Cutting Cable and going web for TV

We have cut our cable TV as the prices our cable provider charges keep going up and the quality of what is available in my not-so-humble opinion is going down.  Our cable provider told us they are moving a number of channels to digital and if we want to get them we must rent a digital converter.  The problem is that most of the shows are repeats and in a 30 minute show there is about 10+ minutes of commercials.

I am now in the process of building and testing a Linux box that will replace what cable TV offered us.  I am finding a number of sites that offer streaming movies for free and they are legal!  When I was searching for sites I found a lot of them offering movies, but, seeing the titles I know that they were pirated and I will not support those sites.  I want to find sites that offer legit movies for preferably free (or if they are in Canada a minimal charge).  The sites I did find even offer children show shows so our grandkids will have educational shows when they visit us.

The money I am saving will be used to buy DVDs to build up our movie library.  The bonus is that we pick the day and time of movies and can pause them if we need to restock on munchies or take a break.

The only thing I have had to buy is a wireless network card ( a DLINK USB card).  On my first test using PCLINUX it detected the card, found our network and prompted me to enter our key in to allow access to the network. 

The next test is to move the machine down into the living room, hook it up and run the machine.  I haven't decided if we will be using Firefox or Chrome for the browser stuff, but, I am not picky there as they both worked well in the test.

It does not matter what O/S you use when it comes to malware

Now that the Apple people got a reality check on how secure their O/S really was when they got hit with flashback.  We all may want to think about securing our machines.  It does not matter what O/S you run, we call can have our machine taken over by malware.  A few things that we all should be doing to at least slow down and make the lives of malware authors a bit harder:

• Keep your machines up-to-date by applying patches when they are available.
• Never open attachments from people you don't know and be skeptical about attachments when you get one from someone you know and you didn't ask for that file.  
• Assume that senders are not as vigilant and check with them before opening.
• Assume that the from account name was forged.
• Never believe a popup window in your browser stating your software is out-of-date and install the update via that convenient link.
• Never believe those popups or messages while browsing that they scanned your system and you are (or could be) infected.  
• Never run an account with admin priviliges.  Create a simple user account that cannot add, change or delete programs.
• Do regular backups of your files.  External USB hard drives are inexpensive.  When you are done remove the backup and do not leave it connected all of the time to your machines.  If you do get malware at least you have a chance that the backup is still clean.
• Use a simple firewall on your computer at a minimum.  
• If your router has the option to enable a firewall then use that firewall too.
• Assume that your machine will get taken over and make plans on how you will rebuild your system and recover your documents.
• Install, use and keep up-to-date an anti-virus package and scan on a regular basis.  It really does not matter now what O/S you use, assume malware writers can take over your machine.
• If someone hands you a CD, DVD, USB Memory stick or USB drive scan it before doing anything else.  Never assume that the media is clean.

At home every machine is running A-V software (for windows I like AVG as it gives good protect, fast running and not a resource hog).

I assume that sooner or later one or more of my computers at home will get infected and I will have to wipe and rebuild the system(s).  I do run backups on all of the machines so while I may lose some recent documents or email it won't be a total loss.

More converts to Linux

At work we had an auction on a number of older laptops that were replaced by newer machines.  I got lucky and was able to buy a Dell D820 for my wife.  Our tech support people did a great job testing the machines before we got them to ensure they worked and reinstalled Windows XP.  I re-imaged the machine to PCLinux as a dual boot machine.  It didn't take very long and it was running and my wife is very happy that she can now work anywhere in the house using the wireless connection.  I left it as dual boot as she does use Microsoft Publisher now-and-then and this will allow her the option to use the program.  My wife just loves the machine and it appears that her 'old' desktop may be repurposed in the near future as a server for our household.  I figure that we can put the printers on that machine and then share it so it won't matter where we are in the house we can print to the laser or inkjet on demand.

My daughter got a new laptop at Christmas and I was storing her old Compaq desktop.  I re-imaged that machine also to Linux and it will be going to my middle son and his family.  It will be great for them as it is more responsive than Windows XP and more secure out-of-the-box.  I also loaded a number of educational games for my grandson.  Upside is that this saves them money buying a new machine and an older machine gets an extended life in a new home.  Libre Office was installed so they can read and update any of the documents they have on their laptop.