Today is Wed August 12.  Yesterday was Tuesday, known in the world of Microsoft Windows computing as "Patch Tuesday".  This was a particularly heavy duty patch Tuesday with patches for many bugs including some really nasty ones.  Might be the time to take a backup and then make sure you are set up to apply updates as they come available.  Here is a link to an article re the above:

https://krebsonsecurity.com/2020/08/microsoft-patch-tuesday-august-2020-edition/ 

If You Own a Computer You Can Help Find a Cure for Covid-19

 Well, another few years have gone by since I last posted here.  I put this up on Facebook and then remembered I actually had a blog, why not revive it with a re-post?

Lets Help Find a Cure

Most of us with children and/or grandchildren know from animated movies that an “autobot transformer” is a fictional being capable of transforming with kind of a folding motion into something powerful and useful. Turns out, our bodies contain billions of life forming molecules known as proteins that do exactly that! A good example is the protein known as hemoglobin which folds itself into one form to capture oxygen in the lungs and folds to a different shape to deposit the oxygen in your muscles. Who knew??? Transformers in your blood, tell your grandkids, they’ll love it.
Not all proteins help us. A virus consists of genetic code surrounded by a coat of protein. These proteins will fold themselves into shapes that make it possible for the virus to attach and break into our living cells. Once there, they force the cell to produce virus copies. Scientists are attempting to understand what vulnerability might be exposed in the virus by watching that protein folding process step by step. If they can find that vulnerable spot, next step is to design a drug that can exploit it and kill the virus. While watching this folding process in real life and real time is sometimes possible, it can be modeled on computers and therefore controlled on computers BUT doing so requires ENORMOUS computing power. We are talking supercomputer power….. the largest supercomputers we can find today make this possible. The problem, of course, is $$$$$. The solution? You. And no, you don’t have to reach for your wallet.

Click here: https://www.youtube.com/watch…
for an 8 minute video introduction to the topic.

Anyone reading this has access to a computer. That computer is rarely used to its full capacity. Using the right software it is possible to safely donate time on your computer to help work on this problem. Your computer, be it a Windows machine or a Mac, can run the modeling software “in the background” at the lowest priority on the machine. Any time you do anything else it just waits. Typical computer users use only a tiny fraction of the computers “brainpower” leaving lots of time to work on a protean folding model. I have been running one of these services, known as “FAH” or “Folding at Home” for some fifteen years trouble free. My desktop Mac runs 24 x 7 x 365 for this purpose. You don’t have to; you could just set it up to run when you are using the computer but really there isn’t much cost involved in running it all the time. FAH is concentrating right now most heavily on ways to disable the Corona virus as is the other grid computing service, Rosetta.

You can find the software to download for “Folding at Home” by clicking https://foldingathome.org/

If you decide to support Rosetta you should know that Rosetta is one of several distributed computing projects supported by the "Berkeley Open Infrastructure for Network Computing" otherwise known as BOINC. You will be downloading the software necessary to communicate via BOINC and then choosing "Rosetta" as the project you want to support.

You can find a video showing how to do that on a Windows machine by clicking https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=LJfRtRQ5SBA

You can find a video showing how to do that on a Mac OS machine by clicking https://www.google.com/search…

You can find a written article describing “Folding at Home” by clicking https://www.hpcwire.com/…/foldinghome-turns-its-massive-cr…/

You can find an article describing “Rosetta@Home” by clicking https://www.hpcwire.com/…/rosettahome-rallies-a-legion-of-…/

If you have any doubts or questions drop me an email or add a comment question here and I will do my best to help. Lets fold em!!

Well, it's been a few years since I have posted anything here.  Since I have once again started the CRP Computer Club I thought it might be useful to begin posting again.  Here goes:

If you are using Chrome as your browser, here is some good news.

Although Chrome already includes some protection against sites that attempt to snare you with Phishing "lures", Microsoft's protection in their browser, known as "Edge" is better, however it has been available only in Microsoft's two browsers - Edge and Internet Explorer.

 Microsoft has now made that level of protection available to folks using Google's Chrome browser.  It will work on the Chrome browser running on Windows and on Apple's Mac OS.  There is a good article re same located at microsoft-releases-windows-defender-browser-protection-extension-chrome. 

