Archive for 'Computers and Internet'

25
MAY

0

Top Ten Internet Crimes

I found this article from the Security Watch newsletter from PC Magazine to be interesting, and thought I would share it. The top ten reported internet crimes are lisited below. The source is the Internet Crime and Complain Center (IC3), for the year 2006. As I tell people in my Computer Security class, its about the money these days. The list follows.

Category	% of complaints
Auction Fraud	44.9%
Non-Delivery	19%
Check ...

25
APR

0

Do You Need A Human?

Frequently, I am on the phone with a computer manufacturer’s technical support line. This can be a short trip into Hades at its best, but occassioanlly, you just need to speak to a real live human being, even if they are in India.

I get the daily newsletter Good Morning Silicon Valley, and in yesterday’s issue there was a short blurb about this site: Dial A Human, at www.dialahuman.com. Give it a quick look, they have instructions for breaking through ...

19
APR

0

Phony Microsoft Update is a Virus

Watch out for this scam. Note the e-mail return address. My preferred security product, Zone Alarm Security Suite, killed the attached virus. the virus was identified as: Attachment: Update248.exe. Problem: virus infected W32/Gibe-F.

See my photo gallery for a screen shot of the email.

17
APR

0

Thomas Jefferson and the Open Source Movement

Thomas Jefferson, believe it or not, wrote one of the most compelling arguments in support of the principles of the Open Source movement over two hundred years ago. He wrote:

"If nature has made any one thing less susceptible than all others of exclusive property, it is the action of the thinking power called an idea, which an individual may exclusively possess as long as he keeps it to himself; but the moment it is divulged, it forces ...

2
APR

0

Computer Illiteracy Is Expensive.

In support of my last post, I found a link on TechDirt to an article from PC World, that talks about the cost to business resulting from lost productivity due to computer literacy shortcomings of their employees.

In a nutshell, the study referenced in the article stated that "We have evidence that those with the right IT skills for their role can save 40 minutes a day compared to those who ...

23
MAR

0

Recovering Data from a Corrupted Hard Drive

I got lucky yesterday. A client of mine was unable to boot her laptop, and it sounded like the drive was starting to die. I pulled the drive from the laptop and mounted it into an external USB drive enclosure, hoping I would be able to save her data. The computer I attached the USB drive to saw the hard drive, but when I clicked on the drive icon in Windows Explorer, I received an error. The ...

9
MAR

0

Windows Vista and Microsoft Office 2007

I attended the Windows Vista Launch event in Minneapolis on Thursday February 1. I was impressed with both the new look of Windows Vista, and the features of the Microsoft Office 2007 productivity suite. Here are my recommendations.

Windows Vista – take your time. The machines that they were demonstrating Vista on reportedly had 4 gigabyte of RAM installed. My grandma would look fast with 4 gig of Ram installed. This made the operating system appear must quicker and crisper that ...

21
FEB

0

Computer Security for 2007

I thought I might write an article about computers for a change.

The first observation is that the nature of computer security has changed.

I do very little work in the area of computer virus and spyware remediation any more. I believe the reasons are these:

Most people are using a good Internet Security Suite type of product, are keeping up with their updates, and allowing these programs to run periodic scans. The anti-virus vendors have ...

3
JAN

0

The Value Proposition – Part Two

I have some additional thoughts on my last post. Here is why the "pick any two" mentality is doomed.

Firstly, the main reason a company needs to deliver all three components of the Service – Price – Quality triad is this: You never can know which two the customer is choosing, if they are not really choosing all three. If you don’t deliver on all three, you automatically reduce your market.

Let’s say your company is delivering Service and Quality, ...

22
DEC

0