You may have heard about the security flaw that affects the entire Internet. It’s actually a problem with the software behind just about all domain name servers – DNS for short. A domain name server is a computer that acts like a phone book or switchboard operator that takes a web address – like cbs.com and translates it to an Internet Protocol (IP) address like 170.20.0.24. Since IP addresses are as hard to remember as phone numbers, none of us bother to use them. Instead we rely on the DNS servers to look them up for us.

But on July 8th, security researcher Dan Kaminsky found a flaw in the software used on most DNS servers that make it possible for a hacker to re-direct a DNS. If exploited, that flaw would allow a criminal to re-direct people to the wrong site. Imagine the scenario – you type the correct URL of your bank but instead of going to your real bank’s site you to a criminal’s site that looks just like it. You type in your user name and password and that information gets into the wrong hands. And don’t confuse this with phishing. A phishing attack tricks you into clicking on a link that takes you to a bogus site. If you were a victim of a DNS attack (sometimes called pharming) you could get to a bogus site even if you typed in the correct URL.

You can listen to my interview with Kaminsky on CBSNews.com

No need to panic

There is no need to panic or stop using the Internet. Kaminsky has been warning security professionals about this flaw for the last few weeks and most major Internet service providers have fixed their DNS servers to protect users. But not everyone has. There are thousands of DNS servers out there in companies and smaller ISPs that may not have been fixed. And, now that the word is out, there is a greater chance that hackers will attempt to exploit this flaw because more of them know about it.

You can find out if the company that provides your DNS server has a security flaw by using a DNS checker. There are three that I know of. Kaminsky has one on his blog, there’s another at  DNS-OARC and one at the lower left corner of DNSstuff. If your system passes these tests, you’re OK.

If you’re not OK contact your ISP or, if you’re at work, your system administrator. Or you can bypass your ISP’s domain name server and use a free alternative. Kaminsky recommends opendns.com which allows you to use their domain name server instead of the one provided by your ISP. You can to spend a few minutes configuring your computer or router to work with opendns’s name server but there are clear instructions on that site. Because my ISP (Comcast) passed the tests, I didn’t bother changing mine and you shouldn’t either if your system tests out OK.

The good news about this is that the problem is being fixed around the globe. Next week Kaminsky heads to Las Vegas for a security conference where he plans to lay out more details to help experts fix their own servers and prevent these attacks in the future.

My editor at the Mercury News has a right to be angry at me because my column is late. But I have an excuse. The very technology I write about is the source of my tardiness. Instead of writing my column on time, I spent the better part of Wednesday and Thursday dealing with a variety of technology meltdowns.There were no disasters this time. Unlike some past experiences, my computer didn’t grind to a halt. My hard drive is just fine. But I’ve been dealing with lots of little problems trying to get Mozilla Firefox, Microsoft Outlook and my BlackBerry to work while at the same time dealing with annoying software that keeps popping up and demanding my attention.

At the risk of sounding like a Luddite, it almost makes me want to dust off my typewriter, four-function calculator and rotary phone, and once again get my news and information the old-fashioned way – from print, radio and TV.

It all started when Mozilla Firefox failed to load on my Windows Vista machine with the message “Error:App:Name not specified in application.ini.” Hoping to find a clue as to what that meant, I entered the message into Google but got only three results – all of them aimed at Firefox developers rather than end-users. Not exactly the user-friendly response I hoped for from the non-profit Mozilla that so often stands out as a refreshing alternative to Microsoft’s fare.and even going through the risky and nerdy exercise of deleting references to Firefox from the Windows Registry (something most Windows users should never do without expert supervision).I reinstalled Firefox and it still didn’t work. On a whim, I created a new user account in Windows (as if I were logging on as a different person) and for reasons I can’t explain Firefox worked just fine. But Outlook, Thunderbird, the BlackBerry synchronization program and the software I use to transfer my radio segment to CBS News stopped working. After a couple of hours of reconfiguring these programs, I had most things working.

But then the BlackBerry Desktop Manager suddenly failed to sync my BlackBerry. I finally came up with a work-around after two hours on the phone with a BlackBerry senior tech support person, though even he couldn’t figure out why it didn’t work. The same software works just fine on my laptop computer. It’s as if my desktop PC is haunted.

