March 10th, 2010
This is part of a series of web released episodes of Buck Rogers.
See if you recognize the actors playing the parents.
I was surfing around this evening… and came across whatdoyousuggest.net.
It uses Google Suggest, but puts it in a graphical format.
Google Suggest… Remember it?
When you type in the text box on the main page for Google Search…
You see the listing from Google Suggest, pop up under the text box.
whatdoyousuggest offers an easy-to-use interace.
As you click on the nodes, on the right, sub branches expand with more selections.
When you click on a selection on the right, the URL listing is displayed on the left.
I received an email earlier today, that questioned the expertise and validity of one popular fact-checking / research website.
How accurate is the information that we find on the internet, anyway?
If you are researching a technical problem, with a PC, a server or an operating system…
Chances are pretty good that you will come across someone with a similar model in hardware, or a similar software error.
The internet is rich in researching technical issues and solutions.
But…
What if you are looking up an event, what someone said or some event?
I am not sure, myself.
But whether I am looking up an article on Wikipedia… or just plain Googling a person or event…
I have several rules of thumb.
Regardless of who or what the rumor, email or report is about, I resolve myself to research and check it out, before I form an opinion.
Just because you get an email about it, might not mean it’s true or false.
Check several websites, if you Google.
Don’t settle for the first answer you get, or just one answer.
Get multiple views, takes or opinion… even if some of the people writing them seem to be at the opposite end of the political spectrum from you.
Remember, just because it’s posted on a website, or several, does not confirm truth or falsehood.
Sometimes, research will simply yield more food for thought.
With all of us… truth, falsehood, right and wrong are defined by our values and our culture.
You may not get to the bottom of the item you are researching… but you can find more information on it, as well as more opinions.
And… continue to get your information and news from more than just one source, or one website.
After you have thoroughly researched a topic, on all sides, at that point is an acceptable time to form an opinion.
You’ll find that your opinions will be stronger, and that your ability to defend and explain your opinion will be stronger.
I still love the words of Max Erhmann in his poem Desiderata.
I still find myself pulling it up, from time to time…
I find myself locating parts of the poem, and saying, “…That’s what he meant!”
Just when it seems that everyone is hip to most of the current scams, and knows how to avoid them…
There always seems to come another.
We are all familiar with the phishing scam emails that start out something like this…
Hello and good day to you.
My name is _______ and I a member of the royal family and we are fleeing the (country / republic) of ___________.
Most of the time, they offer an email address to reply to.
There are others that deceptively provide a fake link to a website set up to collect account information.
Now that everyone is more educated and most of us know better than clicking on links through email, these days.
(In case you didn’t know, it’s not a good idea.)
We know that if we get a message about our payments account, to close the email…
Pull up a browser and type in the payment account website.
Now, with all that said…
Some companies are now being hit with a new type of phishing.
They get an email talking about a company project, which might even be a real company project.
The email instructs them to make changes to their firewalls and infrastructure to allow traffic on port 25.
The email also gives reasoning that ‘deferred emails will be allowed to be delivered.’
The issues that the suggested changes create… allow spam email traffic to be sent through the network.
(Once a machine is infected, it would no longer have something blocking it from doing the spammer’s bidding.)
For the most part… larger companies, or companies with a change control procedure in place will not fall prey to this.
The companies that have to worry are the smaller and medium-size companies with no control over changes.
The amazing part of this scam, is that the message has no links or little evidence that there are any problems with it.
When I am working, I find that my iPod plays a major role in concentration.
Most of the time, if I am typing or writing… I find it soothing.
It gives me the ability to tune-out the environment around me.
For a few years, now… noise machines have been on the market.
Many are clock radios, with extra features.
They play background noise, which has different uses.
For concentration, for relaxation and sleep are a few of its uses.
Rain, ocean waves, waterfalls, babbling brooks, jungle sounds…
These are just a few.
Some even use the noises for meditation.
I stumbled across SimplyNoise, which has a few white noise mp3s for download, free of charge.
The sounds are great to put on your iPod, just in case you need a quick ‘get-a-way.’
