With the premiere of the new television season about to commence (NBC kicks of the fall television season with the debut of the Dreamworks CGI animated comedy, Father of the Pride (Windows Media Player required), on Tuesday, August 31st and Hawaii, the next night, Wednesday, Sept. 1 at 8 p.m.) look for the full premiere schedule on VanRamblings next week.
In the meantime, sate yourself with the following tidbits of TV trivia …
BAILEY RETURNS! Party of Five alum Scott Wolf — he was that liar-thief-drunk Bailey — has joined the cast of WB’s Everwood. He’ll play a California doctor who takes over Dr. Abbott’s old practice. “Dr. Abbott and Dr. Brown have gone into practice together, so Scott comes in as the new doctor across the street,” explains exec producer Mickey Liddell. “He starts stealing clients from Abbott and Brown [because] he’s the new, young doctor in town.” It’s those damn dimples, I tell ya.
LEGAL MANOEUVER: David E. Kelley has added Mark Valley (Keen Eddie) to the cast of his upcoming Practice spin-off Boston Legal. Valley will star opposite fellow legal eagles James Spader and William Shatner.
CHARMING FELLA: Mr. Jessica Simpson, Nick Lachey, joins Charmed: Lachey will guest-star in six episodes of The WB’s drama, which debuts Sunday, September 12. Lachey will play a man hired to ghost-write Phoebe’s (Alyssa Milano) newspaper column when she takes some time off. The two eventually begin a romance.
Caution: Windows XP Service Pack 2 Has Finally Arrived
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Go Slow With Windows XP’s Service Pack 2
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As per the advice given by many cyber-pundits (including Fred Langa, in his latest column), when Microsoft’s Windows Update service offers you XP Service Pack 2, do nothing; wait a bit.
If you visit the Windows Update site, you’ll see that the look, and architecture of the site, has changed, as per information supplied earlier by VanRamblings. Be careful, though: Steven J. Vaughan-Nichols suggests that implementing Windows XP SP2 is almost as much work as installing a new operating system, and that Microsoft needs to get the word out — the sooner the better.
Thor Larholm, a senior security researcher with PivX Solutions, downloaded SP2 last Friday and continues to analyze it. The true test for the update will likely come in the next few months, he says, once those researchers’ efforts bear fruit.
“Give it a few weeks, or a few months, and you will see the first vulnerability announcements regarding Service Pack 2,” Larholm says. “Give it a month or two and we will also see worms that affect SP2.”
Meanwhile, IBM has told its employees not to download Windows XP SP2, which they feel could render existing applications inoperable.
Earlier today, Microsoft issued a list of nearly 150 software applications and games that may encounter problems with the Windows XP SP2 update, including Norton AntiVirus, and Macromedia Flash and Shockwave. e-Bay has announced XP SP2 conflicts with eBay toolbar & picture services.
Microsoft offers specific advice on the deployment, download and installation of Windows XP Service Pack 2. Of paramount importance: make a backup copy of all of your personal files, including documents, music, bookmarks, favourites, e-mail, and all other important data before installing SP2.
Here’s the C|NET editor’s initial review of Microsoft Windows XP SP2 …
“Like the Titanic’s passengers, Windows XP users often find themselves in choppy, dangerous waters — instead of hypothermia, think Web viruses; instead of circling sharks, quickly crawling worms.”
“Unfortunately, Microsoft’s lifeboats have been, until now, just dinky security patches that saved us from only a few attacks at a time.
“Last Friday, burlier rescue boats arrived in the form of Microsoft’s long-delayed Service Pack 2 (SP2), which will help all of us keep our heads above water. SP2 tightens your PC’s security with a new Windows Firewall, an improved Automatic Updates feature, and a pop-up ad blocker for Internet Explorer. Plus, the newly minted Security Centre gives you one easy-to-use interface for keeping tabs on your PC’s security apps. We suggest you pause before jumping ship, however.”
“We downloaded and installed SP2 and weren’t surprised to find a handful of conflicts with existing apps and wireless network settings on some of our test machines. Wait until SP2 is made available to your PC via Microsoft’s Automatic Updates service, expected later this month for most users. By then, Microsoft should have had enough time to work out the kinks.”
C|NET provides installation advice, and insight into new SP2 features. Well worth reading before considering the download of Windows XP SP2.
