Friday, September 29, 2006

How to avoid identity theft

Phishing Scams
Scrutinize return e-mail addresses. Look for sloppiness, such as misspellings and poor grammar, on bogus Web sites. Try to verify a Web site by calling the company. If there's no phone number, that's a bad sign. Collect information about the site and report it to state and federal authorities. The Federal Trade Commission can be reached at 877-438-4338 or at:
www.consumer.gov/idtheft.
More information HERE.

Sources: Yankee Group, Federal Trade Commission

Thursday, September 28, 2006

How to Find Out Who is Spamming You

Have you ever wondered how you get spam? Now you can find out where it comes from. The first step is to get a free Gmail account.

Gmail was in beta for two years and it was a major status symbol to have a Gmail account because you could only be invited to get one.

Now that it is out of beta, anyone can get a free account.

Gmail has an interesting quirk in which you can add a plus sign (+), followed by any additional text, after your Gmail address, and it'll still get to your inbox.

This feature is called plus-addressing, and it essentially gives you an unlimited number of e-mail addresses to play with. The really cool feature is that all these new addresses you make up on the fly come to the SAME inbox. The major difference: You can see which plus-address it was sent to, and therefore know where the e-mail came from.

The easiest way to do this would be to use the name of the company or service you were signing up at. Say your address was John@Gmail.com and you were signing up at Monsanto. You would simply sign up as John+Monsanto@gmail.com and it would still come to your inbox.

The difference: If you started receiving e-mails to that address from companies other than Monsanto, you'd know Monsanto sold your address and was spamming you.

The beautiful thing about this system: You could put a filter on those plus-addresses so all of them would go into your spam folder and you would never have to see them again.

Sent in by: Ralph S.

Tuesday, September 26, 2006

Look in your mailbox


Look in your mailbox come October for the Imbarq phone book. Look inside and see who took the photo on the front cover. Yep, it was me. The photo is of the Versailles Lake Dam. I am very honored they wanted to use one of my photos. See some of my other photos HERE.

Transportation Security Administration



Agency Adjusts Liquid Ban, Aviation Threat Level Remains High Effective Tuesday, September 26, TSA Is justing The Ban On Liquids, Aerosols And Gels.

See the Web Page

Thursday, September 21, 2006

Paper toys, models,

Paper toys, models, cut-outs, trains, airplanes, paper party gifts, party hats, paper cars, paper motorcycles, cards
http://www.papertoys.com/

Wednesday, September 20, 2006

The Masters Message


My wife Betty has published her new book "/The Masters Message/". It hit the big book sales sights Monday Sept. 18th. Author House has a nice write-up on Betty and the book. Click on the photo of the book after you search for Betty Demaree to see the review at the Author House Web Page. All are very proud of Betty for great work, I may even help her out with some house work.

Author House
http://www.authorhouse.com/BookStore/BookHome.aspx
Search for: Betty Demaree
Amazon
http://www.amazon.com/ Search for: Betty Demaree
Barnes and Noble
http://barnesandnoble.com/ Search for: Betty Demaree
If you live local to Versailles, In., you can find the book at:

Versailles Super Val, Odyssey Salon, Rainbow Books & Gifts, Stratton - Karsteter Funeral Home,
Other Stores soon

Tuesday, September 19, 2006

We wish we hadn't

Sometimes all of us at one time or another say or do things we wish we hadn't, we all do it. You can't take it back but with just a few simple words you may defuse the hurt. Just step up to the person - look into his eyes - open your mouth - and from your heart, just let the words spill out " I'm sorry". Give it a try, it works.

Sunday, September 17, 2006

Google tool bar history

How do I delete history items from my Google tool bar?
P.B.

Click here for your answer:
or
http://tinyurl.com/g9d4t


Thanks for your question.

Tuesday, September 12, 2006

Navy Drill Team link

Mornin'!, Jack,
Where do I find the film clip of the "Navy Drill Team" in action that has been e-mailed about?
I had forwarded it to an ol' Navy salt who served 28 years who wants to view it badly.
I now get message this page has expired.
My first visit to your blog site...great/informative!
A novice.
Have a great day!
T W

The old link has been deleted looks like. I have found a new link here:
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=xWGU3mpfRoM
I hope this link stays good for a while.

My Computer Hates Me

I got a call the other day (I’m in the computer repair business both onsite and online) from a computer user that would have been funny except I get them often. I answered the phone and there was a short pause then the person on the other side said “my computer hates me.”

It was a sad voice, one that wallowed in desperation. I could tell they actually thought that their computer was out to get them. They had accepted their destiny with no hope of any solution. I have to admit I have seen machines that can create that type of response.

I do a lot of in home computer repair and the same scenario is often repeated. Just like in football, the best offense is a good defense. Years ago I was in the military (Army) and our company slogan was “Always Be Prepared.” That applies to computer problems too. Only it should be “Always Back Up.”

Intermittent problems are the toughest to fix. Usually a hard drive, power unit, or section of RAM will create errors a few times before going to computer heaven. Most users ignore them if they re-boot and the problem temporarily goes away. Until the big bang, when the part has a catastrophic failure.

