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Protecting E-mails From Prying Eyes
Two tools are worth a look. Both allow you to encrypt information and send it by e-mail.


  • http://www.kryptel.com/index.php

    Kryptel.com is a New Zealand firm offering both file and e-mail encryption tools. The tools are relatively inexpensive and easy to use. You can encrypt a document on your end and assign it a password or key. An .exe file is created and it will need to be sent as a zip file if the receipient's mail passes through a firewall that strips .exe attachments. You provide the other party with a password or key in advance or afterwards and the document can be opened. The information is encrypted between you and the other person.


  • https://store.pgp.com/

    PGP offers an array of products ranging from personal to enterprise level that can meet just about any encryption need you have. PGP Mail encrypts not only e-mail, but also encrypts files and IM messages. PGP integrates directly into an e-mail client and allows a message to be encrypted when the send button is pressed.

 
It's Friday - Time for a Little Fun?
http://www.malevole.com/mv/misc/killerquiz/

Programming Language Inventor or Serial Killer? That's the theme of this exceptionally entertaining presentation at malevole.com. Test your knowledge and intuition. Can you tell a computer code genius from a serial killing canibal? Enjoy.

 
Get Information About Computer Threats and Vulnerabilities
http://www.us-cert.gov/

US-CERT is a partnership between the Department of Homeland Security and the private sector offering free e-mailed alerts of threats and vulnerabilities for both corporate users and home users. You can sign up at this site to receive information on the latest computer threats.

 
What's the Weather Like on the Internet?
http://isc.sans.org/

Want to know what storms are raging on the net? Which ports are being attacked most frequently. What are the trends? What incidents are cropping up? What problems like worms are being widely reported? Visit the Internet Storm Center.

 
Have Snow Shovel, Will Travel: A History of Snow Removal
http://nsidc.org/snow/shovel.html

You can find just about anything on the web and it took little time to locate a wonderful short history of snow removal. Ever wonder how people dealt with snowstorms before there were fleets of snow plows and salt turcks? This is the place to get the answer.

 
Search Engines - Hotest Properties on the Net

Because everyone uses search engines to try to unravel the tangle of the web, they have become the hotest properties on the Internet.

Three Powerhouses Go Head-to-Head

  • Microsoft recently announced that it was in the early stages of developing its own search engine. Many analysists expect that the this search engine will be built into the next version of the Windows operating system due out in 2006.


  • Google is expected to go public this year and will likely see an influx of billions in new investment that can be used in its research and development programs.


  • Yahoo has just announced it has opened a lab improve search services. See,
    CNN.com - Yahoo starts lab to improve services - Jan. 25, 2004


New Starts and New Ideas

While the giants power-up for a showdown, other groups are also using innovation to try to capture market share.

  • Kartoo at www.kartoo.com is a metasearch engine with visual displays of search results.


  • Nutch is still in development, but promises a visual interface for searches. See, www.nutch.org


  • Grokker at http://www.groxis.com/service/grok/ presents a visual interface and offers a free trial, but costs $49 to put on your desktop.


  • Vivisimo at http://vivisimo.com/ offers document clustering to help you drill down to a desirable result. Vivisimo has just launched a nifty toolbar for you browser.


  • Dipsie has not yet opened for business, but its bots are crawling the web. Dipsie promises to offer more complete searches of the web than Google and to open in 2004 with the daunting motto "Get where you want....in 2 clicks." FAQs on the Dipsie bots are at http://www.dipsie.com/.


  • Copernic Agents at http://www.copernic.com/en/index.html offers free and paid versions of its search engine which integrates into your browser.


 
Blogs - Uses for 'Em


Blogs seem to be the latest thing to sweep like wildfire across the net with people trying to make them do all manner of things. But the thing to remember is that a Blog is a web based log file or a chronicle of some sort at heart.

