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Saturday, 14 November 2009

Never believe anything in emails

Posted on 14:43 by Unknown
You should never believe anything that is written in an email. The reason is that it is so easy for someone to create a fake message that appears to be from someone else that you simply can't trust them. What you think is a message from your bank, MySpace, Facebook or wherever, could in fact be from a malicious person that is out to steal your username, passwords and anything else they can get you to reveal.


For example, there have been a couple of messages going around the internet recently that appear to be from MySpace and Facebook. The Facebook message says "Because of the measures taken to provide safety to our clients, your password has been changed. You can find your new password in attached document." You can be that the attached document is a virus or something that directs you to a website that infects your PC with a virus or asks for your login details. Don't open it. Just delete the email.

It's obviously fake, even though the sender looks like it is facebook.com. For a start, the greeting is "Hey mail," instead of referring to me by name. Spam and phishing messages never contain your name and the best they can do is to include the first part of your email address before the @. No first name and no last name.

The MySpace message says "Dear MySpace user! Please be informed that you are required to update your MySpace account. Please update your MySpace account by clicking here: http://accounts.myspace.com.iuuuujek.co.uk/msp/index.php?fuseacti..." Dear MySpace User is a dead giveaway, but the URL you have to click on is obviously wrong too. People read from left to right and the URL starts off OK and might look fine, but computers read URLs backwards from right to left and if you do this you will see that it's definitely not MySpace. It's not how URLs start that's important, it's how they end.

So when you get these emails, just delete them. And do the same with any other emails of a similar nature.
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Posted in OS X, security, Windows | No comments

Wednesday, 11 November 2009

Chrome OS - will anyone use it?

Posted on 13:11 by Unknown
It is amazing how much gets written about Google Chrome OS and I've just been reading another big article about it. The strange thing is that the product does not exist, at least not outside of Google's development labs. No-one has seen it, no-one has run it, no-one even knows its features. Yet there are comments and articles around the web and in print that predict the end of Microsoft and Windows.

That's going too far and there is absolutely no justification for saying things like that. For a start, Google Chrome OS is based on Linux and only a small number of people use Linux. It has something like a 2% share of the computer operating system market.

Even if Chrome OS is the best Linux in the world, it won't make much difference. The problem is that people aren't interested in operating systems. Instead, they are passionate about applications and so some people will ask "Does it run Microsoft Office?" It won't and therefore businesses won't use it. Others will ask "Will it run Dragon Age, Call of Duty Modern Warfare 2 (or whatever the latest game is)?" The answer is no and therefore home users won't want it. A few will ask "Will it run Photoshop?" Again, it won't, and there's another group of users that won't want Chrome OS. The only way that it will be successful is if there is some killer application that people absolutely must have, and that isn't available on Windows.

Chrome OS's market share is unlikely to ever reach double figures, after all, look at the Chrome web browser. No matter how good Google claims it is, it still only has about a 3% market share. It is very hard to make people switch from their favourite application.

What is interesting though, is that Google Chrome web browser has been a lot more influential than you'd think by looking at the market share. It's speed and features have made rivals put extra effort into their own browsers and it has raised the standard of all web browsers. It will be the same with Chrome OS. It seems likely that only a few people will use it, but it will probably have a big influence on rival operating systems like Windows, OS X and Linux. Basically, competition is good for the market and is to be welcomed.

If you want to keep up with the latest developments with Chrome web browser and Chrome OS, take a look at The Chromium Blog, Google Chrome Releases, Google Chrome Blog, The Official Google Blog, Google Chrome Fans, and Chrome Story.
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Posted in Google | No comments

Saturday, 7 November 2009

Keep Windows 7 running at top speed

Posted on 01:23 by Unknown
Windows runs quickly and seems the most responsive when it has just been installed or when you buy a new PC. Very slowly over a long period of time it seems to get slower and slower. Why is this?

There are several reasons and one is that as the disk drive fills up it becomes less efficient and files become fragmented. Fortunately, there are some good disk defragmenters that can solve this problem. Windows has it's own disk defragmenter, but if you are looking for a better freebie then try IObit Smart Defrag, it's compatible with Windows 7.

Another reason why Windows slows down is because of updates. Extra features, bug fixes, patches, and service packs are downloaded and installed by Windows update and they add code to the system. The more code there is, the slower Windows runs. Unfortunately, you can't really avoid this and it is a good idea to leave Windows Update turned on for security and stability reasons.

A third reason why Windows slows down is that you install lots of software. Even if you uninstall software you don't need, it's sometimes impossible to remove all traces. As the software builds up on your computer and dlls, registry settings, configuration files and other items are added to the system, Windows gets slower.

Sometimes you can avoid installing software. For example, a device like a digital camera will often work fine if you simply plug it into the USB port of the computer. Windows will detect it and offer to open a window to display the photos on it or download them to the computer. You might not need to install the software that is bundled with the camera. It's the same with other devices - see if they work just by plugging them in and only install software if you have to.

Some software is essential though, such as an office suite or a photo editing program, but even with these you can sometimes get away by not installing anything. Instead of a regular software program, look for what is called a portable app. These are programs that are designed to run from USB flash memory drives (which is why they are called portable), and they don't install anything into Windows. There is a portable version of OpenOffice, Firefox and GIMP, for example. You just unzip the programs to a folder on the disk and that's it. And if you ever decide you don't need a portable app you can just delete the folder. This removes everything and leaves nothing behind. You won't get any uninstall errors or other problems that you occasionally get when removing software.

Sometimes you will find a portable app on a website with the regular app and you just need to look for it. There are also websites that specialise in portable apps, like PortableApps. There are other places, like this article listing 100 portable apps, this Wikipedia article, and Pendriveapps.
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Posted in Vista, Windows, Windows 7, XP | No comments
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