There are a couple different mp3s on the page with which to download and play.
In my noise machine, I have some of the water sounds.
Since, every so often… I like to kick back on the couch on the weekend…
I noticed that certain televised sports events make me drowsy, really fast.
Golf, tennis and bowling (especially) will knock me out pretty quickly.
There is something about an announcer whispering to the TV audience…
Can’t put my finger on it, though.
I had to edit a PDF file, recently.
OpenOffice has a new plugin for the job… that will import the file and allow you to edit it.
But I have not had great luck with the formatting that it does.
(Think it might still be in beta.)
If I just want to output to a text file… the Export PDF funtion in OpenOffice is great.
But…
What if I want to edit a PDF file, that has created, previously?
I can always do a “Select All” from a reader, and paste the contents into OpenOffice, but that does not always work, easily.
I finally Googled it.
I found PDFEditor in the Ubuntu repositories.
I downloaded and installed it, via Synaptic Package Manager (on my Ubuntu machine.)
The results were not disappointing.
I am not sure if it has all of the bells and whistles that Adobe Acrobat has, for creating PDFs.
But it did the job.
PDFEditor is free and open source.
A man in South Florida has been convicted of one of the biggest eBay scams in history.
Nilton Rossini was a Brazilian businessman. He had over 260 accounts on eBay. He also had quite a few email addresses including Yahoo, Google and AOL.
He also had about 60 post office boxes.
At last count, he scammed over 5,500 people, possibly more. The scams ran from 2003 to 2008.
He used some of his eBay accounts to provide fake buyer feedback.
He also discouraged his customers from using PayPal… and encouraged them to send cash or money order.
Postal Inspectors began the investigation. The prosecution gathered enough evidence to get a strong conviction.
Rossini was sentenced to five and a half years in prison.
Part of his M. O. was to constantly change P. O. boxes.
If you buy stuff over eBay, it’s never a good idea to send cash, money order or wire transfer.
Paypal and credit cards provide the best protection against fraud.
As a side note… it may not happen as often anymore…
But a couple years ago, I bought a few items on eBay.
During the bidding process, I bid first on the item, with no previous bids.
I noticed a buyer with no previous history seemingly come out of nowhere to bid higher on the item.
It’s called ’shilling the bid.’
It’s also against the user terms of service for eBay.
Since that time, I have been wise and cautious to it.
If I suspect shilling… I do not up the bid.
If the seller is shilling, they win their own bid, unless someone else jumps in.
I do not let my desire to own an item, or a need to win overwhelm me into a bidding war, over an item.
There is an article on Ars Technica on P2P use being down.
CD purchases have declined over the past three years.
But Digital music purchases online are up.
So…
Why?
For a while, if someone could not find a particular song or show…
They simply Googled it, then subsequently downloaded it via a P2P (Peer to Peer) network.
Now, P2P use is down.
If we look at what has happened with media delivery, over the past three years.
First off…
Just about everyone has an mp3 player of some kind.
There are plenty of online music stores to purchase music from.
There is also Pandora and sites like it, all over, now.
In the past few months… and over the past year…
We have seen some different approaches to media delivery.
Now, more than ever…
We have different choices.
We now have XBMC, Boxee and Hulu Desktop.
These apps allow the end user to connect a PC or an appliance to their TV and use a menu to access their media.
There are more ways to listen to music, watch TV and enjoy web delivered media.
So, my theory is this:
People are becoming occupied with a wide spectrum of media… some of it, even freely delivered.
Since the media delivery process is changing, people are discovering new programs and shows.
For TV delivery, we have more options… even with Netflix.
Although, XBMC, Boxee and Hulu have a little ways to go…
People are now aware of them, and using them.
That is so much easier than searching, downloading and struggling with codecs and players.
(Does the Ars article reference include Bit Torrent downloads? I wonder.)
So, bottom line… consumers are still willing to buy media…
As long as it is delivered and packaged in a way that allows them certain freedoms.
Having had to perform cleaning duty on another machine, recently, I was reminded of one of the problems we all face.
So often, we download pictures, create documents, presentations and spreadsheets.
