One “guru” I like to watch is Bob Rankin. He’s been a geek since before the Internet and has a good online newsletter that includes this very good description of how to upgrade memory. How to Upgrade Your Memory.
Have a look!
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. 
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.
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… 
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!
TVKim- Watching: Kim on Komand- Set up Facebook to keep your privacy
You need to a flashplayer enabled browser to view this YouTube video
(i.e. Apple iPod and iPad users need not apply… that’s another post.)
Our Mail list received a post from Gary Smith today about privacy settings on Facebook that deserves a post here on our website.
Whether you have privacy concerns about Facebook or not these are good posts to see, she points out just where to go to fix things so you are as safe as you can be while using Facebook.
Read in good health!
I’m always looking for ways to have meetings, webinars, with everyone in a manner that would let us have folks at the cafe, at home or work, anywhere be able to join us and share. To make that work I require our method to include use of Linux and most of us require Windows, 7, XP, and a few of us need Mac support.
Yuuguu.com may make this work for us and this week, next Monday April 5, 2010, I suggest everyone visit this site, download and install their software and create an account. Then at 5:30 we all start it, find each other through our Internet Messenger accounts, chat or (if you have free long distance) use the Yuuguu telephone conference call.
If there are support questions that member can show us their screen and we can all commiserate together or maybe find a solution.
If you need more explanation have a look at this video or Google ‘Yuuguu video’ and see more.
How To Use Yuuguu For Simple, Free Screen Sharing
Official Gmail Blog: Fast new windows
The link above is for an article on the Gmail Blog describing how you can now more quickly open a second window so if you want to copy from one message and paste in another it can be done more easily and quickly now. I know a number of us in the EPCUG are online Gmail users and I thought you might like to know about this.
If you forgot our last meeting or weren’t there you may want to take another look at this service. It has a Firefox extension which will capture all or part of anything visible in Firefox and open it in it’s editor for resizing or other editing. It also edits sound files. Amazing stuff!
Hide My Ass! Free Proxy – Surf The Net Anonymously – Web Proxy
The geeks among us might take exception at how freely we use the Internet at our cafe. It is true the Internet we use at most “free” spots is insecure, meaning the text we send or receive could be picked up and read.
So the question becomes, should we worry and what can we do?
I worry about sending usernames and passwords through these connections. For most things it may not matter, and if the site shows an address starting with https:// (note the ‘s’) and a lock icon appears in the lower right of our web browser then the information we send is encrypted and is likely to be safe. (Banks and email sites SHOULD be doing this) But simpler sites like Facebook, Youtube and the like, logging into these in a cafe DOES send the open text we use through the network and that could be compromised.
I just bought a new router for my home network and suddenly some things I have done on the network quit working. It turned out this new router does not ‘loopback’ basically meaning I cannot type an address for my computers here and see them as I would on the net. So to see if my addresses were working I would have to go to someone else’s computer away from my own network to see them.
OR I could use the same services I would use to protect myself in a cafe or to see blocked sites at work like Youtube, I’d use a Proxy, and the one I have linked above is http://www.hidemyass.com
If you visit this site you will notice an address bar in the page. If you put the site address you want to see in this second address bar you will see your desired page, but the address your computer (and network) will see will belong to hidemyass.com thus seeming to come from another server. There are hundreds of these sites, maybe thousands all doing a similar service. Just Google for ‘anonymous proxy servers free’ and you’ll find them. The one I have presented here encrypts the link so that it doesn’t give away what site it has presented to you, not all do that.
So… should we worry? We should be cautious. If you are not on a secure site and you are sending information you would not want stolen, use a Proxy site and go ahead and enjoy yourself.
My two cents. Do you have any comments? Just use the comment form here on our website at http://epcug.net
ZumoDrive – Enjoy your media and documents from every device
It can never be said enough. Backup your files. But how many of us are really protected this minute? There are now three good services for online backup for Windows and two of them work on other platforms as well and can sync files as well. We’ll look at Dropbox.com, Mozy.com, SpiderOak.com and ZumoDrive.com and what we can do with them to protect ourselves. Join us at the Monday January 11, 2010, 5:30pm meeting at Aqilla & Pricilla’s Cafe at Poineer Pkwy and Q St.
