Remember the Berlin Wall? It was one of the last relics of the Cold War. Built in 1961, it was a symbol of backward thinking politicians, persecution and the loss of personal freedom until it was torn down in 1989. You might also remember Ronald Reagan’s famous line, “Mr. Gorbachev, tear down this wall!” How dramatic that line was! It’s still used in stirring and patriotic speeches about God Bless America and freedom. Unfortunately, the western world is far less free than it was in 1989.

This week, Canada will enact legislation that will allow police and governments to spy on its citizens without a warrant of any kind. The legislation will force ISPs to provide vast amounts of information without any kind of judicial control. Canadians, showing their natural good humour (we spell it with the ‘u’), reacted to this legislation by using Twitter to make fun of the government minister who promoted the bill. We tweeted everything we were doing, everything we were thinking and everything that our cats and dogs were doing. Providing a mass of unrelated information  just might be a way to hide your tracks if you are up to something sinister. Unfortunately, this would also hide real criminals and terrorists from being identified.

Hasan Elahi used much the same kind of tactic when he was questioned by the FBI for six months in 2009. Here’s a description of what he did: http://www.nytimes.com/2011/10/30/opinion/sunday/giving-the-fbi-what-it-wants.html?pagewanted=all

Hasan’s website is here: http://www.elahi.umd.edu/track/  and you can track him virtually everywhere in the world. He’s taken privacy to a whole other level. By making himself completely open in all of his activities, he has invented a way to, perhaps, cloak his actions in behind a wall of transparency. Here he is on Youtube (Ted TV):

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=wAdwurHhv-I

explaining what happened and how he handled the situation.

Americans have already lost their freedoms. You might not know it but you have. The NSA, the FBI, the CIA and even the EOP (look it up) are already spying on you. Through the use of expert scaremongering, successive presidents and legislators have teamed up to deny your constitutional rights. The Occupy riots have proven that even the most basic right of freedom of assembly, is long gone.

Canadians are by nature quite peaceful. This bill, hopefully, will stir us into action to defeat the government that introduced and supported it. Our political system is different from the American system. If we get ticked off with the current party in power, it’s not unusual for us to completely trash them in the next election. We’re not a two party country up here and we don’t vote along team lines. It’s a little bit harder for Americans to get rid of a party that threatens to limit their freedom but it’s still possible. As the Arab Spring might* have shown us, change is possible if we work collectively to promote it. Isn’t it curious that the communist principle of a collective voice against oppression seems to be the ideal tool in our post-capitalist society.

Thanks for reading. I’d love to see a few comments on this post.

*I say ‘might’ simply because neither Egypt or Libya seems to have succeeded in enacting the ideals that they fought for. In the power vacuum that was created after the ouster of the old leaders, it seems that the military in both countries has taken over. Just as church and state should be separate, there is no place  in the world for a military state.

What is TOR? Here is the description from the TOR website:

“Tor is free software and an open network that helps you defend against a form of network surveillance that threatens personal freedom and privacy, confidential business activities and relationships, and state security known as traffic analysis.”

What this means is that once you are using the TOR browser, your surfing habits are hidden from prying eyes. TOR also hides your location from the rest of the world. Here is how TOR describes what it does:

“Tor protects you by bouncing your communications around a distributed network of relays run by volunteers all around the world: it prevents somebody watching your Internet connection from learning what sites you visit, and it prevents the sites you visit from learning your physical location. Tor works with many of your existing applications, including web browsers, instant messaging clients, remote login, and other applications based on the TCP protocol.”

If you’ve watched any recent cop show on TV, you’ll know that tracing a criminal can be easy, depending on the time limit in the plot. As far back as Three Days of the Condor (Six Days in the novel), smart operatives defeated tracking software simply by bouncing their source signal from place to place, either in a telephone exchange as Robert Redford did in Condor or through various servers around the world as Lisbeth Salander did in The Girl with the Dragon Tattoo.

