Are you myopic with your spelling?

OK, I just had to write that headline. Most people really do get into their spelling habits and if their spelling is challenged, you can get into a pretty good argument. With my dictionary work I take a different tack. The Kelvin dictionary is my preferred spelling. I've spent hundreds of hours researching the preferred spelling in Australia and made decisions based on that research. The spelling is how I now spell. I often find I need to change my spelling habits based on the outcome of my research. How others spell is up to them.

Now I mentioned the word myopic, because whilst it does mean narrow-minded, it is also another word for short-sighted. When I researched the word myopic I felt it showed a little about what I'm trying to achieve with my work and I thought that was worth sharing.

The current spellchecking tools we have in many ways aren't helping us, and could be hurting us and our children's spelling. This is true for commercial and open source software.

Type the following into your favourite word processor or browser (assuming the browser has spellchecking) and see what your spellchecker does.

spellcheck

- Most software will suggest spell check. This is an incorrect spelling for Australia. However this usage is now so common (by around 26:1), it may end up be the correct spelling in time. Microsoft Word 2007 suggests spell check and spell-check. Both are wrong in Australia. The correct spelling is spellcheck. (For those who are interested, the correct American spelling is spell-check.)

shortsighted, short-sighted, shortsightedness, short-sightedness

- The correct spelling is short-sighted. For short-sightedness the Macquarie and Oxford dictionaries agree on the spelling. If you type in shortsighted, Microsoft Word 2007 will suggest both short sighted and short-sighted.

nearsighted, near-sighted, nearsightedness, near-sightedness

- The correct spelling is near-sighted. The Oxford dictionary suggests near-sightedness and the Macquarie suggests nearsightedness, as the correct spelling. Microsoft Word will accept all spelling variations and is thus incorrect with nearsighted.

What then is the correct spelling of nearsightedness/near-sightedness?

We can check usage in Australia, but the problem is the main tool people use for writing in Australia is Microsoft Word. The good thing is near-sighted has greater usage in Australia which makes that word easy. For nearsightedness/near-sightedness usage is low, but the version used most often is nearsighted.

If we check the dictionaries for far-sightedness and long-sightedness we find the Macquarie and Oxford agree with the word being hyphenated.

For consistency, and because in all other forms the hyphenated version is used, with the Kelvin dictionary, the hyphenated version of the word is included. The words nearsighted and nearsightedness are also added to the Microsoft Exclude file, so they will now appear as spelling errors for anyone using my Exclude file when the next version is released.

For a bit of fun, you might want to try typing the following into your word processor, or browser.

The room had a lovely vu.
I went to the school fait.

I think you'll be quite surprised with the result. One person asked me what black magic had I performed on their computer. They couldn't believe the result.
Enjoy,

- Kelvin Eldridge

The Great Give-Away: Winner of the 4GB Lexar USB drive.

Congratulations to Simon Adams of Victoria who is the latest winner in The Great Give-Away. Simon has won the 4GB Lexar Jumpstar USB drive.

Thank you to everyone who entered and I wish those who didn't win, the best of luck next time.

- Kelvin Eldridge

MyTreasure beta Version 1.0.3 now available.

Version 1.0.3 of MyTreasure beta is now available. The latest version adds a search engine feature. MyTreasure is available from http://www.mytreasure.com.au/.

The following are two MyTreasure sites.

http://mytreasure.com.au/sites/kelvin/
http://www.risingstardesigns.com.au/mytreasure/

If you want to sell some pre-loved treasures of yours, or check out what others have available, feel free to check out MyTreasure.

The MyTreasure software is provided for free and enables you to easily create your own online Garage Sale at no cost. No auction fees. You don't have to sit around all day waiting for people to turn up. You don't have to worry about what the weather is going to be. Your MyTreasure page works for you 24 hours a day, 7 days a week.

For those who don't know how to upload files to the internet to your free space (which really is pretty easy to do) I do provide low cost space for your MyTreasure page. This is completely optional. For those who use the space I provide I'll provide extra promotion via my blog and your information will appear in the search engine (subject to Google indexing the page).

Enjoy,

- Kelvin Eldridge

iPhone 3G/3GS battery life

An interesting thought came to me the other day which is: how long will the iPhone battery last before it needs to be replaced?

I decided to check the Apple site and whilst it has very good information on how much usage you'll get from a charged iPhone, lots of information on care of the battery, a statement the battery has a limited number of cycles, the glaring omission to me is: how many times the battery can be fully recharged, or cycles as they call it.

