The View From the Outback© 2000 Richard C. Rhodes
A great deal of what we read in newspapers, magazines, and books, and what we see in the movies and on TV is written and produced in New York City or Los Angeles. Much of the "political wisdom" comes from the PR machines of the White House, the Congress, and from the Washington media corps. In short, one might conclude that all knowledge, wisdom, and wit are confined to those who inhabit New York City, Washington DC, or Hollywood. I am now a senior citizen, plus. My experience was gained in many cities in the U.S. and in about 30 foreign countries. That experience has included the U.S. Marines, law school, the ATF, the CIA, Fortune 500 executive, writer, public speaker, educator, editor, and publisher - for openers. For over 20 years, I have written articles off and on for various magazines and newspapers. I've had an enormous number of letters published in major national publications. Some insights come from talking with ham-radio operators in every major country and such idyllic places as the Cook Islands. The Outback is the rural area in Northeast Texas where I have lived for the past 14 years. Every few weeks I will attempt to post a new set of musings from the Outback. Click on a Topic to go directly to that topic. If you think that a cell-phone is a phone they let you use in prison - you may be a goat-roper. Laura Bush fired the White House Chef. I guess he never mastered the art of making a Breakfast Burrito. Carly Fiorina was fired as CEO of HP. I have written glowingly of her in the past, overlooking the decline in HP stock in recent years. I shot off an e-mail to her within hours of the announcement telling her that I would always admire and love her. She needed a boost. Now, it is said that she will receive $42 million in various forms in her severance package. Carly, drink a bottle of Scotch straight down, sleep it off, purge HP from your memory, and let me help you decide how to spend the 42 mil. Johnny Carson has been sending jokes to David Letterman, some of which David uses on his show. Johnny thought that Dave was the logical one to take over the "Tonight Show" and has favored Dave for years. For example, skits that Johnny used to do on the old Tonight show are "intellectual property," and cannot be used without Carson's permission. Letterman does "Stump the Band," which is an old Carson routine. During Stump the Band, Paul Shaffer puts on the old Carson Carnac turban and does the bit where the answers to the questions he poses are sealed in an envelope. This is one way that Letterman can say "Up yours, Leno." At an awards ceremony, with both Clint Eastwood and Michael Moore in attendance, Clint Eastwood said: "But, Michael, if you ever show up at my front door with a camera - I'll kill you." Clint, is there someplace where we can send money to you for ammunition? Although I used the program off and on for years, with my new hot computer and 2GB of RAM, I decided to upgrade to DragonNaturallySpeaking Version 8. I am using it to dictate material for the Outback and for letters. Later, I will probably do a full reivew of the program. Have you noticed that the "vitamin E will kill you" scare lasted only about two days in the media? Yet, I'm sure that many thousands - or even millions - of people have quit taking vitamin E. There are several types of vitamin E. After doing some more research, I'm not only continuing to take the vitamin E capsule I previously took each day, but I'm adding at least one of the other variations to my vitamin regimen. Another question on Jeopardy! (within about two weeks of the first one), mentioned someone with whom I was acquainted. The question had to do with which lawyer was known as the King of blank. The answer was Melvin Belli, the King of Torts. Mel was the grandfather of huge personal injury claims. Eons ago, he conducted a seminar at Drake University Law school on the subject of determining the amount of damages that an attorney should ask for in personal injury cases. We came from all over to attend the seminar. Mel was the master of computations for injury, pain and suffering, loss of income, loss of consortium (that's losing sexual contact with your mate)- and the great inflater of verdicts, punitive damages (punishing people or companies for their conduct). It is probably a fair statement that Mel Belli set the stage for the huge personal injury verdicts now turned in by many juries. Many years later, in my mostly abortive attempts at an acting career, I auditioned at a soundstage near Dallas for a new lawyer show. It was being produced by none other than Mr. Melvin Belli. I ran into Mel on the soundstage and reminded him of the seminar that I had attended