Speaking of haunting, one of the things users typically have to do when troubleshooting software problems is to reboot their PC – in my case many times over the past few days. Rebooting a Windows PC is never fast, but it was taking a ridiculously long time because I had recently installed AOL Instant Messenger and, by default, AIM loads every time my PC starts. AIM is a great service and I appreciate AOL making it available at no charge. But that doesn’t give AOL the right to hijack my computer to start the service when I don’t want it. Nor – in my humble opinion – does it give it the right to launch my browser to an AOL page every time I start AIM.

I accept the fact that I have to look at ads within the program while I’m using it, but that’s different from taking up permanent residency in my PC’s memory. In fairness, there is a disclosure in the fine print presented to you when you install the program with instructions on how to later configure the software not to start automatically. But you have to scroll through legalese to find this information before clicking on obligatory “I agree” icon to install the software.

When I finally decided I had enough with computers, I retired to my living room to watch a Blu-ray DVD. But suddenly the sound quit coming through the speakers attached to my audio system. After 20 minutes of trial and error, I traced the problem to a setting in my new Pioneer receiver that gives you onscreen control over the many inputs on the device. Seems as if the DVD setting was associated with an optical digital input rather than the coaxial digital cord I was using.

Finally, between all this technological troubleshooting, I decided it was time to get some badly needed exercise. So I took a walk. That went just fine because, unlike those Nike shoes with the built-in iPod interface, my shoes don’t have any chips in them.

I did everything I could think of, including uninstalling Firefox, obliterating all of the files left behind

Based on what we’re hearing about all the new iPhone applications, you’d think it was the first smart-phone to run third-party software. It’s not. In fact, all three major smart-phone operating systems – Palm, BlackBerry and Windows Mobile – have a big head start when it comes to available software.What’s more, basic cell phones – the ones you get for free from your carrier – also can run software and often be programmed to perform many of the advanced functions of an iPod or smart-phone.

Apple didn’t invent cell phone applications, and it’s not the only company that’s innovating. Yet, the rest of the industry owes Apple a debt of gratitude for opening its online applications store and helping publicize the fact that cell phone applications exist on virtually all platforms. And Apple has raised the bar for ease of use. I hope other handset makers will take note and make their applications easier to find.

The most popular smart-phone brand is still Research in Motion’s BlackBerry, which works with lots of third-party programs in addition to the applications that come with the device. One way to locate them is by using a search engine to find “Built for BlackBerry,” which will lead you to the company’s application portal. It’s divided into categories of “News & Weather,” “Sports,” “Travel & Mapping,” “Games & Entertainment,” “Music & Media,” “Lifestyle” and “Finance & Bankinare quite sophisticated. Under the “Music & Media” service, there are even programs that let you listen to live radio or connect to your personal music collection. However, unlike the iPhone, BlackBerry devices use a smaller-than-usual headphone jack requiring you to use the brand’s headphones, a plug adapter or Bluetooth headphones if you want to listen to music or a video soundtrack.I also just got my hands on the new Treo 800w, which is built by Palm, runs the Windows Mobile operating system and uses the Sprint network. This device, which costs $249 with the usual two-year contract, comes with lots of programs but also supports software you can download from the phone using the Sprint software store or one of many vendors that provide software for Windows mobile.

When it comes to choice, the combination of Sprint and Windows Mobile outshines what you can get with an iPhone – at least for now. The same can be said for smart-phones that run on Verizon Wireless, which also has its own applications along with the programs available from Windows Mobile, Palm, BlackBerry and the many independent vendors that support these phones. There are even distributors who specialize in making these programs easily available.

Handango offers software for all the major platforms as does Handmark. Handmark also has a free program called “Pocket Express” that provides news, stock quotes, sports and more for many phones and smart-phones.

Even if you have a phone you got for free or really cheap when you signed up for service, you probably have more available software than you realize. Take a look at the tools menu for all the things you can do with your phone such as setting alarms, calculating tips or keeping track of your schedule.

Almost all phones have some type of e-mail service, but they also work with the free e-mail applications from Google (Gmail) and from Yahoo Mobile. Of course you’ll have to peck out your messages on the numeric keyboard, but the interface on the mobile version of Gmail is actually very good – arguably as good or better than what you get with smart-phones. Yahoo Mobile also offers search, instant messaging and other features that – like Gmail – work on most regular phones.

