Thursday, November 04, 2004
Doctors Without Borders
The humanitarian group Doctors Without Borders announced Thursday it is stopping its activities in Iraq because of "escalating violence" which endangers staff and other aid workers. The group has been present in Iraq for nearly two years, since December 2002. During the Iraq war, the group said, the "warring parties have repeatedly shown their disrespect for independent humanitarian assistance."
Monday, November 01, 2004
Privacy Protection
I was getting my mail on Saturday and got to talking with Cleda Hampton and Ann Hankins about all the junk mail we get. We starting sharing information about privacy protection and shredding anything with your name on it, we all learned something from each other. Cleda suggested I post what we learned on the LVH Web Page so other people can be more watchful. We need to make it as hard as possible for people to steal our identity:
SHRED THE FOLLOWING:
· Anything with your name and address appearing.
· Pay special attention to the bar code under your name on envelopes. You would be surprised what information that contains and a bar code reader cost less than $100.
· Catalogs – don’t just pull off the back page where you name appears, but look on the order form, you will see your name and address also listed.
· All applications for credit cards: again lots of information imbedded in the bar code.
· Bank and credit card statements
· Cancelled checks
I was getting my mail on Saturday and got to talking with Cleda Hampton and Ann Hankins about all the junk mail we get. We starting sharing information about privacy protection and shredding anything with your name on it, we all learned something from each other. Cleda suggested I post what we learned on the LVH Web Page so other people can be more watchful. We need to make it as hard as possible for people to steal our identity:
SHRED THE FOLLOWING:
· Anything with your name and address appearing.
· Pay special attention to the bar code under your name on envelopes. You would be surprised what information that contains and a bar code reader cost less than $100.
· Catalogs – don’t just pull off the back page where you name appears, but look on the order form, you will see your name and address also listed.
· All applications for credit cards: again lots of information imbedded in the bar code.
· Bank and credit card statements
· Cancelled checks
Spyware and You
Reading the morning news at cnn.com, another great article on Spyware. You can view the article at this link: http://www.cnn.com/2004/TECH/internet/11/01/tangled.in.spyware.one.ap/index.html
Although unlike some of the repair people interviewed for this article the Percentage of my calls has not reached the porportion that theirs has, a majority of the calls I get eventually boil down to spyware. I recommend that you have at least two spyware (adware) detection and removal softwares installed on your computer. Run these programs faithfully at least once a week. Through the year is does add up to consume your valuable time but, as vendors get cleverer or should I say greedier the home and business computer owner is put at more and more at risk. On my website in the "Links and Free Stuff" area I have two of the better Spyware removal softwares listed, Ad-Aware 6 and Spybot Search & Destroy, these are both free programs, just remember before you run the software, as with anti-virus, always update the definitions. Also browse around the page as there is a niffty Pop-Up stopper there along with some free Firewall softwares amongst other stuff. Even some links to other Free software sites. But remember, at these other sites some of the free stuff "they" offer may contain spyware. Always check what you installing, use manual install instead of automatic if you feel comfortable doing so, even so, using manual does not gaurentee the program will do what you tell it to do, as an example I installed Yahoo Instant Messenger just the other day as I needed it for a one time use. I told it three times not to install Yahoo mail but, in the end, there it was. Another ten minutes to un-installed the stuff I did not want. Maybe next post I'll talk about ToolBars...those things from hell. Any questions you have feel free to post here as others may have the same question or email me at mailto:fx1@(remove)bulleri.net , or a quick call at 265-3429. Note; take out the remove part in the email, this is put there as there are those wonderful people that run software scanning the internet harvesting email address so they can spam us.
Although unlike some of the repair people interviewed for this article the Percentage of my calls has not reached the porportion that theirs has, a majority of the calls I get eventually boil down to spyware. I recommend that you have at least two spyware (adware) detection and removal softwares installed on your computer. Run these programs faithfully at least once a week. Through the year is does add up to consume your valuable time but, as vendors get cleverer or should I say greedier the home and business computer owner is put at more and more at risk. On my website in the "Links and Free Stuff" area I have two of the better Spyware removal softwares listed, Ad-Aware 6 and Spybot Search & Destroy, these are both free programs, just remember before you run the software, as with anti-virus, always update the definitions. Also browse around the page as there is a niffty Pop-Up stopper there along with some free Firewall softwares amongst other stuff. Even some links to other Free software sites. But remember, at these other sites some of the free stuff "they" offer may contain spyware. Always check what you installing, use manual install instead of automatic if you feel comfortable doing so, even so, using manual does not gaurentee the program will do what you tell it to do, as an example I installed Yahoo Instant Messenger just the other day as I needed it for a one time use. I told it three times not to install Yahoo mail but, in the end, there it was. Another ten minutes to un-installed the stuff I did not want. Maybe next post I'll talk about ToolBars...those things from hell. Any questions you have feel free to post here as others may have the same question or email me at mailto:fx1@(remove)bulleri.net , or a quick call at 265-3429. Note; take out the remove part in the email, this is put there as there are those wonderful people that run software scanning the internet harvesting email address so they can spam us.
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