CyberCoyote — December 17, 2009

NEWS and NOTES
When do we meet again?

We will meet again when we're safely out of the aughts — on January 7, 2010. You should be getting some word about the topic before then.There was not much enthuiasim for meeting on Christmas or New Year's eves. ;-)

Identity theft presentation

Sam Tardio and Dave Ponzetti presented a clear picture of the monetary loss, life disruption and other grief that can come from Identity Theft. If you were at the meeting Thursday, you've probably started thinking about taking steps to protect yourself. I know I am. Sam and Dave represent Kroll Identity Theft Shield and Live Events Legal Plan from Pre-Paid Legal Services. [continue reading]

ANNOUNCEMENT
It's time to simplify my world

OK, I admit it. I no longer have the energy to keep up our website the way I'd like to. But rather than throwing in the towel, I'm moving on with a new HTCC blog. It will take less energy to maintain than the website does.

Writing this new blog will be rewarding for me, and I hope you'll find it useful. CyberCoyote will continue as a major facet of the blog, and I'll expand on selected topics in additional posts. The structure this blog's framework provides will help me keep content findable with less work.

There won't be as much content in the blog as on the website. And, as entries age, they'll form more of a chronology than an up-to-date resource. There's plenty of good information on any topic available online anyway — just ask Google.

Changes

The "legacy" (old) website will remain where it is — it just won't be as up-to-date as it was. The CyberCoyote mailing list will also remain active. The old blog will go silent and eventually disappear. You'll need to subscribe to the new web feed for the HTCC blog if you were getting your CyberCoyote notices via the old HTCC Episodic web feed.

Well that's it. I've been thinking about, and preparing for this change for about a year. I have also been mirroring CyberCoyote issues in the new blog. You can see them there under the "News" category.

TIPS and TOPICS
Download your docs

If you use Google Docs, How-to Geek has a nice pictorial guide on how to download them. Why? It's the best way to back them up. You can also convert them to other formats in the process. Google has recently added the capability to download entire folders using a similar process.

Vision care for your optical drive

Unless you have a vertical CD/DVD player/burner, it was flawed from the start by a design dilemma — the disc needs to be loaded face down, and that leaves the optics staring straight up.

Dust and grime lands on the optical elements and sticks there (static charges also attracts particles in vertical as well as horizontal drives). Eventually it's like cataracts. The optical head can't see what it's doing, and the Laser no longer heats the dye enough to get a good "burn". You start making drink coasters instead of good CD/DVDs.

Ed Bott has written about a simple fix for CD/DVD burning problems.

Read it later

Using the Internet efficiently is not always easy. No matter what you start off do, there are countless things that jump out to distract you.

I've tried many ways to sequester disrupters so that I can get back to them instead of chasing them at the moment. Bookmarks/Favorites are one quick way, but mixing new, probably-temporary ones with permanent ones makes a mess. Keeping notes is another way, but that is a distraction itself. Those are just two of many ways that don't always work well for me.

Evidently I'm not the only one who suffers from attention-diversion conflict. I've seen lots of other solutions over the years and tried many of them. The Read it Later Firefox add-on has turned out to be one of the best.

Saving something with Read it Later is virtually effortless. It's easy to get back to items you've saved and check them off when you've finished. You can even organize your interests with tagging. It's easy to give it a try. :-)

SECURITY
My harrowing escape from an evil website

Turning an old joke about pilots and ground loops into one about scareware: "There are two kinds of web surfers — those who have run into scareware, and those who will." Well, I ran into a tenacious specimen a couple of days ago.

It all started when I ran into a nest of Santas. I thought I'd share them with you. Then when my situation abruptly changed. Obviously, I've lived to tell about it, and you might want to be prepared to escape too. [read it all]

ODDS and ENDS
Talk about touch screens

I'm not sure if the world is ready for this printer, but if you want one, go here.

Absolutely mind-juggling

Three, four and five ball juggling.

That's all, folks.