Without thinking about it… sometimes, we put multiple copies of items in several places on our hard drive.
Duplicate Cleaner searches your hard drive and notifies you of multiple locations of the same files.
Duplicate Cleaner offers the option to move or delete the files it finds.
The program is free, and spyware / malware free, for Windows.
If you have been doing anything with any media files, lately…
You know that it can be a monster, trying to figure out what you have to do and what tools to use.
I came across Free Studio.
For converting files between different formats, for transferring files to a portable device…
From what I can tell… Free Studio does practically all of it.
It will grab videos off of YouTube, and even burn CDs and DVDs.
For anyone looking for a great tool to have on hand for anything dealing with files, Free Studio is a good find.
It runs on Windows, (even Windows 7).
It’s free, and free of spyware and malware.
There is a story today on Telegraph.co.uk about the use of Twitter and Facebook.
For some time now, some thieves have been using Twitter and Facebook to help them find targets.
Many people, when going out of town, or on a trip, will make a post to a social website.
Thieves follow the threads and do their homework.
It seems as though a trend is developing, enough to affect insurance rates.
Now, according to the article at Telegraph.co.uk, insurance companies could raise home insurance rates as much as 10%, for Facebook and Twitter users.
For some time, we have been learning about the downside to social media.
Many times we are telling everyone things, that we might not want everyone to know.
The article offers some tips on keeping safe when using social media.
I would add…
When you post to Twitter and Facebook, you are essentially telling everyone.
I would not depend on privacy settings to filter out the ‘riff-raff’ either.
Any information you post can be used in a way, other than what your intentions are.
I will be interested to see how social media affects insurance rates, over the next couple of years.
Some new botnets have been reported, in the wild.
A botnet is an internet army of PCs, that have usually been malignantly seized and under control of a remote party.
Someone issues a mass command, to the botnet, and the machines become ‘zombies’ and respond to whatever command they are given, without question.
Botnets can be used to bring down a website, send massive amounts of email (spam) or simply to collect information.
The information is usually used for some nefarious purpose.
The Zeus trojan was recently responsible for infecting and joining several machines to a botnet.
Interestingly enough, another trojan was created by someone else to seize control of the Zeus botnet.
Once that happened, the information, resources and control of that botnet were at the remote controller’s bidding.
So…
Times are getting tough enough… that even thieves can’t ‘make an honest living’ anymore?
It is a little humorous, you have to admit.
For the individual user and average person… the thing to remember is to keep your machine free of malware and viruses.
At the first sign of even the slightest malfunction, you should update your virus scanner and run a full scan of your hard drive.
Remember, if you have one infection, that might signify several.
It never hurts to:
1. Update your virus scanner
2. Run a virus scan
3. Reboot
4. Boot into safe mode
5. Run a virus scan
6. Reboot
7. Run a malware scan
8. Repeat steps 1 – 7 as needed
Botnets are illegal and several government agencies investigate them, fully.
Even though progress is being made against malicious internet entities like these…
It is better to be safe than sorry.
There are plenty of botnets in the wild, still.
I was not sure anyone had even mastered this!
When social media is so big, these days… it’s easy to lose sight of the fact that it’s not always on the up-and-up.
That’s not to point any accusations at Facebook, Twitter or MySpace… or any of the other social media websites out there.
They’re intriguing, they’re fun… and it’s easy to spend hours, even have a regular regimine on these sites.
As with anything, any place where you get a large number of people, you might have individuals or have activities that have cause for concern.
Lately…
Some more scams have been reported on Facebook.
One scam reported is titled, “Get a Notification When Someone Views Your Profile!”
According to the FB privacy policy… there does seem to be some incongruence between the idea and the privacy policy.
Another reported scam, is with a ‘Dislike’ button.
The description boasts of allowing the viewer to add a button to a website.
For the most part… the idea is bogus.
Whether or not these reported scams do anything to your machine, remains to be seen.
If you have clicked on any items, such as these, it might be a good time to update and run your virus scanner.
YouTube is now offering a graph of performance of their site.