so many years before. He laughed and said he remembered giving that seminar and seemed delighted that I had been one of his students. I didn't get the part; why I'll never know. It may have been just as well. The show aired on some obscure channel and lasted only a few episodes. Who wants that on their resume? Mel is now "in a better place," where he is trying to negotiate a better parking space and compensatory damages for being made to wait so long at the gate. Do a Google search on Melvin Belli. It is fascinating. The headlines read "Red Meat Causes Colon Cancer." Many of the media accounts leave the reader and viewer with the impression that eating any amount of red meat will cause a significant risk for colon cancer. According to the study, the risk for developing colon cancer is increased by as much as 50% for high level red meat eaters. "High level" of consumption of red meat was defined as three or more ounces per day. If you read the study carefully, you discover that the risk, even for high levels of red meat consumption, is relatively small. If one (1) out of 100 people is expected to get colon cancer, the risk for those who consumed high amounts of red meat is only 1.5 out of a hundred (but a 50% increase sounds horrible). The media continues to be irresponsible in its reporting on health matters. The bottom line would seem to be that if you eat a modest amount of red meat each week, the chance of an increased risk for colon cancer is a very small. There are a lot of 90-year-olds here in the Outback who eat steak and eggs for breakfast - and biscuits smothered in gravy. If they are not more careful in their eating habits, it may kill them. The FDA is considering whether to allow the statin Mevacor to be sold over-the-counter without a prescription. They state in part, that the data support the conclusion that risk of muscle and liver toxicity are rare events that do not offset the benefits associated with long-term use of an over-the-counter dose of Mevacor in otherwise healthy patients. This is insanity! If you study the research and the back channel reporting on statins, you know that there are many other potential debilitating side effects from statins - other than just potential muscle and liver problems. I mentioned back channel reporting because it is very difficult, even for an extremely qualified doctor or researcher, to get anything negative published about a statin drug. For the 10th time, I refer you to www.statinalert.org, among other resources. The statin ZOCOR is available in England without a prescription, but you must get it from the pharmacist. I wonder if the pharmacists ask questions about the health status of those who seek ZOCOR, and if they are empowered to refuse to provide the drug. I constantly think back to the e-mail I got from a lady from England who said that Lipitor, prescribed by a doctor, killed her father. Some pharmacist will eventually provide you with ZOCOR, so any mild regulations seem to be without teeth. In the U.S., the current plan being floated is that the statin MEVACOR would be available right alongside Aspirin and Ibuprofen on the retail shelves. If the idea is to avoid the time-consuming process of consultations with doctors to expedite the access to statins, who is going to do the blood tests and the followup to see if there are debilitating side effects? Is that just a leg cramp, or it is a degenerative muscle disease? Is the memory loss caused by the statin, or is it just senility taking its toll? And on and on, the questions pile up. The biggest one is: what real long-term proof does the industry have that taking statins will reduce heart attacks and stroke? They talk a good story, until you see some of the material that they don't care for you to read. If MEVACOR is approved for over-the-counter sale, what drug will be next? I used to get upset that I had to see a veterinarian to get a heart pill for my dog - and pay a very high price. And the only question they needed answered was how much does the dog weigh? If you have to see a Vet to get a pill for your dog, how can the FDA even think about allowing a powerful drug like a statin to be sold like Aspirin? Jan. 14, 2005: A U.S. advisory panel, voting 20-3, urged the FDA to reject over-the-counter sales of the statin Mevacor because of doubts the medicine could be used safely without a doctor's guidance. The FDA is likely to follow the panel's advice. Any other outcome would have been without merit. Poor Les Moonves, the Viacom mogul who is ultimately in charge of all of CBS programming. Speaking of the RatherGate fiasco, "This is a rude awakening for CBS news," Mr. Moonves said, "and the CBS news culture has to change." Does this mean that CBS will