Fake H1N1 (Swine Flu) alerts lead to malware | Zero Day | ZDNet.com

ZDNet reports a malicious email is out and about suggesting you download software for Swine Flu protection. I am impressed by the quality of much of today’s attacks on our mail and our web browsing.

So take this as another simple call to be vigilant, don’t just refuse to open email attachments easily but beware of all links in email as well.

Be safe out there!    

Google Translate

I happened to use Google Translate recently and realized they have changed its face since my last visit. If you don’t know about this service visit the link. When you visit a website in a language you can’t read just visit this site and put the link in the form.

If you have Google Toolbar installed it can have a button or right click link to automatically open the translated page.

I don’t use it often, but each time I am reminded how limited I am knowing only one language well. I am grateful for my family’s effort to have tried to teach me French as a child and for my father’s teaching me to understand etimology listings in Webster’s Dictionary for each definition. We red necks don’t consider how much of our American ‘English’ is based on other languages.

10 Solid Tips to Safeguard Your Facebook Privacy

This link above leads to an excellent article on a topic I discuss periodically. I am not paranoid, folks are really out to get us! 

Aside from the time we waste on Facebook there can be a real security problem. If you write things you shouldn’t have co-workers or bosses see then you may just be foolish. But many of the more innocent things we post would pass muster if they were just not brought to the attention of these folks.

The default starting point in Facebook is for all your friends to be treated equally. Maybe this is dangerous, but its what it is. So what the linked article describes is how to create Friends Lists, and then make posts viewable just by the right lists and further how to hide information from searches.

It’s a good read. Could save some trouble down the road and still let you enjoy the benefits of using Facebook.

Enjoy!
-=Lare=-

There were recently two e-mails to our list suggesting that a good topic
for an upcoming meeting might be on how to speed up computers.  I thought
the topic might come up at last weeks workshop so I didn’t respond.  As it turns out it didn’t come up so I’m going to give it my two cents worth now.

Just as an FYI, I Googled ’speeding up computer’ and got 117,000,000 hits.
Then I Googled ’speeding up windows computers’ and got 114,000,000 hits.  In addition to the help that’s available on the Web people within the club like
Larry, Gary, Zener, Kelly nd Eric as well as guest speakers from local techs to Microsoft have all discussed the topic nearly endlessly.  The point I’m trying to make is that in spite of all that’s been done it’s become obvious to me that there will always be new people, new computers and new problems.

In that vein I’d like to start some sort of interactive blog or topic on our
Website or something similar that can be continually referred to and
updated.  Now, I know most of you have probably already deleted this e-mail and that even those who wrote in on the topic are probably on to bigger and better things by now so I’m not going to go too far our of my way to do this and I’m going to try to keep my expectations about how interactive it might
become realistic.  And, while I’m at it, I might mention that I know, that I
can’t come close to providing the kinds of information that’s already
available and/or even come close to providing the expertise that others in
the club can and do offer.  Instead what I can do is tell you what I do and maybe, at the same time, get some suggestions on how I can do what I do
do or don’t do better.

Anyway, watch this space.  To begin with I’m going to start off by trying
to address backing up our computers.  Everyone needs a way to back up their
current installs, files, pictures, etc.

As a little bit of an aside, as I was leaving last weeks workshop, I
happened a crossed a national radio program that had something to do
computers on either one of the local stations or on one of the two public
broadcasting stations that are available in the area.  It sounded like it
might be a weekly program and these two fellows were real geeks.  It seemed
like if anyone knows about this stuff these guys probably know it too.  I’d highly suggest you look for it.

Back to backing up our computers, quickly, there are a lot of options.
Everyone is talking (or maybe advertising) Internet backup systems.  It may
be a good option, I don’t use one and I don’t know anything about them.  One
of the fellows on this national program made the point that if you have an
average speed Internet connection, an average speed computer and one of
these new 500 Gig hard drive’s – it could take up to 129 days to back up
your computer using one of these services.  He also pointed out that with
average use you’d be adding information faster that you’d be backing it up
so you’d never have the kind of backup that they talk about.  I guess
I should say that I think that’s what he said.  I also think he went on to
say that with a faster connection, a faster computer and less info to back
up, you could cut that down to maybe 30 days.

As I said, these Interned based backup options might be a good idea but I
like the idea of having a local current back up to work with and that is
what I’m going to be trying to discuss here in the near future.  In the mean
time, let’s try to make sure your back up systems are, up, running and ready
to go? 

Questions?

More soon,

John