Scot’s Newsletter Blog

For about a year now I’ve been researching software firewalls for Windows. There are at least five previous installments in this series, and several early contenders have been dropped from my prospect list, which has been winnowed down to one or two products in beta. (For links to previous installments in this series, see the end of this article.)

I stopped short of naming Comodo Free Firewall 2.4 the Best Software Firewall of 2007 in the last issue of the newsletter because several SFNL readers reported issues they’re having with Comodo. I asked readers last time to send me their experiences with Comodo, and thank you, many of you did just that.

The results of that little exercise were interesting. Many people are having no issues with Comodo’s 2.4 firewall. That included me at my last writing on this subject. Since then, I have had some of the problems others describe on one of the now five Comodo installations I’ve been testing. Not the worst of the problems, mind you. But at least I’m no longer totally in the dark. And I’ve also worked with two or three SFNL readers to the point that I’m satisfied that their reconfiguration of the product isn’t causing the symptoms they’re having.

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Those of you who have been reading this missive for a long time can probably recall that every two or three years, I try to come up with a new plan that will save me time on producing the newsletter. My life has become more complex over the past three years. I now have three children. I no longer work out of my home. And I have a challenging management job with a lot of responsibility that eats up my time. It’s no longer possible for me to describe my work at Computerworld as just a “day job.”

When I started the newsletter in 2001, it was a weekly. A few years later I had to cut back to every other week. A few years ago, I was forced to cut back to monthly frequency. This year I’ve only been able to publish six issues counting this one.

Other issues make the newsletter business very tough. In my Let’s Fight Sp@m series, 2002-2004, I more than once articulated my concern that spam — and the way ISPs, the government, anti-spam solutions, and corporations are attempting to fight it — will eventually kill the viability of email-based newsletters. I was clearly right about that. On the Internet, email is guilty until proven innocent. And most people don’t care enough to ferret out the truth. Four years ago, many people believed that RSS would replace email newsletters. And in a way, that’s partially true. What has actually replaced newsletters is blogs (most of which have RSS feeds).

So, let’s cut to the chase: I am once again considering relaunching Scot’s Newsletter as a blog, using the Scot’s Newsletter HTML and Text lists as announce-only notification of major blog entries. The last time I suggested something along those lines, I got bags of mail about it that split into two extreme camps. Many of you preferred that kind of approach; but many of you really hated the idea when I asked a similar question about two and a half years ago. I’d like to check the point again, so please send me your vote.

Should Scot’s Newsletter become primarily a blog?

Vote Yes (click to email your vote).

Vote No (click to email your vote).

The subject line of your email will tell me your vote, but inside the message, I have a question for you to answer:

If You Vote Yes: Do you like the idea of being notified via an email when a significant new blog entry or entries have been posted? Or would you prefer to stop receiving email entirely?

If You Vote No: Would you be willing to switch to the HTML format?

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Almost two years ago, in the wake of hurricane Katrina and the subsequent rise in gas and oil prices, I made the GasBuddy.com peer-based gasoline filling station price site Link of the Month. Then I took the opportunity to write Gratuitous Rant About the Auto Industry, which focused on the government’s toothless CAFE standards and the auto industry’s lack of initiative in aggressively exploring alternative-fuel-based systems.

What followed the opinion piece was an intriguing bevy of email from Scot’s Newsletter readers both agreeing and disagreeing with my viewpoint. Many of the messages I received were from people who work as engineers and scientists in the power and automobile industries.

One of the more common refrains was that hydrogen/oxygen-based fuel-cell-powered automobiles just aren’t a realistic alternative. I disagreed, and still disagree — but I recognize that hydrogen has several hurdles to leap. We’re certainly a long way from being able to just switch to hydrogen-based fuel-cell vehicles.

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