How many cycles before the battery needs to be replaced. I would have thought that figure should be clearly stated. Replacing a battery probably represents more than 10% of the cost of a phone, so the battery is a fairly expensive consumable.

The other question I have is: if the number of cycles is limited, then if I use the iPhone direct off the power whilst surfing the web using wireless, will that extend the battery life? The answer I think should be yes, but it would be good to confirm.

I've not yet found information from an authoritative source, but one site did indicate a figure of 400 cycles for the iPhone. That's probably a fair figure because if you are a heavy user of the iPhone, meaning the iPhone has to fully recharged each day, then the battery would need replacing in a little over a year. That would be expected based on the information I've read.

If we use the figure of 400 recharge cycles, and then the amount of usage time when using different features of the iPhone, you can get a good idea of how long a battery should last for you.

The battery usage information for the Apple iPhone 3GS is the following. (Credit for information: Apple web site.)

Talk time:
Up to 5 hours on 3G;
up to 12 hours on 2G

Standby time:
Up to 300 hours

Internet use:
Up to 5 hours on 3G;
up to 9 hours on Wi-Fi

Audio playback:
Up to 30 hours

Video playback:
Up to 10 hours

Whilst I haven't done any timing tests, I do find with my current limited use of the iPhone (it isn't my main phone at the moment), that I have to recharge every couple of days. My main usage is internet usage which could be a 1-2 hours a day spread over the day. Given the battery usage information, and that I do use the iPhone for internet usage, I should probably expect to replace the battery every 1-2 years. Most of my wireless internet usage is around the home, so if having the iPhone running off mains power extends the battery life as I expect it should, then I could probably extend the life of the battery to 2-3 years, which would be pretty good.

Interestingly for those looking at a second-hand iPhone, if it is more than 12 months old, they should probably budget for a replacement battery on top of their purchase cost. Those upgrading to new models and selling off their existing iPhone which isn't very old, might indicate they tend to be a power user.

The 3G battery information indicates shorter usage time by possibly 30%, which would result in a significantly shorter battery life. Out of curiosity I decided to check the recent iTouch models and they provide up to 6 hours of playback, which is shorter again. In my recent article on the iPhone versus the iTouch I gave my reasons for going for the iPhone. The battery life could be added as another reason.

It took a while to gather this information, but now having learnt what I need to know, I'm in a better position to know how I can extend the life of the battery, and possibly even avoid the need to purchase a replacement battery.

- Kelvin Eldridge

Tags: iphone 3g battery life, iphone battery pack, iphone external battery, iphone backup battery, iphone battery extender, change iphone battery

Annoying Optus DNS assist feature sending me to the http://service1.dnsassist.optusnet.com.au page.

Optus recently introduced their DNS assist feature. What this means is if I type in a domain name which is missing a letter, or not quite right, I'm shown the Optus DNS assist page. For example if I type www.justocal.com.au (which is missing an 'l') I go to the address http://service1.dnsassist.optusnet.com.au/search?qo=www.justocal.com.au&rn=BIvFEM0wJ6Xe5Tf&rg=.


Optus say the following is their reason.

"This search service is designed to make your web browsing experience more productive. No software was installed on your computer for this service to work."

The problem is this doesn't make me more productive. I have deliberately disabled the feature in Internet Explorer so if I type an incorrect address, the address remains in the address area so I can quickly fix it.

Why Optus did this I can only offer an educated guess. If you check the page you'll see Yahoo!SEARCH. I would be fairly confident that Optus is making money from Yahoo advertising.

Optus is apparently happy to make my experience of the internet worse for a few cents they'll gain from Yahoo advertising.

When I say guess, Firefox makes around 85% of its income from Google by providing Google as the default page. This works out at around 30 cents per Firefox user a year. Optus is likely to make less. So for less than 30 cents a year from me, Optus has damaged my user experience and when my contract is up, this will be another reason I'll be reconsidering Optus.

To get around the problem I can do one of the following:

1. Use the Opt out feature which places a cookie on my computer.

The opt out feature is well hidden so check the links on the page.

This is a bad option because we have multiple computers in our home. They use different browsers (and sometimes multiple browsers on the one machine) and every now and then the cookies get cleared. It is also not a good option because it will still be going to the Optus page which is a waste of time.

2. Set the DNS to another address provided by Optus.

This is a poor solution as it means each computer has to be changed. I've found in the past other ISPs have changed their DNS servers, and when that happens, it creates problems. It means this change needs to be done to each computer. If I use the computer when at a different location, I don't know if this will cause problems or what performance hit I might take.