have to stop lying and telling half-truths? Does this mean that CBS news will have to simply report the news and not try to undermine every Republican administration and every major Republican candidate? That will be a tougher task than Mr. Goss has with reform at the CIA. For example, in a recent "60 Minutes" program about the .50-caliber rifle, a statement was made that nobody knows who owns these things, because the Justice Department expunges the records within a short time after a gun dealer calls the FBI to get a background clearance on a gun purchaser. Another CBS half-truth. The manufacture has records of which guns were sold to which distributor or dealer, and the dealer requires a purchaser to fill out a form 4473, which is retained at the dealership. There is no national registry of all firearms owners, and for good reason. Historically, registration has led to confiscation, not only abroad, but here in the United States. I e-mailed "60 Minutes" with an amplified version of these comments, since I have been both an ATF agent and a federal firearms dealer. Their reporter has been neither. Two research groups have reported that lowering the level of CRP (C-reactive protein) may be just as important in preventing heart attacks as reducing cholesterol. Another notch in the smoking gun which may eventually lead to the demise of the long-held conviction (myth) that cholesterol is the primary cause of heart disease. In two different studies, researchers found that statins produced more benefits for patients when they achieved low levels of CRP, regardless of how well the statins reduced LDL - the bad cholesterol. This is a good news and bad news story for the statin industry. The bad news is that lowering cholesterol may not be as important as the manufacturers of the statins would like you to believe. The good news is that statins appear to lower the level of CRP - perhaps different brands lowering CRP more than others. As I've said repeatedly, those who make the statins will not be happy until we're all taking one. They will fund endless research until they can site new studies that further glorify "the most amazing drug in a century." Or, so they would want you to believe. This subject has been bugging me for a long time, but the "Wheel of Fortune" show for January 12, 2005, pushed me over the edge. A lady named Bonnie had progressed in a puzzle to where the following was showing on the screen: DAN_GER IS MY MIDDLE NAME. She had accumulated $7,650. She was either the dumbest person ever to appear on the program or one of the wildest gamblers. She spun the wheel again. I shouted at the screen, "I hope you go bankrupt." And she did! It has been my observation over several decades of watching this little word game that if you have accumulated at least $1200 to $1500, and you know the answer to the puzzle, you should solve it. The road to Burbank (or is it Culver City?) is lined with the bodies of people who went bankrupt with perhaps $3,000 to as much as $15,000 riding on a spin. These people obviously knew the answer to the puzzle or should have known it. Later, faced with: BLAC_ENED CATFISH FILLET, and an accumulation of $1200, Bonnie chose to solve the puzzle. A little late, but she followed my rule. Finally, Bonnie was presented with the following incompleted puzzle: THE _ER__E_T STORM. The subject was "best seller." Bonnie was unable to solve the puzzle. Another player asked for a P (just to get some money on the board) and solved the puzzle. Was there anybody in the audience or at home who did not know that the answer was "The Perfect Storm," without seeing the P? I commented earlier on the mess we are in with the competing standards for HD DVDs. Now, the porn industry leaders are saying that the blu-Ray technology (which has more storage capacity than HDDVD) appeals to them. For one thing, they can offer viewers different camera angles to choose from. Sounds good to me. In the end, it may be the porn industry that determines the winner in the HDDVD versus blu-Ray struggle. An Institute of Medicine report in 1999 estimated that as many as 98,000 people die from medical error in the U.S. each year -- 7,000 of them from medication errors. In July of 2004, Health Grades Inc, of Lakewood, Colorado, said the real number of deaths was closer to 195,000 people a year. Some deaths are caused by operations that go awry. Far too many deaths are caused by the patients getting an infection and dying from the complications. Some die because the medication they are given is not what the "doctor ordered," or it is the wrong dose. There is a serious problem with diagnostic instruments used to invade the body for tests that are not properly cleaned. One of the most common