Nearly all newer phones also have GPS built-in as well as available applications that give turn-by-turn directions, which is not yet available on an iPhone even though the iPhone 3G has GPS.

Then there’s Google’s Android operating system. Android phones aren’t yet available, but when they are, expect a great many choices. Android is an open-source operating system that Google will license to cell phone makers and carriers around the world, which means there will be plenty of incentive for developers to jump on that platform with some great applications.

So while it’s understandable to have iPhone envy, don’t think for a moment that Apple has a monopoly on coolness or neat applications. Shop around and look at that phone you already have. You might discover it’s a lot more powerful and versatile than you thought.

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As with any platform, the quality of applications varies. But some

The new Apple 3G iPhone has received a lot of attention, but the more important story isn’t the new hardware, but Apple’s application store and the many programs that run on the new phone.

Thanks to a few of those programs there’s an even larger story – the iPhone may fundamentally change the way people listen to the radio when they’re in their cars or otherwise on the go.

Two free applications for the iPhone and iPod Touch, and another program that costs only $4.99, make it possible to listen to live radio on the iPhone from anywhere, including a moving car.

Unlike those pre-TV days when families sat around a big radio console in the living room, a lot of people now listen to radio mainly when they’re on the move. Internet radio has been around for more than a decade, car radios were introduced in the 1930’s and portable transistor radios became available in the 1950s.

Until now, live radio pretty much meant listening to a broadcast station with transmitters relatively nearby. But with the iPhone you can listen to stations from around the world, including some that broadcast only on the Internet and don’t even have transmitters.

Over time, this could be as disruptive to the radio broadcast industry as the Web has been to print. That’s not to say that major broadcast organizations (including CBS, which owns CBSNews.com and for which I serve as technology consultant) can’t survive in the age of mobile Internet radio, but it does mean they will face competition from new players, including startups operating from peoples’ spare rooms.

There are at least three “live radio” software applications available, not only for the new iPhone, but for the older iPhone and the iPod Touch that have been updated with Apple’s new 2.0 software (free for iPhone users and $10 for iPod Touch users). Two of the programs: AOL Radio and Pandora are free while Tuner costs $4.99.

AOL Radio “Powered by CBS Radio” allows you to listen to more than 150 CBS music, news, talk and sports stations across the United States, as well as customized stations created specifically for online listening. By default, it uses the iPhone or iPod Touch’s location awareness capabilities to play stations in your area, but you can also use it for out-of-town stations.

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Podcast: Larry Magid and San Jose Mercury News reporter Troy Wolverton use the new iPhone to listen to live radio from New York and Jamaica as they drive around Silicon Valley, Calif.

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Pandora doesn’t carry broadcast stations but allows users to create their own music programming by selecting their favorite artists or genres. It’s a very creative concept that can result in programming that is highly customized yet, unlike listening to your own MP3 files, still gives you the serendipity of not knowing which song will come next.

The other program, called Tuner, lets you select from thousands of Internet stations around world or type in the URL of any station that may not be included in its rather exhaustive list.

Assuming you have a good Internet connection, the sound quality from any of these programs is generally quite good.

With San Jose Mercury News technology reporter Troy Wolverton at the wheel, I plugged the iPhone into the auxiliary jack of his car radio while we drove around the San Jose, Calif. area listening to WCBS Newsradio from New York, a radio station from Kingston, Jamaica and a customized channel through Pandora.

Even at 66 miles an hour on U.S. Highway 101, the sound was better than what you’d expect from a clear FM signal. I also tuned into my local KCBS news station where the sound quality was definitely better than the station’s terrestrial AM signal.

The iPhone isn’t the first device to bring Internet radio to people on the go. There is streaming radio software for Windows Mobile, Palm and Blackberry, but they haven’t received widespread recognition.

Given the iPhone’s popularity and the fact that you can get these stations free with the AT&T data plan, I expect this to become one of the more popular uses for the iPhone, especially for people who commute by car. And, unless car radio manufacturers and automakers have their heads in the sand, I wouldn’t be surprised to see similar technology built into car audio systems.