3. Set the DNS on the router.

This is something a lot of users would not know how to do. In fact without calling Optus support, a user would not know the password for the router.

The problem however is with the equipment provided by Optus, which is he CG814 wireless router by Netgear, there isn't an ability to change the DNS addresses. I could set up another DHCP server, but really that is not worth the time and effort.

Option 2 is unfortunately the only useful option.

A couple of weeks ago, which coincidently was when this change appeared to have occurred, I had a problem for about a week accessing certain sites. Things got very unstable and some of the companies I deal with were getting a lot of flack from me. I couldn't update the sites I maintain. These suppliers almost lost my business and it really wasn't their fault. I don't see why the equipment I've been using for nearly 18 months has now decided to have problems around the same time as Optus made a change.

As it turned out Optus support didn't know what the problem was so it was escalated. The problem was solved the next day by disabling one of the firewall features. I really thought this was a poor solution as reducing protection provided by the router is not ideal.

A client also mentioned to me their home service was having a problem accessing some pages and had been advised it was a router problem.

The cost to me was literally hours of time. If you've ever called Optus and waited on the support line you'll know the time involved. I had quite long discussions with two support groups to fix the issue. Had I not been a computer expert I would have been dismissed by the support people based on our conversation. I had checked the problem was verifiable across five different computers using various operating systems.

This earlier problem is documented in MyAnswers solution 1934.

The DNS assist feature is an annoying inconvenience. It may have additional side effects which I'm not aware off. I really think companies are getting too greedy and it will end up biting them. In this case it probably amounts to making another 30 cents out of me per year. Yes, per year. This estimate is based on the estimated revenue of the Firefox/Google arrangement. Every day I see the Optus screen is reminder to me Optus' interests are definitely placed well ahead of mine as the customer. If Optus annoys me enough (which they're close to) they stand to lose over $1,500 of my business. I hope they've done their maths, because it won't take many annoyed customers to leave, to erode whatever revenue they make from their DNS assist page.

To get around the problem use one of the three approaches above. Whilst not ideal, when dealing with big companies it is best to work around their problems. Next time your contract comes up is the time to think about walking. I'll certainly be seriously thinking about giving Optus the shove due to this and the quite numerous other problems I've had with them. (E.g. Being without a telephone for nearly a week I consider to be a big issue. They're lucky they had me tied to a contract.)

The alternate DSN addresses as provided by Optus are:

Customers in NSW, QLD, ACT should configure their resolvers with these two DNS server addresses, in this order:

• Primary DNS Server 211.29.132.12

• Secondary DNS Server 198.142.0.51

Customers in VIC, SA and WA should configure their resolvers with these two DNS server addresses, in this order:

• Primary DNS Server 198.142.0.51

• Secondary DNS Server 211.29.132.12

I also tried using Telstra's DNS servers, but found they didn't work. This is a concern. It may mean I'll have problems if when I connect to the internet in another location. Making the DNS server IP addresses fixed isn't a good idea for mobile computing.

I hope this article helps other work around this issue.

- Kelvin Eldridge

Renée Barber's MyTreaure page now live.

Check out Renée's pre-loved items on her MyTreasure page at http://www.risingstardesigns.com.au/mytreasure/.

- Kelvin Eldridge

MyTreasure beta now available.

I enjoy selling, swapping and giving away my pre-loved goodies, so it made sense for me to write an application which would enable me to list my goodies on the internet. I've called the software MyTreasure and it is available for free from http://www.mytreasure.com.au/.

With all the online auction sites now available, the usual response I get from people is why MyTreasure. What most people don't realise when they list on other sites is 30-40% of all items listed never get a response. I want to list a lot of items and those fees for no result can really add up.

I also want to encourage people to look for pre-loved treasures locally. I've often seen people buy things for a few dollars and rarely do they take into account the postage and packaging. I was told of a young person who got ripped off because the freight was many times more than the hat they bought.

MyTreasure now provides anyone with a tool to create their list of pre-loved items complete with the files required for displaying on the internet. For those with access to free space on the internet (and that's most people), they can now promote their pre-loved treasures for free. If you'd prefer to have someone else look after the hosting, then that option is also available.

Over the coming days I will be creating my list of treasures which you'll be able to find at www.MyTreasure.com.au/sites/kelvin.

MyTreasure is beta software. If you're interested in helping by using the software and providing feedback, I'm happy to provide three months of free hosting.

