Rachael Ray to feature local cookies

COOPERSTOWN — Shortbread baseball cookies from the Cooperstown Cookie Company will be featured as the "snack of the day" on "The Rachael Ray Show" on Wednesday, July 4.

Members of the show's audience will enjoy tins of the Classic Baseball Shortbread cookies in all four flavors — Classic Shortbread, Boys of Summer Lemon, All-Star Almond and Mudville Mudball Chocolate Chip.

"Classic Baseball Shortbread cookies are the ideal all-American treat," said Pati Drumm Grady, the company's founder and president. "What better day to be featured on 'Rachael Ray' than the Fourth of July."

Locally, "The Rachael Ray Show" can be seen at 10 a.m. on WKTV.

The cookie company will also be featured on an episode of the Food Network's "Unwrapped" on Friday, July 6.

Is the Browser Battle Heating Up on a New Front?

For a long time, the battle over which is the best operating system has been a three-way one. The vast majority of computer user still depend on some version of Windows, but the market share for Linux in all its varieties has grown over the years. And there is an even larger (although still small) following for the Macintosh.

Here's the way it's broken down as of May 2007, according to the Market Shares web site run by Net Applications: Windows XP currently enjoys a little over 82 percent of the market, with other Windows operating systems making up another 11 percent or so.

Macs come in second with almost 9 and half percent (includes both MacOS and MacIntel), and Linux - despite open source advocates' best efforts - is reported with less than 1 percent of the market. The numbers don't add up to 100 percent because a few other specialty operating systems, such as Hiptop (for mobile phones) and PSP (for gaming consoles) are also included in the statistics, but the top three dominate desktop computing.

The web browser is arguably the most used piece of software on most computers and similarly, the browser wars have been primarily a battle between three contenders: Internet Explorer (with almost 79 percent), Firefox (with just over fourteen and a half percent) and Safari (with almost 5 percent). There are many other browsers available, including the one-time favorite Netscape, Opera, Konqueror and versions of Mozilla, but the rest all show under 1 percent of market share.

Safari has, up until now, suffered a disadvantage in this contest. Since it ran only on Macs, and Macs are on less than 10 percent of computers, most users weren't able to run or even try the browser.

Thus, most folks, when you say "alternative web browser," think only of Firefox. But now, if you happen to like the Safari web browser that comes with Mac OS X, but prefer to use Windows (or have to at work), now you can take a Safari without switching your OS. Apple has just released a version of Safari for Windows.

Some pundits warn that it's just a ploy to lure Windows users over to the Mac. Others applaud the ability to use Mac programs they like without having to switch platforms. Some speculate the Safari for Windows release will hurt Firefox more than IE. Whatever your opinion may be, it was downloaded more than a million times in its first two days of availability. Somebody must be interested.

This release is a beta, and it was announced by Steve Jobs at the Worldwide Developers' Conference 2007 last week. The Windows version has the safe features as the one that runs on OS X. Apples claims that Safari runs twice as fast as IE and significantly faster than Firefox. Since the need for speed seems to be a common trait of computer users, this makes Safari look like an attractive alternative.

It also boasts some interesting features such as SnapBack, a button that lets you instantly go back to the top level of a web site after browsing deeply into it or create an anchor point to snap back to after browsing through many links and sites. And it has a security feature called "private browsing" that lets you turn off storage of search results, cookies, site history, download history and other normally cached information, instead of having to erase those caches after the fact.

I wanted to find out for myself. I always install multiple browsers, for several reasons. Some web sites won't render properly (or at all) in one browser but look fine in another. And I create web pages, so I like to take a look at my own pages in different browsers so I'll know how others are experiencing them. I currently have IE 7, Firefox and Opera installed on my primary desktop computer and I was eager to add Safari to the collection.

Download and installation of the beta took only a few minutes, but I made sure to create a restore point first, just in case. It was pretty non-intrusive; it did install an icon on the desktop, but interestingly it didn't open the browser after installation. I clicked the icon - and immediately got a message that the program had stopped working. Subsequent attempts rendered the same result. Although it was advertised as being for XP or Vista, my installation of Vista apparently didn't like it.