For anyone that is curious as to whether they get good performance (as subjective as that could be) from YouTube…
This could be something they might want to review.
You can check it out here.
From what I can tell, and the way I interpret the colors in the graph, it gives the user several points of reference as to how YouTube video performs for them.
Call it like you see it!
This week, Google announced their endeavor deeper into the social realm.
Looking at the web interface, it looks pleasant.
One of the complaints I have heard is… every time someone you are following makes a post, you get an email.
It’s not hard to work around. Simply set up a filter to catch the emails with “Buzz” in the subject line.
Google usually does a good job, with just about anything they embark upon.
The challenge is to find a model to make the venture profitable.
While I understand that Facebook has to make money, the ‘extras’ drive me crazy.
Messages about “Needing a hitman,” “Feeding the pig” or needing to do something with the crops in Farmville…
They drive me nuts.
The object of most of these games is to draw more people into the social game.
For Google, how will they try to monetize it?
It will be interesting to watch.
There is a part of me that says their less-intrusive ads are a good way to go.
I was looking around for some online storage.
I came across a couple of options.
The one that looked the most intriguing was Adrive.
They allow you 50 GB of free space.
You can share files or use it for online storage.
To use the space, for the free offering, you will have to familiarize yourself with a file transfer client.
(Filezilla is a good one.)
There is no support or much extra with the free offering, but it is a good start.
For an application to make file transfer to and from your account easier…
You’ll have to go with one of the other offerings… the signature or premium.
For the signature, you get the 50 GB and all the extras, as well as support, for $70 a year.
For the premium, you get a starting point of 100 GB and $140 a year.
There are more packages beyond the 100 GB.
Researchers at IBM have successfully created transistors using graphene.
The transistors have performed above and beyond the abilities and limitations of silicon.
Transistors created with graphene have the ability to turn off and on 100 billion times per second.
Graphene has properties that allow electrons to travel through the molecular structure much faster than they ever would through silicon.
What that means is….
Potentially, we could see graphene-based processors that operate at speeds well above and beyond traditional silicon.
Transistors created this way could run at terahertz speeds without the overhead of heat, like in silicon.
Physicists at the University of Maryland have also been conducting research using graphene.
Graphene has less resistance than silver, which is a highly conductive material.
The applications for using graphene may stretch beyond just using the material in processors and transistors.
It could also be used in anything from traditional sensors to touch screens.
When using Windows, if you have ever tried to delete a file or folder…
You know that it does not always work.
Sometimes, you get an annoying message.
Something to the effect of…
“Being used by another program or process.”
No software is perfect.
But, how do you get around the error message?
Sometimes, a reboot alone will work.
Sometimes, it takes a reboot, then booting into safe mode.
What if neither of those work?
I came across Unlocker.
It allows you to determine what has the file or folder locked.
You can then stop the program or process… then delete the item.
It also does a great deal more.
You can end processes from DLLs, and without rebooting.
There is also a command line option.
It’s free, and you can find it here.
If you ever get tired of the busy side of Facebook, with the extra ads and minutia…
There’s Facebook Lite.
Quite a change from the regular version.
It’s a little rest, if you are used to having all the extra ’static’.
Okay…
For those people not sure about the iPad, and those people that are not necessarily Apple fans…
I came across this.
The iPad looks cool. Right?
But…
Some of the buzz around the iPad has characterized it in a certain light.
There are things that everyone agrees on.
It looks like a big iPod Touch.
It’s cool.
Battery life is reported to be 10 hours.
The downside?
Apple keeps a tight hold over apps that will run on it.
It’s proprietarily controlled.
Adobe Flash is not being allowed to run on it.
But…
Talk about another product, that is open… and also cool?
Alwaysinnovating.com has developed a netbook / tablet.
(The top part dismounts from the keyboard.)
It’s ARM processor based.
It runs several different flavors of Linux… (And… inherently, Adobe Flash).
The battery life is between three and five hours, off the base.
It comes with 512 MB of RAM. You can buy more, later on.
It has an 8 GB SDHC solid state drive.
It does not support multi-touch… but, for the offering, that does not bother me.
