The annual  TED conference now brings together the world's most fascinating thinkers and doers, who are challenged to give the talk of their lives (in 18 minutes).

This site makes the best talks and performances from TED available to the public, for free. More than 200 talks from our archive are now available, with more added each week. It really is a great site.

I don't know why I am talking about snow, but I found this very interesting. Click Here for more information on Snow Rollers

 Today is the 88th anniversary of the greatest snowfall reported in one day in the U.S. An official National Weather Service (then called the U.S. Weather Bureau) cooperative station at a water supply reservoir (Silver Lake) in the mountains a few miles WNW from Boulder, Colorado received over 90" of snow in just over 30 hours -- 76" of which likely fell in the official 24-hour observation day for April 15, 1921. Poeple often think that record snowfall this far from an ocean or other large body of water is impossible, but anyone who has lived along the eastern slopes of the Rocky Mountains or Black Hills of South Dakota, know that amazing storms can happen during the spring.

Nolan Doesken

Colorado State University

First of all, I am embarrassed that I haven't posted for over a month. So, here goes. Below is a hand out that I gave at a talk to the Mondamin Library Computer Class last night on omputer security. I had a great time and talked for over an hour to eager learners. I love to help people realize the potential of their computers and the information that the internet holds.

Mondamin Library Computer Class

04-07-09

 

 

DO NOT EVER put personal information on the web unless the address bar has

https://

 

DO NOT EVER give personal information to anyone that calls you or e-mails you

Credit card companies, bank, police etc

if you need to verify information, get the phone number from your statement  or the phone book and call them back.

 

DO NOT use the preview pane of your e-mail client

 

DO NOT open e-mails or attachments or click on hyperlinks in e-mails from people that you do not know.

 

Have your Windows update automatically and do all optional Windows updates

 

Have a trusted person wipe the hard drive of your old computer

 

BACKUP,BACKUP,BACKUP any files that you cannot recreate

 

Website to opt out of credit card mail offers for 5 years

http://www.optoutprescreen.com/

 

Website to put 3 telephone numbers of the telemarketer DO NOT CALL LIST

http://www.donotcall.gov/

 

CCleaner – run weekly

is a freeware system optimization, privacy and cleaning tool. It removes unused files from your system - allowing Windows to run faster and freeing up valuable hard disk space. It also cleans traces of your online activities such as your Internet history. Additionally it contains a fully featured registry cleaner. But the best part is that it's fast and contains NO Spyware or Adware!

http://www.ccleaner.com/

 

Spybot Search & Destroy – run weekly

Removes spyware and adware from your computer that can slow down your machine

http://www.safer-networking.org/index2.html

 

Auslogics disk defrag – run weekly

Disk fragmentation leads to system slowdowns, PC crashes, slow startups and shutdowns. Auslogics Disk Defrag is designed for fast optimization of modern hard disks.

http://www.auslogics.com/en/software/disk-defrag/download

 

AVG Anti-Virus Free Edition 8.5

Basic antivirus and antispyware protection for Windows available to download for free. Limited features, no support, for private and non-commercial use only.

http://free.avg.com/download?prd=afe

 

Open Office

OpenOffice.org 3 is the leading open-source office software suite for word processing, spreadsheets, presentations, graphics, databases and more. It is available in many languages and works on all common computers. It stores all your data in an international open standard format and can also read and write files from other common office software packages. It can be downloaded and used completely free of charge for any purpose.

http://www.openoffice.org/

 

 

 

 KeePass
Today you need to remember many passwords. You need a password for the Windows network logon, your e-mail account, your homepage's FTP password, online passwords (like website member account), etc. etc. etc. The list is endless. Also, you should use different passwords for each account. Because if you use only one password everywhere and someone gets this password you have a problem... A serious problem. The thief would have access to your e-mail account, homepage, etc. Unimaginable.

KeePass is a free open source password manager, which helps you to manage your passwords in a secure way. You can put all your passwords in one database, which is locked with one master key or a key file. So you only have to remember one single master password or select the key file to unlock the whole database.

http://keepass.info/

 

Snapfiles – Free trusted software

I know that you can Google and find most any software that you need, BUT is the site safe to download from? Snap files is that safe site and has 100’s of free programs to download.

http://www.snapfiles.com/freeware/

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

This PC Tool Kit from Technibble.com might be for our geekier readers, but some of the tools can be used by anybody. It will fit on a flash drive and has all sorts of network tools & malware removal tools and other free programs for PC repair. ...........Now that I went to put the link up for the tool kit, I see that they are no longer distributing it. If you want one, let me know and I will send you a copy of mine. If you work with computers at all, it will be a very handy thing to have.

This is a Microsoft program that updates usually once a month (and you are doing your MS updates!!!!!) It has a list of malicious programs that when it downloads from MS it runs and removes from your computer. It runs in the backround and you don't ever see it. I discovered in the Security Now podcast that you can run the MSRT in a full scan by clicking on the START button and clicking on RUN and typing MRT. It will bring up a UI (user interface) and you can chose full scan. It will take a few hours. One more protection for your machine. Happy Friday the 13th !!!

Here is your "easy button" free app for the day. Jott.com is a voice to text reminder and memo system. You sign up for the free service and then call the Jott phone number and dictate a reminder when you want a  text message sent to your cell phone. The service changes the voice message to text and delivers it at the time you specify. Very easy and handy for those of us that suffer from CRS syndrome. The paid version will also convert voice to text messages to send to someone else, and also will put a reminder in your Google Calendar or Remember the Milk  or post to Twitter and Facebook.

Just in case any of you need it and can't find it here is a 2009 calendar template from Mcrosoft. They have many more of them here

I was looking for a way to track Lindsey's flight yesterday when she went home to Texas (snif snif) and I found this site. The picture above is all the current flights in and around the US. I found it a fascinating graphic. The site is called FlightAware, and if you know the airline and flight number it will give you information and stats on any current flight, and also any weather problems that may be out there.

It was a rather low key Christmas for the Liljedahl house. Just Ryan was home today, but we will have our family Christmas on New Years Eve. Complete with Primerib and all the fixins. Travel safe everyone!