causes of patient infection is failure of staff to wash their hands before even touching patients, let alone doing an IV or blood test, for example. I find this particularly poignant, since I have become obsessed this cold and flu season with washing my hands, carrying a supply of alcohol-based hand cleaner in my truck, and going so far as to wipe the handle of a shopping cart with a baby wipe saturated in Lysol. I am doing better than most staff in the average hospital. A doctor in charge of infectious disease control in a nearby hospital was impressed with my regimen for avoiding contamination. He said that I had my own "infectious-disease control program" in place. The Centers for Disease Control and Prevention issued updated hand hygiene guidelines a couple of years ago, including a new recommendation that hospitals use alcohol rubs for routine decontamination. Compliance remains way below the 80% level necessary to significantly reduce infections, according to a new report from ECRI, a nonprofit research group formerly known as the Emergency Care Research Institute. The CDC acknowledges that compliance averages about 50%, with some hospitals as low as 20% and others at the 80% level. If you are a patient, and a nurse, doctor, or technician starts to lay hands on you, and you feel that they may not have washed their hands or put on virgin latex gloves, speak up. It is your life they are messing with. My dental hygienist uses latex gloves while cleaning my teeth. The dentist uses his bare hands to probe and poke to see if he can find any cavities or loose crowns. I saw him splashing in a nearby sink and asked if here was using a good germicidal soap. He was not offended, but I bet I am the only one who has ever asked him the question. I hate to go to the doctor's office, because that is where all the sick people are! If you are not sick when you come in, you may be when you leave. Finally, I was able to get in line at a hospital in December for a flu shot. But, I nearly left. There were a couple of people near me hacking and coughing. Good grief. I came to avoid the flu, not contract it! You can search for hospitals that have completed the safety survey at www.leapfroggroup.org. The new Quality Index shows whether a hospital has put in place all 27 procedures to reduce preventable medical mistakes. According to Leapfrog, 80% of hospitals have put procedures in place to avoid operating on wrong body parts, and 70% now require a pharmacist to review all medication orders before a drug is given. Four in 10 lack policies requiring workers to disinfect hands before and after seeing a patient. You can take a look at hand hygiene guidelines at www.cdc.gov/handhygiene. More and more hospitals are going toward a computerized system with regard to the prescription drugs ordered for the patient by the doctor. Some outside doctors are now using palm-pilot type programs to transmit their prescriptions electronically to pharmacies. Every time I look at a handwritten Rx, I wonder how anybody can read it. Interestingly, statistics suggest Americans are more likely to die at the start of each month than any other time. One reason may be that pharmacists are overworked at the start of a month and may fill a prescription with the wrong medicine or the wrong dose. It is easy to avoid becoming a victim of a wrong medication or a wrong dose that you take at home. Pills generally have distinctive shapes and colors to distinguish themselves from others, or even to distinguish the dose amount of a pill. With some sleuthing on the Internet, and a magnifying glass, you can mostly assure yourself that what you are taking is what your doctor ordered. Of course, you must, you must, always ask your doctor what the name of the drug is that he or she is prescribing (and its generic name) and the dose in milligrams and how many times a day you are to take it. Suppose you are taking, for example, COZAAR for high blood pressure. If you don't know who makes the drug, you can Google it and find out (Merck). Then, go to the web site of the maker. You will almost always find a description and/or photo of the pills in question and the individual markings that will distinguish say a 25mg from a 100mg dose. Even the generics have information stamped on them. Get out the magnifying glass or buy one for $7.95. It might save you a lot of problems or even from dying an unanticipated death. For example, from a .pdf file on the Merck site: HOW SUPPLIED Tablets COZAAR, 25 mg, are light green, teardrop-shaped, film-coated tablets with code
MRK on one side and 951 on the other. Tablets COZAAR, 50 mg, are green, teardrop-shaped, film-coated tablets with code
