Happy Holidays

The holiday season is coming, even though the snow seems to be going, at least for now. Here are a few items which I hope will make your holiday computing experience fun and safe.

Avoid Virus Hoaxes
Every year at this time Grinches all over the world seem to step up their hoax activity. When you receive an email urging you to "forward this to everyone in your address book" or threatening dire consequences if you "break the chain," please stop, count to ten, and check to see if this is a hoax. Here are a few excellent resources:

Snopes.com (http://snopes.com)
BreakTheChain.org (http://www.breakthechain.org/)
McAfee Virus Hoaxes (http://vil.mcafee.com/hoax.asp)
F-Secure Hoaxes (http://www.f-secure.com/hoaxes/hoax_new.shtml)
Link to Sophos virus and hoax information (http://rlis.com/sophos.htm)

Computer Associates has an excellent list of hoax characteristics here: http://www3.ca.com/securityadvisor/newsinfo/collateral.aspx?cid=37733.

Stay Up To Date
Several major updates are available, in addition to the big whack of Windows Updates scheduled for this week.

Adobe Reader version 8.0 is available, and fixes a security hole in previous versions. If you currently have Adobe Reader, you would think that asking it to "check for updates" would get you to this new version, but unfortunately it will not. If you want the 8.0 version, browse over here to get it: http://www.adobe.com/products/acrobat/readstep2.html. (Unless you really want Adobe Photoshop Album Starter Edition bundled with Reader, you need to clear that check box on the download page. Pretty sneaky, eh?)

Reader is a big program. If you want a smaller, faster-loading program for reading your pdf files, I recommend Foxit Reader 2.0, available here: http://www.foxitsoftware.com/pdf/rd_intro.php.

Users of AVG Free Anti-Virus are probably running version 7.1. Grisoft, the maker of AVG, is now offering version 7.5 free, and will phase out support of 7.1 early in the new year. Users of AVG Free will receive a pop-up reminder to upgrade. You're supposed to be able to click on a link in that window to be taken to the upgrade page, but I have never gotten that to work. Instead, just browse here: http://free.grisoft.com/doc/5390/lng/us/tpl/v5#avg-anti-virus-free, and download the file. Please, please, please remember to UNINSTALL the previous version before installing the upgrade. Those instructions are here: http://forum.grisoft.cz/freeforum/read.php?2,64238,backpage=,sv=.

Have Some Fun
If you're around or in touch with children who are online, be sure to let them know about the NORAD Tracks Santa site, here: http://www.noradsanta.org/en/santa.php(Flash required.) You or the kids can track Santa's progress on Christmas Eve, and there are lots of puzzles, pictures to print and colour, and Christmas music for you to explore beforehand. Oh yes, and you can email Santa from that site, too. Maybe this year he will bring me that pony I've been asking for since I was three.

Track Your Packages
Maybe Santa is sending something along by UPS or FedEx or Canada Post? If you use Firefox as your browser or Thunderbird as your email client, you can get an extension that will track packages for you. If your package is being shipped on one of the supported carriers, you can use this extension to show it's route on Google Maps. The instructions and a link to the download is here: http://trackpackageextension.com/instructions.html.

This article is written by or on behalf of an outsourced columnist and does not necessarily reflect the views of Castanet.