Archive for January, 2010
Avoiding Computer Viruses in 2010
Jan 26th
Figure 1: A brief history of computer virus prevention:
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We are connected to the internet almost constantly these days, making the transmission of viruses, spyware, trojan horses, and worms easier than ever. Malware, short for “malicious software”, is the general term used to describe these various types of programs intentionally conceived to steal your personal information, monitor your surfing, send spam, or just wreak havoc on your computer. More >
Tools to Organize Your Digital Life
Jan 18th
Everyday we find more and more online sources of news and information that we would like to connect with to stay informed. The challenge is keeping up with our favorite news columns, industry journals, and blogs as well as our friends, family, and colleagues … not to mention maybe a few celebrities, tv programs, and products. While bookmarking sites like Yahoo! Bookmarks and Delicious make good reference tools, they don’t actively notify us of updates. Most websites provide the option to sign up for updates and newsletters by email, but this can make your inbox more difficult to manage (and you still often have to visit the individual websites to see the full content). If you are an email subscription junkie, you should use Filters to organize your mailbox. In most mail applications, you can setup filters to automatically sort your incoming mail into folders based on email address, subject line, etc. This keeps lower-priority emails out of your inbox, but easy to find.
Almost any person, place, or thing you may have an interest in following has a presence on Facebook and Twitter these days. Many professional, educational, and industry organizations have pages or forums on LinkedIn. There are also numerous other niche communities for specific interests including music, photos, and recipes. While these sites enable you to connect to a large number of people and organizations, the downside of most of these networks is that you have to continually monitor your real-time information streams and filter through them to find the items of most interest to you, which can be time consuming. More >
How to Shop for a Multifunction Printer
Jan 9th
I recently received a question on “Ask Craig” about how to shop for a multifunction printer. These are very popular and useful machines that are available today in a multitude of shapes and sizes. Around the turn of the century, “all-in-one” printers were available only as small, desktop machines. If you needed something for more heavy office usage, you needed to buy separate machines for copying, printing, and faxing. As printer manufacturers began noticing that offices of all sizes could use multifunction printers, they started to offer them in larger, more robust varieties. Additionally, copy machine manufacturers added network printing and scanning capabilities to many of their products, making multifunction available for even enterprise and commercial use. Whether your office is large, small, or at home, the idea of a machine with multiple uses may be appealing, but with so many to choose from it can be hard to know where to start. Here are a few areas to consider before you shop: More >