Best uses for blogs seem to be:

  • Individual chronicle of daily activities (sort of egocentric, but very prevelant)

  • Group collaboration (cheap substitute for a discussion board where there is a single thread and many contributors) - works for small groups that need to keep a log of ongoing discussion and share it

  • Group chronicle of activities (could be used by say a small group to keep track of all the things they've been doing and share them with other small groups)

  • News columns and opinion columns - works well any page where you need to update content frequently and have many people able to contribute without knowing html. Easily adaptable to a news page.


One of great things is that you can get a free blogger from www.blogger.com. It also integrates into your web browser, if you use the google toolbar for searches. You can click on the blogger from any browser session and create an entry without any fuss. Blogs can be hosted for free at blogger or they can reside on your own website. You can completely customize the template's html so that the blog looks like the rest of your website.

 
Happy Birthday Mac! 20!
CNN.com - Apple's core: The Mac turns 20 - Jan. 23, 2004

Wow - it has been 20 years since the first MacIntosh computer! CNN has a great story about Apple turning twenty.

If you'd like to have a look at some of the earlier models, you can find them at The Museum of Computers, Videogames and Robots.

 
Cursing Your Computer - It Could Be Worse - It Could Be A Typewriter
http://www.typewritermuseum.org/

The next time you're swearing at your computer or slamming a fist into the keyboard with frustration, think about it. Computers can be cranky, but it could be worse, you could have grown up with typewriters. Check out a history and great visual collection of images of typewriters from the last century. Visit The Virtual Typewriter Museum.

 
Alternative to Windows OS
http://www.xandros.com/

If you are looking for an easy to install alternative to Windows for an operating system on a computer, you may want to have a look at XandrOS Version 2.0. You can purchase the ISO image for $89 and burn it to a CD for easy installation. XandrOS offers you the ability to run Microsoft Office in a Linux environment using a desktop that has the familiar look and feel of Windows. Version 1.0 was wonderful - I tested it and used it on a laptop that had heat problems when running Windows. Version 2.0 looks even better.

 
IT Security - True Stories - Truth Is Stranger Than Fiction
http://www.computerworld.com/departments/opinions/sharktank

Computerworld's Shark Tank offers a fresh, biting, and entertaining weekly column devoted to the annals of inane security and just about every imaginable IT management faux pax. Jump in the shark tank and meet the pilot fish that try to stay a step ahead of the blunders of their bosses. Good fun and good reading.

If you enjoy reading about problem bosses in management or have an interest in how to deal with a "dumb boss" you may want to have this book in your library:


 
Museum of Web Art
http://www.mowa.org/

The Museum of Web Art (MOWA) is worth a visit. You'll find yourself spending time looking at virtual exhibits that are great! Navigation of this site can be a little challenging, but the contents are worth the effort. MOWA has captured a lot of the art of the web including animations, interactive items, static content, and more.

 
Deal for Developers
Microsoft Action Pack Subscription

If you are a developer, consultant, host, or IT professional building solutions with Microsoft products and technologies for third-party customers, you'll want to visit the Microsoft Action Pack Subscription site. For a relatively low price, subscribers can get help on sales, marketing, training, and the latest Microsoft software including server software, Office software, SQL Server, and more. This is quite a deal for a developer. It is restricted and you must be registered on the Microsoft for Partners site to be eligible.

 
UCE (spam) - Stealing Your Identity


Today I encountered at least half a dozen phishing efforts to steal my personal information in UCE (spam) e-mails. One was cleverly disguised as a request to update my information in an online yellow pages. Another told me that my bank account was frozen and part of an investigation. One told me that my Visa account had been suspended. Still another told me that my PayPal account needed to be updated. ANd yet another told me that a purchase had been made for a huge amount at a national brand store that I needed to confirm or provide information for possible credit card theft. All of these e-mails had one thing in common -- they wanted me to click on a link to a hostile site that on the surface looked like the real McCoy, but in fact was a phishing site or one that wanted to collect my personal information including social security card number and credit card account data. Why? Simple - the fraudsters wanted to steal my identity.

