Surge Protectors

Lightning generates a lot of my business.  We are into that season again.  To avoid costly repairs, please make sure all your sensitive electronics and appliances are protected by functional, working surge protectors.    Common missed equipment include your telephone and your refrigerator.  In my experience, for our area the telephone wire is the "weak link."

Don't use those cheap bar plug units; use a real surge protector. ( Link to explanation of surge protectors.).  The refrigerator may be the hardest to protect due to size constraints.  (You may have to put the surge protector under the refrigerator and you will need a long enough cord to reach the outlet.)

You might look at whole house surge protectors.  The link above gives you info on this type.  I just got an add from Carolina Heating for a whole house surge protector: cost $339.  It reads like this is "installed."  At least this will give you a benchmark.

Microsoft going to a subscription business model for personal users?

A subscription business model is where you pay a periodic fee for software.  I imagine most of you have at least one software application where you do that; eg antivirus software.

At least for personal/private/not enterprise customers, Microsoft has a licensing model, where you pay for Office or Windows and you get it... until 3 or more years later, when a new version comes out and, if you want to upgrade, you buy that new version.

Microsoft does have an "Enterprise" business model that includes the subscription approach.  According to an article by Brad Chacos in the June 2013 edition of PC World, Microsoft is going to evolve to eliminating the license model for the subscription model.  Coupled with this, Redmond will eliminate the big version change process for a continual update process.  Office 365 and Windows 8 may be the last big version release.

I don't know if I like this.  For "casual users," many are still on Office 2003.  I bet the majority of residents in our community are still on Windows XP.  Many don't have any desire to learn the new releases.  Can you imagine having to pay an annual fee for those programs?

Brad Chacos is gushingly enthusiastic about this change:  "Microsoft's incremental future truly is the future- not the past.  And its about time it arrived."  What do you think?

References:
Microsoft Licensing Models
Microsoft Office 2013 is not transferable to another computer... NOT
A New World of Licensing

Fishing emails again!

There has been a rash of fishing emails, where it appears that emails are being "sent" by residents to their email lists.  The latest is from Manila or the Phillipines and asks for money to "rescure' the resident.

Has their email account been compromised?  Not likely.  Actual "profit-motive" companies exist around the world that use various techniques, from trolling the internet to installing worms on a individual computers, to wholesale invasion of government or corporate web sites, to create large databases of email addresses and relationships between email addresses.  These lists are sold at so much per thousand entries, to "perps" that are sending out the fishing emails.

For an example, see http://www.downloademail.net/9/email-list-part-6420/6627.html.  Browse there incognito (Google "browsing incognito" to find out how to do it.  The specifics vary from browser to browser.)  In general, google your email to see where it is visible to public search engines.  (These companies use their own methods.)

So there is nothing you can do to prevent this.  It is has already happened.

In the future, change your user name (att has this function, so the email goes to your real account but you send the email under another user name).  You can also change your email provider entirely.  After doing that, change the "from" in the email to show that you are sending the email from the old account.  Move all your contacts out of your old account.  That way, only your "front" account is compromised.

There are other techniques you can use, depending on your expertise and patience.  I'll summarize these techniques and provide links to detailed instructions in a future post.

Best Free AntiVirus/AntiMalware

I've been away from this blog for a while, teaching a course in Ubuntu.  (Blog).  This entry is about the latest reviews on free antivirus/antimalware programs.  PCWorld's Review.  AVG Free came in first.  When I've used this in the past, it seemed to take excessive resources.  Apparently this is not an issue.  Also, I've installed Microsoft Security Essentials on many computers and it seems to work well, except.... In addition, Microsoft stood behind the product with customer support, which made it stand out from the other free options.  The except is that, as noted in the review, it seems that at times infections, especially just released malware, did seem to slip through.  Those that did, it seems to me, were related to malware that redirects your browser by adding a subversive search engine or changing the home page.

So, if you would like to change to AVG Free, let me know and I will install it for you.

From XP to Ubuntu

Next Monday I start an OLLI class at Furman called "From XP to Ubuntu."  That and the short illness and death of my mother-in-law have prevented me from adding to this blog in recent weeks.  I've got a lot to say here.  The first thing I want to do is review the process and considerations in purchasing a laptop now.  (I discussed this a while back (here), but it's time for an in depth explanation and update.

You can follow my course material and discussion on a new blog: http://leetlinkubuntu.blogspot.com.

Facebook, Google, you name it: a tool to protect your privacy

For some time I've been thinking, and actually collecting notes, to write a series of articles on how to protect your privacy within different environments, such as Facebook, Google, Yahoo, etc.  The I read an article in this month's PC World that makes writing this series unnecessary.   Instead of learning how to protec your privacy, there is a free application called PrivacyFix that encapsulates all the privacy rules for many applications.  What you do is start the tool and let it tell you what your settings are in these environments.  It also tells you what your privacy risk is for each setting.  AND, incredibly, if you want to "fix" the setting for more privacy, you can click "FIX".  That takes you inside the particular application, directly to the setting, where you can change it.   I can't begin to express how neat that is.

Here is a picture of PrivacyFix's Facebook guidance page:

(Click on the picture for a larger image.)  Note the evaluations on the right side- Green means you are OK, orange means you should consider "fixing" the setting.  Click "Fix" and you will be taken to the Facebook application and to the web page within Facebook containing the setting.  

Also note the other information on the page.  You can read it for yourself.  

Download PrivacyFix.  Then you will be taken to a web page "setup," or something like that. Click the large setup button, and you will get your results.  

I like this app.  Saves me a lot of time writing blog entries on fixing your privacy settings.  

How to Make the Windows 8 Start Screen Work for You

Windows 8 is a paradigm shift from all previous "windows-"based operating systems.

When Windows 8 initializes, it shows a splash screen with date and time, nothing else.  (A side benefit of this is that it starts very fast!)   There is nothing obvious on what to do next.  For desktop users, to access programs or log in to your account, click on this splash screen.  The result is either a login screen or the "Start" screen.  If you have a login, then, after you enter your password, you will get the Start screen.  No desktop!  For most users, that is a major drawback. (Watch this:  it is instructive.  Note that they started on the Start Screen, avoiding the initial splash screen.)

The way I get around this is to use my two monitors to advantage.  I have them set to show as one big screen.  This means, for example, that I can have an application screen half on one screen and half on the other.  This gives me a lot of real estate for my desktop, and I have essentially set up a tile like arrangement using an application called "Fences"  (search "cnet Fences")  As a side benefit of this arrangement, when the Windows 8 start screen displays on this two monitor arrangement, it only displays on the left monitor.  The right half of my desktop displays on the right monitor.  So, I have all the tiles of the start screen on the left and my desktop on the right.  It is actually a convenience.

I should note that once I click on a tile on the Screen disappears and the app starts.  To access the screen, I have to go to the lower left corner of the left monitor and "wiggle" the mouse, which brings up a small tile.  Click that to access the Start Screen.