Once you start using TOR, your surfing might slow down a bit but you will be as anonymous as you can get on the Internet.  Take a journey with me as I begin to discover TOR’s capabilities. I’ll also try to test it’s effectiveness at hiding my IP address in several places around the world. I should say now that TOR is free. There are other ways to hide your IP address from prying eyes but every one that I can think of involves spending some bucks. I’m all for free, aren’t you?

Start by reading the documentation here: https://www.torproject.org/docs/documentation.html.en   Start to discover on your own what TOR is about, download everything and pop back for more updates on Monday. (I’m donating blood tomorrow so I’ll be tied up most of the day.)

Thanks for reading!

These days, there is absolutely no guarantee that what you do online is private. While there are many ways to hide your surfing habits from your family, cloaking yourself from unwanted and unnecessary snooping by local, state or federal authorities is much more difficult. As conservative politicians push for more restrictions of personal freedom, it is increasingly difficult for the regular citizen to maintain their right to privacy. Over the next few posts, I will investigate some of the things you can do to protect those rights. Consider this the first of a series.

The most important thing I can suggest to you, dear reader, is to immediately STOP  using your ISP’s email. If you don’t know what that is, it’s the free email you get when you signed up for your particular ISP or Internet Service Provider. Instead, sign up for an account with any of the free email services from such sites as Microsoft, Gmail or Yahoo. Personally, I use Hotmail, Gmail and Yahoo, each for different purposes. You don’t have to go as wild as I have but make sure you use at least one of them for yourself.

Why use a free service? There are two reasons, essentially. One is simple. When you change ISPs, you don’t have to send emails around to all of your contacts to tell them that you’ve changed your email address. The chance that any of the three services I have mentioned will go out of business is very slim. Secondly, free email accounts are much harder to trace. Authorities can pressure your ISP to reveal the address you use with them and, probably, your password. In Canada, a bill is in Parliament right now that would allow them to do that without a warrant. Imagine what certain people could do with your personal emails. Anyone who the party in power considers and enemy could be investigated. More on this a bit later.

The other thing that is open to scrutiny is your surfing habits. Let’s say that you’re a public figure or a politician or a high-profile civil servant. With the new rules in place, any security official could track your surfing habits without a warrant. Unless you are doing something illegal, there is no reason for them to know what sites you visit, is there? If you are committing a crime or if you are suspected of being involved in criminal or terrorist activity, wouldn’t it be fairly easy to get an official warrant to snoop around in your life? The trick to hiding your surfing habits is fairly simple. I will be investigating the TOR network over the next few posts. In the meantime, check out the TOR Project here: https://www.torproject.org/

Lastly, if you’ve been watching any modern TV detective series or movie, you’ll know that your lowly cell phone can give just about anyone your exact location in the world. The GPS locator in your phone sends out complete details of your movements every day. As you know, hackers can listen in on your conversations, access your voice mail and even download photos from your cell phone for their own uses.

Smart phones are wonderful pieces of technology but you might want to stop and think about how much of  your private information your little friend is keeping track of. A tip here might be to have a cheap, throwaway phone for day to day use and a iPod Touch, for example, for all of your other Internet and GPS uses. There are other ways around this but now is the time to start thinking about your privacy and how your cell phone impacts it.

Look forward to more tips and tricks here in future posts. I am all for the rights of victims of crime and/or terrorism but I cannot put up with this growing trend of normal citizens losing their right to privacy. What do you think? Comments and questions are welcome.

Thanks for reading!

I like many diverse things on Facebook, some of which wouldn’t fit in with some of my friend’s sensibilities. There is no reason why everything I like has to be open for my friends to see. Here’s how to hide these likes from your friends.

TIP:  This only applies to the new Timeline feature of Facebook. If you’re still on the old Facebook interface, this doesn’t apply to you.

Step One: Navigate to your own profile. Simply click on your name up on the top of your browser window, right beside the little icon which is your profile pic.

Step Two: On the far right of the word Home , you’ll see an arrow pointing down. Click it and you’ll see Account Settings. Click Account Settings to bring up General Account Settings. Basically, that’s your name, your username, email etc.

