Tech Tuesday: Windows XP’s New Update Facility, and More …

July 13, 2004Web & TechRaymond Tomlin

For several months now, VanRamblings has been writing about the imminent release of Windows XP Service Pack 2 (Window Media Player required). Now, we can report officially — thanks to a tip from Michael — that Microsoft has confirmed Windows XP SP2 will arrive in August. Arguably, Microsoft’s biggest service pack yet, and the company’s most important security project since the Trustworthy Computing initiative, there are those who feel SP 2 will cause chaos in the computing world.
Scot Finnie explores the positives and pitfalls associated with XP 2.
All things said, Windows XP Service Pack 2 is a mandatory download, and as such it is important that you know as much about SP 2 as possible in order that you might avoid, as far as one can plan for these things, problems related to its release. With this in mind, have a look at the next item, and the accompanying article by Fred Langa. VanRamblings particularly appreciates the pop-up graphics that accompany the article below, which provide visual insight into the new Windows Update facility.
The Promise — And Problems — Of The New Windows Update

A new version of Windows Update is about to début. It first appeared as part of the beta pre-release versions of Windows Service Pack 2 for XP. The new Update process (comprising both the new Windows Update site and a new software applet, titled Windows Security Center) has different defaults and behaves differently from the Update you’re probably used to.
Next month, the final form of this software will be offered to you as a normal Windows Update for XP and Windows 2000. You might want to take a look at the preview, in Fred Langa’s expansive Information Week article, for the full story. Not only does Fred provide the information you’ll need to adjust to the new Windows Update facility, he provides graphical pop-up screens, which take you through the new update process.
Test Your Popup Blocker
Auditmypc.com has released a page that will hammer your browser with every conceivable method of popup window and rate your popup-blocking software. On VanRamblings’ PC, Internet Explorer’s Google Toolbar received a Very Good rating with a score of 85, while the default popup settings in VanRamblings’ Mozilla received an Almost Perfect! rating with a score of 95. This is a good tool if you want to test the efficacy of your blocker, or gain insight into the methods used by popup companies.
In Tech News This Week
Associated Press writer Sam Cage reports that the United Nations is aiming to bring the modern day epidemic of junk mail (spam) to an end. Spam and anti-spam protection cost computer users some $25 billion last year, according to the UN, so they’re organizing a global anti-spam campaign.
Despite privacy concerns, school authorities in the Japanese city of Osaka have decided the benefits outweigh the disadvantages and will now be chipping children in one primary school, which is to say, that they’ll be attaching RFID chips to kids’ schoolbags, name tags or clothing in one Wakayama prefecture school. Denmark’s Legoland introduced a similar scheme last month to stop young children going astray.
Question of the Week

I had to reformat my hard drive, and I cannot find a code for Microsoft Word 2000. I have documentation for only Dell software and Windows XP. The Windows XP product key was located on a tag on the bottom of my Dell, but it doesn’t work for MS Word 2000. What do I do in order to install my Word 2000? Any help would be greatly appreciated. — Submitted by: Bob Whitecrow, Estevan, Saskatchewan

Software keys are much like keys to a car: a car key will work in only one particular car, so it can’t be shared. The same can be said for a software key. Dell should supply them with a phone call, but also beware that you can’t install Dell’s Office 2000 software on a machine other than what Dell sold you. Supplied Dell software is proprietary.

For most computer users a good rule of thumb would be: when you first receive your PC and all of the attendant software, take a wide-tip permanent marking pen, and write the product key for each piece of software you’ve had installed, right onto the software programme CD. Once this task has been completed, take extra special care to store all of the CDs you received with your PC in a secure location, preferably in one of those pocket CD organizers, available at most retail computer stores.
You know the old saying, “an ounce of prevention, is worth a … ”

White Bread Could Spoil Your Diet

July 13, 2004Food & HealthRaymond Tomlin

According to a study published in the American Journal of Clinical Nutrition, people who eat whole grain foods, such as wholewheat bread, do not experience the same gain in waist size as those who consume white bread, and processed white flour products, such as cakes, cookies, Danish pastries and cinnamon buns, etc.
The scientists at Tufts University in Boston found that whole grain foods, which are higher in fibre, give a feeling of fullness so you eat less, say Dr. Katherine Tucker’s research team. Dr. Tucker avers: “Waist circumference is very much associated with this high-refined grains pattern.”
Many of the foods in the healthy diet are high in fibre. Not only do these foods fill you up more quickly, they also have a low glycemic index (GI), says researchers. The GI is a relative measure of how fast a given food raises blood sugar.
The study compared foods gram for gram for carbohydrate. Carbohydrates that breakdown quickly during digestion have the highest GI value and blood glucose response is fast and high. Carbohydrates that breakdown slowly release glucose gradually into the blood stream and have low GI values. In turn, the level of blood sugar affects the amount of insulin produced by the body which is linked with appetite.