  • Don't under any circumstances click on a link in an e-mail like this and provide you personal information.

  • Don't fill out any form in any e-mail that requests your personal information.


To learn more about how to avoid identity theft consider visiting one of the two following websites. ZDnet's Anchor Desk has a great article on how to avoid identity theft. The FTC has a great site to help you report identity theft, if it has happened to you.

 
Remember When - Obsolete Computer Museum
http://www.obsoletecomputermuseum.org

Exhibits of very old personal computers abound at this website. Did you start with a TI-99 or maybe a Mac 128K? If so, you can relive your memories by looking at these or dozens of other "ancient" models. This website features a FAQ, helpline, and forums as part of its community building efforts. A true hobbyist's delight. Our hat's off to Tom Carlson for a great job on this website!

 
What Lurks Behind Your Computer?
http://carcino.gen.nz/images/index.php/00b9a680/1146f67f

A classic photograph of a geek's dream gone wild. Check out the wiring mess behind this computer system.

 
Warriors of the Net
http://www.warriorsofthe.net/

This is a must see website for anyone that wants to understand in simple terms how the Internet works. Click on the link "the Movie" to download a 157 MB mpeg that shows how packet traffic, routers, and firewalls work. The movie is a creative way to make difficult concepts easily understood. Five thumbs up.

 
For Real Geeks - The Museum of Broken Packets
http://lcamtuf.coredump.cx/mobp/

All the traffic on the Internet moves in packets. Sometimes things go wrong. This is a museum of packets that were malformed, malicious, or just plain odd. Enjoy.

 
Memory Lane - Remember Burma Shave Signs?
http://wandascountryhome.com/remember-when/index.html

In the early days of highway driving long before the Interstate Highway system drivers were frequently entertained by a four part couplet on signs spaced a hundred feet apart followed by a fifth sign advertising Burma Shave, a then popular shaving cream. This web site has cataloged a number of those famous advertising couplets. These signs were ubiquitous in the 1920s and 1930s. The last of them survived in the 1950's and 1960's in the Midwest. And who knows, you may still run into a few along old highways today.

 
Get Rid of Hidden Text in Documents
http://www.payneconsulting.com/

Payne Consulting has developed a tool called Metadata Assistant for Word, Excel, and PowerPoint that can clean up hidden text in your documents. This is a great way to assure that you don't send out potentially embarassing hidden information like corrections and edits to a document, personal comments that have been deleted, etc. This tool also works with documents attached to e-mails.

 
Computer Hall of Fame - Computer Museum of America
http://www.computer-museum.org/

This is one of the best online computer museums with both an exhibits area and a hall of fame recognizing the people that have been leaders in computer development.

 
Learn How to Use Norton Ghost to Copy Hard Disks
http://ghost.radified.com/ghost_1.htm

The "Radified Guide to Norton Ghost by Symantec - A Tutorial on How to Create and Restore Ghost Images" provides step by step assistance to help you successfully use Ghost. In a series of nine pages the authors provide quick start information, help with creating and restoring a Ghost image, and help with disk and partition cloning. There is even a page explaining how to create an image across a network.

 
New World Trade Center - What Will It Look Like?
http://www.wtv-zone.com/grandstaff/IMAGESWTC/NEW_WTC.html

This site features images of artist conceptions of the new Freedom Tower and WTC Memorial in New York City.

 
Enhance Your Browser with a Search Bar - Copernic Agent
http://www.copernic.com/en/index.html

Copernic Agent offers both a free and a paid search bar that integrates right into your browser. The best part is that Copernic Agent uses multiple search engines to find information for you. It also allows you to keep a history of your searches, filter results, and to customize your search process.


