-0001,
USA Email: robertmulle_fbi@hotmail.com
This message was sent using IMP, the Internet Messaging Program.
Este mensaje ha sido analizado por MailScanner en busca de virus y otros contenidos peligrosos, y se considera que está limpio. For all your IT requirements visit: http://www.transtec.co.uk
The message is from the director. Why is this guy's name at the top?
Throughout the entire message, as Jeff noted, there are usages that are clearly written by someone who has a shaky grasp of the English language at best, so I'll largely ignore the poor English, incorrect capitalization, and faulty punctuation.
The FBI would certainly list the "other relevant Investigation (investigative?) Agencies", don't you think?
I'm delighted that I will have the lawful right to claim my fund. Oh, wait. I said I wasn't going to make fun of their poor English, didn't I. Sorry. Just disregard this paragraph.
OK, I really do have to comment on the language here. I thought that "held in abase" might be a strange legal term, but that seems not to be the case. It seems somewhat unlikely that my file has been caused to feel any shame. As far as I know, files are essentially without feelings or emotions.
That darned Mrs. Patricia Brown from OHIO is trying to beat me out of my ill-gotten gains. I'd better get on the case post haste so that I can put my hands on that "$8,000,000.00 (Eight million united states dollars)".
I wonder if these chumps ever considered that they should omit the ".00" or make the fictitious amount something more exact, like $7,532,451.29. Because of interest payments, bank accounts rarely have exact dollar balances.
Why capitalize "Lady". Oops. I'm going where I said I wouldn't go. Again. Sorry.
Would the FBI really refer to the populace of the United States as "our dear citizens"?
This is certainly a long spam. I wonder if they believe that length equates to sincerity and believability. Well, let's keep slogging forward.
Odd that Doctor Effiong Ebong uses a "live.com" e-mail address. One might possibly think that he really isn't a bank official in Nigeria. The dialing code (234) in indeed for Nigeria, but we already knew that.
Director Mueller really wants me to get my money, doesn't he!
Here they're setting the hook for the advance payment you will be required to make. The "protocol of operation" will require that you open an account with the "bank". It will be just a few thousand dollars, of course, a mere pittance when compared to the $8 million you will soon receive.
Uh, oh. The "FBI" is going to be watching me.
These guys are really pushy, aren't they!
Have you ever seen a letter from the FBI? I have. Trust me when I say that they don't look at all like this.
AND THE FBI DOESN'T WRITE IN ALL CAPS.
At least they got this information right.
Well, down to here. "Robert Mulle" with a Hotmail address.
From the IMP website: "IMP is the Internet Messaging Program. It is written in PHP and provides webmail access to IMAP and POP3 accounts." This is not the kind of program the FBI uses.
The Spanish text says "This message has been analyzed by MailScanner for viruses and dangerous content, and is considered to be clean." Why would the FBI use a service in Spain to send a message to someone in the United States? This is such a transparent fraud that it's surprising anyone actually falls for it. But you can be sure that a few people will.
The author's image: It's that photo over at the right. This explains why TechByter Worldwide was never on television, doesn't it?