- Kelvin Eldridge

Win Microsoft Office Home and Student 2007 on The Great Give-Away.

Looking for a copy of Microsoft Office Home and Student 2007?

Why not enter The Great Give-Away and win a copy of this fantastic program.

You never, never know, unless you have a go.

Good luck.

- Kelvin Eldridge

Tags: 2007 Microsoft Office key, 2007 Microsoft Office product key, Microsoft Office 2007 product key

Articles: Google docs

For some time I've been using Google docs as a handy online word processor and spreadsheet program. I thought I'd share a few of my experiences, so I wrote an article which shows how I've used Google docs.

Enjoy.

- Kelvin Eldridge

Has your search facility been hijacked?

A very common issue I see with client's machines is the default search engine has been changed without their knowledge. In many instances it is simply they've downloaded an update which also includes the Google Toolbar. Unfortunately many updates from leading overseas companies providing the Google Toolbar don't provide the correct Google search engine for Australia. You know if this has happened to you when you do a search using Google and Pages From Australia is not an option.

In addition, many of the leading software providers try to seed users with their own software. Software the user will often never need, which consume resources and should be removed. So not only do you get the wrong version of Google search for Australia, but you also get unwanted applications installed in your computer.

A while ago I developed a option for Internet Explorer (a search provider) for my clients, which enables them to search for pages from Australia by default. Most people love searching for pages from Australia first because it reduces a great deal of clutter in the results. People also prefer to find products and services from Australia first.

From a support point of view, adding the search provider to clients' machines gives me a visual clue they are using the correct version of Google for Australia. One glance and I can see the words JustLocal Google (AU default) as shown in the following image.

When I open any client's machine and the words JustLocal Google (AU default) do not appear in the search field, I know the machine needs to be reviewed.

Companies like Google, Apple and Adobe when you install their software often include software you don't want or need. The real problem isn't so much the leading companies, the real problem is with other companies tricking a user into installing their search engine by default. A change of the search provider is often a good clue of a malware infection, and in these cases I often find a couple of programs (typically adware) which need to be removed from the computer.

If you are interested in checking for products and services from Australia as the default in Google, then check out the Fun with Search page and install the Google search provider for pages from Australia as the default. The extra benefit is you can easily see if a software provider has altered your search settings without you being fully aware.

Enjoy.

- Kelvin Eldridge

Virus alert: You have received a Halloween E-card!. An old friend added you as a friend on facebook.

I've noticed an increase of the malware with the subject You have received a Halloween E-card!. Do be careful this Halloween or your computer might end up possessed.

Whilst I've only seen the email with the subject An old friend added you as a friend on facebook once, this is a reminder to be very careful with emails purporting to be from people you may know. Most of the time the aim is to trick you to install the software attached to the email. If a friend has added you to Facebook, then log on to Facebook where you will have received a notification, if in fact it is real.

These emails can be easily avoided using a pop mail account and OzEfilter. In the last two weeks I've received 53 emails which had malware attached, which wasn't detected by the commercial anti-virus software package. These emails would have been easily deleted by OzEfilter before ever reaching the computer.

Please take care with malware.

- Kelvin Eldridge

OzEfilter 1.8 now available

OzEfilter 1.8 is proving to be very popular amongst those who use it. It is our secret weapon against spam and malware and is now available at a reduced price.

The problem with anti-virus software is it waits until the malware is in your computer before it checks it. Then anti-virus software can't pick up the latest malware because it takes a couple of days for the solutions to be created and released to users.

OzEfilter isn't an anti-virus solution, but because you get to check your email at the mail server before you collect your email, it helps to avoid most of the unwanted emails. Based on the recent Face-off between the free anti-virus software packages, an ideal combination would be OzEfilter and Microsoft Security Essentials. That combination will give you excellent protection at minimal cost.

OzEfilter is now also a Virtual Profit Sharing opportunity. Our business model is to share our profit with those who help us by referring business. Not just once, but for the life of the customer relationship. VPS members using OzEfilter can now help spread the word about OzEfilter and receive not only our thanks, but cash as well.

A couple of ways I use OzEfilter that makes my life easier are the following. I've installed OzEfilter on a netbook which enables me to continuously monitor my emails when I'm not on my main computer. I've also used OzEfilter to monitor newsgroups and only keep emails which contain the subject for things I'm interested in. This has saved my hours in deleting unwanted newsgroup emails. Perhaps you have an interesting way you've used OzEfilter.

Thank you to everyone using OzEfilter. Your support really is the lifeblood of OzEfilter.