Get ready…
The sweetest part?
The tablet alone, costs $299.
The tablet with the keyboard / stand, costs $399.
Keep in mind… it has an ARM processor.
That means that it lies outside of the support offering for running and flavor of Windows.
That is, until Microsoft decides to start supporting Windows on the ARM-based platforms.
You just got home from work, or school.
You turn on your machine to get the lastest look at Facebook or Twitter.
You wait.
And wait.
And Wait.
And WAIT.
AND WAIT.
Something has happened to your Windows OS.
It’s slow. The screen is black, blank or just shows a blue background with an hourglass.
You may not be a computer expert, but you don’t have to be to know there is something wrong.
Chances are… you either have some malware or some form of a virus… or virusES.
Having had several machines to fix over the past few months for virus and malware issues, this article at MakeTechEasier sparked my interest.
The main idea is to boot your machine on something other than Windows.
The article focuses on using a Live Linux CD.
These days, major strides have been made in Linux and software development, especially in booting the OS.
You can download an ISO image file, burn it to CD and boot up your Windows machine.
Since you are booting off of something other than the hard drive, the nasty items that slow down Windows will not affect the boot process.
One of the caveats in getting the PC to boot off of the CD may lie in making changes in the BIOS.
Since each machine BIOS is different, there is no one set of instructions for making the necessary changes.
When your machine starts, there is usually a text screen that displays within a few seconds.
If you look for the options on the screen, you will see a listing for the key to get into the BIOS.
Once you get into the BIOS, if you explore, you should find some boot order options.
Among these you should find the hard drive, optical drive (CD or DVD) and USB.
You can configure the order that the machine will try to boot these items.
You want to put the CD or DVD drive first in the boot order.
There are also options for making a USB drive bootable.
(Older machines do not offer the USB booting option.)
If you happen to run into problems, Google is your friend.
Read the article at MakeTechEasier to see the details for the rest of the scanning process.
Beginning March 1, people that installed the Windows 7 Release Candidate will begin to experience problems.
That means that if you have W7RC installed, and have not purchased a license, it will begin to shutdown randomly, and without warning.
You can purchase a license to avoid the problem.
According to Microsoft, there is no in-place ugrade path from the RC to the actual W7 release.
So, you will have to back up your data, and restore it after the install.
There are ’solutions’ I have seen posted, regarding ‘circumventing’ the shutdowns…
But I think it would be easier and less annoying to choose another option.
That being, either buy a copy of Windows 7, or install something else.
Overall, if you are dead-set on running a MS Windows OS, W7 is a pretty good choice.
I have come across people that I tried to help, and install Ubuntu or some other Linux variant.
Seems like they all have some psychological pre-disposition that they have to run Windows.
“Because it’s easier.”
Seems like it is always those same people that come back to me, a few months later, and ask me to fix it.
They never seem to understand the concept of Cost of Ownership.
If you are in such a mindset, keep these things in mind:
1. Be careful what you click on.
2. Run a virus scanner.
3. Run Virus scans!
4. Backup.
5. Defrag.
6. Don’t share files (like P2P networks).
7. Minimize your time on social websites.
8. If you don’t know what it is, don’t click it.
9. Be careful in your email, and don’t open items from people you don’t know.
10. Be careful what you click on!
With all the hoopla about the iPad, I came across something that is a curiosity.
It’s the Axiotron Modbook.
It’s running Mac OS X.
I am not sure what agreements exist between Apple and Axiotron.
With the recent news of Pystar and the legal implications… It definitely makes a person wonder.
It is a pleasant idea. It features handwriting recognition.
At $699, through March 1, 2010… I would think it is worth checking out… or at least watching.
From reading the website, it looks to be an originally produced Apple product, moded to be used as a tablet.
(Hence the name, modbook?)
Wish I had an extra $700 to try it out.
I love free stuff.
And… I like reading books that are written on the subject of learning more about the environment around me.
I stumbled across a book on Body Language.
I cannot vouch for the accuracy, but it is a good read.
For the most part, much of the content should be valid.