MRK 952 on one side and COZAAR on the other. Tablets COZAAR, 100 mg, are dark green, teardrop-shaped, film-coated tablets with code
960 on one side and MRK on the other. Bottom line. If you are taking the wrong pill or the wrong dose, it is your own damn fault! Doctors are busy and make mistakes, pharmacists are busy and make mistakes. Sometimes only you have the time to look after your own interests. Some technical writers say that a computer connected to the Internet without a firewall and antivirus program will last about two minutes before it is infected. This may be a bit of hyperbole. But, no computer should be on the Internet without a firewall and a good antivirus program. On my new Athlon 64, which is only a couple of months old, ZoneALarmPro reports that it has blocked 2881 probes of my computer, 154 of them "high-rated." Downloading new virus updates every day, and running a scanner in the background, and an occasional full disk scan, I have yet to get a virus on the machine. But, I am super careful about downloading and viewing e-mail. I use the Webmail feature to view my incoming mailbox for suspicious e-mails before I ever click on "download e-mail" in my Eudora Pro e-mail program - and use my Yahoo mail for people I do not know personally. My ISP also scans incoming e-mail. I update my Windows XP when there is a new update, and I use Firefox browser. And I don't go to porn sites or "off-the-wall" online vendor sites, and do not use any peer-to-peer downloading sites, nor do I download any music from the Internet. Rarely do I download a freeware or shareware program. My basic exposure is probably less than average. For many years, I used almost nothing but Symantec (Norton) security products. I go way back to the DOS days, when Peter Norton actually owned the company and coded software. In the last few years, I used Norton Internet Security (NIS), which is a combination of a firewall, antivirus, and several other security features. There is now a growing backlash against Symantec security products. The program files are so large that they nearly cannot be downloaded on a dial-up connection. Norton NIS is a resource hog. The LiveUpdate feature has become ponderous, especially on a dial-up connection. First, it takes a long time just for Norton's LiveUpdate to connect to the Symantec server, and to scan your hard drive to see which updates you need. Then, you are often presented with huge files to download. Some of these files are useless to many users, such as a huge list of banned URLs, which are used in the parental-control function. Once, I unchecked one of the download boxes because the file was so huge, thinking that I would download it later. But, after the rest of the files downloaded, my Norton firewall and antivirus programs were completely corrupted. All in all, NIS has just become too complicated, too bloated, and LiveUpdate has become a real burden on a dial-up connection. Norton may not be alone in their license renewal process, but when I checked on what it would cost to renew online a copy of Norton Antivirus 2003, the cost of renewing was greater than ordering a program CD that would have Norton antivirus 2004 on it. Crazy was to run a business. But.... What has finally turned me completely away from all Symantec products is the difficulty in trying to uninstall the Norton Internet Security 2004 program. On the computer I donated to my grandchildren, the virus definition one-year license expired. I decided to upgrade to NIS 2005 and be done with it. Even using the special uninstall files available on the Symantec web site, I was unable to completely uninstall NIS 2004. Messages kept popping up when we booted that certain Symantec files were missing. We had hoped that they all would be missing. No such luck. I went into the registry and searched for instances of SYM and Norton, and found literally hundreds of such hooks in the registry. Laboriously, I deleted them one at a time. Finally, it appeared that NIS 2004 was completely uninstalled. We installed NIS 2005, but immediately began to get messages that a certain module was not working. After searching the Internet, it looked like this was a common problem. Biting my lip, and banging my fists on my forehead, I tried to uninstall NIS 2005. We could not kill it with a stick, so it was back into the registry and more searching for SYM, NIS, and Norton. By now, the computer was a shambles. For the first time in my life, I walked away from a computer completely distraught and defeated. I told my son that he needed to hire somebody to fully clean NIS 2004 and the remnants of NIS 2005 out of the kid's computer. I was not going to touch it again until NIS 2004 was gone, and that Zone Alarm Pro and EZ-Antivirus were installed. And to take