Besides XKCD being pretty funny, it can come up with interesting ideas. Here’s one I found fascinating for its shaking everything we consider to be axiomatic. What I find to be truly thought provoking is: “Through 20 years of effort, we’ve successfully trained everyone to use passwords that are hard for humans to remember, but easy for computers to guess.” Certainly, it’s hard to argue with the math if the conversion from words to bits...
MS decided to put out 10 new themepacks to honor W8.1’s release. he themes have some truly beautiful photography and the subjects? Beaches , Sunny Shores , Small and Large Birds , Muscle Cars , Classic Sports Cars , Scenic Europe , Color Splashes and even Wild Animals for Dual Screens . Missed one: An Xbox One Game (World of Ryse) They’re really beautiful…well worth taking a look, and you can even inspect the walls before downloading. Not that I’m using W8...
You’re a commodity. Not just your data, you personally. Google’s coming out with a new twist to their targeted ads. If you’ve ever said anything good about a product or service, starting on November 11th, Google will make the ads you see (and no matter what you do, you’ll see ads), Google will make things really personal. It will do that by referencing your Google + username, profile photo and implied endorsements via comments and +1s. You can ...
I’m not referring to skinning. Don’t get me wrong, it’s a good browser, and a fast one. The flaw is a serious one, though. While logon data (password and username) were stored in plaintext without any sort of protection, the use of a master password could have prevented possible breaches…but that could open the user’s computer to other attacks as well. Now, another flaw has come to light. Identity Finder has found this: “Last week, Identity Finder security research...
I love Auslogics. You probably use their BoostSpeed and Disk Sefrag. Both excellent at their tasks. Browser Care won’t do anything you can’t do from within each browser, but it affords you a single ‘go to’ window to do it all for all your browsers using the tabs. Features: Keep a watch on your home page and change the hijacked home page, if need be Remove unwanted toolbars, add-ons and plugins Set your preferred search engine as default and keep a w...
For those who use Skype, WOM found some good hacks here: http://lifehacker.com/disable-the-ads-in-skype-contact-lists-1442903511 1. Here’s how to remove ads (in the contact list): 2. For those who help others fix their computers or to save a thousand plus words, this might save a trip. It can also be useful in showing a presentation, for instance. There are other tips there, so it might be worth your while to look. Thanks to WOM a...
Good news. Now MS has released a new option in the Disk Cleanup tool called “Windows Update Cleanup”. This is for Windows 7 SP1. Windows 8.1 already has it. You just might regain a few gigs of disk space. So why can’t you just delete stuff manually? Why a special tool? Well, because some files are needed just in case a system file gets corrupted or you need to roll back a Windows Update. The tool isn’t called that in the update. It’s ...
As the title says… You can read more here: http://technet.microsoft.com/en-us/security/bulletin/ms13-oct I’ll only say that it’s a good idea to do the patches… If you don’t use the browser, etc. fine. a screenie about the updates:
Neat! On my iPad I use Dragonspeak. Now I’ve got something for my PC. Granted, there is a native Windows utility, but it won’t do what even the free version of this software will. If your PC doesn’t have an embedded mike, you’ll have to get one. It has some nice features. You can send the messages by email, post them to face book, even attach pictures, eCards and screenshots to the voice recordings…which is pretty nice. I’m posting a comparison of the free and paid versions, bu...
Just saw this, folks. If you have an Adobe account, you might want to watch your credit reports even though Adobe states all that info was hashed and salted. “Adobe said it does not believe the attackers got their hands on decrypted credit or debit card numbers. However, the company is in the process of notifying customers whose credit or debit card information is believed to be involved in the incident, so that they can take appropriate steps to protect themselves against p...
If you’re into typography (as I am), this is a great opportunity to pick up a whole bunch for free. All you have to do is navigate to bitsdujour.com and click. To get the download and the deal, you have to like their page on face book, but there’s a way to do that if you don’t have a face book page as well…just read what’s on the link at bitsdujour. It’s a 25.6 Mb download…you can probably pick and choose which you want and which you don’t after decompressing it. Anywa...
I know that it’s best to buy your food from local growers, producers. How about a computer, or parts for one? I figure there are a few factors which might influence the choice: 1. Experience: How comfortable you are putting your machine together, or changing parts. 2. The type of hardware you want might not be available locally. 3. Urgency: The internet can deliver very quickly, frequently without shipping costs. However, local shops might be even faster if ...
Sounds crazy, right? Except it isn’t. As you might have heard, Firefox plans to block all third party cookies, which will drastically decrease the ability to track your browsing habits. That’s ok. Up until now, it’s been up to the user to do that or not. Some cookies are better/more functional than others. Those which help websites load faster are good. When those cookies are blocked, what will happen? It won’t change where ads get displayed, but it will change which get ...
Well, gifs seem really outdated…and for CS/CC users, making them is easy with the animation parts of the software. Not everyone has that software. So, if you like gifs and I do, this software is really good. It makes gif making truly simple, and has plenty of features. There’s only a ‘free edition’, so you don’t have to buy after 30 days, and all the features there are to get are already there. Even nicer, it has multi-language support and runs on every OS. It’s really smal...
All versions of IE (IE6-IE11) are vulnerable to a remote code execution which works through a memory corruption bug. Attacks have been reported, so this isn’t a ‘theoretical’ thing. The reported attacks are using attacks on IE8 and IE9. The source for this is http://technet.microsoft.com/en-us/security/advisory/2887505 : “Mitigating Factors: By default, Internet Explorer on Windows Server 2003, Windows Server 2008, Windows Server 2008 R2, Windows Se...