Keep in mind, some people have certain mannerisms and idiosyncrasies that might not necessarily apply.
Take into account, some cultural differences may apply.
Remember, in some circles, a kiss may mean anything from love, a greeting or a salute.
Looking away from someone might imply a lack or confidence, or a lack of respect.
I would suggest reading the book in entirety, before attempting to apply any of its content or concepts.
The book is free, and online.
User Support is a broad term.
Mostly it refers to anything that is not covered in the manual, that comes with your computer.
Sometimes, it may even encompass the stuff that is in the manual.
If your mouse doesn’t work… or you get an error… or a virus…
Or need to perform a certain task, and you don’t know how.
Those tasks are all considered User Support.
A few years back, it was a standard to get a year, or a few months, of User Support when you purchased a new PC.
In those days, you might spend a couple thousand dollars on a PC.
The cost of the PC paid for the operational costs of hiring the User Support personnel, along with any other operational costs.
These days… you can buy a PC for next to nothing.
The difference, now, is that the retail costs have been trimmed and optimized.
Most manufacturers no longer have User Support.
In order to sell consumers a desktop or a laptop at today’s prices…
The tradeoff is that manufacturers have cut their own costs.
For the most part, that means they are no longer paying a person to answer the phone and your questions.
What does that mean, for us, in the long run?
We spend a great deal more time, these days, researching and learning.
We find more computer-related books… tutorials… websites, etc.
Like it or not, this has become an era of self-support.
Believe it or not… there are still companies and consultants that have User Support offerings.
The difference is… they no longer come packaged with purchases… and are more expensive than ever before.
Having done my fair share of User Support… I can tell you…
Those that still work in the field have learned… it is definitely work.
And… the scope of what is provided, and to what extent is defined more clearly, than ever before.
Not too long ago… I got a call from someone that told me…
“I got someone to re-install everything. That was a month ago… I think they must have done something wrong, because I have a virus, again!”
I am curious, to see what happens in the User Support space, over the next year.
An article at Ars Technica seems to indicate that anxiety toward math in female students might actually be ‘absorbed’ or learned behavior.
If you think about it, it only makes sense.
It seems that by some nature or legacy, females (of ‘the norm’) don’t seem to be mathematically inclined.
Since many math teachers are female, is it possible that they are not only teaching procedures and principles, but more?
I think this article scrapes the surface of a much larger picture.
Looking back, at my experiences, and those of my classmates and acquaintenances, I can draw more than just this one theory.
Let me preface, saying, teachers are human beings.
I had some wonderful teachers in elementary, middle, high school and college.
There are some really positive influences that I have had, that I attribute to those wonderful human beings.
They stimulated my curiosity, my intellect and much more.
Now, the other side… the dark side.
Not all teachers are quite so positive.
Many are overcome by ego, by bias (which is not necessarily equivalent to racism), by pre-disposition…
Just to name a few dark and not-so-desirable qualities.
I can remember more than one occasion, in which someone I knew had a negative experience in school.
One person I knew had a male coach for a math teacher.
I am not sure what sort of personal issues the teacher had… but he made a habit out of calling the person out in math class.
I am not sure how the person fairs with math, these days… but from what I observed… the treatment completely turned the person off, on the subject of math.
My point is this:
Teachers take on a great responsibility, when they choose teaching as a profession.
They are agreeing to help shape minds and individuals, and help prepare them for complete function in the real world.
Good teachers realize they are teaching, even when they aren’t aware of it.
It’s sad to say, but not all teachers are necessarily aware of that fact.
Teachers pass on much more that what is in a book or written on a chalkboard.
Having recently been tasked with a couple of re-installs of Windows XP, I have been reminded of several things.
For the most part…
A standard user can usually survive on free software offerings.
That includes some defragment utilities.
There are several paid packages that have extensive features.
For a regular user, one of the free offerings should suffice.
Defraggler is a great little utility.
It offers some good features.
Touch-up defragging, selective files and folders, scheduling…
For NTFS and FAT32 file systems, Defraggler is a great, power-packed utility.
You can check it out, and download it here.