- Kelvin Eldridge

Amazon Kindle For PC beta

The eBook reader market is certainly getting some attention lately with Amazon's new Kindle reader and Barnes & Noble releasing their reader. What I thought was very interesting is Amazon is releasing the Kindle For PC beta application for Windows in November.

To me this makes sense. Why limit your potential sales to a dedicated hardware device such as the Kindle reader, when you can make books available the larger market. I've put my name down to be notified when the beta application is available and will be checking it out. If you're interested in the Kindle For PC beta you can register using this link.

Many books such as those written by Australian authors (as listed on the Book Project page), will mostly likely never be available via Amazon. The good thing for consumers is there is more choice. You can access Amazon's range, you can read PDFs directly on your computer, or you can purchase printed books. The choice is yours.

- Kelvin Eldridge

British (and potentially Australian) spelling now possible with Outlook Express.

Anyone using Outlook Express under Windows XP who upgrades to Office 2007, will find their Outlook Express spellchecker no longer works, unless they wish to spellcheck in French.

There has been a solution for those using American English, but those wanting to use British or Australian English didn't have a solution. Now they do.  I've now made available a program which extends the solution provided for American English which adds the British dictionary as an option. For Australians you need to have an older version of Office 97 (possibly 95) as you need a file from the CDs. Once you copy the file to the right folder you can then use the program I've written to enable the Australian dictionary.

You can find more information on the Outlook Express page.

- Kelvin Eldridge

iTouch or iPhone

Recently I purchased an iPhone and started to review the unit. Yes. The IT consultant in me never stops, but neither does the desire to share the information I learn. If you are about to purchase an iPhone, checking out the iPhone article is worthwhile.

As an example I purchased the iPhone, set it up and checked my location and the local map. That cost me around $28 and there was no warning. Something I had done on other mobile phones at no cost.

The iPhone is an excellent product, but as with all products it has strengths and weaknesses. As I explore the world of the iPhone I'll be sharing my experiences as a series of MyAnswers solutions. Had I known one trick I would have saved myself $28. I suspect others may fall for the same trap and it could easily cost them hundreds of dollars. Find out what I didn't know in the iPhone article.

Enjoy.

- Kelvin Eldridge

Virus alert: invitations@twitter.com, e-cards@hallmark.com, invitations@hi5.com, order-update@amazon.com

Recently I completed the anti-virus face-off (comparing free anti-virus programs) and I found the anti-virus software with new malware, that after a couple of days they would generally find and remove the malware from emails purporting to be from invitations@twitter.com, e-cards@hallmark.com, or order-update@amazon.com.

You know the emails. They have subjects and attachments like the following:

Your friend invited you to twitter! / Invitation Card.zip
You have received A Hallmark E-Card! / Postcard.zip
Shipping update for your Amazon.com order 254-78546325-658742 / Shipping documents.zip

Then recently something weird happened. I started to see emails with the same subject and malware attachments not being picked up as malware. Surely the anti-virus software knows about these malware attachments I thought. Now that was weird so I decided to check. 

As it turns out the files sizes are slightly different. My guess is the malware writers are changing the malware ever so slightly to get past the anti-virus software. This cat and mouse game between malware writers and anti-virus software vendors has been going on for months.

Normally I tell people not to worry about blocking malware as the creators continuously change the email address. But in this case the same (faked) email addresses have been used. If you don't use the services of the companies twitter.com, hallmark.com or amazon.com, then blocking the domains or filtering on the subject at the mail server may be a good way to handle these unwanted emails.

In my case I use OzEfilter so it doesn't matter how many times malware writers change the malware, since I don't want email from those email addresses, they simply get deleted at the mail server when I check the mail.

So if you think your anti-virus software is losing its memory, it isn't. The malware writers a simply changing the attachments to get past the anti-virus software.

- Kelvin Eldridge

Is it true that for every degree you decrease your thermostat you can save up to 15% off your heating bill?

I was recently asked "is it true that for every degree you decrease your thermostat you can save up to 15% off your heating bill?"

I'm not an energy expert, but I do tend to think things through since I have science training in my background. What concerns me about the statement is it doesn't ever seem to be backed by a link to appropriate research. In addition I've heard a figure of 10% mentioned a number of times.

I actually think there is a bit of trick to the figure. If you think things through you'll see it is probably a true statement, but it does require certain assumptions.

As an outright statement of fact, I'd guess it is probably misleading, unless put in context.

Why context?

