Fourth Anniversary
Tweet This week marks the fourth anniversary of my first column in the Albany Journal and I thank you readers for your support. As I look back, let me renew my promise in that first column. I resolved to help ordinary readers understand enough geek talk to use technology to make life easier and [...]
Read More →Poor Jud is daid
Tweet “Poor Jud is daid… Poor Jud Fry is daid… All gather round his coffin now and cry.… He had a heart of gold.… And he wasn’t very old.… Oh why did sich a feller have to die?” My apologies to the writers of “Oklahoma”! I was reminded of this poignant and comical eulogy [...]
Read More →Speed up, slow down!
Tweet “Take two aspirin and call me in the morning” is an old palliative that General Practitioners used to prescribe for minor health maladies. Perhaps an equally useful one for computer techs might be “Shut it down and call me if a restart doesn’t help”. It is amazing how many minor operational problems [...]
Read More →Big Mac Attack!
Tweet It was bound to happen sooner or later and that time has apparently come. Headlines from CNET News last week read “Botnet Goes on Mac Attack”! Veteran (and maybe smug) Mac users often say that they don’t need ant-virus software on their Computers because Macs don’t get malware. PC users know they are [...]
Read More →Great Zeus! It’s a Botnet!
Tweet Last week’s announcement of the disruption of the Zeus botnet system by Microsoft sounds like good news at first glance, but as you read more closely; you realize the complexity and sophistication of modern cybercrime operations and wonder if we’ll ever be really safe from them. This excerpt from their press release gives [...]
Read More →Psst! We’re being watched!
Tweet Privacy appears to be kind of a “personal thing” and some of my readers are more upset than others about the recent policy changes at Google. To be fair, it’s not just Google but the whole prying Internet experience that gives some the creeps. As I said last week, one way to [...]
Read More →Hiding from Google!
Tweet There always seems to be tension between preserving our privacy and getting the services we want and have come to expect in the information age. What do we have to give up to get what we want? We also want services to be free if possible. We have come to expect a [...]
Read More →Credit to the big dawg
Tweet Most of my readers know that I am a big advocate of free software (free as doesn’t cost anything, period). I have recommended many free downloads from this space, but today I want to direct you to an unsuspected source for some great freeware. The software giant that we all love to [...]
Read More →Chinese Takeout
Tweet Who doesn’t like Chinese takeout? The fried rice is fine, but who ordered the malware? Data from Symantec suggests that more malware comes out of China than any other country, more than a quarter of the worldwide total. The U S is still the biggest target of malware attacks and also initiates around [...]
Read More →Confessions
Tweet They say that “confession is good for the soul”! Another old saw is “Do as I say, not as I do”! It surely hurts to be the victim of a mistake that you have warned and even exhorted others to avoid. I never begin a Word or Excel class without telling my [...]
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