 
Walt Disney Treasures - World War II Cartoons
Amazon.com has started taking orders for the May release of Walt Disney Treasures -- On the Front. This 2 DVD set includes a variety of shorts used in World War II propaganda including Donald Duck in Der Fuher's Face. These clips from 1941 to 1945 from the Disney Studio have been unavailable for nearly 60 years to film enthusiasts.




 
Help - My Computer Is Hosed


You've probably grown to love and hate your computer. More than that you've probably found from time to time that you really dislike trying to get help to fix it. Most stores want to sell you a new one and sometimes helpdesks can try your patience, so what do you do?

You can try one of the many free or low cost online help websites. There are dozens of websites that offer computer tips, help, suggestions, and even diagnostics. Let's take a look at a few.


  • http://www.computerhope.com

    ComputerHope has a great collection of information on hardware, drivers, tips, help and even a computer dictionary to help with confusing terms. The software section has an alphabetical listing of software titles and problems/solutions for each. This site has lots of information about older computer systems and software. So if you have an aging machine, it may have information of value to you.

  • http://www.computerhelpatoz.com/

    Computer Help AtoZ has a interesting collection of help areas. Many provide free tips on things like deleting temporary files or running scandisk to fix problems. There are other links that redirect to pages designed to sell you books or software.

  • http://www.intelligentedu.com/cat2.html

    www.intelligentedu.com has a great collection of links to other computer help, tutorials, and guide sites. You can read a short description for each linked site to help you find help on a specific computer area.

  • http://www.tech24.com/

    Tech24.com is a pay for service site offering support starting at $19.95. This site offers support via a chat link window. This site was a C|net Editor's Choice Award site in June 2002.

  • http://www.geeksbyminute.com/

    Geeksbyminute.com offers telephone support at $1.99 a minute. For a simple problem this can be an inexpensive solution. If you have a complicated problem that could take an hour or two to work out, you may want to think about the cost ahead of time and decide whether it is worth the price to fix your machine.

  • http://support.microsoft.com

    Microsoft offers support for its products in a number of ways. One option is a $99 per incident charge for online help. Another option is phone support for $245 per incident. In some cases no-charge support may be available. (Based on information from Microsoft for a support call on Windows XP Professional with an advanced problem with information current on 1/12/2004)

 
What's On The Other Side Of A Smiley?
http://www.myshutter.com/flash/smiley-back.swf

Flash is great for a creative mind and here is a creative answer to the age old question of what's on the other side of a smiley face.

 
Find Haunted Houses Near You
http://wolf1productions.net:8080/ufo/news/article.cfm?NewsID=452

Don't you just love it when a search turns up a link that looks like just what you were seeking only to find it was something a lot less? I was searching for "ghosts near you" with the idea of finding a listing of haunted sites. The best result was the above URL. Well, it isn't a listing of haunted sites, but it does have a great article on ghosts in the Washington DC area that may appeal if you are touring and want to see something unusual.

 
Information About Where You Live
http://gazetteer.hometownlocator.com/

View census information, see aerial photos of your street, get the local weather, find the nearest Post Office, or check out physical and cultural features for your neighborhood. The HomeTownLocator Gazatteer provides these features and more.

 
Stimulate Your Mind with Math Tricks, Logic Puzzles, and Riddles
http://www.flooble.com/perplexus/

flooble :: perplexus dishes up an assortment of ever changing offerings logic puzzles, brainteasers, riddles and math tricks. Have a bottle of aspirin handy though - some of these are going to give you a headache.

 
E-mails Attempt to Exploit Fear to Trick Users Into Loading Malware Attachment
Sidney Morning Herald - Invoking the FBI to spread malware

The Sydney Morney Herald reports that e-mails are in circulation that prey upon the fears of people who have downloaded files from the internet. These e-mails tell the recipient that their computer has been scanned and that they will be indicted. The e-mail then tells the recipient that the attachment contains the illegal files that have been taken as evidence. The attachment is an executable designed to cause harm.