To install this protection in your Chrome browser, use your Chrome browser to go to 

https://chrome.google.com/webstore/category/extensions   

and in the search box at the top left (see "search the store") type in "Windows defender" (no quotes} then see "Windows Defender Browser Protection" and click on "Add to Chrome".

Excellent Computer Security Article

I have mentioned Leo Notenboom in other entries on this blog.  He is far and away the best Windows technical writer for the non technical reader.  He just published an excellent article on computer security. Here is the Link:

http://ask-leo.com/internet_safety_8_steps_to_keeping_your_computer_safe_on_the_internet.html?awt_l=7IuUV&awt_m=J7iWRAUzKZdfbL

Safe Computing on a Mac - Waccamaw Mac Club Computer Safety Presentation

Friday, November 2, 2012 I will be doing a presentation entitled "Safe Computing on a Mac" at a meeting of the Waccamaw Mac club.  The club meets under the auspices of the Osher Lifelong Learning Institute hosted by Coastal Carolina University in their Litchfield SC location at 160 Willbrook Blvd.  I will be using a Powerpoint presentation which contains many hyperlinks to pertinent information on the Internet.

I have uploaded the presentation to Slideshare.  Here is a link to the presentation:

http://www.slideshare.net/JimWhite/computer-safety-on-a-mac

NOTE: For the hyperlinks to work, you must be in "full screen" mode while looking at the slides.  To put the slideshow into "full screen" mode, look at the bottom of the first slide.  You will see a gray horizontal bar with left and right arrowheads on it.  At the far right of that bar are four arrows in a square indicating that if you click here it will make the window larger.  Left clicking it will put you in full screen mode.  Once you are in full screen mode, you can use the right and left arrow keys on your keyboard to go forward and backward through the presentation.

Computer Safety Class Socastee Library 10/27/2012

For those who attended (and anyone else who might be interested) here is a link to the Powerpoint presentation.  Please note that there are plenty of hyperlinks on the slides that will take you, when you click on them, to additional information on the topic.

NOTE: For the hyperlinks to work, you must be in "full screen" mode while looking at the slides.  To put the slideshow into "full screen" mode, look at the bottom of the first slide.  You will see a gray horizontal bar with left and right arrowheads on it.  At the far right of that bar are four arrows in a square indicating that if you click here it will make the window larger.  Left clicking it will put you in full screen mode.  Once you are in full screen mode, you can use the right and left arrow keys on your keyboard to go forward and backward through the presentation.

Here is the link to the slides.  Click on it:   Computer Safety

Apple's New Offerings

Wow!  A fantastic bundle of new products!  Here they are in brief:

1. A new generation of iMacs - an "all in one" desktop computer just 5mm (two tenths of an inch) at the edge with an incredible glare reduced high definition screen, see http://www.apple.com/imac/design/

2. The iPad mini - a new (additional) size with a 7.9 inch display that you can hold in one hand.  Runs all the apps that the current size runs but is less expensive and more convenient, see http://www.apple.com/ipad-mini/overview/

3. The fourth generation of the standard size iPad, still with a retina display but now twice as fast, see http://www.apple.com/ipad/overview/

4. A new 13" Retina display MacBook Pro - see http://www.apple.com/mac/

Neat Things You Can Do On the Internet Updated

For the folks that were in our Internet class yesterday at the Socastee Library, you will remember that the slide presentation had lots of broken links in it.  My apologies, but they are now fixed.  You can either click on the link in my original post or for convenience, I'll post it again here:

http://www.slideshare.net/JimWhite/neat-useful-things-to-do-on-the-internet

Again, sorry for the inconvenience.

I would appreciate it if you would leave a comment to let me know you have been here.  You can do so be clicking on the word "Comments" to the right of my name at the very bottom of this post.  You could also ask me questions there about the class or the slides or anything on the slides and I will try to answer you in a following comment.