If this does catch on, it could be incredibly disruptive to both the terrestrial and the relatively new satellite radio industries. With the Internet, stations no longer need transmitters, satellites or hard-to-get-FCC licenses to broadcast to mobile listeners.

Startups can now compete with major broadcast companies. Of course, having a delivery vehicle doesn’t mean you have a good product or the ability to market it well but, as we’ve discovered with blogs and podcasts, new media technologies do enable some creative new players to succeed while giving incumbent players – including CBS and other broadcasters – the opportunity to take advantage of new distribution systems.

Either way you look at it, the landscape will change.

Knee-deep in iPhone 2.0 fever, I’ve been thinking about the annual cost of using not only that device but all our other gadgets that require a subscription service.As you probably have heard, AT&T has raised the price of the data plan for the new iPhone by $10 a month, which more than wipes out the savings you get from the lower initial cost of the hardware. The $199 iPhone is $200 less than its predecessor but the increased cost of the data plan works out to an extra $240 over the life of the two-year contract. IPhones users will be paying at least $70 a month, which adds up to $840 a year, plus taxes and fees.

But it’s not just the iPhone that puts a deep dent in your wallet. Even regular old cell phone service costs about $50 a month per user. When I was growing up, most households had one phone line that cost maybe $8 a month back in 1970. Adjusting for inflation, that would be about $45 today – a bit more than people are spending per cell phone.

But that figure is for one cell phone. My family has four of them with a combined monthly bill of about $250. We still have our old-fashioned AT&T landline ($42 a month) and our Vonage Internet phone ($29 a month). That jacks up our monthly phone costs to about $320 – more than $3,720 a year – and doesn’t even count extras like international calls or when we go over our allotted cell phone minutes.

Admittedly, my parents paid a lot more for long-distance calls. But their total costs weren’t nearly as high.Today’s families get plenty of other bills that our parents never dreamed of. Comcast’s cable TV service can cost as little as $17 a month for basic service, but you can easily spend as much as $120 a month for the “Digital Premier” package – and that doesn’t count the cost of any pay-per-view movies you might want to order.

Then there’s our Internet bill. I love high-speed Internet service, but once the promotion period ends, I’ll be paying $67 a month for my 16-megabit “Blast” service. (To be fair, you can get less expensive, slower-speed cable service and even cheaper DSL from AT&T.)

There are plenty of other ways we can spend money each month. If you want to add a TiVo digital recorder to your TV set, it will cost you $12.95 a month or $129 a year plus the cost of the hardware. A typical three-movie Netflix subscription costs $20 a month. Want to play interactive games on your TV? An Xbox Live subscription costs $60 a year.

When I watch a high-definition movie on Apple TV, it sets me back $5. That’s at least $1 more than what it costs at the video store, though at least I don’t have to burn $4.70-a-gallon gas to fetch the movie.

We are also starting to see software and service fees. Security programs like Norton Internet Security or Trend Micro Internet Security Pro almost always have an annual subscription plan – typically around $69 a year. So far, most people buy their desktop software but there is a trend toward “cloud computing,” in which you access your software online – in some cases for a monthly or annual fee.

Yahoo has a free e-mail service, but if you want to turn on its advanced features and eliminate ads, you need to pay $20 a year.

And then there’s the cost of powering up all your equipment. My father’s energy bill was a fraction of what I pay. Not only has the cost per kilowatt gone up exponentially but so has the amount of power we use. My mom and dad might have had less efficient appliances and light bulbs but they didn’t have to pay for the energy to run a 57-inch LCD TV that uses more than 300 watts when on, or a digital video recorder that uses 47 watts 24 hour a day. And dear old mom and dad didn’t have any devices that used “passive” power when on standby.

I’m not arguing that we don’t get value for what we pay on a monthly or annual basis. But I do think it’s worth keeping an eye on those bills. Moore’s law and competition have drastically cut the purchase cost of hardware, but that’s only the start. If you want to actually use a lot of that hardware, you have to keep on paying.

This week marks my 25th anniversary as a tech columnist. “The Computer File,” my syndicated Los Angeles Times column, debuted July 3, 1983.