 
How Does Your Website Measure Up? Want to See?
http://www.worldbestwebsites.com/

If you are a webmaster and want to have an outside honest opinion about how good your site is, you may want to visit World Best Websites and have your website reviewed. World Best Website uses some pretty rigorous criteria across many disciplines of web design to determine the quality of a website. Getting the evaluation may help you learn how well your site is doing when reviewed against independant criteria by other web professionals.

 
What's Under the Hood - What Is In Your Computer?
http://www.aida32.hu/aida32.php - AIDA32 - Worldwide Sysinfo Tool

Ever wonder what software has been installed on your machine? Ever wonder what kind of motherboard you have or what type of chip? If you really want to know everything about your computer, then you will want to download and run the free AIDA32 application on your system. It generates an 85 page summary of everything you could ever want to know about a computer complete with benchmark testing of your RAM. Simply put, it is awesome.

 
WEBnME - Smart Computing
http://www.webnme.com/GetSmart.asp

Start out the new year with safe computing practices - check out our list of hints.

 
Beautiful, but Slow - SimCity.com
http://simcity.ea.com/

Designing a website is always a balancing act. You want to have eye candy and elements that lure a visitor back. Plain text is boring and too many images will cause overload.

SimCity.com is a beautiful and eye pleasing website that is easy to navigate with lots of great information for a gamer. However, if you are connecting via modem, be prepared to wait. With a boradband connection you'll see a blue empty page until 65 images load, which can take five or six seconds during low traffic periods or 20 seconds during high traffic periods. With a modem the wait is much longer. This is repeated with each page on the site.

Despite the slow load times, this site is one of the better gaming sites with well organized information, plenty of hints and how to information along with a community area where gamers can share experiences and build on each other's knowledge.

Webmaster Hints: Use a consistent page design and put all non-changing elements in include files that remain in cache when you change from page to page. This will reduce the time it takes to load a new page.

Buy the game or the new expansion pack:






 
Get Your RSS Feeds via Outlook
http://rss.blogstreet.com/asp-rssbin/auth_rss - Info Aggregator - Home

What's RSS? RSS stands for Really Simple Syndication. What's that? Bascially it is a way of delivering web content directly from a website to an end-user without the user needing to chase down information from several websites. You can learn more at:

http://blogs.law.harvard.edu/tech/rss

and

http://www.oreillynet.com/topics/rss/rss

The easiest way to get RSS feeds is to use the Info Aggregator product in the title link above. Its free and easy to do. RSS feeds are then delivered to your inbox. Another product that integrates with Outlook is Newsgator.

If you would prefer a more robust standalone product try one of these links:

http://www.bradsoft.com/feeddemon/index.asp

http://www.feeddemon.com/feeddemon/beta/index.asp

http://www.rssreader.com/ (This is my favorite)

A review of six popular RSS readers can be found at

http://www.extremetech.com/article2/0,3973,1228694,00.asp


Once you have a reader or Outlook plugin installed, all you need to do is tell the application which RSSfeeds you want to receive. The folks offering Info Aggregator are kind enough to provide a directory of more than 11,000 feeds from blogs. However, you can also get feeds from government agencies, the BBC, Yahoo News, and more.




 
The WebSmart 50
http://www.businessweek.com/magazine/ toc/03_47/B38590347websmart.htm

In the previous articles in this blog, we've pointed out some websites that can help webmasters do things better. Now its time to look at some sites that have done things right. To quote from the BusinessWeek site: "Meet the masters of the Web. We've divided them into six categories and have shown how they're using the Web to benefit their customers -- and themselves."

BusinessWeek lists 50 websites that have demonstrated mastery of the art of website design and development.

 
How To Stuff - Visit A List Apart
http://www.alistapart.com/

So you are a webmaster and struggling with the "how to" stuff. Check out this website. It provides a lot of good information on how to use CSS, XHTML, and more. A List Apart has over 165 articles on how to design and code websites that give webmasters a leg up.