Neat Things You Can Do On the Internet

On 3/22/2012 Shirley and I will be teaching a new class at the Socastee Library in Horry County SC.  The title of the class is "Neat Things You Can Do On the Internet".  I have uploaded the PowerPoint presentation for the class to Slideshare.  You can find it at

http://www.slideshare.net/JimWhite/neat-useful-things-to-do-on-the-internet

Many folks in our (ahem...) somewhat older generation wonder how we can spend as much time online as we do.  In a two hour trek driving back from Charleston a few weeks ago we began brainstorming a list of all the activities we engage in online and I "wrote" them down on my iPhone as Shirley was driving.  We were amazed at the size and scope of the list and decided to turn it into a class that would answer the question and give folks the opportunity to learn how we do what we do.  I created the PowerPoint presentation to use in the class and included many many hyperlinks that will take you to the sites we use.  95% of them are sites we have directly used ourselves, the other 5% are related to the same topics.

Following is a list of all the topics,  Most have multiple sub topics in the slideshow where all have multiple hyperlinks.

Category/Slide Title

Reference Sites

Find Entertainment/Buy Tickets

Real Estate Research

Health Research

Household Hints Decorating Ideas Appliance Repair

Read Magazines & Newspapers

Download and Read Books for Free

Horry County Online Services

Shop for New or Used Car

Travel (Air, Rail, Bus, Cruise)

Video - Search for and Play Video Clips on Youtube

Podcasts (Internet Radio) Find and Play or Download

Research Gardening Issues

Education on All Levels

Hunt & Apply For a Job

Shop and Buy Used Items

Shop for New Goods

Find a Church

Communicate (text, voice and video)

Share Pictures With Friends and Relatives

Weather for Anywhere on Demand

Track Packages from UPS, FedEx, USPS

Social Media

Community Involvement

News on Demand

Find Lost $Money$

Apple, I Expected Better

Well, my second HP laptop died in two years. The one before that did the same. So, I decided it was time to exit the windows world (at least partly) and buy my first Mac. I ordered my 27" iMac on Aug 5th, the day after my birthday, because that was the start of South Carolina's three day sales tax holiday. On the 16th of August, via Federal Express, my new machine arrived. I haven't been more excited over new hardware in years. I set up (which amounted to nothing more than unpacking it and plugging it in) and powered it up. Nothing. Oh, not quite nothing. I did get a screen and a half of desperate error messages the first two times I tried and after that I got a white screen with Apples little beach ball spinning round and round forever. Recognizing a critical problem, I called Apple support. This was the only good part of the experience. Although the first tech I spoke to could not diagnose the problem, after 10 minutes or so he passed me on to second level support. This tech had me do a few more diagnostic tricks then told me a critical part of the operating system was damaged or missing. He then instructed me in setting up a download of the entire operating system (OS/X Lion). We both hung up and about 3 and a half hours later the 4GB download was finished and installed and I was up and running.

What I need to point out is THIS MACHINE WAS NEVER BOOTED UP AT THE FACTORY. THEY SHIPPED IT WITHOUT EVEN THIS RUDIMENTARY QUALITY CONTROL CHECK!

OK, so now I was up and running. As a learning exercise in this new (for me) Mac world, I decided to make an iMovie of the picture and video clips I had taken on my iPhone at the 2011 Old Time Fiddlers Convention in Galax Virginia a few days earlier. I then intended to burn a movie DVD and give it to my Cousin, who had also attended the festivities. Working a bit here and a bit there I started to learn my way around the new operating system and iMovie and finally got to where I thought I had a worthwhile movie to share. Soooo..... in iMovie, I clicked on Share, then clicked on iDVD which I understood was the software that would burn my new movie on DVD. iDVD was one of the standard pieces of software included in iLife, a package that came standard on my machine. SUPRISE!! Apple decided, with NO NOTICE to stop distributing iDVD with iLife. It's still in the menu on iPhoto but no longer included in iLife. As far as I'm concerned this is just plain FRAUD. How can they change what is included in a package without changing the name of the package or at least giving some notice. I have called Apple and left a message with the tech who helped me on the first problem and have sent them a complaint through their web comment system. Let's see what happens.

