UPDATED: UPDATED: August 18,
2006
©2006 L&A Computer Services
As we research computer problems, we find interesting articles about security, useful applications, website design and solving computer problems. We hope you find these tidbits useful.
Saturday, September 30, 2006
Free Panda Platinum Internet Security Software "The product you will download is a fully functioning version of Panda?s Platinum Internet Security, with a one-year license. It uses the same core technology as our BusinesSecure 2006 (v4), our all-in-one, fully integrated, single-agent security solution for small to medium businesses. Both Platinum and BusinesSecure include Panda?s revolutionary new TruPrevent? technology."
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Friday, September 29, 2006
Many people call themselves podcasting ?experts? and it?s no wonder since podcasting is still fairly new and everyone is trying to jump on the podcasting bandwagon to make tons of cash. Sales letters are written, websites are launched and ebooks are thrown together by internet marketers who want to make a fast buck on a growing trend. Not everyone who calls themselves an podcasting expert really is and you need to understand the ways to separate the real podcasting experts from those trying to make a fast buck. Here are some ways to determine whether a podcasting expert is trustworthy and whether you should spend money on their podcasting product or service.
(c) 2006 Leesa Barnes. All Rights Reserved Worldwide.
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Thursday, September 28, 2006
ajaxWrite - AJAX for Everyone: "ajaxWrite is a web-based word processor that can read and write Microsoft Word and other standard document formats. Anytime you need to open, read or write a word processor file, simply point your Firefox browser to www.ajaxwrite.com and in seconds a full-featured program will be available for you to open, edit, print and save. ajaxWrite has been designed to look like Microsoft Word, making it easy for anyone to start using it without needing to learn a new program. ajaxWrite also handles all the popular document formats so it's easy to share your files and collaborate with your co-workers and friends. Once finished with your document, you can easily save your work right to your hard drive. This keeps you organized and works in the same way that you're already accustomed to."
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Site Advisor started giving the message:
"Site Advisor has encountered a problem and needs to close"
bal39
I have IE and a few days ago, my Site Advisor also started giving the message "Site Advisor has encountered a problem and must close" whenever I closed my last browser window. I just disabled it in the Tools>manage add-ons.. part of IE. That took care of the problem and ended Site Advisor. I don't really like this feature anyway. I find it annoying whenever I move my mouse over one of the "hits" in a Google list, this window keeps popping up with info about that web site and gets in the way of what I am looking at. I think Site Advisor causes more problems and inconveniences than any help it provides.
Go to Tools.
Go to Manage Add-ons.
Disable site advisor.
Sidewinder
I had the very annoying "SiteAdvisor has encountered an error..." crash pop-up for a few weeks before I hit on the following:
http://www.siteadvisor.com/download/ie.html
Download that, run it, and at a point it says "Installation Failed". Seems like you've gained nothing.
BUT - - After this happens YOU NEVER GET THE POP-UP AGAIN!!
This has worked for both my home PC and now my Laptop. SiteAdvisor remains on the IE toolbar and continues to operate as designed.
Thought I'd pass this success story along...
bal39
I uninstalled the Site Advisor; I found an uninstaller file in the Site Advisor folder under Program Files,
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Monday, September 25, 2006
K9 Web Protection - Free Internet Filter and Parental Control Software I was asked by a client to find a filter for their son's computer. If you know of anything please comment.
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Chicago Tribune | Eric Zorn: "Over the Labor Day weekend, I began the attempt to undo the effects my worst parenting decision of the last year: Putting the computer belonging to our 16-year-old son into his bedroom. He hadn't been agitating for change--he's not an agitator-- but back in January I implemented my grand plan to reconfigure the work stations in our house as we began a conversion to Macintosh computers. At the time he was sharing a desk and computer with his mother in an open area of the house where I also have a desk and the twins have a little projects table. But I reasoned that, as a high-school sophomore, he needed and deserved his own, private, dedicated study area. And I also reasoned that, in a few more lightning-fast rotations of the calendar he'll be in his own college dorm room, so it was a good time for him to start developing computer self-discipline -- that critical ability to tear himself away from the comprehensive temptations of the online world and get down to work. I reasoned wrong."
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Why mom enlisted an online sleuth to keep tabs on child | csmonitor.com: "Ms. Courtney put two kinds of protection on her family's three computers to monitor her three children. One, SafeEyes, costs $60 from "I was watching this all from the next room and holding my breath, and then he didn't click on it," recalls Courtney. She praised him for doing the right thing, but decided to suspend his IM privileges because he could be vulnerable to such suggestions from online acquaintances. "These put me in control, let me create the boundaries for each and change them at will," says Courtney. Her eldest son ribs her and her husband for "stalking his every move," but on Father's Day he thanked them for the rules that have kept him out of trouble.
