Dave "Bytes"

Please remember to use your thinker, before you tinker! 

October 9, 2007

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 A Periodic Newsletter for the Members of the PC User Group Community !!! 

Here's A Windows Tip

Don't Become Part Of The Problem

Internet hoaxes hurt. Sometimes when real worms hit, so much e-mail traffic is generated from warning people to avoid the worm that the well-intentioned watchdogs do more damage than the worm itself! Strange but true.

Do yourself a favor. (And your friends, too.) If somebody sends you a message that contains any of the following examples, just delete it, eh?

  • A horrible virus is going to bring down the Internet.

  • Send a copy of this message to ten of your best friends, and for every copy that’s forwarded, [pick your favorite charity] gets $10.

  • Your eyelids will fall off if you don’t forward this message.

  • Microsoft (Intel, McAfee, Norton, Compaq, whatever) says you need to download something, not download something, go to a specific place, avoid a specific place, and on and on.

If you think you’ve stumbled on the world’s most important virus alert, via your uncle’s sister-in-law’s roommate’s hairdresser’s soon-to-be-ex-boyfriend, keep these three important points in mind:

  • Chances are very good that you’re looking at a half-baked hoax that’s documented on Symantec’s hoax page or McAfee’s hoax page. Check it out before you click the Forward button.

  • If it’s a real virus, all the major news agencies will carry reports that (even if they’re inaccurate!) are far, far more reliable than anything you get through e-mail. Check out CNN or your favorite news site before you go way off the deep end.

  • If the Internet world is about to collapse, clogged with gazillions of e-mail worms, the worst possible way to notify friends and family is via e-mail. D’oh! Pick up the phone, walk over to the water cooler, send out a carrier pigeon, instead.

Try hard to be part of the solution, not part of the problem. And if a friend forwards you a virus warning in an e-mail, do everyone a big favor. Shoot him a copy of the preceding bullet points, ask him to tape it to the side of his computer, and beg him to refer to it the next time he gets the forwarding urge.


 

Scientist Invents Computer Pillow To Stop Snoring


A German scientist has come up with a solution for snoring--a computerized pillow that shifts the head's sleeping position until the noise stops.
Daryoush Bazargani, a professor of computer science at the University of Rostock and the pillow's inventor, was displaying a prototype of his pillow at a health conference in Germany on Wednesday.
"The pillow is attached to a computer, which is the size of a book, rests on a bedside table, and analyzes snoring noises," Bazargani told Reuters.
"The computer then reduces or enlarges air compartments within the pillow to facilitate nasal airflow to minimize snoring as the user shifts during sleep," he said.
The ergonomic pillow can also be used for neck massages.
Bazargani said several U.S. firms were interested in manufacturing the pillow.
"I invented it because I snore," he said. "I tried all sorts of products, but nothing worked. I hope people who use it will sleep more peacefully."


While Wandering On The Web

 

Phixr is a free Web-based photo editing tool that celebrates its one-year anniversary tomorrow.
If you're interested in tweaking a few of your photos (local or hosted) Phixr connects with nearly every popular Web service out there and has some powerful tools to make your photos look better without your having to spend a dime on editing software.

Phixr gives users photo editing foundations like cropping brightness rotation controls and red- eye removal. There are also some more advanced tools like pixel-noise removal and 14 Photoshop- like filters for adding artistic alterations to your shots. The pixel-noise remover takes a while to work its magic but I got excellent results on some particularly grainy indoor photos.

Anytime you upload a photo either from your hard drive or popular Web services like Flickr Photobucket or Picasa Phixr will store your shot on its servers for three hours. You can log out come back a few hours later and continue editing. When you're done you can re-upload your photo to a dozen different services like Costco Photos ImageShack and LiveJournal. There are also options to export it as JPEG PNG GIF or PDF.

One big downside of Phixr is its speed. Every time you make an edit the page needs to refresh.
It's aggravating actually. If you intend on working with more than one photo it's just not worth your time. While there are before and after previews for any edit it's all done in small thumbnails which doesn't show enough detail to do the job.

Online photo editing made fun

With Picnik you can quickly edit all your online photos from one place. It's the easiest way on the Web to fix underexposed photos, remove red-eye, or apply effects to your photos.
It's fast, easy, and fun.

  • One-click photo fixing or in-depth tweaking

  • Crop, rotate, and resize in real-time

  • Tons of special effects, from artsy to fun

  • Amazingly fast

  • Works directly with many photo sharing sites

  • No download required, nothing to install!

  • Works on Mac, Windows, even Linux

  • Free version, premium version (soon)


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Got something "computer related" to sell? Looking for that rare peripheral? If it's computer related you can submit a short classified ad for exposure in Dave "Bytes". Be sure to include your name and e-mail address in the ad. You can also include a picture of the item. Now some would suggest that there be a charge for this feature but alas, since my bookkeeping skills leave much to be desired I've determined that this will be a free service to all SPCUG members in good standing.  "Bytes" is currently sent to almost 1500 homes in the area. Ad requests will be included as soon as possible. I assume absolutely no responsibility as to the accuracy or completeness of supplied info. All transactions are between consulting adults which leaves me entirely off the hook.

 Please let me know by clicking HERE when your merchandise is sold so that I can remove it from the listing.

Click Here To Submit Your Ad


Maybe You Should Back Up Your Own Email; Google, AOL, Yahoo All Losing Emails

Web-based email has made quite the comeback in the past few years thanks to massive increases in email storage offerings, as well as revamped user interfaces. However, it appears that all of the big players have run into some problems actually keeping email systems online. This past week there have been stories of both AOL and Yahoo losing a ton of email (thousands of emails for AOL, millions for Yahoo Japan). This comes just a few months after Google had some problems with mass email deletions in Gmail. While the convenience these services provide is fantastic, all of these stories of lost emails should act as a reminder that you probably shouldn't trust any of these providers alone to care for your email. It's almost surprising that we haven't seen more of an effort by these or other providers to position email backup services as well, promising to keep you running, should your main account get knocked out or deleted.

 


Dave's Cool Downloads

PayEmOff helps you devise a strategy for getting out of debt efficiently by minimizing the amount of interest you pay. Almost everyone carries some amount of consumer debt, if only a mortgage, and more and more of us carry credit card debt. Carrying debt means paying interest -- sometimes an appalling amount of it. By paying off high-interest cards first, you can save a significant amount of money; PayEmOff shows you exactly how much. In addition to analyzing your credit card debt, PayEmOff includes separate calculators for analyzing your mortgage and investments. These calculators can instantly show you the effect of changing the interest rate, payment amount, or number of months for investment or payoff. And since dealing with debt is always stressful, you can configure the program to use whatever background images, colors, and fonts you find most soothing.

 


Here's A Browsing Tip
courtesy of Sandy Berger

Don’t worry about that archaic “http://”. In fact you don’t have to worry about the “www” and the “.com” either. If you are using Internet Explorer (IE) simply type the main part of the address and press CTRL+Enter. Internet Explorer will add the http://www and the .com. For instance type coke and press CTRL+Enter and you will be taken to http://www.coke.com.
The Firefox and Opera browsers are even smarter than IE. Just type the main address like coke and press Enter and the beginning and end will be added automatically.
 


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Pause For Thought

People vote their resentment, not their appreciation.
The average man does not vote for anything, but against something.

 

 


 

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Last Updated
10/09/2007 08:33 AM