I tried changing the compatibility settings on the Safari.exe program to run in XP compatibility mode. That's worked for a number of programs that didn't work on Vista right off the bat, but it had no effect here. Next I tried running as an administrator. That didn't work, either. Okay, maybe - even though it didn't say so in the installation instructions - it required a reboot. I closed everything and restarted the computer. Still no Safari for me.

Not one to give up that easily, I next tried to install Safari on a couple of XP machines - first one that belonged to my Windows domain and then, when I was unsuccessful again, on one that wasn't a domain member. This time I got a little further - Safari detected my proxy server and asked for my credentials. I had high hopes. However, after I entered them, I got the XP dialog box telling me that Safari had encountered a problem and needs to close.

If I canceled the proxy dialog box, I couldn't access any web sites, but I could examine the Safari menus and Help files. Unfortunately, the Help files provided no help for my problem. The good news was that the installation attempt didn't cause any problems for the OS or other programs, but darn it, I had used Safari on OS X and wanted to get a chance to actually use it to view web pages on XP or Vista.

Tom started mulling over the problem with me, and we came up with one last idea, based on the request for proxy credentials on the XP computer. Maybe the proxy authentication wasn't working correctly. He headed upstairs to the server room and turned off proxy authentication on the ISA Server that's installed on our network edge. Sure enough, Safari then worked fine.

It's not a very practical solution. For security purposes, we're not going to leave authentication turned off just so we can use the Safari browser. But at least we did track down what was causing the problem, and I got a chance to take a brief look at the browser.

The interface is the familiar OS X look (which I rather like). Its window frames are not transparent in Vista, though. And yes, it is fast. In side-by- side tests, it opened most pages more quickly than IE and Firefox, but not by a lot. In fact, the other two browsers sped up a lot when proxy authentication was off, too.

I had one immediate complaint: when you click in the address bar, it doesn't highlight the whole address as IE and Firefox both do, so you can type in a new one without dragging to highlight and delete the old one. Minor, but annoying. Also, as with all OS X programs, you can't resize the window by just grabbing the edge anywhere; you have to grab it at the bottom left corner. That can take some getting used to.

As promised, it imported my IE bookmarks without asking (not sure if that's good or bad). The way it handles bookmarks is interesting; there is a bookmarks tab that you can choose to show or hide. SnapBack also works as described, and I think I could get to like that feature.

Note that the initial release had some security problems, but Apple released an update on Thursday (June 14) to fix the vulnerabilities. Be sure you have version 3.0.1. If you have the Apple Update software installed, it'll be pushed to you through that. And you may want to read this article from Larry Seltzer that discusses the "halo effect" before installing Safari.

If you still want to give it a try, you can download the Safari beta here.

Let me know how you like it and whether you encounter any problems running it on Windows. Also tell us: what's your favorite web browser, and why? Do you use more than one browser? What features would you like to see on the ideal web browser?

Deb Shinder

Computer Cookies and How They Crumble

By ALEX MINDLIN
Published: June 18, 2007

Tiny files called “cookies” are the lifeblood of online advertising. When a computer visits a site or sees an ad for the first time, the site’s server slips a cookie onto the visitor’s hard drive, identifying the computer in future dealings with that site or ad network. Cookies let online hosts determine the number of unique visitors they reach, a key metric for advertisers.

But this system of measurement has a well-known flaw: users are prone to delete their cookies, either manually or by using antispyware programs. Users who delete a cookie are eventually given a new one by that cookie’s issuer, meaning that they are often counted as unique visitors, inflating the numbers at host sites.

In a recently released study, the research firm comScore examined the fate of two commonly issued cookies across a panel of roughly 400,000 computers last December. It found that only 7.1 percent of the computers deleted their cookies four or more times over the month. But these “serial deleters” accounted for a grossly disproportionate share of the servers’ apparent traffic, receiving 35.3 percent of the total number of cookies observed.

