A Helpful Guide Through Our New Digital Age

Site has moved to: My Mypage Account

2005-11-28T01:40:00.000-05:00

Site has moved to: My Mypage Account at IUSB. This is in hopes of having a working site hosted by Wordpress with a MySQL database running on my home machine. Site may move to an even more permanent resident once I am satisfied with the settings and register for a dynamic DNS for my server at home.

Expect posts that would ordinarily be posted for this site to be there till further notice.

Not Everything You Accidentlly Delete is Lost.

2005-11-18T05:19:00.000-05:00

Have you ever deleted something and emptied your Recycle Bin and become overwhelmed by the sense of "Ohhh nooooo, I just didn't do that" and realized you deleted something fairly precious to you. Well if you're one of those people or know someone who has then offer them this miraculous piece of software.

It's called PC Inspector File Recovery, provided by CONVAR – Die Datenretter™, and it's capable of scanning your hard drives for files that had once thought to have been deleted. It's totally free as is all their other products and they leave it to you to donate to them. This can be a life saver to just about anyone. If you're a system admin and accidently delete your file allocation tables for those databases you can recover them. You delete those last remaining digital photos of your important ones then there's a chance you can recover those too.

Just keep in mind the sooner you use the program the less likely those files get written over and the greater the chance you'll have of recovering them. There are other file recovery tools but this one beats them out because it's free and it's an all around nice application.

Spurl.net - Keeping Bookmarks Mobile.

2005-11-16T04:57:00.000-05:00

How many computer users use more than 1 computer? Quite a few I'd imagine and so you'll run into an issue when it comes to bookmarks. Unless you maintain your bookmarks on a media that you carry around with you, which is how I use to. You'll probably have to remember your most useful ones but with the help of Spurl.net you can take them with you wherever you go. All you have to do is login and you'll get a sidebar frame which will contain all those bookmarks you've been missing.

Anywhere you can access the web you'll have access to your bookmarks. The cost for this is that Spurl.net will collect information dealing with peopls browsing habits but does maintain Spurl.net users privacy. It really is a handy free service and is better than keeping your bookmarks on a floppy or some other media that is fairly easy to carry around.

An alternative to this is to maintain a website that has your links on it but the downside to this is that updating those bookmarks can be troublesome due to the nature of editing .html. A php website with a database or a wiki style page could be useful for maitaining your bookmarks without letting another party have direct access to them. But this isn't as straightforward and require a lot of computer knowledge and possible maintenance to maintain.

Why Not Internet Explorer?

2005-11-12T04:33:00.000-05:00

How many of you enjoy having 4 internet explorer's open when browsing the web? I have a feeling that there's a good portion of people who don't know what tabs are in an internet explorer and that Microsoft's Internet Explorer or IE doesn't have them. Unfortunatly Mircosoft doesn't believe in tabs. Tabs are wonderful once you get use to them. You'll get them if you're using Mozilla, Firefox, or Opera.

In Mozilla and Firefox just press: ctrl + t for a new tab. This will create an empty location you can type or paste a hyperlink into and have the browser display it. This is all done in the same window and saves on taskbar space and your visual area on your monitor. You can navigate the tabs either by clicking on them with your mouse or usually pressing: shift + tab and to navigate backwards ctrl + shift + tab.

Once learned you'll probably stop using IE and switch to a broswer with tabs enabled. There are many other features to explore in the above mentioned internet explorers but as of yet none that are as useful as tabs.

Another Step in Protecting Youself Online.

2005-11-09T03:15:00.000-05:00

I recently posted an article about protecting yourself online using a firewall. Well in the spirit of securing your pc I'll give you a few more good tips to help you cope with the ever expanding and malicious Internet.

Having a firewall is a good way to protect yourself in terms of being attacked by people from the web but sometimes you are your own worste enemy, or those other individuals who use your computer at home. All it takes is one mouse click and your computer could be infected with a malicious piece of software that will take over your computer and make your life on the web a nightmare.

Malware will disable your pc or personal computer and make you vulnerable. Your passwords to important sites could be recorded/read and sent to a website that will let everyone know your personal information. You pc may no longer work because important files that are needed to boot your pc are deleted and security crackers can log onto your machine and install or copy software that was bought and paid for by the owner of the compromised pc.