In Melbourne let's check the average temperature for the past week. The average temperature has been 12C. The maximum 21C and the minimum 2C. I've seen a figure of 18-20C degrees as the suggested temperature to set the thermostat for Winter.

If the average temperature has been 12C and you set your thermostat at 18C then the difference is 6C. Each one degree is roughly 16.66%. Drop the thermostat by one degree to 17C and you'll save the suggested 15%. If you originally had the thermostat set to 20C then the difference is 8C and one degree change to 19C will be 12.5%.

So really a figure of 10-15% saving is probably realistic.

The assumption here I suspect is you leave your heating on 24 hours, 7 days a week. This approach means once your home is heated to a certain level your heating will cut in and out to maintain the temperature. The average then should tend to work out.

My question then is, is it better to leave your heating on 24 hours a day, or to only use your heating as required?

For example when we get up we often turn the heating on. Once everyone goes off to school or work we turn it off. Later at night we'll turn the heating on again for a few hours. The heating is thus running 4-5 hours a day and not 24 hours a day.

Is turning your heating off when not required a better approach?

I don't know the answer to that question and perhaps I should do a study for a couple of days using the two approaches. Whilst it won't be exact as the weather will change from week to week, it might give a good indication.

The reality however for us is if the heating was left on 24/7 the heater would turn on and off regularly during the night. We find the noise of the heating if we leave it on, to disturb our sleep. So from a practical point of view it wouldn't work for us.

In my case I recently determined that parts of my home were not used, but the heating vents were open. I decided to close unused vents and to only heat the parts of the home as required. Parts of our home often don't get used for days. For example sometimes we don't use the lounge dining area because the family is busy doing other things. I see this part of the house not being used for 2-3 days at a time. During the day the sun warms the area, so at times there is little reason to heat the area. The immediate effect of closing off vents was the areas with open vents heated up much more quickly.

My thought about the statement you can save 10-15% of your heating costs by reducing your thermostat by one degree is it is probably true, if it is based on your running your heating 24/7. I also think it is one of those shock figures marketers use because for most people it just seems unbelievable.

I could be completely wrong, but my gut feeling is using only what you need, when you need it, and in the areas you need it, possibly uses less energy than reducing the thermostat. Reducing the thermostat to a comfortable level and wearing appropriate clothes is also a good way to reduce energy usage.

I'd really like to see what my gas bill would be if I did run heating 24/7 compared with how I currently run my heating.

My yearly gas bill for the past two years (which includes heating and hot water) has averaged $616 a year. I've started closing off areas of my home that don't require heating and I'm interested in seeing how that affects the gas bill.

I know the pilot light on the gas heating uses perhaps 10% of the gas each year. I could turn off the pilot light during winter, but I've found relighting the pilot light to be an experience that is very frustrating. They've hopefully improved that in more modern heaters.

I often wonder how my bill compares with other people's gas bills and I wonder how others reduce their gas costs. I've been able to find some great ways to save money on electricity using the Energy Cost Calculator, so perhaps it is time to check out what can be done with saving gas.

If you have any tips or thoughts please feel free to share.

- Kelvin Eldridge

Save money with the Energy Cost Calculator.

For while I've noticed local councils and organisations saying they will change over your old light globes for low energy light globes, as long as you have three or more light globes and sign the energy credits over to them. Now I really don't know the full picture, but something doesn't feel right.

If the government wants us to be more energy conscious for the good of the planet, then perhaps the best way is to simply show us where the savings are. I decided to work out the costs of running appliances around the home and work out the payback period should I change old inefficient lights with more modern low energy lights. As it turned out the savings are pretty good.

For example in the family area I have a light with 2 x 40W globes (total 80W). I wanted to change these to 2 x 8W (total 16W) low energy globes which cost $9 for two on special. I estimate we use that light around two hours a day. Using the Energy Cost Calculator I worked out the payback period would be just over a year. Since the globes will last well over three years, after the first year I'm saving money. It makes sense to change the globes.

Armed with a low cost energy meter I've been able to work out areas in my home where I can make considerable savings, sometimes with a small change in habits. Sometimes with the purchase of an inexpensive piece of equipment. For example my TV/DVDs around the home cost about $38 a year when in standby. I tried powering off the TV/DVDs at the power point, but unfortunately that was hard because the power points aren't easy to get to. I'm also concerned constantly turning power points on and off will mean an electrician will need to be called in more often and that can be expensive. 

