Today's Techie Bits

Just a few goodies to share:

• Mozilla Thunderbird vs. Outlook Express: No contest! If you are using Outlook Express, download Thunderbird NOW. Add Firefox to that. Tabbed browsing is IT. I love it. The only think I wish is that it opened a little faster, but Microsoft does have that advantage because of their anti-competitive practices. Thunderbird is safer, and more configurable. The extensions available for both Thunderbird and Firefox make it the coolest, most configurable package out there. If you know computer users who are not that savvy, and tend to get spyware and viruses at the drop of the hat, hook them up. Anyone who is not that internet savvy needs to be using these products for their computers safety. The calendar plugin for Thunderbird also makes it a replacement for Outlook. Very nifty. Lots of gadgets for the technogeeks out there. Popup killer, ad blockers, built-in active X protection. You can't better than that. And if you HAVE to have IE for certain websites, it's always there for you. Especially since it's physically impossible to uninstall.
  
  
• AVG antivirus (www.grisoft.com) - They have a free home version, but it's very worth supporting the company and getting the 2 year professional license for 38.50. This program is awesome! I use it at school, and with roughly 100 users, many luddites, we've had surpisingly few virus scares. The only problems were related to users that had shut off their automatic updates, proving the adage that the problem is often located between the chair and the keyboard. ;-) I will also say that I've seen more computers with McAfee and Norton, installed with all of their gadgets and bloat, infected with more viruses than I've ever seen with the computers that have AVG. If you need a personal firewall, Zone Alarm is a good choice.