A netbook just for travel!

It has limited uses but it sure is a travellers delight. I got the Acer Aspire One 751h after swearing a netbook is no use. Now its a real handy andy! So light! And instant wireless connections anywhere, without any effort on your part. 

So whats not so great - well theres no DVD drive and I spent another hundred dollars on an external one. Why? To make backup DVDs of the system. Now if you have been using laptops for as long as I have you will know that as sure as the sun rises and sets each day, one day that laptop/netbook will die and you will have to reinstall the OS. And you cant do it if you dont have the backups and none come with this netbook. A fact I found out after the purchase. Theres no other way to do the backup except to an external DVD drive and if you dont have one and nobody else has one either to lend you, then you are stuck with buying it. 

Other than this issue I am quite happy with this netbook though it does seem a little too plasticky and not at all robust. So handle with TLC. 

Windows 7

There have been a surprising number of complaints about glitches in Windows 7 after upgrading. The system hangs and goes nowhere. (Had a car like that once!) I would suggest waiting a bit. Remember the old saying - never be the first to try anything or the last to quit! 

Facebookies!

It slowly creeps up on you. First you join Facebook because so many friends ask you to. You have no idea what its about and wonder why it sparks so much interest. Then suddenly you are in and having a great time finding that friend from kindergarten you lost touch with, or looking at the pictures of a relative's birthday party halfway across the world. You have officially become a Facebookie! 

As you get comfortable with the website some patterns emerge. Theres the poster who tells you about every single moment of his life excluding his bowel movement, the one who actually works in real estate and sneaks in a sales pitch from time to time, and the most dedicated poster of all - the cause runner. The cause runner has a new one every other day and throws himself heart and soul behind it and tries to get you to join as well. All part of the Facebook community. How to maintain your sense of fun through it all? Enjoy!

Which browser?

So many people have asked me this question I think I should reveal all! I have a PC and five browsers installed and ready to go - IE8, Firefox, Opera, Chrome and Safari for windows. And the winner is - Safari. Thats what I use all day and everyday. Why? Its fast and its a fortress against viruses. As for antivirus? I have three of the best and latest antivirus, antispyware and antimalware - all running together. And best of all - I have nothing of importance stored on the computer I use for the Internet. How boring for ye who hack! 

No more trips to the bank. Scan in your cheques.

Few people are aware of the fact that a cheque can even be written on a piece of paper, provided you write in all the information required to debit your account and use the correct wording. However, through years of conditioning, almost all of us dont risk it and turn to the bank issued cheque book when we need to write a cheque - which in itself is very rare these days, what with the massive use of credit and debit cards. 

However, when you do receive a check, be it written from a traditional cheque book or a page from Aunt Janes recipe notebook, one thing we all have to do to cash it or deposit it is make a trip to the bank. Now that may not be necessary. Banks are planning on letting customers scan in their cheques from wherever they are and use internet online banking to deposit them. They are still working out all the "how to prevent fraud" details before putting out the service on a mass scale. 

My pets name is yqsz3r221xcfrdmq

Be it a fun website or your email address or the bank, now you have the unavoidable security question from time to time. But ever since a famous celeb's Twitter account was broken into because she had written in the real name of her pet for her security question, people are frantically searching around for something different to defeat the hackers. 

The above should do nicely I think. Even the most dedicated hacker wont be able to get around it. The problem is how am I ever going to remember it?

Laptop Losses!

I had to read it again just to make sure I understood.  In the US, where they keep accurate statistics, around 1200 laptops go missing at Los Angeles International Airport each week. And if you add it all up then some 624,000 laptops go missing or are lost at airports in the US each year. Thats a staggering figure. Not all are stolen. Many are forgotten while going through security checks. If you have an identity tag pasted on your laptop then you will be paged to come get it - provided you even remember you left it behind. There are so many hassled and spaced out travellers who dont even register that the laptop is gone or their name is be being paged.  

The other factor is just plain and simple theft. While you wait for your flight and read that newspaper somebody has walked off with your laptop bag. But help is on the way. There are already laptop recovery software available, and though it might set you back about a hundred dollars, you can track your laptop's whereabouts with it. It works. It transmits information to a central tracking unit or to yourself and you can take it from there. Some even click a picture of the thief and send it to you the next time he/she connects to the internet. If that isnt cool I dont know what is!

Bye Bye AC adaptors

Tired of carry about the AC adapter brick for your laptop? And forgetting it in hotel rooms? Soon it will be a thing of the past. The adapter part will be incorporated in the laptop (with no significant addition in the weight) and all you will need is a normal extension cord. Fujitsu is leading the way with the tech to make this happen. Cant wait to reduce the number of accessories in my travel bag. 

His and Her chargers

A tangle of chargers in your travel bag might be a thing of the past. Starting next year all the major cell phone companies will have one standardized charger for their phones. However, if you want to charge all mobiles in your possession in a hurry then no point in carrying just the one charger and, say, three mobiles. You will still end up carrying that tangle of chargers to get the job done.  What we really need is the five minute charger which packs a punch quickly. Anybody listening?