Step Three: On the left side, under the word facebook , you’ll see the words General, Security, Notifications, Apps, Mobile, Payments and Facebook Ads. Go through each of them, if you want, but what we are looking for now is the little blurb at the bottom. This is what it looks like:

Click on 'edit your timeline' to bring up an editable version of your timeline.

Step Four: Click the word timeline to bring up a non-graphical version of everything on your timeline. Again, you can view these settings page by page. The initial one is  About you. You can edit and show/hide any portion of your information. How? Look for this icon:

Click on the 'world' icon to change your settings.

Your icon, if you haven’t set it already, will be the globe one. Mine is the two headed friends icon. Here is where you decide what to hide from the public, from your friends or, by using the custom setting, some of your friends.

Step Five: Right beside your name on the upper left, where it says About now, click on the little down arrow to show this menu:

This is where you choose what to edit.

What we’re doing now is editing the Likes part of your timeline so click it. Adjust the others according to your personal tastes.

Step Six: Once you click Likes, you’ll be presented with a rather blank page, depending on how much you like . The next step involves a hover button. A hover button is hidden unless you hover your mouse over it. Move your mouse around the Favorites section. It’s all white and you’re looking up on the top right. This is how it looks:

Hover your mouse in the white area to bring up the edit button.

Click the Edit button to, finally, edit your likes.

Step Seven: You’re almost there, don’t get discouraged. Clicking on the edit button in the previous step brings up an editable page for all of your likes. Clicking on the down arrow to the right of the globe icon, you can hide some, all or none of them. Down near the bottom is the  Other Pages You Like section. This is how it looks:

I've hidden my pages likes so only I can see them.

You’ll recognize the icon of the globe just to the right of the Other Pages You Like words. This is how you can adjust your settings according to your tastes. As you can see, I hid my page likes from everyone, except myself, of course. You can fine tune this setting to eliminate a few of your friends, too, by setting things up in the Custom section that you see fourth from the top.

There isn’t any reason that I can see to share all of the pages that I like. My tastes aren’t totally diverse from the norm but maybe I’m a rock musician and I happen to like Celine Dion’s Facebook page. How would that go over? I’m sure you can see why someone would want to cover up some of their likes. Now you know how to do it!

Thanks for reading. Questions and comments are welcome.

If you’re just starting out with computers, there are many things that can make you feel lost and confused. Don’t worry, that’s normal. You’re not a dummy, not matter what the book says. No one starts off by knowing what to do with a computer. It’s certainly not intuitive, no matter what Apple or Microsoft might tell you. Stick with Computers Made Simple and we’ll sort it all out for you.

The first thing you see on your new computer is the desktop. This is much like your house or apartment. Everything you need is right there, waiting to be used. Just as you would paint your apartment to change its look, you can change the way your desktop looks. When you go away, sometimes you might have your lights set to come on at a certain time. Your screensaver, the thing that cuts in when you’ve been away from your computer for a while, does the same thing. I’ll explain all of this in another post  but, for right now, we’ll get used to what’s on your desktop and just beneath it.

Your mouse is your steering wheel. With it, you can steer your way through menus and programs, making choices as you go. Since your mouse has two buttons, you might wonder which is which. The left button is the one that says, “Yes!”. The right button is the one that asks questions. If you right click in any area of your screen, whether it’s your desktop, a photo or inside a program, a menu will come up. That right click menu offers choices, basically asking you what you want to do. Try it now. Right click your desktop and choose personalize. This will bring up the program that is standard with Windows. It lets you choose how you want your desktop to look.

TIP: If you have Windows Starter Edition, the one that comes with most netbooks (those little laptops), you can’t change much on your desktop. Don’t worry, it’s not worth the extra money to upgrade Windows on a basic computer such as a netbook.

Every app or program has a different right click menu. If you’re stuck and can’t figure out how to do something, try right clicking anywhere on the screen to see what choices are offered.