Computer Safety Class + Video Skype Chats May Include Ads

Hi All -
First, for those who were in our computer safety class at the Socastee Library yesterday and for anyone else who might be interested, here is the link I promised you to an online version of my slides:

Computer safety presentation

Second item: As you may already know, Microsoft is in the process of buying Skype. We have used video chat on Skype for a long time to stay in touch with family and friends around the country and the world. According to Bloomberg Business Week (May 16-22, 2011), "plans have been put in place to flank Skype video chats with advertisements". My prediction is that, since Microsoft already owns voice recognition software that works quite well, we can expect that in the future the Skype software running on our computers will listen to our conversations and use what it hears to choose the ads that begin to show on the border of your Skype window. You heard it here first!

Removing Personal Information Before Donating or Gifting Your PC

Several friends have recently told me they want to donate or gift an old PC but want to be sure they have removed personal data before doing so. Most of them realize that if they somehow remove ALL data from their hard drive the machine is totally unusable until someone reinstalls some version of an operating system. Many folks have no idea how to do this and don't remember, years after purchase, where they put the CDs with the operating system on them or if they ever got those CDs when they bought the machine. Here is a typical question on the topic that I just received in an email from a good friend who wants to donate his old machine to a charity:

"Jim,

If I reformat my C drive on my old computer I assume that everything is lost including the operating system. That means someone needs to reload my Windows XP, right?? Is there any freeware.... that allows one to “shred a file” so that it can’t be easily read? Also, if I decide to format, can/should I use the “quick format” option?"

Rather than answer in a one-on-one email I thought I'd share the information in this blog post.

General Source of Info on Tech Topics

There is a techie, Leo Notenboom, who keeps a website and blog called Ask Leo ( http://ask-leo.com/ ) where he takes computer related tech questions and answers them for the layman. I read him and refer many people to him and have never read a bad piece of advice from him. Go to that link and in the search box provided enter the words "erase hard drive give away" (without the quotes). The article I want you to read will be the first one listed. it's title is "How Should I Erase My Hard Drive Before I Give it Away?". Note that the title of the first article does not have the word "comments" after it. This means it was written by Leo, not by one of his readers who left a comment. I trust the articles written by Leo. As for comments by others, you're on your own.

In the article, Leo recommends two approaches, one for the paranoid (drill holes in the hard drive) and one for the not-so-paranoid (reformat the hard drive PROPERLY) and goes on to explain what he means by properly. He then goes on to point out that

1. drilling holes is the ultimate solution but leaves the computer unusable
2. reformatting isn't a great solution for the paranoid individual because at some expense data might still be recoverable

so how does the paranoid individual remove data more effectively than multiple unconditional reformats while not physically destroying the hard drive? One good approach is with a free software tool called "Darik's Boot and Nuke" which you can download at WWW.dban.org/download. Note - this is for the power user, not the novice. You will need to know how to burn the downloaded file to a CD (for help see http://windows.microsoft.com/en-US/windows7/Burn-a-CD-or-DVD-from-an-ISO-file and how to change the boot sequence of your machine so it will try to boot from the CD drive before it tries to boot from the hard drive (for help see http://pcsupport.about.com/od/fixtheproblem/ss/bootorderchange.htm

If you are less paranoid and want to leave your operating system on the disk as is but just want to effectively delete your own personal files, you might just drag and drop them into the trash and then empty the trash but you probably already realize that this just removes the entry for the file from the hard drives file index (the directory) leaving the file itself untouched. To actually destroy the file itself you might consider the free program known as Eraser which you can find at http://eraser.heidi.ie/index.php For example, if all the files you want to erase are in "My Documents" you're in good shape.

I hope this helps. Please leave comments here if you have questions and/or you use any of these suggestions.

If you would like to be notified when I add new material to this blog, scroll to the top and click on the "Follow" button.



An Effective and Free Tool for Wiping Your Hard Drive

Darik's "Boot and Nuke" is a free

An End to Passwords

It can't come too soon for me! I've been dreaming up / approving / disapproving / cursing at new password schemes since the 1970's when the company I worked for (a property/casualty insurance giant) formed a new department under me called "I/T Staff Services" that included, for the first time, computer security. Until then there were no passwords and our user IDs were our last names. My newly appointed security chief recommended to me that we create user IDs that could indicate what variety of user you were (making it possible to attach your user ID to certain rights and privileges) and that we make passwords mandatory, with standardized composition, and have them expire every six months.