You can take steps to protect you from these horrors by purchasing or download antivirus software or AVG software. For those who can afford it Norton and McAfee have some very decent software to remove viruses and prevent viruses from infecting your computer in the first place. Both feature real-time protection which means that the programs stays loaded in the background and scans files before you access them for malware. Another free antivirus application is called AntiVir, which is just like Norton and McAfee but doesn't have all the bells and whisles like Adware/Spyware detection.

In addition to installing antivirus applications you'll want to install Adware/Spyware detecting and removal software like Ad-Aware and Spybot - Search and Destroy. Both are free and have the same features except Spybot includes a Immunization feature to prevent known Spyware from infecting your personal computer.

The key to all this software is to keep it up-to-date and to scan your computer regularly for any malware. Make sure you have the latest security patches for your operating system by using the update program for you system. And don't open files from other individuals unless they are trusted and you know they are expecting that file from them. Taking these precautions will only help in protecting your computer. There is no 100% solution to protecting yourself from malware but this is taking your closer to the next best thing.

Winamp, the Groovy Llama

2005-11-07T02:33:00.000-05:00

There are a lot of different applications availiable on the web that let you listen to music. Windows comes with it's own called Windows Media Player but it doesn't always do the job. You can also download ITunes which has a few neat tools to manage you media library and play video files. Another not so well known but tends to get packaged with HP and Compaq's Personal Computers is Musicmatch Jukebox.

These are all capable of playing music files such as: .wav, .mp3/4, and .ogg but my single favorite freeware application is called Winamp by Nullsoft, part of Time Warner. It's been around since 1997 and has grown a lot since. It has a lot of features that keep me hooked on it like: it's variety of skins, it's ability to play any video's in a sizable window, and has plugins for ripping CDs to mp3s and for music visualizations. Winamps visualization plugin is called: Advanced Visualization Studio or AVS and allows for customizable designs and effects that can be saved as a "preset". The music visualizations are wonderful and winamp now has the ability to make your desktop wallpaper a visualizations. While this is very taxing on your system it looks amazing will impress your friends who like that kind of thing.

Winamp is my choice out of all the windows media players. It's skin's can be minimized to create very small skins that take up a very small percentage of your monitor. It's dockable toolbars let you customize it's look and can support Internet radio and Internet television.

Keeping Those DVDs Around for a While.

2005-11-02T01:25:00.000-05:00

Need to backup a DVD but you don't have a dual-layer DVD burner? There's a program called DVD Shrink, who's latest version is 3.2.0.15 and it's a great utility for ripping and then burning DVDs. You have to have a DVD burner in order to burn a DVD but you can still rip them using a standard DVD-rom drive. The program will convert both dual and single layer DVDs to a directory with a similar structure of those found on DVDs. The DVD on your local hard drive can be played with software such as Cyberlink's PowerDVD and Cliprex's free DVD Player Pro.

The program is fairly simple to use and has a few useful features like Re-authoring DVDs so you can make your own DVD and can be set up to only copy certain media streams and subtitles.

Building the Great Firewall of China.

2005-10-30T02:08:00.000-05:00

Just like China we all need a little more security to keep those unwanted individuals from seeing important data. The Internet is filled with important information that needs to be secured, whether it is located on your computer or somewhere on the net. Sensitive information like passwords to our online bank accounts or paypal and information dealing with freedom or Tiananmen Square are kept securely away from the eyes of others.

One important application type is called a firewall, which watches traffic going in and out of your system and managing what applications have the right to communicate with the web on your computer. Most firewalls create what are called Trusted zones. These zones are either computers or networks deamed safe for the particular program to communicate with. Some network services should be kept in your local network while other like your web browser should be able to access sites outside of your local network.

There are quite a few different companies that provide firewall applications. Some of the more successful are: Norton Personal Firewall, McAfee Personal Firewallplus, and ZoneAlarm from Zone Labs. Norton and McAfee will usually sell their firewall with their suite edition that includes their antivirus software and a few other extra features. Both are very good choices becauase they're very simple to use and generate their own rules for trusted zones without your interaction. ZoneAlarm is a very nice freeware firewall application. It has a nice interface and will allow for users to manually set up and manage the firewall rules. Zone Labs also has ZoneAlarm Pro that you can purchase which is similar to both Norton and McAfees and easier to use than their basic firewall.

Having a Practical Yahoo Chat.