And then I get the call. My first question is “do you have a current backup of any important data?” Most of the time the answer is no, but I did do one last month, year, or whatever. And then the fun starts. If the user has a current backup, a simple hardware replace and software restore is all that is necessary. It’s a pain in the neck, but not a big deal.

Going in after data, when the hard drive has failed, is a lot more involved and expensive. About 80% of the time the data can be recovered. But it’s not quick and not very much fun for all involved. And if they are graphic files like digital photos, they can be easily damaged when the hard drive fails.

So if you don’t have a current backup, please do so as soon as you finish reading this article. You’ll save yourself a lot of grief and some poor computer repair guy (like me) a lot of work. Just so you don’t have an excuse I’ll give you some pointers on how to back up easy and often.

One of the reasons many people don’t back up is they don’t have their data organized to make it easy. The first step in creating a good backup plan is to put all of the files that change often in one directory. Chances are you are a Windows user and the My Documents directory is easy to use and most software defaults to save in that directory anyway.

Create subdirectories that make it easy to find files once they have been saved. My directory looks like this:

My Documents

- Data - Web Sites - Clients - Photos - Work In Progress - Programming

Then under the subdirectories I have more specific directories by client or type of data. But when I go to do a backup, I just take the whole My Documents directory and it’s a done deal. Incremental backups can be made for just any directory that has changed that day or week. You can make your directory structure as sophisticated as you need, but put them all under one major directory.

There are other important files that you may want to periodically copy to your My Documents directory. Like Favorites from your browser, or any data that requires you save it to its own directory like many accounting packages. Also snag a copy of your email address book, important calendar, or to do lists.

Once all your data is in one place, you need a storage device large enough to back up your data. If it’s under 650 Megs, you can write it to a CD. Use either a write once or write multiple. If you have more data than can fit on a CD (or DVD, which can hold up to 4+ Gigs) you can always get a USB portable hard drive that holds up to 300 Gigs. The USB large end units go for under $100 on eBay.

OK, we have the data in one place, we have a device that can hold the amount of data we have to back up. Now you need to establish how often. My rule is every day for anything I’ve worked on. I’m lazy and hate to recreate anything twice. It really depends on whatever you are comfortable with replacing if things go awry.

If your storage device is big enough to hold multiple copies, you can do daily, weekly, and monthly in case you want to go back to a specific point in time on some of the data. It’s commonly referred to as the Grandfather Method. Many network servers are backed up in such a way so that information can be restore according to date and corrections made from that point on.

Any system you develop should be easy and quick or you won’t do it. The most common reason I get for not making backups is I didn’t have the time. So make it easy, and follow your schedule. You could also make a second copy and store offsite if necessary and the cost of replacement dictates.

You might want to test your backed-up data every once in a while to make sure that it is backing up and the data can be restored. The time to find out if the backups are bad is during a test and not an actual emergency. Better safe than sorry on data reliability.

So even if your computer hates you, you can have the satisfaction knowing that you have got a good fall back plan if it fails. A good backup can turn a disaster into a minor problem instead of a major setback.

About the Author John Dow owns a Web site that specializes in computer troubleshooting, security, and repair utilities.

Sunday, September 10, 2006

Earthquake - well maybe

Indiana is noted for the tornatos it has had in the past, but I have a hunch the "Big One" will be an earthquake. This is just a gut feeling and may be foolish. Hey ! it could happen, so why don't you have a look at this CDC page just in case.

http://www.bt.cdc.gov/disasters/earthquakes/

Wednesday, September 06, 2006

Cobian Backup

No matter who you ask or where you turn, it seems like people are telling you to back up your computer more and more these days. Just a few years ago, backing things up was the cause of much pain and lost time. Now it can be done quickly with freeware solutions like Cobian Backup.

So what is this freeware backup solution all about? Here is what the developers of the program have to say:

Cobian Backup is a multi-threaded program that can be used to schedule and back up your files and directories from their original location to other directories/drives in the same computer or other computer in your network. FTP backup is also supported in both directions (download and upload). Cobian Backup supports several methods of compression and strong encryption.

http://www.educ.umu.se/~cobian/cobianbackup.htm

Monday, September 04, 2006

Clear your cache

Clear your cache in your browser to make sure you receive the newest content such as my WebCam page, SK Funeral Home Page, & others that change often.
Read how to do it HERE.

Friday, September 01, 2006

OpenOffice.org Premium

If you don't have $300 pluss to plunk down for Microsoft Office XP, here is a replacement for free..........Jack

The OpenOffice.org Premium team proudly announces the final binary installers of OpenOffice.org Premium 2.0.3 in the Files section. Please download it, install it and enjoy the enhanced user experience.
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OpenOffice.org Premium is a free and open source enhancement of official OpenOffice.org plus some Extras for you to use.
OpenOffice.org the product is a multi-platform office productivity suite. It includes the key desktop applications, such as a word processor, spreadsheet, presentation manager, and drawing program, with a user interface and feature set similar to other office suites. Sophisticated and flexible, OpenOffice.org also works transparently with a variety of file formats, including those of Microsoft Office.
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What's new?
* Clip Art (currently more than 2,800 objects)
* Templates (number varies by language)
* Samples (number varies by language)
* Documentation (if available)
* Fonts (more than 90 fonts)
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You can download it from here:
http://sourceforge.net/project/showfiles.php?group_id=170021