Over the years I've watched password standards get more and more complex. No longer the creator of standards, like most of humanity I am on the receiving end. Each day one or more of my many online accounts informs me that my password has to be longer, more complex, and attached to a series of security questions and actions. All this to create a password that, in a year or so, can be broken by a 12 year old kid using free software on his/her game playing computer.

FINALLY the solution may be in sight! Biometrics, a set of technologies aimed at identifying humans based on their unique physiological and/or behavioral attributes has been long on promise and short on delivery for many years with the exception of expensive military installations and phony television scripts. At last a major player, Apple, may be poised to bring this "ease of use" technology to the masses. Check out the article in Computerworld here.

"Robot Computers" - You May Have One

Robot computers - bots for short - are simply garden variety home or business PCs that have been infected by malicious software that takes them over, on a command from the "bad guys", and directs them to do whatever the bad guys want them to do.   Two activities are most likely: 1. they turn your PC into a spam engine, sending advertisements (frequently in your name) to those in your address book and then to thousands of others.  In case you miss the point, let me give you a clear example:  your friends and neighbors receive eMail from you advertising medications to make the male Penis larger.   2. they use your machine to extort money from online companies.  If a given company does not give in to their demand for money, they attack the company's website with their bot army.  Your computer is one of the soldiers in the bot army.

Many people ask how the malicious software gets on their computer.  Typically a piece of malicious software known as a "Trojan" (from the story of the Trojan Horse) is first.  Trojan software typically gets into your computer because you either invite it in or go to some place that provides it.  Here are some common scenarios:

1.  You get an interesting piece of eMail from a trusted source (whose PC is already infected) that contains a hyperlink.  You click on it and it takes you to a web site that takes advantage of a bug (programming error) in your browser (Internet Explorer for example) that lets it download and run software.  The software it downloads is a Trojan which invites it's owners to download additional software anytime they choose. This is usually referred to as a "drive by" attack since it attacks you when all you were doing was visiting their web site.  Your computer would be less vulnerable (but not impervious) to this kind of attack if you are running Windows Update automatically.  To set this up, click on Start, All Programs, Windows Update.

2. Pop up link:  you are happily surfing the web when suddenly, from an infected web site, a popup window appears saying something like "BEWARE your computer is infected with a virus (actually it is not. yet.). "click here" the window says and we will download antivirus software that will clean it out.  You click and down comes the fake "antivirus" software which is in fact, a Trojan that installs itself and invites its creator to download through it any other software desired.

GUESS WHAT!   a major bad guy, owner of a "bot net" consisting of over 30 MILLION PCs has been busted by the police in Holland.  Here is a link to an article in Computerworld (an Information Technology trade newspaper): http://www.computerworlduk.com/in-depth/security/3246108/dutch-police-may-have-broken-the-law-taking-down-bredolab-botnet/

As you can see from the article, the Netherlands police are attempting to warn the owners of those 30 million PCs that their machines have been infected.  Problem is, many folks will ignore the warning, assuming it is bogus.  IT IS NOT!  Follow this link

http://teamhightechcrime.nationale-recherche.nl/nl_infected.php

to see what the warning looks like. If you have seen this on your compter, YOU ARE INFECTED!  What you are infected with is a Trojan.  Of course, the Trojan just provides an entry for the bad guys into your computer.  You can't know WHAT kind of software they have downloaded through the trojan into your PC.  It could be a spam engine, an extortion soldier, a key logger tracking and reporting everything you type from your keyboard, etc etc.  All the Netherlands police can do is tell you that you are infected with something.  You need to scan your computer or have it scanned by a professional.  Believe the warning, it is real.

US government throwing free speech under the bus - Computerworld Blogs

When I was in college, I and six of my friends were thrown out because the administration caught wind of the fact that we were organizing a demonstration on campus where we would advocate for a number of things including the right to have, on campus, political, religious and social clubs. I know first hand what free speech means and how those in power in any institution would suppress it if they could. Lucky for the seven of us, a good lawyer got us back in within a week. Here are some good current examples of the suppression of free speech in this country. I don't know if we will all be so lucky this time:

US government throwing free speech under the bus - Computerworld Blogs

Information at Your Fingertips - WolframAlpha

Some time ago I (and many others) discovered a new kind of information site on the web, WWW.WolframAlpha.com. The function of this site was difficult to describe. It seemed to fit in the same category as indexed information like Wikipedia but it was much more.