Apples new iPhone 3G S

What does S stand for? Speed says Apple.

So what were you thinking of?

Twittering perils!

Follow and be followed! Thats the essence of Twitter. But beware! Twitter has become the new haunt of cybercriminals. Clicks on links can take you to the badlands where malware comes to roost on your computer, and either sends all your banking details to some criminal halfway across the world or turns your computer into a zombie for a bot net. So watch those links, and think before you link! See, I am getting poetical with a turn for rhymes!

Texting and you

The average teen sends eighty text messages a day. Thumbs fly over the mini keyboard. Just watch! We presume, the said average teen also receives an equal number of messages. How about those of us who wonder what there is to text about other than "Running late, see you 5pm" or something mundane. Well, you have to be a teen to understand.

Texting is especially suited for the thin fingered. If you suffer from fat finger syndrome (meaning you hit two keys at once and do so most of the time) then texting, sadly, is not for you!

Unlocked cell phones

For those who unlock their iphones on the quiet - remember when its update time it wont be possible. Who cares? Ask my friend David who tried to update and got everything wiped!!!

Which Browser?

If you are the kind of person who flits from browser to browser then you probably have all the major ones on your computer, like I do. I have IE, Opera, Safari, Firefox and have just tried out Chrome. My personal favorite is Safari. The latest version has a speed thats truly awesome and Safari, for me at any rate, seems to pick up less viruses. The others are also used by me from time to time. Chrome was disappointing! Still difficult to find my way around. But its good for speed as promised. 

The fifty thousand dollar cell bill

We have all heard the horror stories. Somebody spends hours downloading videos on their cell and then collapses when the bill comes along! Even if you are not a dedicated downloader nevertheless watch out for those international roaming charges. They can really add up. Before you travel make sure you know exactly how much a minute you are going to pay when you call home. You might be better off getting a local SIM card.

Twitterers tire of tweets!

It seems most twitterers get tired or bored or both and move on after a month. I joined twitter and the novelty wore off after a week. And I got tired of following celeb tweets. Do I really want to know what a celeb had for breakfast and what they are doing by the hour?

Swine flu spam

Its not enough that we are all wondering if the swine flu will kill us. Now we are bombarded with spam about it. Most spam has message titles with the scare word swine flu and some alarmist information. The hapless user who clicks on these emails will be directed to a website with some general information on the subject and some nicely embedded malware to take your computer down.

If you do want to read about swine flu then stick to the FAQs offered by well known news sites.

Our modern plague - spam!

For a long time spam was something you ate out of a tin. Not particularly a first choice as far as snacks go but a reasonably good sandwich could be had of it. Now we all know what the "other" spam is, and there seems to be no way to avoid it. A full 96 percent of emails are spam and this plague seems to have come to stay. The good news is mail filters are getting better and smarter in streaming out spam. And of course we can all do our bit to discourage spam. Dont open it.

Wheres Conficker?

We expected tech mayhem on April 1st, the day the Conficker worm was going to wreak havoc on our computers. Some of us even tried to outsmart it by changing the date on our computers - often with unexpected consequences. My friend Beth set the date a few days ahead and sent off work related documents way past the deadline. Then she had to send explanations!

But - its not a false alarm and all is not over as yet. Conficker has just appeared at the University of Utah knocking out computers in the hundreds. So, user beware! The best protection is to have a good well known anti virus software and update and run it regularly. Meaning - once a day. Cheers!

Mac users hit by virus!

For years Mac users never agonized about computer viruses. They never got them! Us PC fans meanwhile had more than our share of the curse - the much feared blue screen of death. Now Macs are more popular and virus writers (a Biblical plague on the breed) are targetting the Macs. The iServices.A Trojan horse has found a comfortable home on Mac users who are fond of downloading torrents. A torrent website, for those not in the know, is where you go if you want to download and watch a pirated copy of that latest movie which hasnt even come to town yet. The downside - well you could get hit by an embedded virus like this Trojan which will connect your computer to somebody sitting five thousand miles away and that person can have a leisurely look at all your files, maybe copy your keyboard strokes and get in your bank account, and in general wreak havoc in your life. Maybe its worth waiting for that movie to see it legit.

If it aint broke dont change it!

Hard times are upon the world economy, and of course that means companies and individuals are not rushing out to get new computers or software. If its working fine and you are reasonably uptodate - why change it? For PC users this means maybe skipping Vista altogether and waiting for Windows 7. Loyal supporters of XP never did move to Vista, or after trying Vista rolled back. As for me - I have one computer with Vista and one with XP and have no problems moving from one to the other.

Which begs the question now that Microsoft is cutting back on 5000 jobs. Is the poor reception of Vista partly responsible? Or is it just that everybody is buying fewer computers and therefore fewer software upgrades?