Ramblings of an old Doc
DrJBHL's Articles » Page 55
March 23, 2013 by DrJBHL
  The Australian Parliament has finally gotten off its duff and is probing the price gouging there. This is getting ridiculous. It’s actually cheaper for an Australian to fly to the US and buy CS6 here than to buy it in Oz! Well, Adobe’s going 100% digital and dropping box sets, so that might well not be happening any more, but the Australian legislature is demanding answers. Good for them, and high time. This has been going on for decades. Companies often charge a prem...
March 23, 2013 by DrJBHL
  Just as cancer has 7 warning signs which (if you’ve forgotten) are listed below, malware infection has 7 warning signs as well. If you have any to add, feel free to do so! 1. Popup Ads appear even when no browser is open. 2. Browser navigation gets redirected and/or home page is changed. 3. A security program you never installed pops up “warning” messages. 4. Posts you never wrote appear on social media sites with trolling messages and a link to click. 5. A p...
March 18, 2013 by DrJBHL
  Just what it says. Two copies for $11.22 each and 3-5 copies for $9.97 each. There are 14 hrs. left on the deal. You can’t do much better than that. Here’s where it is:  http://www.bitsdujour.com/software/malwarebytes-anti-malware/src=day?utm_campaign=2175089&utm_content=4144667414&utm_medium=email&utm_source=Emailvision   Update (3/19):   As of 6:26 a.m. you have 20 hrs left on the deal which has been extended....
March 16, 2013 by DrJBHL
    Judge Susan Illston has ruled that the FBI’s pervasive use of National Security letters which were created by the Patriot Act is unconstitutional. In doing so, she stated that their use (tens of thousands per year) is too broad. Fully 97% of them are issued without the recipients’ names are never mentioned. "This pervasive use of nondisclosure orders, coupled with the government's failure to demonstrate that a blanket prohibition on recipients' ability...
March 13, 2013 by DrJBHL
  Yep… important stuff. Good article about the updates here: http://www.techrepublic.com/blog/window-on-windows/its-microsoft-patch-tuesday-march-2013/7401?tag=nl.e064&s_cid=e064&ttag=e064 Don’t try to get by without these.
March 10, 2013 by DrJBHL
  No surprise… but really nice to see. Congrats, Stardock!   Also at Lifehacker.com:     Read the review here:  http://www.extremetech.com/computing/150346-how-to-run-full-screen-windows-8-metro-apps-in-a-window-on-the-desktop Read more about (and get try) ModernMix here: https://www.stardock.com/products/modernmix/
March 8, 2013 by DrJBHL
  Remember the angst over Office 2013 licensing regarding non transferability of Office 2013 to other machines in your possession? Well, MS has changed its policy due to consumer anger. Here’s their new policy: “Updated transferability provision to the Retail License Terms of the Software License Agreement for Microsoft Office 2013 Desktop Application Software: Can I transfer the software to another computer or user? You may transfer the software to another ...
March 7, 2013 by DrJBHL
  News flash Yahoo email was hacked. How can you check to see if your account was among them? Check out this ghacks.net article:  http://www.ghacks.net/2013/03/07/how-to-check-your-account-recent-yahoo-login-activity/?_m=3n%2e0038%2e814%2ehj0ao01hy5%2eu3p Let’s say you have been. What should you do?   “Many secure websites include a mechanism to reset a forgotten password by sending a special link to your email account of record. A malefactor in...
March 3, 2013 by DrJBHL
    A dire prediction, indeed. How did the Security firm Internet Identity’s president and CTO Rod Rasmussen come to it? He came to it by virtue of the devices we have which communicate with themselves and with other devices by blue tooth and via the internet. Rasmussen pointed to remotely programmable pacemakers and vehicles. These could be hijacked. Actually, his “idea” is hardly new. It was in an episode of “Homeland”, last season. A...
March 1, 2013 by DrJBHL
  I’ve been spending the week in Photoshop classes struggling to educate my old brain about this marvelous program and how to use it. So, imagine my surprise when one of my favorite victims emailed me about the Ps “Touch” app for smart phones. Seriously, thanks Jim. Well, Ps “Touch” (a $9.99 US app) is a great way to enter the world of Photoshop. It’s a limited app, lacking many of the powers of it’s big brother, Adobe CS6.1 Extended. Was it meant to have them? No. A smartpho...
February 26, 2013 by DrJBHL
  MS has released IE 10 – probably in the hope that it will win back folks who’ve migrated to Firefox and Chrome. Wanna bet? Currently Firefox holds 20% and Chrome holds 17% of the browser market while IE (all editions) holds about 55%. Since IE10 was tied to W8, it’s exposure has been limited (apart from the “preview”). Since W8 is only at 2.3%, MS is releasing IE 10 to try and compete independently from W8.   Source: http://www.torontosun.com/2013/02/2...
February 26, 2013 by DrJBHL
  This is amazing. Many illnesses can damage the eye, from the cornea to the retina, the layer of the eye which translates and communicates the image to the brain for interpretation. Now there’s a device which ameliorates retinal diseases to a great extent. It won’t help degenerative nerve diseases, though as it needs intact Optic nerves to convey translated impulses to the brain’s optic cortex. (combined x-ray and optic tract images in Photoshop) &nbs...
February 24, 2013 by DrJBHL
    (photo credit Neowin altered by me) “Apple picking” no longer refers to going to an orchard with the kids, at least not in the Big Apple. It now refers to the phone being snatched out of peoples’ hands while they’re talking! The iPhone’s pretty popular in the Big Apple: So popular that a special police unit to prevent iPhone thieves has been created to deal with this as well as tablet theft. The way the unit works is as soon as a theft is reported, t...
February 22, 2013 by DrJBHL
  This via Reuters. MS stated that no customer info was compromised. A small number of computers were compromised, and the attack was similar to those at Apple and Facebook. Source: http://www.huffingtonpost.com/2013/02/22/microsoft-hacked-apple-hacked-facebook-hacked_n_2745178.html
February 22, 2013 by DrJBHL
  Not discussing the content. I’m discussing how the basic principal of Capitalism has failed us: Competition in a free market. We all agree that when power is concentrated in the hands of a few, our freedoms are inevitably curtailed. This is true, as it turns out, regarding the internet as well. “At the heart of the problem lie a few powerful companies with enormous influence over policy making. Both the wireless and wired markets for high-speed Internet acce...