I feel like I’ve done this article so many times in the past…. there are so many things I’m hoping to post and time seems to evaporate before my very eyes. This afternoon I hope to be posting a few things that have been on that list. I also have a few other projects that I’ve been VERY eager to get a start on, which may happen this afternoon (or in whatever’s left of it.) As of late, of course, I’ve been trying to not work through the day, into the evening and late into the night. My pattern of filling all my free time between and after appoinments trying to make posts was quite tiring, maybe I can at some point try to find a balance where I’m not investing toooo much time chasing stories that are already out there.
Tag: computer
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1000th article
It seems I posted the 1000th article yesterday with the note on the recent IE vulnerability. (I wonder how many articles out of the 1000 were about IE vulnerabilities???) Anyway, nice round numbers like that are interesting to note as milestones. I haven’t been doing much in the way of updates for a bit and there are a couple of reasons. One was the great trauma with the internet connection that I’ve previously described…. what’s interesting about that….
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March Microsoft Updates – etc.
I can’t believe it’s been so long without a post – last post was the last MS update cycle. I’ve been trying to avoid spending almost every waking hour at a computer for a while. Anyway, advance notice for the March Microsoft updates came out and it appears as though the only critical update is expected for Office, with an “important” update for Windows. The Office update may require a reboot, the Windows update is not expected to require a reboot.
Hopefully this will make for an un-eventful patch cycle.
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Google explains Google China Decision
The Official Googleblog has an article today about their decision to filter results in China. I took a look at the Chinese version today (I saw an image search comparing Tienamen (spelling?) results in English and Chinese. I also searched for my site and found that I seem to be absent from the Chinese search results. Now you might say the latter is not surprising for a number of reasons, but I’ve found other English language sites showing up in the Google.cn results…. I guess information about computer security is too risky for the Chinese People to find. !!Correction-8:30PM EST!! I had earlier seen Sunbelt mention guiness.com missing from the results and they just noted that was in the results now. Likewise, my site was missing and now is present in the Google.cn results… !!End Correction!!
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Upgrade your mouse
This is going in the basics category. Quite often I visit a computer that has a mouse which is just a trial of patience to use. I mean, you have to pick it up and move it, shake it a bit, turn it over and clean out the lint from the “ball” area…. The good news is that mousing does NOT have to be like this. If your computer has a PS2 (small round plug) for your mouse, or a USB (small rectangular plug) for your mouse, it should be VERY easy to replace that old ball style mouse with an optical mouse.
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Using the command line in linux – part 2
This is part two in a series of “how to use the command line in linux” style articles…. these are intended to be quite basic for those that have not used a command line before…. In part one we logged in (if necessary) and found out about the help command, navigated a bit with the arrows and exit -ed from our login. This time we’ll try to learn a bit more about dealing with files and navigating. In a graphical interface, if you browse files, you’re presented with a list of files and folders for a directory that you can scroll through and read at your leisure. In the command line we have to tell the computer to list the files and folders for the directory that we’re currently “in” to list those in linux, we use the ls command….
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On the fence
I’ve got a lot of posts related to shortwave radio and radio broadcasts online (and tv broadcasts online.) Which got me to thinking how I wanted to organize the information. There’s a part of me that wants to just work it into the existing structure of this site, however…. I guess my organizational side says I’ve got enough that I’d like to do that I should probably not clutter up the “computer specific” site with those posts. (Much as I don’t clutter the computer site with my North Carolina Genealogy, or South Carolina Genealogy information/posts/etc.)
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Warning – old wolf in sheeps clothing cloned…
Our “good friend” spyaxe, which is one of the “wolves in sheeps clothing” that masquerade as security software, but in actuality are delivered WITH spyware, has a new clone. Apparently SpywareStrike is making the rounds, and has a website which is identical to the SpyAxe site and it looks to be the same program. The only thing that appears different is the new name. I guess with all the publicity over the spyaxe name, they figured they wanted a fresh start for the new year.
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How to use wireless networking on a laptop
This is one that I run into from time to time. Most laptops the last year or two (actually maybe a bit longer), have built in wireless networking. This is great and makes for easy access to wireless access points just about anywhere. In fact, most current operating systems (Windows XP included) usually do a great job of detecting available networks. (Sometimes they do too good a job which is why wireless security is an issue, but we’ll save that for a future post.) I’ve run into several laptops over the last few years though that supposedly had wireless networking, but the user hadn’t been able to access any wireless networks with the laptop. Usually it’s an easy fix….
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What is a Ping?
The word “ping” is used in computer networking. It’s usually used to test and see if a machine is able to be “reached” or “talked to” over a network. The terminology reminds me of the concept of radar systems. I have a tendency to think of it as “bouncing a test” off the other machine. Most every operating system that has networking support can ping, or should be able to answer a ping request. Many times it’s used as a basic test of the ability to access the internet.