My first topic was “Learn Buzzwords Before Shopping,” in which I informed my readers about the difference between hardware and software and such techie terms as bits, bytes and kilobytes. I didn’t have to tell them about megabytes or gigabytes because there weren’t any devices that stored that much data in those days.

I covered the birth of the Macintosh in 1984 and, in 1996, wrote a column on why it’s OK to buy a Mac even though Apple “lost more money during the fourth quarter of 1995 than most of us could hope to earn in several lifetimes.” Who would have known that Steve Jobs was about to return to the company he founded and bring it back to life?

I also covered the launch of Windows 1.0 back in 1985, but it was a bit of a joke – slow, ugly and cumbersome. But even then it was clear that Microsoft was a tenacious company that would keep trying.

In 1990 Microsoft came up with Windows 3.0, which I called the “most significant development in the nine-year history of IBM and compatible personal computers.” I’m sure I’ll hear from people who think Windows is still slow, ugly and cumbersome but it’s hard to ignore a product with about 90 percent market share.

By the way, I wrote that first column in WordStar and later switched over to WordPerfect as my preferred word processing program. But Microsoft pretty much killed off those products once Microsoft Word – part of Microsoft Office – virtually took over the word processing market.

Speaking of Microsoft and market share, from 1998 through 2001 I covered the Microsoft antitrust trial. And though I tried to remain objective, I couldn’t help but agree with Justice Department officials who argued that the company was taking unfair advantage of its dominant position.

However, I recall Bill Gates’ testimony before Congress where he pointed out that being on top isn’t something any company could take for granted.

Years later, his words are ringing true as Microsoft struggles to catch up with Google in Internet search. And while still dominant on the desktop, Microsoft is losing market share to Apple.

For advice on the Microsoft vs. Apple question, I turned to one of the very few people who have been covering technology even longer than I have. My friend John Dvorak – who preceded me as a tech journalist by about five years – said that “right now, the Mac is a superior product and it’s a real problem for the Microsoft side of the equation.” Dvorak, who writes for PC Magazine, has a Mac but primarily uses Windows for his work. But he said that if people ask him what to buy, “I tell them to get a Mac.”

I also have a Mac. But I, too, mostly use Windows, though I no longer care much about operating systems and PCs.

With the growth of Web-based “cloud computing,” desktop operating systems and applications are becoming less significant. Now people are starting to run online applications within their Web browsers.

That doesn’t bode well for a company like Microsoft that makes billions selling shrink-wrapped software programs. Long term, it might even be bad for Apple if we get to the point where the brand of computer becomes irrelevant.

While I miss reviewing products from long-gone PC makers like Apricot and Leading Edge, there is no shortage of interesting tech stories to cover. The long-awaited “convergence” between computers and consumer technology is finally here, giving this old “PC guy” plenty of new material and gadgets to ponder.

Those include phones that report your location to your friends, GPS navigation systems that track traffic patterns and pocket-size camcorders that finally make it easy to take video. Digital cameras, which didn’t exist as consumer products when I started covering tech, have virtually replaced film cameras.

The first portable cell phone from Motorola debuted the year I started writing my column. It cost nearly $4,000. I didn’t even bother reviewing phones until Radio Shack came out with a brick-size unit that sold for less than $1,000. Back then, only rich executives had portable phones, and most of them were installed in cars. Now I get to write about all sorts of interesting phones that are affordable.

I also spent a lot of time writing about and for the early online services. In 1994 I wrote a book about those services called “Cruising Online: Larry Magid’s Guide to the New Digital Highways.”

The book came out just in time to be irrelevant because of the release of Mosaic, the first graphical Web browser (later to become Netscape), which heralded the beginning of the popular Internet. Over time, online services – isolated islands of information – gave way to Web sites accessible to anyone.

And that changed everything, including the prominence of printed newspapers – the very industry that gave me my start.

Whether I read them online or in print, I still love newspapers. That’s not because of the paper they’re printed on or the Web sites that display them but because of the information they contain and the dedicated, talented and interesting people who make them come out each and every day.

It’s been a privilege writing for CBSNews.com and for some of our country’s great newspapers – the Los Angeles Times, the New York Times, Washington Post and the Mercury News – and I’m not done yet. Media companies change and columnists age, but we still have some life ahead of us.

25 years and counting