“Many of the foods in the healthy pattern are low in glycaemic load, which evokes a decreased insulin response and therefore decreases hunger and energy intake,” say the researchers. “Those in the white-bread pattern received almost 16% of their daily energy intake from white bread — the food with the highest GI value.”

According to a spokesperson with the British Nutrition Foundation, “Consumption of wholegrain foods, such as wholemeal bread, is associated with reduced rates of heart disease, some cancers, type II diabetes and such foods may play a role in weight maintenance.”

Amnesty International: Living in a Dangerous and Divided World

July 12, 2004PoliticsRaymond Tomlin

Major challenges continue to confront the international human rights movement.
In the past two years, the United Nations has faced a crisis of legitimacy and credibility resulting from the U.S.-led war on Iraq. Amnesty International, and other human rights organizations (the International Red Cross, Doctors Without Borders, Madre), ever more distressingly find themselves unable to hold states to account for the most egregious violations of basic of human rights.
Across the globe, international human rights standards continue to be flouted in the name of the “war on terror”, resulting in thousands of women and men suffering unlawful detention, unfair trial and torture — often solely because of their ethnic or religious background. Around the world, more than a billion people’s lives have been ruined by extreme poverty and social injustice, while governments continue to spend horrendous amounts of money on the build-up of armaments.
The just-released Amnesty International Report reflects the challenges outlined above. The report documents the human rights situation in 155 countries and territories, summarizing regional trends. The report also addresses areas of work being prioritized and developed by Amnesty International — such as violence against women; economic, social and cultural rights; and justice for refugees and migrants – and celebrates the achievements of activists in these and other areas.

“Looking back over the past twelve months, what I see is a war on global values,” says Amnesty International’s Secretary General, Irene Khan (RealPlayer required). “A war that is being fought on the one hand by armed groups that are ready to go to any extreme of inhumanity to attack ordinary people.”
“On the other side we see governments, which have shown an equal zeal in attacking human rights and global principles. And in-between are ordinary people, (who) are paying a heavy price in terms of their human rights, and in terms of their lives.”

We live in a dangerous and divided world. It is more important than ever that the global human rights movement remains strong, relevant and vibrant, and that each and every one of us remain committed to revitalizing the vision of human rights as a powerful tool for achieving social justice.

Sweatshops and Subsistence Wages: The Gap Learns To Mind Itself

July 11, 2004PoliticsRaymond Tomlin

America’s fashion giant for teens and children — The Gap — has just released a candid report detailing the industry’s squalid working conditions.
According to Mark Engler, writing for In These Times, “The report has earned Gap genuine, if measured, praise from a variety of leading anti-sweatshop organizations.” The Gap’s name has been closely tied with the growth of the anti-sweatshop movement over the past 10 years.

“When I decided to join Gap Inc. in the fall of 2002,” writes Paul Presser, president and CEO of the clothing giant behind the Gap, Old Navy and Banana Republic brands, “one of the first things my teenage daughter asked was, ‘Doesn’t Gap use sweatshops?’ ”

An aggressive global movement for workers’ rights has effectively pushed this question into consumer consciousness, and it has haunted Gap for nearly a decade. In May, the company released its first Social Responsibility Report, providing a window into how far that movement has come.

“We’ve had our differences with Gap in the past, and we may in the future,” says Bruce Raynor, president of UNITE, the textiles and needletrades union. But he cites the report as a move to “create positive change for workers.”
A 1995 U.S. National Labour Committee (NLC) campaign against union-busting at a Salvadoran Gap contractor called Mandarin International was among the first drives to illustrate consumer awareness of corporate globalization via clothing labels. As a result, those workers who had been fired while engaged in organizing workers at Mandarin were rehired, and an independent monitoring organization was created.
Just a few years later, The Gap was one of 18 manufacturers charged in a 1999 lawsuit with human rights abuses in the U.S. territory of Saipan. After years of litigation, the company entered into a settlement creating a $20 million fund to compensate workers and establish independent monitoring.
“Companies wouldn’t be doing a thing if it weren’t for the pressure that they felt and continue to feel,” says the NLC’s Charlie Kernighan. “The progress we’ve seen is a testament to all those students, religious people, and union people who were out in front of the Gap back in 1995.”