Posts Tagged: ‘Miscellaneous’

Online Safety Help – Originally Published April 2012

July 14, 2014 Posted by Tiny

Some Lagniappe for You
By Tiny Ruisch

la·gniappe (lnyp, ln-yp)
n. Chiefly Southern Louisiana & Mississippi
1. A small gift presented by a store owner to a customer with the customer’s purchase.
2. An extra or unexpected gift or benefit. Also called regionally boot.

Has your anti-virus or firewall program ever blocked a site and left you wondering what happened?  Should you continue or not?  This month, instead of recommending a free program, I’m going to tell you about several internet sites that only do one thing.  All of them provide a service that helps you to stay safe while you’re surfing the Wild World Web.

URL Void is a free service developed by the NoVirusThanks Company that allows users to scan a website address with multiple web reputation engines to facilitate the detection of possible dangerous websites.  It’s easy to use.  Either type or paste the URL of the website you want to check in the box and click the “Scan Now” button.  In a few seconds you will know if you should be wary.

Should I Change My Password was created to help the average person check if their password(s) may have been compromised and need to be changed.  Simply type an e-mail address in the box and click the “Check it!” box.

PWNED List is another site that does the same thing as Should I change my password.  Check if your e-mail has been hacked.

How Secure is my Password?  Is kind of a fun site to use.  As you type a password into the box, the site estimates how long it would take to hack it.  At the same time, tips on selecting a good password are displayed.   The New York Times has an excellent article about this site.

Email Trace searches and finds where and email originated.  Copy and paste the email header and this site will find the sender.

Remember, just because you’ve checked a sites URL, doesn’t mean it is safe.  Common sense is probably the easiest way to stay safe while surfing the internet.  Excuse me, I think I’ve finally found the web site of the real Nigerian prince.  I’ll probably be a lot richer the next time you see me.

If you like any of these links, just tell everyone that you’ve got a SWLAPCUG extra, a bonus perk, a small gift, a present from the club: a little lagniappe.

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Bah! Humbug! – Originally Published December 2010

July 8, 2014 Posted by Tiny

A Pain in the Whatchamacallit
By Tiny Ruisch

Bah! Humbug!
It’s that time of the year again.  The retailers want us to spend all of our hard earned nickels on lots of things that we don’t really need.  I remember last year when I got suckered into buying a multifunction printer that also copies, scans, faxes and probably would clean my nose after a sneeze.  The problem is that I don’t need to do all of that stuff and would probably have saved some money if I’d just bought a scanner and a box of tissues.

About the only difference in the holiday season every year is that it usually seems to start earlier and earlier.  This year, I saw my first Christmas display on labor day.  Newegg started advertising Black Friday deals sometime during the first part of November.  I’m expecting the 2011 season to start around the Fourth of July.

Bah! Humbug!
During the holiday season, I spend a lot more time online getting my news.  I refuse to pay extra for a newspaper on Thanksgiving Day.  Do they really expect me to pay more for the extra advertising?  I can look at all the same ads online for free.

You can predict the news.  On Thanksgiving and Christmas, you can be sure that we’ll read about celebrities working at some homeless shelter or at a soup kitchen.  Where are they the other 363 days of the year?

Bah! Humbug!
This is the time of the year that the scammers are out in full force.  I consider myself to be pretty computer literate, but I almost got scammed when I got this e-mail from order-update@amazon.com:

Dear Amazon.com Customer,
Your order has been successfully canceled. For your reference, here’s a summary of your order:
You just canceled order #823-2346426-4655389 placed on November 23, 2010.
Status: CANCELED
ORDER INFORMATION (this was the link)
Sold by: Amazon.com, LLC
Because you only pay for items when we ship them to you, you won’t be charged for any items that you cancel.
Thank you for visiting Amazon.com!
Amazon.com
Earth’s Biggest Selection
http://www.amazon.com

I do quite a bit of shopping at amazon and I almost clicked on the order information.  If I hadn’t noticed that it wasn’t addressed to my amazon e-mail address, I would have been scammed.  The bad guys have sure advanced from pickpocketing, breaking into cars at the parking lots and giving us all a free I-Pod.

Bah! Humbug!
Every year, I’ve got to listen to some novelty song about five zillion times.  I’m just happy that Grandma doesn’t get run over by a reindeer as often as she used to.

