Archive for ◊ 2010 ◊

Windows Live Programs
Sunday, December 26th, 2010 | Author:

Most of us are running Windows computers, I have been the lone Linux holdout unwilling to give M$ my money. But I took M$ up on its Family package (3 installs of Family Premium) and have been looking over the Windows only services available for a change. windows_live

A visit to Live.com lists an a number of services I think anyone can find useful the most obvious is Skydrive and Live Mesh.

Live Mesh is a Dropbox.com sync service with 5 gigs of space available free. It’s like having 5 gig memory stick available anytime, anywhere you have an Internet connection. SkyDrive is 25 gigs of space which you can’t (for free) sync, but you can store files with a simple upload. Not a bad deal for free.

Come to the EPCUG meeting Monday Dec. 27 and see if this service is useful for you.

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Windows 7 Upgrade for three computers in a family
Sunday, December 19th, 2010 | Author:

If you have as hard a time giving money away to the biggest money holders on the planet for the latest Windows, there is a sale going on right now worth looking at. M$ is offering Windows Home Premium on three computers for $150 right now and they give a Cisco router with the deal. I gave up the router in favor of a local store purchase when I found both Costco and Bestbuy are selling this pack for $125.

Upgrading from Win XP means wiping out all you have and starting over so backup everything you need first. (Maybe a purchase of an external drive or a large capacity memory stick is in order)

Something to talk about at future meetings.

BTW – I, (Larry) will probably miss tomorrows meeting. Merry Christmas All!

Windows 7: Shop, Buy, Download, Upgrade, Search for Current or New PC

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A new Facebook – Privacy ebook…
Tuesday, October 26th, 2010 | Author:

Follow this link to get either a downloadable PDF book or link to the Scribd page for the book from MakeUseOf’s website.

 

The (Very) Unofficial Facebook Privacy Guide [DOWNLOAD]

 

I like the MakeUseOf website very much for good information and I am impressed they made this particular book available free. The topic is one we should all spend some time studying, privacy is a different thing in the Internet world. We can still have a lot of fun but we need to be aware of some differnet issues than we needed to be concerned with in the past.

 

Read and enjoy…    :)

 

Category: Online Services, Software  | Leave a Comment
Firesheep… How to get hacked with open networks
Tuesday, October 26th, 2010 | Author:

I urge everyone to read this website as there are a number of news stories about it right now:

Eric Butler – Software Developer in Seattle WA

The bottom line. It is now possible to download a simple Firefox extension and go to an open network (such as Aquilla and Pricilla’s) and log into other users Facebook or other accounts. You can do it. And others can do it to you.

It’s as simple as installing Firesheep and sit at the cafe waiting for someone to log into Facebook, or Twitter:

Firesheep opens a sidebar in Firefox and when you hit the start capturing button it watches for logins happening on that network. Could this affect us?

Yes.

Are there solutions? For Firefox, yes, but if you are still using Explorer you are still susceptible.

The problem is actually caused by the sites we visit as they are not encrypting the cookie sent back to us when we log in even though they are encrypting it when we send our password. Firesheep was actually created to demonstrate this vulnerability.

I definitely think we should discuss this at our meetings in the future.

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Gmail Hotkeys
Sunday, September 26th, 2010 | Author:

Image via Wikipedia

While I am a user of Thunderbird most of the time for my mail I have several computers so I wind up checking my Gmail addresses in its website form quite often, that is at Gmail.com.

I find all webmail sites to be very ‘clunky’ and slow but Gmail does offer hotkeys so moving through the mail and handling it can be fairly quick. Just use the symbol ? (shift-/) when at the Gmail page to see what is available. There is a link on that display to this page which lists the key commands. Here are the ones I use most:

When you first reach the Gmail page just hit Enter or o (small O) and the top message will display.

If you want to delete an email you are reading just hit # (shift-3) and it goes to trash and you are back at the Inbox.

If you are viewing a message and just want to archive it and see the next previous message use [ or to see the next newer message use ]

If you are reading a message and want to reply hit r

Hotkeys require memory, something tough for me but by using them repeatedly they begin to stick and make email reading much faster. Give it a try.  :)

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Free Windows 7 Guide
Tuesday, September 14th, 2010 | Author:

The Windows 7 Guide: From Newbies To Pros

Those of you at the meeting this week heard me tell you about an ‘E-Book’ I found from MakeUseOf.com‘s website for folks getting used to the new Windows 7. The book can be downloaded for use in a PDF reader but is also available at Scribd.com where you can read it all online.

Maybe some of the quirks you’ve been so annoyed with will become useful when reading why it is the way it is.

Maybe not.  :)   There is always Linux.

Category: Software  | Leave a Comment
Computer America Radio
Monday, August 09th, 2010 | Author:

Computer America Radio Show Home Page

We learned from John tonight about this radio program on 1320am and at this website. Good advise in a fun format!

Category: Online Services  | Leave a Comment
Free Firewall programs
Saturday, July 24th, 2010 | Author:

I’d like to recommend folks look at this article on MakeUseof.com

7 Top Firewall Programs To Consider For Your Computer’s Security

Windows built-in firewall is, in my opinion, lame compared to the free programs available to us and this article describes them well. If you don’t understand what a firewall is or why you need one or how to use yours, have a short read on this page.

Something to discuss at a coming meeting perhaps?  :)

Category: Software  | Leave a Comment
Firefox keyboard shortcuts
Saturday, June 12th, 2010 | Author:

Keyboard shortcuts

I know this has come up at meetings. Often when we are using the computer it can be quicker and easier to accomplish something without a mouse. Keyboard shortcuts let us use ‘hotkeys’ to do navigation and the link above is a page from Mozilla showing the hotkeys available in Firefox for any operating system.

For example if you are reading a page and would like to search quickly Control-k will move the cursor focus to the search box in the upper right of Firefox. In addition, while in that focus hitting F4 or Alt-up-arrow or Alt-down-arrow will change the search engine selection.

Check out the link above and see how many of the hotkeys listed are new to you.

Hope to see you at the cafe Monday!

Hotkeys

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Adobe reports ‘critical’ flaw in Flash, Acrobat
Saturday, June 05th, 2010 | Author:

There is news today that Adobe Flash (that plays .swf files from the web) and Adobe Acrobat (which reads PDF files) may make our computers vulnerable to attack. There is no fix at the time of this posting so we should all be aware of the problem and watch for an upgrade to Flash and Acrobat and when it is available, install it!

Perhaps this week we should look at options to this problem and what we can do about it. Adobe has been under attack by Apple refusing to let its iPad use Flash, perhaps this is a reasonable concern.

Hope to see you all at the cafe Monday.

-=Larry=-

Category: Software  | Leave a Comment
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