Deleting computer files doesn't really erase them

Documents, e-mails, photos linger in system

Looking to erase files, images and other information from a computer?
It takes more than tapping the delete key and emptying the recycle bin. In fact, the only way to completely eliminate data with any certainty is to use specialized software created for just that purpose, experts say.

"You have to be very savvy in order to wipe the information off a hard drive by yourself," said Greg Beckemeier, a project manager at St. Louis-based United Forensics, which provides computer and technology forensics services. "Even when you've cleared the cache, erased cookies and deleted files, they are still there and can be recovered."

Computers essentially store copies of almost everything a user views. That includes e-mails, downloaded documents and photos on Web sites, even if the user didn't click on the images.

"Every time you go to a Web site, all the pictures and graphics, even if you didn't click on them, are downloaded to temporary Internet files on the computer," said Catherine O'Keefe, forensics service manager at Centennial- based Computer Forensic Labs.

"Each one of these has a date and time stamp, a creation date, the date they were modified and the date they were last accessed."

So photos and videos are still on a hard drive even if someone didn't specifically download and save them, let alone view them.

Computers store files and data in various places on a hard drive, making it hard to completely erase everything. They also record the date and time that files were accessed and certain programs were used, which likely is how investigators in former District Judge Larry Manzanares case discovered that someone recently deleted pornography and emptied the recycle bin.

Deleting a file is akin to simply removing a card from the card catalogue in a library, said Brady Essman, founder of Arapahoe County-based DigitalMedix.

"If you remove the card, the book is still on the shelf," Essman said. "Somebody who knows how to look for it can still find it."

In more technical terms, deleting a file essentially tells the computer it can write over that space if it needs to, experts said. But the file is still there until that happens, which can take years.

Some software products, though, can completely eliminate files, either for a fee or for free over the Internet.

Where do deleted files go?

When you delete a file, depending on your operating system and your settings, it may be transferred to your trash or recycle bin. This "holding area" protects you from yourself - if you accidentally delete a file, you can easily restore it.

However, you may have experienced the panic that results from emptying the trash bin prematurely or having a file seem to disappear on its own.

The good news is that even though it may be difficult to locate, the file is probably still somewhere on your machine.

The bad news is that even though you think you've deleted a file, an attacker or other unauthorized person may be able to retrieve it.Source: U.S. Department Of Homeland Security

Privacy Group Gives Google Lowest Possible Grade

The Washington Post is reporting on a finding by London-based group Privacy International. In a new report, they find that Google has some of the worst privacy-protection practices anywhere on the web, giving them the lowest possible grade. "While a number of other Internet companies have troubling policies, none comes as close to Google to 'achieving status as an endemic threat to privacy,' Privacy International said in an explanation of its findings. In a statement from one of its lawyers, Google said it aggressively protects its users' privacy and stands behind its track record. In its most conspicuous defense of user privacy, Google last year successfully fought a U.S. Justice Department subpoena demanding to review millions of search requests."

comScore: Cookie Deletion Skews Site Stats

Market research firm says cookie deletion can lead Web sites to substantially over-estimate their number of visitors...and publishes a white paper to detail its stance.

In the Internet advertising game, the number of visitors and hits a site can draw is the name of the game, so there's a battle between companies, like Nielsen NetRatings and comScore Media Metrics, who attempt to measure the vistorship and user bases of major Internet sites, and those sites themselves, who sometimes claim these media analysis numbers can't possibly be right, because their own server logs show substantially higher levels of use. The sites are up in arms because the amount of ad money they bring is is tightly bound to these ratings, and the analysis firms aren't big on disclosing their rating methodologies.

Back in April, Internet Advertising Bureau head Randall Rothenberg had had enough, and posted an open letter to the two largest ratings firms (comScore and Nielsen) essentially demanding they disclose their methodologies and prove their numbers are on the money. In response, last month, Nielsen announced it would submit its audience measurement system to the Media Rating Council's accredidation process, essentially opening up to an independent audit to justify its numbers.