2005-10-25T22:50:00.000-05:00

For any users of Yahoo's Chat site you'll find yourself overloaded with chatroom SPAM. Not just spam but you'll find yourself confronted with individuals wanting to give you a good "deal", which is just a "fisher" looking for his next target or you might be the target of boot codes or text floods that will get increasingly annoying as the night goes on.

Well never fear for our good friend, David J. Binette, has a wonderful tool called YahElite, which incorporates a client for both Yahoo Messanger and Yahoo Chat. It provides "boot code", "text floods", "unwanted PMs", "sound bombs" and spam. Most of these you'll know and understand if you've ever logged into Yahoo Chat for an hour. It's fairly straight forward with a very little learning curve. It uses a lot of colors to mark different types of messages and has all the options you've used, and might not even know about, all in one client.

I'd recommend this program to anyone who has a lot of free time to spend in a chat room. You'll hear a lot about this program because it's increasing popularity. It also allows for avatars, which helps identify other YahElite users.

Protecting yourself from malicious spyware and viruses.

2005-10-18T18:58:00.000-05:00

I don't know a single person who hasn't complained about "malware". It comes in many forms and is probably on your system now. The most popular being in the form of tracking cookies. They can slow your computer down, lock it up and, for all those who know about them, they can make us feel insecure about our computers.

There is hope however. There are programs for your PC that will protect and prevent malware from taking over your pc. You can go out and purchase Antivirus programs like Norton Antivirus or McAffee. They work very well and protect from the latests and greatest in viruses but there are also applications free on the web to download that can protect your computer such as AntiVir which is free and will provide nearly if not the same protection. Sites such as Bitdefender Online Scanner and Tend Mirco's House Call will scan your computer for viruses and report back if your infected with a virus.

There are also small bits of code/applications out there called "spyware" which a good partion target usually your web browser and others run in the background and monitor and/or record certain actions, your user name and passowrd or even grab your credit card information and report it to a server or web forum. They have many forms and their are other applications that you may want to download to detect these. I would recommend Ad-Aware and Spybot - Search & Destroy.

Protecting your computer is the first step in protecting yourself from the evil that lives in the sites and software you download.

Cheap-n-free Software Provided by My Schools OIT.

2005-10-14T13:29:00.000-05:00

Need some useful computer applications? Provided free by IU for their students, at their site IUWare, are many well known Windows and Mac applications. Some of the more useful money savers are Norton Antivirus, Office Professional and XP Professional. IUSB also provides free software on their site or a linke to sites such as: Firefox, Ad-Aware, and Spybot - Search and Destroy.

Add Some Extra Space Using Gmail

2005-10-06T18:35:00.000-05:00

Gmail is not just a mail client, it's a storage drive! With the use of file extensions you can expand your current storage and keep files, such as: music, videos, setup applications, and your homework, stored remotely. Keep in mind that your drive can only be accessed by any machines with the file extensions installed. These file extensions can be found at viksoe's site or at allscoop's site . To install them simply unzip the file and run the setup application. This will allow you to make better use of your 2 gigabyte limit.

A Helpful Guide Through Our New Digital Age

2005-09-23T13:33:00.000-05:00

I feel my blog's topic is going to get narrowed from just posts about latest technology to the latest in technology and software to make a computer geeks daily life a little easier and illuminate the vagueness of our digital age for those unaccustomed to it.

The goals of this blog will be to bring new content to the reader. There are plenty of useful programs and resources on the web and not everyone knows about them. I'll make it my job to find these valuable trinkets by scouring the web and produce an article that will be easy for the not-so-technically inclined and yet informative as to be quite useful to those who are. I find joy in finding useful application and hopefully you as a reader will to.

Getting your laptop online with your cellphone and Verizon Wireless

2005-09-22T18:15:00.000-05:00

Currently, students who have Verizon Wireless can use their cell phones, which have to be CDMA2k compliant to dial-up to Verizon's 1X "NationalAccess" which will enable them to browse the internet at about 3 times the speed of dial-up, about 64kbps to 144kbps max. All you need is to purchase Motorola's Mobile Office Kit that works for you phone. I'd suggest going to your local Verizon Wirless retail store and pucrhase the kit from them. You'll get a nice cable and the drivers that will turn your phone into a modem once you install them.