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Safe Eyes 2006 review by PC Magazine: "Safe Eyes 2006 REVIEW DATE: 04.04.06 BOTTOM LINE: Safe Eyes offers parental control for the modern multi-computer family. User accounts reside on the Safe Eyes server; site filtering happens there too. If the kids go wild on the Web, Safe Eyes can text message, e-mail, or phone you; at that point you can take direct control of the program from any browser. PROS: Keeps kids off bad sites and controls time spent online. Can log Internet activity and warn of trouble via e-mail, text message, or phone. Remote management changes take effect immediately. CONS: Keyword-based URL blocking may block valid URLs. No option to export or print logs. Web-based local client may briefly go blank when waiting for server. COMPANY: SafeBrowse.com Inc SPEC DATA Price: $49.95 Type: Personal EDITOR RATING: By Neil J. Rubenking Safe Eyes is a thoroughly modern parental control utility. It offers everything you expect from a parental control app, blocking inappropriate Web sites, limiting the time users spend online, defining which programs can use the Internet, and so on. It can even text-message you when, say, Little Susie tries to buy a term paper. And, since its user accounts reside on the Safe Eyes Web site, it can be used on multiple computers?all of which you can manage remotely" Safe Eyes handles all the expected parental control tasks from an easy-to-use interface that works just as well across the Internet as locally. Its server-based accounts are great for the multi-computer family. And if it phones, texts, or e-mails you about online misbehavior, you can take charge immediately with remote management. It doesn't analyze Web page text in real time the way ContentProtect does, so a brand new or newly changed site might slip past its category database. But it's the best overall choice out there.
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Thursday, September 21, 2006
"Find and share the best sale & discounted items from around the web each day!" This is a digg-like website with three main categories: deals, coupons, and tips. Users submit things they find on the web to each category, and can "trezr" the ones they like the most.
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Tuesday, September 19, 2006
YouTube - Using Gentoo Linux in K-12 School's Computer Lab
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Survival Strategies for Small IT Shops - Business Strategy - Network ComputingExecutive Summary Helpdesk technician, security manager, Web site administrator, new technology research department, hardware support staff...in a small company, all these roles and more may fall to a single IT professional. But when the requests for new monitors and network logons pile up, the server goes down, a major worm strikes and someone asks for help loading paper into the copy machine, it's enough to make even a hardboiled veteran feel like the last person standing in the Alamo. The answer doesn't have to be a case of Red Bull and a sleeping bag tucked discreetly underneath your workbench. In this installment of Affordable IT, Network Computing business editor Andrew Conry-Murray takes a close look at how IT shops with one to three people manage day-to-day operations, keep users trained, address security issues and keep end users and bosses happy--and themselves from going crazy. While a small company may not be able to adopt every best practice followed by larger enterprises, a few smart tips can make a big difference.
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Our unregistered service allows files up to 20mb in filesize. You can upload by going here. If you want to upload files up to 100mb please register (it's free!). Each registered account has 2gb of storage available.Free File Storage & Sharing is made simple, free and fast with SnapDrive.net. Soo simple in fact, that we don't even require registration to use our service! Simply upload any file you wish using our simple form. Use our File Hosting to backup important data, transfer files between work, home and school, email large amounts of pictures or video to friends or family and much more!
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Monday, September 18, 2006
NirSoft - freeware utilities: password recovery, system utilities, desktop utilitiesProduKey is a small utility that displays the ProductID and the CD-Key of MS-Office, Windows, Exchange Server, and SQL Server installed on your computer. You can view this information for your current running operating system, or for another operating system/computer - by using command-line options. This utility can be useful if you lost the product key of your Windows/Office, and you want to reinstall it on your computer.
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Friday, September 15, 2006
PookMail.com: "PookMail.com is a disposable email account system. Use PookMail.com to avoid giving your personal email address to suspicious websites. It's very easy, anonymous and fun! Just think up a name and GO!"
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AMD LIVE! Media Vault - Free Online Storage: "AMD LIVE! Media Vault gives you a private and secure place to upload, store, access, and share your personal videos, photos, movies, music, and files.
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Thursday, September 14, 2006
CSS tips and tricks at The Blog Herald: "1. Size text without using pixels If you?re wondering how some designers get font sizes to work using em as a unit rather than px, it?s easy. There is a trick that was written about a while ago (maybe on ALA) that resets the font sizes for the entire site so that 1.0em is the same as 10px. body { font-size: 62.5% } Simply throw the font-size: 62.5% bit into your body styling and you?re done. Now you can use ems to sizes your fonts rather than pixels. So your paragraph styles might look something like this: p { font-size: 1.2em; line-height: 1.5em; } You might be wondering why it matters how you size fonts? Bulletproof design. Any major site needs to be able to withstand a user enlarging text (old people use the web too!), and setting absolute sizes is not good practice."