Recently I found a really neat device from one of my suppliers which is a remote control with three power packs. That is you can control each of the power packs separately with the one remote. If you plug the power pack into the wall and then the TV/DVD into the power pack, you can easily turn the power off and save the money standby uses. The aim for me is to do this around the house with the TV/DVDs and computers. The payback for each power pack is 4 months. After that I'm saving money. Nearly a hundred dollars a year when I'm using all three power packs.

If you're interested in the energy meter, or the remote controlled power points, you can find more information on the Energy Cost Calculator page.

As I find more ways to save money on energy around the home, I'll post the tips as comments. If you've got a good tip please feel free to post a comment. (Posts considered advertising will be discarded.)

Enjoy.

- Kelvin Eldridge

Round 5 - Free Anti-virus face-off. Free AVG vs Avast Free vs Microsoft Security Essentials.

Today is the final day of the Free Anti-virus face-off. The combatants, AVG, Avast and MSE have performed well, but some of the challengers performed well and managed to bypass their defences. We also saw CA (Computer Associates) and OzEfilter perform well.

Let's begin round 5.

A total of 17 emails containing malware were received with 7 being unique in terms of the email subject and the attached file. Two emails with different subjects had the same attached file. The files information_audictionary.zip and data_audictionary.zip shows the virus writers dynamically change the file names based on the email addresses they are sending to, and thus the actual number of unique malware files is less.

Subject / Attachment

Your friend invited you to twitter! / Invitation Card.zip
You have received A Hallmark E-Card! / Postcard.zip
Re: approved / information_audictionary.zip
Re: Re: my data / data_audictionary.zip
Jessica would like to be your friend on hi5! / Invitation Card.zip
excuse me / nomoney_swimmingpool.zip
Re: important website / website.zip

Outcome

CA missed 0

AVG missed 0

MSE missed 0

Avast missed 1

Postcard.zip

OzEfilter missed 0

At the end of round 5 as a result of the free anti-virus face-off the results for the free software are:

Ranking

1. MSE

2. AVG

3. Avast

Of the free software option the winner is Microsoft Security Essentials.

MSE being the winner is based on it being able to detect and clean all viruses it saw and that could have infected the computer. We think it could be better as it allows people to receive and forward malware without any warning, which would be better for the community. But for the user, what is important is they are protected from infecting their computer and MSE does that well.

CA (Computer Associates anti-virus/anti-spyware) performed very well. It did miss a couple of viruses at the start. We know that all virus manufacturers take up to 48 hours to release new signature files so this is expected behaviour, although not ideal. The ideal is there be no delay, but that is not possible. Once CA had released the new signature files it then had a perfect score, even finding a malware which whilst benign, was not found by others.

OzEfilter takes a different approach in it helps users delete emails at the mail server before the malware even reaches the computer. OzEfilter did let the benign email through, but that is because we want to receive emails from the mail server so we can receive emails which bounced because of email addresses which no longer exist. The mail server really shouldn't be passing the email on because it isn't an email it generated. OzEfilter also stops spam and other forms of malicious emails such as phishing attempts from reaching a computer. Using OzEfilter and MSE would be a very good option. Using OzEfilter with any of the anti-virus software package would reduce the chances of a malware infection to very low.

This face-off however was about the free anti-virus software packages. To the victor which in this case was Microsoft Security Essentials goes the trophy and our congratulations.

If should be noted that no one knows how any of the anti-virus packages will perform with new malware packages. All we can say is for the malware received over the past week, MSE performed best.

The free anti-virus face-off is now over. In the future if there is interest I would be happy to have a face-off with the leading commercial anti-virus packages. In this face-off we would see how CA (Computer Associates) matches up to Norton anti-virus 2010, Trend Micro 2009 and McAfee. Now that would be an interesting face-off.

I hope you've enjoyed the face-off and it helps you make better decisions as to which anti-virus program you use so your computer remains a joy to use.

- Kelvin Eldridge

Round 4 - Free Anti-virus face-off. Free AVG vs Avast Free vs Microsoft Security Essentials.

Today there were quite a few more nasties arriving than usual. There was some unusual activity which I'll explain later.

The following are the unique malware received since yesterday.