Bah! Humbug!
It’s that time of year when we get to watch all of those TV specials and rerun movies that are better off forgotten.  It was a Wonderful Life when it was a movie, but 9000 times as a TV special leaves something to be desired.  Did you know that Jimmy Stewart has been dead for thirteen years?  The only good thing you can say is that during the holidays, we don’t have to watch the regular lousy television programming.  Don’t get me started on the commercials.

Oh well. Time for me to stop bah humbugging and write some club related stuff.  As I hope you know by now, our club web site (SWLAPCUG) is back up and running.  Travis and Tom have spent lots of time getting it tweaked to be user friendly.  All club members will soon be able to read the minutes of club meetings, view the treasurer reports, download newsletters, share computing tips, laugh at my inane jokes and many other exiting things.

When you go to the site, click the login button and you will be asked to register.  Your login information from the old site will not work.  Just pick a user name and password and enter your e-mail.  After a few minutes, you will get an e-mail with your registration information and a verification link to click.  This is the only time you will have to go to the web site from your e-mail.  The next time you are on the main page, enter your new username and password.  Click the login in button and you’re in business.

You don’t have to register to view many of the items on our web site; however, you won’t be able to participate until you do.  After you’re registered, one of the moderators will move you to the club members list.  More features are available to club members than to general visitors.

All of the features on the new site aren’t working yet.  In the Forums is a “Suggestion Box” topic.  If you’ve got any ideas for improving things, let us know.  Remember, we can’t make the site easier to use if nobody knows that you’re having a problem.  Once again, the link for our web site is: Southwest Louisiana PC Users Group.

Bah!  Humbug!  My wife just told me to put my shoes on because she wants me to go and help pick out the son in laws Christmas present.  I know what that really means is I’ll have to carry something.

Thanks for reading.

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Funny Stuff on the Internet – Originally Published May 2010

June 30, 2014 Posted by Tiny

A Pain in the Whatchamacallit
By Tiny Ruisch

I just love going to a carnival.  I don’t go on many of the rides any more, but I just love all of the fun things there are to do.  Unfortunately, carnivals can be pretty dangerous too.  There are always pickpockets who will steal everything they can.  We often hear of rides that injure people.  About the only thing that is really safe is the healthy food you can buy.

The internet is a lot like a carnival.  Everyone knows about the dangers and we all keep our antivirus programs updated.  I know that all of the SWLAPCUG club members have got their router firmware updated and their firewalls activated to keep the bad guys away.  Since everyone is so safe, I thought that this month I’d talk about some of the fun things to do on the internet.

There’s about 161,000,000 of them.  I know that everyone doesn’t have the same idea of what’s fun, but maybe if I tell you about my favorite sites, you might find something entertaining.

One of the things you can find a lot of on the internet are free games to play.  If you’re looking for games to play, good place to start is the Freeware Genius lists of top games.  My personal favorite online game is Texas Hold’em Poker.  There are a lot of places to play, but you’ll usually find me at World Series Poker at games.com.  If you like to play hearts, I recommend you try Bicycle Hearts at the Microsoft Gaming Zone.  The Gaming Zone has been around for quite a while and they have lots of games.

I’ve never been much of a television or movie watcher, but I love to listen to the old time radio shows.  Most evenings I’m listening to The Lone Ranger, Gunsmoke, Jack Benny, or my personal favorite – Fibber McGee & Molly.  My hard drive has about 21 GB of radio program files.  You can get them at The Internet Radio Archive.

In December 1995, Bill Watterson retired from cartooning and I lost my daily dose of one of the funniest cartoons ever.  Now, thanks to the internet, I can still read Calvin & Hobbes everyday.  You can probably find a daily comic you’ll like at GOCOMICS, COMICS.com, or ArcaMax Publishing.  None of the comics sites require registration.  Make sure you check out Pickles, another one of my favorites.

“The Alphabet has been Updated with 15 Exciting New Letters” is only one of the funny satires you’ll find in The Onion.  The fictional paper was started in 1988.  They‘ve been around more that twenty years, so they must be doing something right.  Their fictionalized news seems so genuine that it has occasionally been cited as real news.  I’ve got to warn you though.  There is often adult language used in the paper.  Another funny paper is the Bongo News.

