I want to keep singing the praises of an operating system that I used to make fun of on our show; Linux. In partial defense of myself, Linux traditionally has been known as the geeks operating system, and a user needed to be permanently attached to a forum for help and have an affinity for the command prompt or as its known in Linux, the terminal.
Frequently, computer users hire me to call and talk to tech support for them. That may seem like a waste of money to some people, but consider that many computer users have to over come TWO language barriers. Yes, I said two language barriers.
The first language barrier for both the overseas helper and the computer user seeking help is understanding each other. We have a hard time understanding the accent and language use of the person trying to help, and they, too, have a difficult time picking up our use of the English language and our accents that are foreign to them.
Technology is no different than politics in that there are a variety of topics that people have opinions on. While you may not know much about these topics now, what you know about them can have a great impact on knowing who to listen to when it comes to learning more about digital photography and related topics.
PC vs. Mac:
The Mac people will tell you that Macs are better for graphics, easier to use more stable.
Believe it or not, there are still folks out there using dial-up Internet. As email attachments grow in size with full-size pictures and videos, even email can be difficult for dial-up users.
Last week, a customer of mine sent me a site called Schwup from Muvee Technologies. Muvee designed Schwup from the ground up to be site where multiple people could contribute to the same web photo album. For example, if you just returned from a weekend trip to San Diego to see the U.S. Open and play golf, you and your buddies could return home and all upload photos to the same album so each could have access to them.
There are many photo sharing options on the web, but Schwup aims to be slightly different by offering a free service that can be accessed by multiple people through an invite system, and currently offers no storage limitations.
Over the past six months, Adam and I have been fortunate to start a relationship with our local public radio station(not affiliated with NPR). Currently, we do between 1/2 hour and 1 hour one day a week…the third Wednesday of each month between Noon-1 PM Mountain Time.
Firefox 3.0 is now available for full download for the masses.
It is reported to be the fastest version of firefox yet, and possibly one of the fastest browsers period.
We have tested it for a while and it appears to be ready for use. Be careful if you run a lot of extensions, you will want to research and make sure that your extensions are compatible with 3.0.
There are several new features to Firefox 3.0 which we will write about later and talk about on the show.
Extortionware? What is extortionware.
I have seen at least 10 computers in the past two weeks that have recently been infected with extortionware – viruses and spyware that infect your system by pretending to be an antivirus or other security program.
With names like Windows Antivirus, WinAntivirus, XP Antivirus 20008, etc. these programs appear to look and feel official. However, they are some of the worst virus or virus-like programs I have ever dealt with.
These viruses often come onto a computer via a pop-up advertisement that says looks like a Windows security or antivirus warning that reads something like, “Your computer is infected with one or more viruses and spyware programs. Click here to run a full scan.”
I haven’t had a chance to use my Eee PC on an airplane until recently. Usually, who am I kidding, I always fly coach. If you flown in the past few years, you know how tight they are spacing rows and even seats back there. I can’t imagine anyone trying to use any other laptop on a plane comfortably. Even with the guy in front of me leaning his seat all the way back, I could use my Eee PC without any problems.
Search our site for eee to learn more about the Eee PC. It is small, yet fully functional and capable. I’m writing this story and uploading the picture from my phone to it so that I could share it with you.
Although this tip targets one particular Internet provider, ANY computer user will benefit from the advice I give at the end of the article. In Western Colorado, a company called Bresnan provides a large swath of the cable services…including cable Internet. Overall, I have no problems with the Bresnan service. They run an extremely speedy and pretty stable Internet connection.
However, my beef with the service has always been their sub-standard email service.
Over the past few weeks, Bresnan customers have been pleasantly surprised to see that all of the sudden 99% or more of their spam messages have stopped arriving in either their screened mail folder or their inbox. They were happy. What they and I didn’t start to figure out until this week was