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How to Find IT Help - Outsource or Hire? Outsourcing has several advantages over hiring. For one, outsourcing to an IT service provider can provide you with more flexibility. Depending upon the contract and/or the outsourcing provider, you can get extra help when it's needed--such as when transitioning to a new software application or technology. Similarly, you can reduce the level of IT help when the need diminishes. Another advantage: Because an outsourced IT provider has multiple clients, you may get a wider perspective on how to solve a particular problem than an IT staff person might provide. Also, outsourcing can be less expensive than hiring because you don't have to pay for benefits, training and other employee costs. On the other hand, a staff IT person is dedicated to your business alone. Ideally, he or she develops a deep understanding of your company's culture, goals and challenges, and may be in a better position to apply that knowledge to your short- and long-term IT needs. Also, barring sick leave, vacation or other situation, an IT employee on the premises may be able to more quickly react to an emergency or other critical situation. Still can't decide? Consider outsourcing your IT needs for a while before hiring. As mentioned earlier, outsourcing is more flexible. Also, outsourcing might help you better understand what you'll eventually need from an IT staff person. Another option: Hire a lean IT staff and augment it with an IT service provider as needed.
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Wednesday, September 13, 2006
CSS Resource Roundup at The Blog Joint I?m not a professional web designer by any stretch of the imagination, but I do enjoy messing around with design and coding techniques. I also love learning about the latest and greatest techniques of web development, so these last few weeks have been nothing short of amazing for me in regards to examples and resources for web design. Cascading Style Sheets(CSS) is a concept that seems so simple, yet doesn?t get used to it?s fullest, or often correct, potential, and with that in mind I?d like to share with you some of the best resources and articles dealing with CSS that have permanently made there way into my ?webdesign? bookmarks folder. CSS is defined on the World Wide Web Consortium?s(w3c) website as ?a simple mechanism for adding style (e.g. fonts, colors, spacing) to Web documents.? Check out some of these resources that will have you using CSS like a pro in no time.
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chicagobusinessradio.com Produced by L and A Computer services, we interview members of the Chicago business community and learn what it takes to grow your business and make it thrive. The premier podcat was with Ross Goldberg who says if you are offering a product or service you have an expertise you can write about it. Write those articles and submit them to http://thephantomwriters.com http://articlesender.com http://articlemarketers.com http://isnare.com http://goarticles.com http://articledashboard.com http://ezinearticles.com This will give you thousands of backlinks as people pick up the articles and publish them in their blogs. This will drive traffic to your website. He also has many other hints and tricks. He also talks about the effective way to run a pay per click campaign.
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There is a ">video on YouTube that claims the IPOD battery lasts only 18 months and it doesn't pay to replace it. But another website says: "Q: I heard that the iPod's battery only lasts 18 months, and then you have to buy a new iPod! Is that true? A1: NO! The vast majority of even the earliest iPods, now over four years old, continue to function just fine. Some iPods, however, based on age and usage style, will have more battery degradation than others. Lithium ion batteries are only good for 300 to 500 charge/discharge cycles (more). For this reason, certain customers' usage patterns may cause the batteries to degrade, or fail, sooner than others. A2: If the battery does fail, and the iPod is no longer under its original one year warranty or $59 AppleCare Protection Plan for iPod, or any of numerous third party service plans, you don't have to buy a new iPod. You may replace the battery yourself for as little as $25, or have Apple perform the replacement for $59." In <">this video you can even learn how to change the battery yourself.
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Tuesday, September 12, 2006
Zoho Writer - Online Word Processor This is an onlie wordprocessor that can be useful if you need to write up a document and you only have access to a browser.
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Monday, September 11, 2006
UNLOCKER 1.8.5 BY CEDRICK 'NITCH' COLLOMB Delete files that are locked by the system with this freeware.
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Thursday, September 07, 2006
FreeNX allows superfast and secure access to your Linux box from anywhere in the world. This HOWTO is a step-by-step guide for configuring the nxserver, generating custom encrypted keys, and using a combination of Live-CD and USB thumbdrive to create a portable nxclient for remote access.
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Wednesday, September 06, 2006
Gate2Home.com - Foreign Language Virtual Keyboard This is great for those of you who use Microsoft Word in a foreign language and don't know the foreign keyboard. This company actually developed a Google widget that can be part of your home page.