Another web site that never fails to make me laugh is Over The Hill, a senior citizen humor site.  If you like senior citizen humor, you also might like to check out Geezer Guff.  The Darwin Awards is a chronicle of enterprising demises honoring those who improve the species………by accidentally removing themselves from it!

Maybe I shouldn’t admit it, but I think some of the videos on You Tube are extremely funny.  One of my all time favorites is Blonde Star, a commercial parody.  Of course, the Little Babies make almost everyone laugh.

Sometimes when I’m really bored, I click the Random Link Generator 40 or 50 times and end up finding an interesting web site to browse.

As you might or might not know, I’m a transplanted Northerner. When I talk with my brother and sisters on Facebook, I usually translate into Southern for them.  Everybody gets a few laughs.  Translating into a dialect is easy when you use The Dialectizer.  As I write this you can convert into eight different dialects.  It hardly ever fails to make me laugh.

Here is a sample:
As y’all might o’ might not know, I’m a transplanted No’therner.  When ah talk wif mah brother an’ sisters on Facebook, ah usually translate into Southern fo’ them, dawgone it.  Ev’rybody gits a few laughs.  Translatin’ into a dialeck is easy when yo’ use Th’ Dialeckizer.  As ah write this hyar yo’ kin cornvaht into eight diffrunt dialecks.  It hardly evah fails t’make me laugh.

That’s just a few of the things I like to do on the internet for fun.  I hope you enjoyed them too and maybe found a new site you’ll visit often.  Do you have a favorite place you think everyone should know about?  Why not take a minute right now and go to the club website.  Log in, go to the forums and post the link so we can all check it out.

Thanks for reading.

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Technological New Year Resolutions – Originally Published January 2010

June 23, 2014 Posted by Tiny

A Pain in the Whatchamacallit
By Tiny Ruisch

I’ve been writing this monthly column for almost a year now.  One of the things I’ve learned is that it is usually pretty hard to decide what topic to write on each month.  January is almost a gimmee topic.  Technological New Year’s Resolutions that I’ll try to keep.

This year I’m going to try to be better at doing my data backups.  I’ve got a backup schedule, but sometimes put it off to do other things.  I know it’s not wise to do that, but sometimes I accidentally eat a stupid pill.

This year I’m going to try harder to write a monthly column for the newsletter and actually submit it in a timely manner . I know that waiting until the last minute just makes it harder for the editor to complete the monthly bulletin.

This year, I’m going to finally organize all of my pictures and picture albums.  I’ve got photo albums in three places on the internet.  I’ve got pictures stored on four different hard drives.  I can probably delete a few thousand pictures and still have plenty left.  Do I really need more than one picture of the same scene?

This year, I’m going to devote more time to my other hobbies.  I haven’t had my telescope pointed at the sky in a long time.  My model railroad has been gathering dust for a month or so.  Oh well, at least I haven’t missed any SWLACUG meetings.

This year, I’m going to update my website more often.  I think I’ll steal some of Tom’s ideas and add some technical columns.  I could at least copy my Whatchamacallit articles.

This year I’m going to quit downloading and installing software that I’ll probably never use.  Do I really need another digital photo editor?  Will a different media player make my mp3’s sound better?  How many file cleaners do I really need ? Then of course, there are the games I’ve downloaded, played once and forgot about.

This year, I’m going to frequently remind all club members to help make our club a little better.  It doesn’t take much to do.  Just share your experiences with the software or hardware you use.  You’d be surprised at what you know that someone else doesn’t.  Some of my favorite web sites were recommended to me by someone else.  I didn’t sign on to Facebook until it was a meeting topic.  Now I spend quite a bit of time using the service.  Why don’t you write a one paragraph article letting everyone know how great or lousy the flash drive you just bought is?  Why not post a note on the club forum when you’ve found an interesting sale.  Maybe the most important contribution you could make is letting the club know what topics you would like to hear about at the monthly meeting.  Why not make a suggestion on what you’d like to see articles about in the newsletter?

On a different subject, I’d like to take a paragraph and say how much I enjoyed the 2009 club Christmas meeting.  I thought the gifts were all pretty good and I am getting a lot of use out of mine.  As always, the food was delicious and the company was better.

That’s all for this month.  Thanks for reading.

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