NIS 2005 back to the store and get a refund. Next, the Norton antivirus one-year license on my backup Pentium 4 computer at my house expired (as part of NIS 2004). Once again, I decided to dump Norton and go with Zone Alarm Pro and EZ-Antivirus from Computer Associates. And once again, using all the tools available in the add/remove program and the special removal tools available on the Symantec web site, and using a file manager to delete NIS folders, Norton shared folders, etc., I was unable to clean out NIS 2004. And once again I plunged into the registry. After several hours, I felt like I had erased all traces of NIS 2004, and I was able to install Zone Alarm Pro and EZ-Antivirus. When I tried to add a new restore point in Windows XP, the System Restore function was broken. Apparently, fatigued and weary of the hand deleting of registry entries, I had deleted one or two too many. Who knows what else I screwed up trying to get NIS 2004 off the hard drive? As time has gone by, several functions no longer worked. I formatted the two hard drives and reinstalled Win XP Home and SP2 - and all my programs. One man-day wasted, thanks to Symantec. The Norton antivirus license is about to expire on my old Win 98SE PIII laptop. I dread what is ahead of me, because I want to dump Norton and use my now favorite combination of ZoneAlarm and EZ-Antivirus. Currently, I am using ZoneAlarm and Norton Antivirus. I may have an answer; buy a new laptop - and sell my old Win 98SE laptop. But it is hard to find a laptop that does not come with Norton Antivirus "trial" software installed. I will try to make a deal not to accept a new computer with Norton installed. Due to the licensing agreements, the makers probably are obligated to install the trial software. The only good news is that on the new computer that I just built, I started it immediately after Win XP SP2 was installed with the installation of ZoneAlarm Pro and EZ-Antivirus. They work perfectly together, and are recognized by the Security Center in Win XP. Symantec, alias Norton, has some of the best security modules available. But, due to the ponderous nature of NIS 2005, the slow LiveUpdate (often with huge downloads), and the bad experience I had in trying to install it on the grandkid's computer, and the nightmare I went through trying to get NIS 2004 off of two computers, I have decided not to buy any more products from Symantec. Upadate: My new ACER laptop said that it came with a 90-day trial of Norton Antivirus. I dreaded trying to uninstall it and install EZ Antivirus. To my delight, the Norton Antivirus came on a separate CD, which you had to install! Someone was looking after me. I installed EZ Antivirus and ZoneAlarm on the new laptop, so now all three of my active computers are completely free of Symantec (Norton) products. I will let the Norton Antivirus subscription expire on my old laptop and sell it. Then, it is someone else's concern. I am sending the ACER Norton Antivirus disk and a copy of the above paragraphs to the president of Symantec, not that he will care. If ten thousand other people would do the same, he might get the message, but I doubt it. Trend Micro is getting good reviews for its combination firewall and antivirus program. At one time, I was considering installing it, but I was concerned about how the LiveUpdate would be handled. In an older version, my recollection was that the entire antivirus definition file was downloaded each time, rather than just the small update file that you're actually needed. I wrote them an e-mail and asked a question about how LiveUpdate was handled, and the answer was ambiguous to say the least. If you can find out how LiveUpdate is handled under Trend Micro, and it is that the update downloads only the small file that you need to supplement your main antivirus definitions, then Trend Micro may well be a very good choice. A couple of rather obscure reviews of EZ-Antivirus caught my eye a few months ago. The program is a product of Computer Associates, which is a large company with many Fortune 500 customers. The entire installation file is less than 5 MB. EZ-Antivirus does not seem to slow down the computer, and it has a reputation for being the fastest scanner of your hard drive when you do a full scan. On my 120 GB hard drive, the full scan seems to be the fastest I have experienced. Not too long ago, if you bought EZ-Antivirus in a box at a store, you would get version 6. There were problems with that version and shortly after I bought it, I got an e-mail offering me a free upgrade to version 7, which I promptly downloaded. One of the things I like best about EZ-Antivirus is the way it handles LiveUpdate. EZ-Antivirus is the only program I have ever