Comscore hasn't decided to open up to an audit, but it defends the accuracy of its Web usership numbers, and today published a white paper highlighting how cookie deletion can cause sites to inflate their number of users by as much as 2.5 times. Cookies are little snippets of data Web sites can request Web browser software store on a computer; when users go back to the site—or a site which knows about a particular cookie—the site can ask if you have its cookie, and, if so, ask for it back. The data stored in cookies can have significant privacy implications (as borne out through the DoubleClick fiasco back in the early dot-com boom), but many sites still use the technology to identify returning visitors and analyze users "paths" through a site, measuring what visitors load and what they don't.

With the privacy concern over cookies, many Web browsers and add-ons now include tools which let users decline cookies, automatically reject them from third-party sites, delete them altogether based on criteria or a certain period of time, and otherwise directly manage how cookies are used on their systems—if they so choose. comScore argues that these tools—combined with users' increasing propensity to use multiple browsers, multiple computers, and run security software, often lead sites to over-estimate the number of unique visitors they have. Instead, comScore argues, the sites are often assigning new cookies to returning users and inflating their audience numbers.

Next move? Expect sites unhappy with their audience measurement numbers to fire back, explaining they know all about cookie deletion and have already accounted for it in their own numbers—which are still higher than comScore's.

Privacy Concerns with Internet and Computer Cookies

While using the Web the term “cookie” is often used. Many people don’t even realize this is a technical term and most people have no idea what it is. By definition, a cookie is a small amount of data which usually includes a unique number or string of characters to identify you. If the web site you are visiting uses cookies, their computers send this cookie to your browser which is saved on your computer’s hard drive. If you have you have configured your settings to allow web sites to send you cookies, each site can send, view or edit the cookie that they have placed on your hard drive. For privacy concerns, web sites are not allowed to view cookies placed on your hard drive by other web sites.

With the increase in the number of web sites that are using cookies, privacy advocates are concerned that these little amounts of data stored on their hard drive could pose concerns about their privacy. All Internet browsers give you the option to accept, reject or notify you each time a cookie is sent to your computer but if you simply choose to reject all cookies, you will not be able to use a lot of web sites including many of them that require you to log in like Google or Yahoo.

Advantages of Cookies

• Cookies help web sites customize their site for you. The information stored on that cookie communicates with the web site each time you come back. It can remember pages you have been to or on shopping sites, it can help you track a wish list so you can easily reference these items later.
• Many web sites give you options or preferences for their web site. You may be able to control what pops up when you first log in or simple things like the size of the font and color of the background. Cookies retain this information so you don’t have to change these preferences every time you go back to a web site.
• Since cookies retain information about some of the different pages you visit, the web site you are using can use this information to display advertisements that are directed more to you and your tastes. Instead of seeing advertisements that have nothing to do with you, you may see some advertisements that you find interesting.
• Many web sites also use the information on cookies to conduct research and help improve their web sites. Cookies can also be used to detect illegal activities on the web.

Disadvantages of Cookies.

• The major disadvantage of allowing web sites to send your computer cookies is issues with privacy. Many people don’t want to be identified on the web and have their moves tracked.
• One of the advantages listed above had to do with advertisements being directed to you. Many people consider this a disadvantage because they don’t want marketers tracking their moves and pushing specific advertisements towards them.
• Your Internet browser which communicates with the web site’s computer may be giving up more information than you are aware of. Your browser and cookies can tell web sites what kind of computer you are using, what software and hardware you use, what link you used to find their site and possibly your e-mail address if it is listed within the options or cookie. Depending on your Internet Service Provider (ISP), some web sites will request your identity when you navigate to their page. Many firewalls currently block this request but if you are not protected, you may be freely giving this information away.
• The cookie contains a number that is specific to you, similar to a serial number. It’s unique and you are the only one using it. Because of this, each time you click on a link, the web site can identify that it was you and where you are going based on this unique number. Your hobbies and web habits could potentially be sold to advertising companies that will direct their efforts to your specific hobbies and bombard you with all kinds of unwanted advertising.

Cookies can make the web a more enjoyable experience but if you are concerned about your privacy and potential unwanted advertising, check your browser options to turn them off.