Today I (and no doubt millions of others) received an eMail from the WolframAlpha team announcing the availability on their site of WolframAlpha "Widgets". Widgets, in the world of computer programmers are tiny programs that can either stand on their own or be incorporated easily into existing programs.

After playing with Widgets already existing on WolframAlpha for a while and building two WolframAlpha widgets of my own I finally understand and can explain the function provided by the WolframAlpha website and by it's new Widgets. Any data administrator and most programmers understand the difference between stored data and derived data. Most would imply the difference by calling the "derived" variety "information" rather than data. The implication here is that there is some added value to the information over and above the data actually stored in a database or dictionary or encyclopedia. The value added stems from manipulation of the stored data according to programmed rules and/or relationships implied by the structure of the database itself. In simpler terms, it is data plus intelligence.

Once you have either located a widget you like or have built one yourself, Wolfram makes it easy to "lift" the code and include it in your own blog or website. I created two Widgets:

this one shows you the effect of inflation on the value of the US dollar:
RE TYPE THE YEAR TO ONE OF YOUR CHOICE


while this one allows you to locate (on a map and/or globe) where a particular country, state, city, lake, mountain etc is:


Give them a try and see how they work.

As you can see I included the two widgets right in this blog entry. I had to work a very little bit harder to figure out how to include the widgets in the text of this single entry instead of where my blogger template was set up but it turned out to be as simple as a cut and paste.

In the five or so hours I have been playing with this (on and off) 42 more gadgets have been created, stored and indexed on WolframAlpha by people all over the world. Any of them can be incorporated in a website or blog by anyone else, as I have done here with my own creations. This is Web 2.0 at its creative best!

Netflix Terms of Conditions

I just went to the Netflix site to order a new DVD to watch and discovered a notice that I once again had to review and agree to their terms of conditions. Well, I said, if they have changed at least they are letting me know. I then took a look at them - 14 PAGES of legalese. Incredible! Don't tell me it doesn't make any difference because no one reads them - that is a dangerous habit to get into. Red Box is looking really good to me - just drop in your cash when and only when you want to watch something, make your pick and your done - no need to feel you need a team of lawyers.

Introduction to the Internet Class

Today, Friday Feb 12th 2010, Shirley and I will be teaching the Intro to the Internet class at the Socastee SC public library. Slides for the class can be found by clicking here or entering

http://www.slideshare.net/JimWhite/301-intro-to-internet

into your browser's address window and left clicking.

The slides contain many hyperlinks to other resources, including some excellent Youtube entries on the subject. If you check out the presentation, or if you attend the class, I would appreciate it if you would leave comments, suggestions for improvements, etc by clicking on the word comments directly below this post.

Thanks!
Jim White

Apple's Time Capsule Cooks Itself Dead

Apple has a fantastic, integrated, hands off software/hardware solution for backup. The software is called Time Machine and it is amazingly simple to use with a beautiful user interface. The hardware Apple sells to store the backups on is called Time Capsule. Today I bought my wife a Time Capsule to serve as backup storage for her MacBook. I didn't do quite enough research before buying. I have discovered a web site called http://timecapsuledead.org/ where you will find a database of thousands of users whose Time Capsules have died from overheating after an average of 18 months. Poor design for heat removal seems to be the problem. In a forum located here on Apple's site you will find an incredible history of frustrated users discussing the death of their units. Apple so far has refused to acknowledge the problem.

Here is a link to the product page on Apple's web site where they say "you never have to worry about backing up again" and "Its massive 1TB or 2TB server-grade hard drive". Server grade? I don't think so. I ran a data center that had REAL server grade hardware and this stuff would be laughed out of the room. Come on Apple, acknowledge the problem and FIX IT!

We bought our unit at Best Buy to be shipped directly to our house. I won't even take it out of the packaging - I'm returning it to Best Buy as soon as it arrives.

Online Banking Red Flag

To date, fraudulent online withdrawals from customers bank accounts have almost always been "made good" by the bank. The bank would try to recover the money but, if it could not, the bank would "make the customer whole", writing off the loss as a cost of doing business.