Setting up the connection isn't too hard under Windows XP. You'd set it up like any other modem connection except your phone will be listed as a modem, when it's connected, and you'll select it instead of your normal modem. The phone number you'll need to dial is #777, youruser name is your phone number with area code, and the password is vzw . It's that easy! You'll notice the latency when playing video games over but it's not that bad for downloading or uploading files. This is currently free except that it uses your phone minutes which could get costly for those who get addicted to beingonline and have no sense of time.

Compare this to the IUSB's free dial-up service for students whose internet connection isn't as fast, may experience connection issues and require you to have a home phone.

Techno techy technic tech.

2005-09-21T19:20:00.000-05:00

My topic/concept of my blog shall be... "Technology that improves our life"!!! I feel that this would be a wonderful topic seeing that it coincides with my own interests. I'll apply this also IUSB and publish articles pertaining to useful ideas for our IUSB Live site. I've found a lot of useful feeds dealing with technology and would love to share this knowledge with the rest of the world.

Possible Wikipedia Topic

2005-09-20T18:28:00.000-05:00

My Wikipedia topic should deal with something I'm familiar or interested in. Possible topics include Linux projects, windows applications, Windows 2k/XP, computer networking, video games, or possible other topics that interest me. The Computer Network stubs look like a very good area to work on. Maybe one of the topics under the Personal area network stub or maybe a program that I've used that is listed under Software Stubs
though the listing is meak and should include applications like Bitpim.

To serve IUSB students.

2005-09-20T01:25:00.000-05:00

I feel to better our IUSB Community Blog I'd like to post about useful websites that can serve to save student money and time. Websites like bigwords.com which could save student hundreds on their school books. I'd also like to search for sites that IUSB students might find humerous and intriguing such as megatokyo.com and librivox.blogsome.com. I could also tie in with posts from my own blog posts.

Ben's blog is Excellent.

2005-09-17T17:04:00.000-05:00

Looking over Ben's blog he's really getting involved with Wine. It never crossed my mind that wine could actually be work blogging about and Ben's blog does a good job to support it's own need. I'm sure when he gets in gear his blog will be interesting and inviting. His use of humor and choice of words like in this post provide me with useful wine information and could keep me coming back to his blog. Humor, I feel, keeps the reader coming back and adds personality to the site. If I didn't know that Ben was actually as funny and intelligent as his posts sounds I could derive that from his blog, though not everyone expresses themselves as openly in blogs as they do in real life and that could probably be said in the opposite.

A wonderful example of a blog.

2005-09-15T15:18:00.000-05:00

While looking for good technology blogs I happened apon JRB Technology News which looks to be a collection of RSS feeds that the creator of the site deemed apropriate for the site with a few downloads that are hosted by the site. The formatting, which is incorrect for my browser, could be worked on. The feeds on the left are too small for their font and could be places in better locations or worked into the main body of the site. The large sum of advertisements in the center makes the reader wonder where the content of the site is till he or she finds the scroll bar on the right hand side. This site's creator, how ever tech savy, has managed to make a barely functioning site that will keep the readers away.

Another site I'd like to comment on is Phil Windley's Technometria. This is an excellent blog and meets all my expectations as a blog site. First impressions I feel do make a difference. The main picture for the site is very inviting, peacefull rolling hills with a faint mist with the sites title not detracting from the landscape, and makes me smile. The body is made of three columns who's colors match and blend with each column and the main picture. Each column is carefully planned and contain everything I'd expect on a blog site with a few interesting extra's like Topic Guides and Essays. The site is well maintained and has fulfilled it's part in the world of blogs. It's so good it's RSS feed has been added to my bloglines feeds.

My Fellow Classmates

2005-09-13T10:20:00.000-05:00

I'd like to comment on what a wonderful blog karen has. Her use of lively pictures and her bountiful information make for interesting reads. She goes very deep with her posts and provides the reader with a bit more than what other blogs have managed. She is quite insightful about her posts, such as her post about the Importance of Attachment. Her use of pictures and use of intriguing topics keeps the reader coming back.

Technology 1, Ethical Hacking 0

2005-09-12T11:10:00.000-05:00

I was browsing both for articles on both Technology and Ethical Hacking... Two topics I've been puzzling over to blog about. The later of the two doesn't have any exciting new information that those not in the field of software engineering wouldn't find all too interesting. I could post about the lastest hacks on the digital block but there is only a few groups that exist on this topic. Technology on the other hand is a vague term and could be narrowed down, such as in new technologic advances in computing and machinery or perhaps just new software that's practical and makes my life easier. Technology seems to be the new hot topic.