Here’s what commentators at the Seattle P-I blog have to say about SP2.
For more Windows XP Service Pack 2 installation experiences, click here.
If your using dial up and wish to install Windows XP SP2 but don’t want to wait around for hours to download it, you can always order it on a CD. In order to successfully install Windows XP SP2, you must order the CD in the same language as the version of Windows XP that is currently running on your computer. For Windows XP SP2 English the date available to order will be August 25th, so check back at the site link above on that date.
Toolkit to Temporarily Block Delivery of Windows XP SP2
Having read all of the above, if VanRamblings has scared the pants off you in regards of the deployment of SP2, in all good conscience we should let you know that Microsoft has provided a downloadable tool that will temporarily block delivery of Windows XP SP2 to a PC through its automatic Windows Update feature. Download the SP2 blocker, extract the file to a temporary folder, and click on the supplied XPSP2Blocker.exe file (or, alternately, in IE, simply click Open, and the patch will install automatically).
The mechanism to temporarily disable delivery of Windows XP SP2 will be available for a period of 120 days (4 months) from August 16. At the end of this period, Windows XP SP2 will be delivered to all Windows XP and Windows XP Service Pack 1 systems regardless. Blocking the download of SP2 will not affect the download of other Windows XP critical updates.
Newest Ad-Aware Personal SE Exposes PC Users To Grief
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Just days after Lavasoft launched new versions of its popular Ad-Aware security programme, PC World tests revealed a significant security issue that may leave consumers vulnerable.
Lavasoft posted Ad-Aware SE Plus and SE Pro 1.0, as well as its free version, Ad-Aware SE on August 9. The company revised the release on August 10, renumbering it to v1.02, and addressed the reported hole in its Ad-Watch component with the release of v1.03 on August 13.
Critical information: users who are running versions of Ad-Aware SE Plus or SE Pro earlier than the current v1.03, which is available now for download (see below), should re-download Ad-Aware, upgrading to the latest version of the application. This is Ad-Aware’s third update in a week’s time, but the most urgent. Simply running the software’s Web Update feature — which downloads the latest definition files — will not correct the problem.
Ad-Aware SE Personal Edition 1.03 is located here, ready for download.
Nice, Polite, Calm, Reserved, and Chock Full of Common Sense
 liberal gadfly Molly Ivins |
Former editor of the liberal monthly The Texas Observer, and syndicated columnist on politics for the Fort Worth Star-Telegram (among many other endeavours past and present), Molly Ivins, on writing about the American psychodrama (this autumn’s U.S. election) suggests that having the United States to the south of us is “like having the Simpsons for next-door neighbours.”
While vacationing in Kananaskis, Alberta, Ms. Ivins was, she says, queried repeatedly by Canadians about the prospect of electing George Walker Bush to a second term in office.
“You couldn’t possibly …” they begin, only to break off. “Are you not aware of what …” “Surely you realize how …” But they can think of no polite way of asking if we are such freaking idiots that we haven’t noticed the damage that has been done by the Bush administration to the American reputation all over the world.
Ms. Ivins finds herself at some pains to try to answer the ever-so-delicately phrased question: Are you people actually going to re-elect that nincompoop? In replying to queries placed by politely astonished Canadians, she finds herself dumbfounded at what her fellow Americans may do come November 2nd, leaving her readers with a wearying concluding thought, “Some days are much tougher sledding than others.”
American Election Results In: Kerry Wins In a Landslide !!!
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In much the same way that Canada’s Election Prediction Project sought to predict the outcome of our recent Canadian federal election, to the south of us the folks behind the Electoral Vote Predictor have set about to track how the Electoral College will likely vote come the evening of November 2nd.
At the moment, the folks behind the Electoral Vote Predictor show that, based on polling data, Senator John Kerry holds a commanding lead over the sitting President, George W. Bush. Even the folks at the pro-Bush Election Prediction.com website have Kerry in front of Bush, both in the probable Electoral College vote and American voter percentage support. The Rasmussen Report also places Kerry ahead of Bush, with 232 to 197 probable Electoral College votes; 109 votes are in the toss-up column.
VanRamblings will post udpated, projected Electoral College numbers throughout the late summer and autumn. In the meantime, click on the supplied site links above for more in-depth information.