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Tuesday, September 05, 2006
When we?re creating sites, we act as though people are going to pore over each page, reading our finely crafted text, figuring out how we?ve organized things, and weighing their options before deciding which link to click. What they actually do most of the time (if we?re lucky) is glance at each new page, scan some of the text, and click on the first link that catches their interest or vaguely resembles the thing they?re looking for. There are usually large parts of the page that they don?t even look at. Excerpted from Don?t Make Me Think! A Common Sense Approach to Web Usability A Circle.com Library book, published by New Riders © 2000 Steve Krug
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Saturday, September 02, 2006
If you haven't been to this website recently there have been a number of changers. We are trying to follow the advice of Diamond SEO. Some suggestions that are recommended is to use Google Analytics and Hittail. These are both free services. It is also important to be registered in all the local directories like Yahoo Local and Google local. We will be interviewing the owner of Diamond SEO, on Monday's launch of Chicago Business Radio.
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Friday, September 01, 2006
Old PCs a Growing IT Headache By David Needle August 31, 2006 Those new notebook computers you bought for the sales department are working great, but what to do with the dozens of old ones they turned in? If you think that question has an easy answer, think again. Many of the once-standard options for disposing of old computers include considerable risk, both financially and legally. First off, forget about tossing systems in a dumpster. Dead computers need to be disposed of in an environmentally correct manner or there could be legal consequences. Donating older systems is an option, but it is not as viable as it was in past years. "A lot of companies used to turn to auction sites and donations, but it's becoming more difficult to make donations when you have licensed software on the computers and sensitive data,? Hewlett-Packard executive Jim O?Grady told internetnews.com. "And some institutions, like schools, are demanding newer systems so they?ll have the latest technology," he added. O?Grady is director of HP?s Financial Services Technology Renewal Center in Andover, Mass. The center is part of HP?s huge financial services operation, a global, $8 billion enterprise that includes leasing. Like other large IT system providers, such as IBM and Dell, (Quote, Chart) HP has a huge stake in helping customers manage their assets, which can include both the sale and disposal of older systems. On a yearly basis, O?Grady said HP helps companies move over 1.5 million systems globally. One of his biggest customers disposes of about 40,000 units a year, he said. "Dealing with older PCs is becoming a bigger part of the ever-growing area known as IT infrastructure management," Michael Dortch, analyst with Robert Frances Group, told internetnews.com. "On the one hand, if you don't do a good job managing end-of-life PCs, the best case is you overspent. But the worst case includes confidential information leaking out to bad guys." Dortch said while all the big computer makers have programs to tackle the issue of older computers (Sun, for example, appointed a vice president of eco-responsibility earlier this year), he gives specific kudos to some of the work HP has done. "I've been to HP's recycling facility in Roseville, Calif. facility and its damned impressive," said Dortch. He notes HP is working with a mining company that figured out it can be cheaper to extract precious metals from old computers than go digging in the earth for them. Of course, not all of a company's older PCs are ready for the scrap heap, even if they're being replaced with newer models. There is a ready market for name brand used PCs, but getting a decent return can largely be a matter of timing. "You aren't going to get anything for an old Pentium-based PC that can't run newer software," said Dortch. "It can be hard to find the appropriate older software that can work and even if you do, getting support can be an issue." Many older systems will start looking a bit creaky next year. In early 2007, Microsoft's delivery of its next-generation operating system, Vista, will be in full force and many older PCs won't have the specs to run it effectively. "Vista's one of those events that cause a refresh cycle," said O'Grady. "We see the newer, 64-bit and dual-core systems ready for Vista and the degradation of older assets will follow." O'Grady said the key for companies wanting to get the most value for older PCs is to take action before newer technology has a big impact. HP works with third party companies who can refurbish older PCs, make sure the data is completely wiped clean and resell them. While companies can deal directly with auction houses and used computer dealers, O'Grady claims it can be a risky proposition. "We recommend a revenue share, typically a 70/30 percent revenue split to the customer in a very transparent process," said O'Grady. "These other companies can quote a higher price, but once they have your computers hostage, they can say all sorts of things about the condition to drive the price down that they'll pay. We don't play those games." In Chicago this is what we do: From craigslist: WANTED: YOUR OLD COMPUTERS FOR RECYCLING Reply to: sale-200990308@craigslist.orgDate: 2006-08-30, 3:06PM CDT WANTED: UNUSED COMPUTERS FOR RECYCLING. Don't throw away, Your old computers are wanted for recycling. We recycle all the parts! Never a charge! 2 Convenient Lakeview and Rogers Park drop off locations open 6 days & located in Chicago. Open Mon-Fri from 12 noon til 9pm. Open Saturday 12noon-8pm. Just come on in and drop off whatever computers you have. Email for locations. Thanks! this is in or around CHICAGO NORTH
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