Posting for the Tech lover in me.

2005-09-11T21:18:00.000-05:00

Technology seems to be a better topic to blog about. There's quite a bit of information on the web about the newest in technology. I have found a good deal of websites with interesting posts dealing with the newest in technology and software. I'll be adding all these site's RSS feeds to my bloglines account.

Other part of the assignment

2005-09-10T11:19:00.001-05:00

Visiting websites dealing with security which I feel would be a better topic than ethical hacking I found securityfocus.com which is a good example of a webblog. It also has feeds to keep me posted on the latest developments in security issues. It's a good example of a blog in that it's kept up daily has each post broken down into sections with a new section for the newest posts. It also has a professional feel to it. On the other hand websecurity.org isn't a good example of a blog. In fact it's lacking in a lot of things. Besides the image at the top left hand corner it's not all that welcoming. The sick orange coloring and large font pains my eyes. All the links go to web sites with the captions looking like advertisents... I've been fooled! This is, what I like to call, a hoking hyperlink.

Bumbling about the blogs.

2005-09-09T05:33:00.000-05:00

While googling for examples of bad blogs I came across a few neat ideas. The first being how someone turned a blog into an art portfolio. It's a neat idea. Where the posts are her artwork and she gives a little info on each piece. Assides for a broken link I think it's a fairly decent site. I also came across another blogspot that is filled with very intresting articles and neat images that can be very puzzling. This keeps the reader coming back. I spent an hour reading through the archive.

A good blog makes the reader want to come back the next day to see what new mysteries await them. They feed the interests of the reader. Not all sites appeal to everyone. This site just doesn't keep me interested. I'll probably never go back to it assides to check out the sites he gets his feeds from. He doesn't link to feeds from other sites so they must be for his own amusement. He does atleast post daily which is a plus. He is but just another schmo.

What makes a technology blog tick.

2005-09-07T20:18:00.000-05:00

Slashdot.org is a very nice blog and what makes it a nice blog on technology is that it is current, filled with numerous posts dealing with various areas and it's organized into related topics all viewable on another page. Each post gives a title and a little bit of information that gives me a better idea of what the article deals with. Another neat aspect is that this blog allows for it's very numerous users to post opinions about these articles and can lead to interesting and heated arguments and perhaps users will post links to other useful related articles.

Theregister.com is another interesting blog with a different layout. It's kind of like Slashdot.org but the titles of articles are condinsed to fit 3 a line and have much smaller snippets of what the gest of the article is about. I can glimpse over the site faster but at the cost of missing an engrossing article do to poorly or confusing titles with dull captions.

In search of the elusive topic...

2005-09-06T00:08:00.000-05:00

An interesting topic that has been an exciting and an ongoing adventure for me has been new advances in technology. I enjoy finding and reading materials about advancements in technologies such as genetics, robotics, the Internet, computers, and various other posts that deal with advances that make our lives easier.

I also enjoy talking about "hacking" relating to computers and the technical issues found by said hackers. People have misconceptions of what a hacker really is. When one thinks of a hacker he or she is usually really thinking of an individual who should be labeled as a "cracker", those who compromise security without permission. Such websites as hackerz.org, slashdot.org, and theregister.com all have interesting posts linking to articles about current events dealing with hacking in the computer world.

Both of these topics have large communities and can be narrowed into smaller topics. My main goal for this blog would be to keep the readers posted on information that I find worthy of the readers attention as well as my own.

2005-09-01T12:30:00.000-05:00

My first impressions from a good blog site are that blogs can give generic data that are supported by links that back up that statement usually tied to a key word or words. This gives the reader the freedom of going deeper into that article or carrying on to the next sentence, post or article. There seem to be a few different formats for blogs. One would be articles, which are fairly to the point and can give a good amount of information in a few lines if you follow the links provided. They can be a fairly sizable article or a bunch of little comments like those found in at EdCone.com's Word Up. Another type of blog is where opinions about such things usually dealing with world events are expressed and supported by links to other articles or facts. Some blogs are a combination of both like chocolate&zucchini which tell about other peoples interests and provides us with some delicious information. A good blog is informative and keeps the reader wanting to come back because newer facts or comments can arrise and they keep us posted about the world around us.

My first post!

2005-09-01T09:02:00.000-05:00

This is just a test of the blogger space network. Remember this is only a test.