[This is the last "Ask the Geek" for 2007, since the Stratford Star (the newspaper that publishes it) is going to sleep for the holidays. I thought it would be fitting to end the year with a technology-related holiday poem. I hope you enjoy it.]
‘Tis the Season for your email inbox to overflow with spam! Ever since “Black Friday,” the day after Thanksgiving where many folks begin their holiday shopping frenzies, legitimate vendors and their illegitimate spammy counterparts have jockeyed for position among your regular serving of email solicitations. This happens every year around this time, but a recent article in Business Wire said that, “This year marks an all time high for spam, accounting for 10.8 trillion messages… [H]oliday spam has spiked, representing an initial 6 percent increase over pre-Thanksgiving levels – with more to come”
Yikes! With that in mind, I offer the following (abridged) tips from SPAMfighter, a leading spam filter developer in Europe:
Let’s take a little time today to discuss wireless networking. If you don’t have it now, you might have it in a few weeks after you open packages from under the tree. Who knows, right? Wireless networking is not all that mysterious, really, but it’s commonly misunderstood. I’ll describe the most common components that a home-based wireless network will have, assuming the following scenario:
By the time you read this article you may already be deep in the throes of holiday shopping. I hope I’m not too late. I hope you’ve not already run out and bought that new computer to put under the Christmas tree (whenever it gets hauled out of the attic or garage, that is), because there’s something we need to discuss.
This week I am re-running part of an article from September. It’s newly applicable because the software I’m discussing, OpenOffice.org, has released it’s latest version, 2.3. In it, they’ve added compatibility with documents created in Microsoft Office 2007′s newest document format, making it even more compatible with Microsoft than ever before. They’ve restructured much of the code to make things run work faster and more smoothly. Also, IBM has taken a big interest in the continued development of OpenOffice.org and has released their own version of it under the name “Lotus Symphony.” This is good news for all of us. With IBM’s research and development money and added talent pool in play, OpenOffice.org will undoubtedly benefit with newer features and tighter integration with other programs in the near future. It’s an exciting time for Open Source software!
Last week we discussed how to make a backup copy of the personal data on a Windows XP computer using “Fab’s AutoBackup.” Today, a discussion on where to store the backup and how to restore it when necessary.
Continuing with last week’s discussion about home backups, we left off talking about a free program called “Fab’s AutoBackup.” You’ll find the program to download here: http://fabs.dyndns.org/
I used to have a sign in my office that read, “Blessed are the pessimists, for they have made backups.” There are fewer more harrowing moments than the one in which you realize that, not only has your computer just become a boat anchor, but that the documents, spreadsheets, pictures, databases, music, emails, Internet Favorites and more that your computer contained might also be lost as well.
Let’s take this week to explain a common misconception about computer hardware. It’s another one of those things that technicians and even some advertisements about computers assume that the consumer already knows, but it’s not often that anyone bothers to explain the difference.
I’ve mentioned “free software” many times in my articles. Today I thought it might be fun to talk a bit about free software, and tell you about several free programs I haven’t discussed before.