allowed to do an automatic update while online on a dialup connection. It takes only a few seconds to connect to the Computer Associates server, determine which supplemental files you need, and start the download. Most importantly, it downloads new virus definitions every day, and the file is practically never larger than 250 kB. The updated file, of course, is only those new definitions since the last time you did a LiveUpdate. Computer Associates also markets a program called EZ-Armor, which is a combination firewall and antivirus program. I decided to try it on my backup Pentium 4, downloaded it, and paid for it online. When I installed EZ-Armor, I was shocked. I knew that they used a version of ZoneAlarm for their firewall. But, EZ-Armor was using an older version of ZoneAlarm - and even worse - the EZ-Antivirus was version 6, which we already had been told had some vulnerabilities. I was mad as hell. Immediately, I uninstalled EZ-Armor. I went right back into the site, downloaded EZ-Antivirus version 7, paid for it online, and then downloaded the latest version of ZoneAlarm from ZoneLabs. I dashed off a letter to the president of Computer Associates in which I suggested that selling EZ-Armor was close to being fraud, since they used older versions of the firewall and the antivirus program. Later, I called Digital River, the folks who do the online billing, and ask for a refund for my purchase of EZ-Armor. Once I explained the whole situation, the lady was gracious and said that my credit card would be credited within about 48 hours, which it was. First, I got an e-mail with a form in which I had to attest that I had removed EZ-Armor from my hard drive and would not use it. Fine, my word is good, so I fired off the form by Reply. ZoneAlarm Security Suite is the ZoneAlarm firewall with a version of EZ-Antivirus. I would not recommend it. The last I checked, it used a licensed version of Computer Associates EZ-Antivirus. If the coupling is anything like the ZoneAlarm module and the EZ-Antivirus marketed by Computer Associates, it will not be the latest iterations of one of more of the modules. Stick with separate versions of ZoneAlarm firewall and EZ-Antivirus. Since ZoneLabs and Computer Associates are in bed together, you can almost be assured that the separate programs from each vendor will play well together. They do on my computers. ZoneLabs also sells "ZoneAlarm With Antivirus" for $24.95. I doubt that is what you want. My guess is that it is the stripped-down ZoneAlarm with "a" version of EZ-Antivirus. Rather than this combination program, my choice would be to use the Free ZoneAlarm and the $29.95 download of EZ-Antivirus from Computer Associates. It is my observation that all these cross-licensed Firewall/antivirus solutions probably do not have the latest version from the "outside" vendor. Remember what I found in EZ-Armor - a compromise product, with apparently both the firewall and the antivirus using older versions. Better to get separate ones from the horse's mouth. Recently, I helped a friend install a new Dell Computer, and I noted that McAfee firewall and antivirus were installed at the factory. I could not figure out how to get it registered and download the new definitions. I left that chore to a bright teenager in the house to do after I left. I have never used McAfee, but on balance in reading many reviews of it over the years, I never got a very favorable impression of the software. I'm sure that they would make a good argument that theirs is a top-notch firewall and antivirus program. Possibly so. It is not my personal choice. AVG antivirus, which comes from Europe, has a good reputation. There is a free version available for download. As I recall there are some ads with the free version. The local school district uses AVG, but I don't know if it's the only program they have installed on the servers or if they use the free or paid version. My ISP in Paris, NETO.COM, uses Trend Micro to screen all incoming e-mail (perhaps outgoing too?) and it appears to do an outstanding job. I can't imagine logging onto the Internet without a current firewall and antivirus program. Yes, there is a firewall in Windows XP, but it is very limited in its abilities. Every independent expert suggests that computer users buy a third-party firewall and disable the Win XP firewall. It is not recommended to run both at the same time. Spyware is the big buzzword now. I use Ad-Aware and Spybot Search & Destroy and have recently installed Pest Patrol (a paid program) to do background monitoring for spyware, key loggers, and cookies that "phone home." A recent Update for Pest Patrol took about 25 minutes on a dialup connection. Obviously, if it detects that you have an