Subject / Attachment

DELIVERY FAILED / onlineconnections.com.au

Mail delivery failed : returning message to sender / Message Part>ilh.zip

Jessica would like to be your friend on hi5! / Invitation Card.zip

Your friend invited you to twitter! / Invitation Card.zip

You have received A Hallmark E-Card! / Postcard.zip

Shipping update for your Amazon.com order / Shipping documents.zip

Re: message / message_audictionary.zip

Re: Developement / document09_audictionary.zip

Re: your data / data_audictionary.zip

Your internet access is going to get suspended / user-EA3911X-activities.zip

Your illegal internet activities are being logged / user-B41642-activities.zip

Congratulations! / list.zip

Returned mail: Data format error / audictionary@onlineconnections.com.au.zip

Here is it / ranking.zip

Delivery Status Notification (Failure) / Message Part>screensaver.zip

hi / winmail.dat>Documents and Settings\MyDocuments\Readme.doc .exe

Delivery failed / .zip

Mail delivery failed: returning message to sender / Message Part>message.zip

Your Pay Pal Account May Be Compromised / account-1407A4-report.zip

The unusual activity was with the following malware.

Mail delivery failed : returning message to sender / Message Part>ilh.zip

MSE did not detect the virus because it was text in the message. Because it was text it couldn't be downloaded as a file. Avast picked it up and tried to delete it, but it didn't delete and Avast kept trying each time we clicked on the message. AVG missed the malware. CA identified and fixed the malware. OzEfilter also missed the malware.

The reason the anti-virus products missed this malware is it wasn't an attachment, but it was text which would have been the raw form of the original data. This form is usually not seen by the use. It took us a while to work out what had happened. I'll explain.

Somewhere a computer sent out a fake email with malware using our domain. The receiving email server saw the malware and sent a copy of the malware as text in an email message to the mail server I use, thinking it was that mail server that sent the message. My mail server saw this rejection of the message and passed it back to me. Now since I send out emails to people on my mailing list and sometimes people's email addresses no longer exist, I need to accept these emails from the mail server. I could just delete them, but this information helps me to keep my mailing list clean. That is why OzEfilter didn't flag the email. It was from the mail server and I want those emails. MSE had nothing to work since it was text in an email and not an attachment. AVG missed it, Avast saw it and got stuck on how to handle it. Only CA treated it correctly. Although since the virus was now in the form of a text message as raw data, there is no way the virus could infect a computer. Thus, whilst this was very interesting the analyse, from a users point of view it would have been a benign email that was just junk to be deleted.

OzEfilter works differently to other approaches. I set the conditions so OzEfilter knows who I receive emails from and then it only shows me the emails from people I don't know. This approach is called exception handling and saves quite a bit of time. I only need to review the emails from people I don't know before accepting them or not. Emails from people I now I always want to accept. I am presented with a screen which shows the total number of emails and how many emails are from people I don't know (the To filter value on the screen image belowe). Most emails from people I don't know are spam or malware. I receive 70-100 emails a day and around half are unwanted. All of the unwanted emails are deleted at the mail server and never reach my computer. When I review the emails I see the subject, who the message is from, and around half the time I see the country the email has come from. The country of origin is a great indicator as to whether or not the email will be wanted.

Results

CA missed 0

AVG missed 1

Message Part>ilh.zip

MSE missed 1

Message Part>ilh.zip

OzEfilter missed 1

Message Part>ilh.zip

Avast missed 2

Postcard.zip

Shipping documents.zip

One other thing that I noticed was the MSE signature file had not been updated since the 6/10 and it was now the 9th of October. Before checking for malware I perform an update of all the packages. However in the real world this would not be the case. The user would turn their computer on and within a few minutes check their email. If an update had occurred then the software would have the latest protection. If not the users protection reduces. The next round will be done without manual updating.

Another thing that MSE did that was strange is when I went to save ranking.zip to the computer MSE stopped me. That means MSE does recognise some malware in a zip file. This isn't what I've seen before.

For MSE to be a better product in my opinion it should automatically check zip files without the files being extracted. Microsoft should at least have their own products (Outlook, Winmail, Outlook Express) check the attachments on incoming emails as they arrive. That would in my opinion put MSE ahead of the pack.

AVG performed very well today. It placed malware into a separate folder without fuss.

Avast has been slow recognising the malware others now recognise. One thing I didn't like about Avast is when receiving emails it would stop if it found malware and wait until I took action. With dozens of malware that was quite time consuming. With the other anti-virus software I could leave the computer and do others things. I had to interact with Avast and it was quite time consuming and tedious.

Ranking

1. CA

2. OzEfilter, AVG, MSE

3. Avast

The winner of today's round is CA. That's a pretty impressive effort from the CA team. At this stage CA is out front because it is having the best outcome and scans email attachments as they are received.

Until tomorrow.

- Kelvin Eldridge