In part one of a two part series on premium video streaming services, I review the quality of the movie offerings from NetFlix and Hulu Plus. I checked each of the top 100 movies of all time (from the Internet Movie Database) for streaming access. The clear winner is NetFlix, with just 20 percent of the top 100 to Hulu's 0(!) percent. It is clear that Hulu is not trying to get any of the premiere movie properties, even though Hulu is owned by content companies.

Most people know that reusing passwords for multiple services is a major security hole. If you don't know, XKCD can explain it to you:


Now, assuming you aren't going to memorize a unique password for every service requiring one, there are a few ways you can protect yourself from programmatic identity theft.

Today I was reading a NY Times article on my laptop when a pop-up forced me into a fake virus scan page. Despite the sophistication of the prompts and animations on the site, the "infected" Windows Explorer screen (see capture below) could not trick anyone into installing MalWare on a Mac. In case you end up at one of these pages while on a Windows machine, WP's blog has some sensible advice.

Google sent me a $100 AdWords credit after signing up for a Google Analytics account. My new-found advertising budget makes this a perfect time to explain how to avoid my paid links.

First, I should explain my philosophy on blocking ads:

• No one should block ads, except you. Ads are good for the web. Sites need to be able to monetize their content. However...