old data file in any of the several modules, it downloads the entire module, rather than "supplemental" files. This is inexcusable. Unless you are on a broadband connection, I cannot recommend Pest Patrol - because of the very slow update procedure. So, what to buy? If the LiveUpdate function is clean and quick on Trend Micro, it would be a good choice. The combination that I use of ZoneAlarm Pro and EZ-Antivirus is outstanding and provides enormous protection. The McAfee firewall and antivirus will no doubt do a good job for you. Again, I would want to see how it handles LiveUpdate before I made the plunge. And last, there is Norton Internet Security and Norton Antivirus. Personally, I will never buy NIS again. I might suggest to someone that they use Zone Alarm Pro and Norton Antivirus, but I am so traumatized by my experiences with Norton that I want no Norton products on my computers in the future. NIS 2005 has so many features it is the Swiss Army Knife of security programs. But, with all its complexity, it seems to poke itself in the eye with the screwdriver blade. See: www.zonelabs.com (Free ZoneAlarm and ZoneAlarmPro) and www.www.my-etrust.com(EZ-Antivirus), wwww.trendmicro.com. Wal-Mart Stores Inc, says its inventory of stock produced in China is expected to hit $18 billion in 2004, keeping the annual growth rate of over 20 percent consistent over two years. If Wal-Mart were an individual economy, it would rank as China's eighth-biggest trading partner, ahead of Russia, Australia and Canada. More than 70 percent of the commodities sold in Wal-Mart are made in China. Wal-Mart is not alone. Shopping online for a new laptop computer, it is surprising which "name brands" are made in China; HP for example. I used to look down my nose at ACER computers. Now, they are near the top of my list - because they are made in Taiwan, where most of computer motherboards are made. Venerable Japanese electronics products bear a "made in China" label. Many famous American brands are now made in China. Where once Japan was the major producer of quality electronics, South Korea is now King, with Samsung and LG Electronics in the lead. I own three Samsung LCD computer monitors, a Samsung laserjet, and a Samsung HDTV set. I just pulled an old (2001) Plextor 16X CD-RW burner off the closet shelf. What a shock. It was actually made in Japan! Nikon used to be one of the great names in cameras and lenses. When I was in the cloak & dagger biz, my Nikon was my favorite camera. My personal 35mm camera is and old but very fine Pentax from Japan, with several first-rate lenses. So, when I was recently shopping for a new digital camera, I was drawn to the Nikon brand. The model I selected had the exact features I wanted. When I got the camera home, I was surprised at the lightweight construction of the body, the flimsy plastic doors for the memory card and the battery-compartment. It was all explained when I turned the camera over and saw "Made in China." Had I noticed that on the box at Best Buy, I very probably would not have bought the camera, unless Canon, Olympus, and Sony are also made in China. I am not into returning things, but I am going to try and forget that my new Nikon camera was made in China. I will call it my "Cheap Communist Knockoff Camera." I refuse to tarnish the honorable name of Nikon with this "toy camera." I knew better than to do this. I went into the living room and checked my CCRadioPlus from the CCrane Co., the finest AM radio (and FM and WX and TV audio) I have ever owned. It is now selling for $164 retail. "Made in China." I'm depressed. It's time to head for the treadmill and burn it off. I will NOT look to see where the treadmill was made. I am going to make a conscious attempt not to buy products from China. The Chinese products are often of inferior quality, or they are counterfeits of real items, and they often "dump" products on the American market at cost or below to make inroads - or somebody in the marketing chain is making a huge markup over cost - as in Nike, et al. My pecking order is: made in U.S.A., South Korea (Samsung, LG), Japan, Taiwan and Malaysia. I have stopped shopping at Wal-Mart, so that is a big head start in ridding my house of "Chinese Junk." If I were in the market for a missle or a MIG, China might be a good choice. COPYRIGHT 2000 Richard C. Rhodes You are welcome to quote sections from this page - or the whole page, as long as the source URL is included. Of course, I would be flattered if anyone linked to this page. It is very hard to be the writer, editor, fact checker, copy editor, and publisher of anything. So, I beg your forgiveness for the many mistakes that creep in. 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