It looks like that might be changing. Read this article, then be sure to follow it up in the news. If the bank wins, you may be in real danger using online banking.

Wikis, Blogs and Podcasts: Part One of Web 2.0 Presentation

Well, the presentation of Part One at the Socastee library had to be canceled due to some glitches in the library computer infrastructure. I/T folks are now hard at work fixing the problem and the class will be rescheduled. In the meantime I will be giving the same presentation at the September 1 meeting of the Cypress River Plantation Computer Users Club, open to residents and property owners and their friends. Part one covers Wikis, Blogs and Podcasts, shows you what they are, how they can be useful, and, in the case of Wikis and Blogs, how to create and maintain your own at no expense. You can find the slides for the presentation here. There are many links on the slides, just run the mouse around on each slide to find them.

Web 2.0 The Art of the Internet Possible

Well, I've been teaching computer related classes at Socastee Library for some time now, all of which have been classes already documented by library staff. Now I have developed one of my own, titled Web 2.0 - The Art of the Internet Possible. I intend to include blogs, podcasts. Wikis, social networks, folksonomies, and Mashups but decided to break it into parts one and two after doing the first three items in that list. I am sure that blogs, podcasts and Wikis will take us beyond the supposed one hour of a class. I will include the other three in a different class and give it later this year. I have already put part on up on Slideshare. You can find it on the web at http://www.slideshare.net/JimWhite/web-20-the-art-of-the-internet-possible-1856299

I did a "Computers 102 - Files and Folders" class yesterday at the library. I thought it went pretty well, got some nice comments. I didn't create a Powerpoint presentation for it because it was more of a hands on class. The Web 2.0 will be more lecture plus watch the presentation, not a lot of hands on. I have included lots of hyperlinks in the presentation to other sites on the web, including a link to a great film clip that beautifully explains wikis. I will be demoing the wiki I created to help our family plan our December drip.

AVG Antivirus Free Download Site

In the class I taught yesterday at the Socastee SC Public Library I mentioned that AVG offers a free version of their excellent antivirus software but didn't have the correct link available where it can be downloaded. I promised to locate that and put it up on my blog, so here it is:

http://free.avg.com/download-avg-anti-virus-free-edition?cmpid=fr_bn_free_670

Click on the hyperlink above and it should take you there. If you are remembering what I taught you, you can confirm, before you click, that you are actually going to that web address by looking at the very bottom left of your browser window as you hover the mouse over top of the link.

After clicking on the link and going to the download page you will see three columns where AVG compares their free software with two of their for pay packages. The choice, obviously, is yours. To download the free antivirus, scroll down to the bottom of the columns and click DOWNLOAD under the "free for private use only" column. After downloading you will either have to choose SAVE and then run what you saved or choose RUN rather than save. This will install software.

Remember, if you have any questions you can use the comments link at the bottom of this blog entry. I try to look at it at least once a day and will answer to the best of my ability. Check back within a day to see my answer.

Online Security

On June 24th 2009 at 6:00 p.m. I will be teaching a class in the Socastee Public Library on Online Security. Here is a link to the presentation:

http://www.slideshare.net/JimWhite/socastee-library-online-security

There are hyperlinks throughout the presentation. Left clicking on them will take you to additional information, the back arrow at the top left of your browser window will bring you back to the presentation.

Sorry for the very basic usage info, I'm trying to make this useful for all users.

Maintaining Your PC

My wife and I volunteer teach some computer classes in the Socastee Public Library near Myrtle Beach, South Carolina. Tomorrow, June 16th 2009, I will be teaching "Maintaining Your PC". I have created a Powerpoint presentation to accompany the course and have put the presentation up on the Internet on WWW.Slideshare.Net. You can find the presentation by going to Slideshare's home page at WWW.Slideshare.Net and doing a search using the presentation title OR you can go directly to the presentation by clicking here.

There are many hyperlinks in the presentation. They will take you to various articles or Youtube clips that illustrate points in the presentation. Recently Slideshare has made some changes so that the hyperlinks work even if you are not in full screen mode but if you have trouble, try switching to full screen mode by clicking the word full at the bottom right of the presentation image.

I hope you find the presentation useful. Feel free to use it yourself either from Slideshare or downloading it to your own PC.