Recently in Tech Geekery Category

There are three tools that I use to gather information from the wonderful world wide web. They are so valuable to me, that I thought I'd share them with you all. These are not the only alternatives out there. This is simply what I find useful and endorse. I'm open to suggestions and feedback.

1) Mozilla Firefox. There are many reasons to use Firefox. The main reason is to protect your computer from the security flaws inherit in Internet Explorer. But the other reasons are what make Firefox fun. Firefox uses "tabbed" browsing, allowing for multiple pages to be opened in the same window. (A lot like how Excel has tabs for sheets in a workbook.) Firefox's code is open source, allowing people all over the world to review and improve on it. The most powerful feature of Firefox is the extensions. Extensions are little programs that enhance the browser. They can "extend" the capabilities of the tabs and downloads as well as provide the weather forecast, check your Gmail, block Flash ads, and more!

2) Bloglines. Do you have a list of websites that you visit regularly, but don't update that often? Or maybe they update quite often and you find that you can't keep up? Bloglines can help you keep track of what's updated and when. Many websites (including RobbyB.com) publish RSS or Atom feeds. These feeds are simple, context-based, that programs like Bloglines read and reconstruct the information and present them within a single page; a process known as syndication. Bloglines allows you to track multiple syndication feeds (I have over 100 in my account) and see what websites have new information and review them. Usually, there's no need to each web site to check if there's something new there. (Some sites only publish a portion of their post, requiring you to visit their site to see the rest.) Beyond the millions of personal blogs, ESPN.com, ABCNews.com, The New York Times, and Yahoo! News all have feeds. Basically, keep your eye out for a little orange button with "RSS" or "XML" on it. Bloglines even has a bookmarklet that allows to check a site for any published feeds. (Also: Bloglines integrates into Firefox quite nicely!)

3) Flickr. Not quite enough can be said about Flickr. I now use it for all of my pictures. There are so many great things about the community there, I'll let the team speak for themselves. If you have, or just recently got, a digital camera, and want to publish your pictures to the web, then this is the tool. There's none better. If you're afraid of letting strangers see your pictures, there's plenty of privacy options available. You can invite your family and friends to join, and then share pictures with only them. You can organize your shots into sets, add them to community groups, and publish them to your blog. (Like I do.) And, to top it all of, there's plenty of RSS/XML feeds that you can subscribe to with Bloglines.

There have been a few scares in the past month concerning the secuity of Internet Explorer. The latest recorded keystrokes of log-ins and passwords to popular banking sites - without the user downloading a thing. That was enough for me. Experts agree and recommend to not use IEand switch browsers. One option is to go with Mozilla's Firefox. It's now installed on all of our home computers and will be updated as necessary. There's some great features like tabbed browsing and pop-up blocking. But, there are a few sites that need IE, so there's a handy extension that adds the option to view any page in IE.

When my boss inquired about why his computer was slowing way down with random windows popping-up, I put together some links that he could use to disinfect and then protect his computer. When it happened again to another co-worker, I thought I'd publish it for everyone else. You can do it too, with the help of some free software and computer savvy.

1. First, both situations stemmed from issues associated with variations on the CoolWebSearch (CWS) spy-ware program. There are many variations, but most seems to hog system resources; reducing the computer speed to that of a snail, changes the your home page in IE, and possibly opens pop-ups at random intervals, even when not using the computer. A search led me to Merijn and his CWShredder tool. Download that to remove the vicious spy-ware. It's constantly updated, and highly recommended by my co-workers.
2. Now that CWS is successfully off your computer, or even if it wasn't ever there, it's time to look for some more spy-ware programs. Ones that CWShredder doesn't look for. There are two products to help this. I use both. The first I heard of is Ad-Aware by Lavasoft. It's a free download. Make sure to download the latest reference file, which contains the latest spy-ware information. The second piece of software is Spybot S&D. Each software found spy-ware that the other doesn't, so if you want to really make sure to get everything, use both. Make sure to scan your system regularly: weekly, monthly, whatever you feel is appropriate. If you tend to download less-than-reputable programs, visit similar websites, or just can't keep up with what the kids are downloading, checking more than not is wise.
3. Now that we've got the spy-ware removed, we've got to do something about those viruses. There are many programs to do this, including a free one. AVG anti-virus is a free anti-virus program by Grisoft. It's a great program for the cost. If you feel like you need to pay to get something in return, then I'd recommend Norton Anti-virus. But, you can get rebates to reduce the price.
4. The most important step, only for Windows users, is to visit WindowsUpdate to update your computer. This is extremely important to prevent further exploits of computers.
5. One additional step that may be of interest is a software firewall. ZoneAlarm by Zonelabs is the one I am most familiar with. They have a free version, but try their hardest to pimp the pro version on you. Stand tall and search for the free version at the bottom of the page. This will "hide" your computer from the outside, and prevent unauthorized access of the Internet from the inside. It can take some getting used to, and needs some understanding of what it's asking.

Following these steps are only a basic step in protecting your computer. Practicing safe e-mail by opening attachments that you're expecting. Avoid opening unexpected ones, especially ones from trusted friends, as most virus spread through contact lists, where your e-mail address lies on other's computers. Think about what that subject line is, and know that PayPal will never contact you to update your information. Ever.

Good Luck. Leave a comment with questions and suggestions.