 
Usability.Gov Is A Treasure Trove of How To Info
http://usability.gov/

Interested in making your website more user friendly. The National Cancer Institute has created a website that has a huge collection of resources available to help you design a website to be more usable.

 
Top Ten Web Design Mistakes of 2003 (Jakob Nielsen's Alertbox)
http://www.useit.com/alertbox/20031222.html

Noted web usability advocate Jakob Nielsen publishes an annual list of things that webmasters need to do to improve their websites so that customers and visitors can make better use of the available resources. You may not agree with all of his observations, but you should at least read them and give them some thought as you design or re-design your own websites.

 
Interesting Use of Flash - Drag the Man Around
http://www.neen.org/demo/clinger.swf

Well if you've always wanted to grab a dummy and drag them around or shake them up, here's a way to do it virtually without any harm.

 
Anti-Phishing.org - Stop Phishing and Email Scams
http://anti-phishing.org/

If you do business on the web, you need to visit this website and read the security alerts and news stories.

Phishing is slang for internet fraud where the perpetrator tries to lure a victim into giving up important personal information, credit card data, or other account data. Usually this is done with e-mail or web pages that look like the real thing, but which instead feed the con artist the victim's data.

Every day spam mail is sent with stories to lure recipients into updating credit card information, updating their eBay account profile, or other similar information. About 5% of the recipients fall for this and give up information that is later used for identity theft and account theft. Don't let it happen to you or somebody that you care about - read on MacDuff.

 
Trying to Find a Way to Spend the Money Aunt Zelda Sent You for Christmas?
http://froogle.google.com

Google offers a subsidary website dedicated to searching for merchandise at froogle.google.com. Search results feature images of items to help speed you to finding the thing you want.

Froogle also includes a great advanced search tool where you can set a price range. For parents, you'll be happy to know that there is a safe search filter to weed out unexpected surprise images.

To find out more about the many offerings of Google, go to http://www.google.com/about.html. One of the newest offerings is a voice search by telephone capability. If you want to donate your computer's idle to time to research, Google has an area for that too.


 
Need Proof that Truth is Stranger than Fiction?
http://www.newsoftheweird.com

Check out News of the Weird for relief from the usual hum-drum news stories. The site includes a clickable map to help you zero in on stories in your state. Published weekly, this site offers delivery via e-mail or browsing of the current and past 25 columns.

 
A Sign of Hope in the New Year - Iraq the Model Blog
http://iraqthemodel.blogspot.com/

Syndicated news (newspaper and TV) from Iraq tends to focus on acts of terror, deaths, and problems. Escape from this myopic and limited viewpoint -- have a look at this blog. The Iragi bloggers are telling their own story and demonstrating that their new found freedom is appreciated. More important, the blog is a great insight into how things are going in Iraq as seen through the eyes of the people of Iraq.

 
Great Digital Art - Digital Blasphemy 's 3D Wallpapers Are Awesome
http://www.digitalblasphemy.com

The artwork at digitalblasphemy is a feast for the eyes. Ryan Bliss has created some 500 original wallpapers. Each is offered in multiple screen resolutions with some available for dual and widescreen monitors. The site features a free gallery and a paid members' gallery. As an added plus, Ryan has added a user gallery to encourage other aspiring web artists to create and exhibit their works. The modest fee for the members' gallery is money well spent for those who want some of the best art on the web.

 
Start the New Year with Thoughts of Helping Kids
We Prevent Homepage

Join the National Citizens' Crime Prevention Campaign at weprevent.org. This website is full of helpful resources including a section on cybersafety for children. If you are an adult there is a section under Media Campaigns called Investing in Youth for a Safer Future. The idea is to get adults to share hobbies, talents, and humor with children in order to make a difference in young people's lives.

Presented as a public service by WEBnME.com - volunteerism is the difference by democracy and despotism. When we choose to help, we keep freedom alive.












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