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Tech savy advice…

Written by Jess
Thursday, 02 February 2012 17:30
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Practical advice from the front-lines.

We’ve just gotten past the latest plague of malicious software infections. Started about mid-December, tapered about mid-January. If you didn’t get hit, consider yourself lucky because a lot of victims were NOT sloppy internet users or people who open every email they’re sent. You got lucky.

A couple pieces of advice:

1)      STOP using Internet Explorer! It is the number 1 target of every hacker out there.

Use Firefox, Chrome, Opera or Safari as your primary browser. Internet Explorer might be needed for some sites you visit but use it for only that.

2)      GET a PAID antivirus on your PC. We recommend NOD32 available at www.eset.com . Although we’ve seen this last infiltration get past every AV out there, the infections appear milder with the paid antivirus solutions. The cost of prevention is less than $50 each year. The cost of cure can be 4-5 times that. And that doesn’t count your lost productivity.

Stay safe out there, and happy computing!

 

Don’t Censor the Internet.

Written by Jess
Thursday, 15 December 2011 18:58
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If you haven’t heard, there’s a fight happening right now in Washington that will affect your access to a censored (or not) internet.

The Stop Online Piracy Act (SOPA) and the Protect IP Act (PIPA) are bills that seek to deter online piracy of Intellectual Property and is supported by big names such as The Motion Picture Association of America, The Directors Guild, Recording Industry of America, and Viacom, to name but a few.  The legislation is opposed by other big names such as Google, Yahoo!, Electronic Frontier Foundation, numerous Internet “entrepreneurs” such as those who founded Twitter, LinkedIn, and others, to name but a few.

On the one hand yes, reasonable protection to copyright is, well, reasonable.  On the other hand, posting on Facebook or YouTube a video of your niece singing along to Lady Gaga’s latest creation ought not land you in jail.

This legislation as written will lead to censorship and even forcible shut down of some very popular and culturally important websites.  The oft-repeated comparison to censorship in China may not be that implausible.

Perhaps the creative minds (of these creative industries) can come up with better ways to protect their profits.  Instead of putting big road blocks in front of everyone, maybe try… what’s the word…, oh yeah: innovation!

Here is a link if you are interested in signing a petition or contacting your legislators.

http://dontcensorthenet.com/

Happy (uncensored!) computing!

 

Increase your Internet IQ – Avoiding the Advertising!

Written by Jess
Wednesday, 23 November 2011 14:09
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Two quick tips today.

Have you ever tried to search for something on the internet and the first two pages are filled with advertising trying to sell you something?

Here are probably the two quickest ways to screen out what are called “content farms”.  Content farms are companies that publish large amounts of text out onto the internet so their sponsored sites rise into the first screen of search results.  This often fools the major search engines like Google and Yahoo and gets ads flashed up right into your face.  Let’s fight back.  Here are two tools:

1)       The mighty “-“ (dash) or negative/minus symbol.

2)      The infamous chicken scratches or air quotes.  i.e. “something”

Number one will filter out any word you put immediately after it, no spaces.  Have you searched for healthy alternatives to fast food?  Only to come up with the Yelp website promoting McDonalds for too many results.  Just put in a (dash) -McDonalds, (dash) -yelp, and those results will disappear.

Getting specific is what the air quotes are all about.  Looking for a refurbished Chevrolet truck transmission?  Instead of just typing in that, try enclosing it in quotation marks.  This tells the search engine to only find sites that contain that exact verbage, nothing else.

You’ll have to play with this a bit to get the hang of it, but you’ve already raised your Internet IQ by a dozen points.

Happy Computing!