The left mouse button is the one you use to select things. If a menu is open, one click will select the item you want. If you’re on the Internet, one click will open a link and a right click will offer different options to choose from. On your desktop you’ll have to double click to open a program or a folder. Sometimes you might double double click and get two things running at the same time but, no worries, just close one down by clicking the X up on the top right corner of the program screen.

Holding the left mouse button down is used for selecting things on your desktop or in something that you are working on. If you click and drag with your left mouse button in Word, for instance, you will highlight a section of text. On your desktop, holding the left mouse button after you click on an icon will allow you to drag that item around. Try it. Click once and hold the button down to drag any icon around your desktop. Cool huh?

That’s all for now. Thanks for reading!

Instead of getting deeper and deeper into computer technology, I’ve decided to start at the beginning. Many blogs deal with technology but not many of them are targeted at beginners. Tech people like to hide behind jargon. We will try to clear the air and the confusion, using plain English instead of buzzwords. Computers Made Simple will help you figure out what’s going on behind the scenes with your computer. If you understand the basics, I think you’ll discover that computers aren’t so mysterious after all.

Since I am a PC guy mainly, much of what you read here will pertain to the Windows Operating System (OS). Some of the posts will be cross-platform so if you’re a Mac person, keep reading. Windows and OS X are both operating systems and this post will help you figure out what an OS does.

Inside your computer are many, diverse bits and pieces. In order to make them work together, in order to simplify your work, you need an OS. This isn’t too much different from your car. It, too, has many diverse bits and pieces. Somehow, all of these pieces have to be controlled. You don’t want to be driving down a busy highway wondering whether your fuel will run out, right? There’s a gas gauge on your dashboard which takes care of that worry for you. That dashboard, full of gauges and lights, is essentially the same as Windows is on your computer. It’s the interface between the mechanical or electronic bits and pieces of your car and you. The Windows and the OS X interfaces are different but they do essentially the same thing; they control everything that is running behind the scenes while you work. They make life simpler, although that might be a questionable statement.

When you start your car, it takes a few minutes to boot or start. The engine has to get some fuel, it has to get a bit warm and it has to figure out if anything is missing that would cause a problem for you when you finally take off. It takes a look at things like seatbelts, air bags, tires (sometimes), oil pressure and so on. Once your car (actually a computer that controls your car) decides that things are running fine, it finishes the boot process and waits for you to drive off.

Windows does the same thing. When you start your computer (laptop or desktop are the same here), Windows checks hundreds of things before it is ready for you to start using it. We’ll go over some of these things in future posts but, for now, let’s say that Windows looks at file system integrity, the drivers that run the different pieces of hardware, the anti-virus software that keeps your safe as well as all of the little programs that are set to run when you start or boot your computer. Depending on your set-up, this could take just a minute or, sometimes, much longer.

Behind Windows (and OS X) is a massively complex sub-system which uses very complicated language to control everything inside your computer case. Just as you don’t actually have to know how the fuel from your tank gets into your engine to make it run, you don’t have to know how a file is saved to your hard drive, either. That in itself is a very complex process, both electronically and mechanically, but, because you are using Windows, you don’t have to think about it. It just happens.

There are some who would say that Windows has made computing more complex but if you think about the new cars, well, they are complicated, too. They do many things that cars didn’t do ten years ago. Computers, too, were simpler ten years ago but there is no reason to be afraid of them. Stick with Computers Made Simple and we’ll sort it all out together.

Thanks for reading!

This morning I received an email from this site telling me that someone had registered as a user. Needless to say I was surprised. I wasn’t quite sure what damage a new user could do to my site but I logged in, deleted him and changed my settings. When WordPress asked me to confirm the deletion, it also asked me if I wanted to delete any links that the new user had put up here. I said yes, of course, but that made me think about my settings on my other sites. The default WordPress settings make it very easy for anyone to subscribe to your site AND to post links. Here’s how you can protect your site before this happens to you.

Head over to Settings, second last link on the left side of your Dashboard window. Once you are there, you should be on the General Settings page but make sure that this is where you are.

Halfway down you’ll see ‘Membership’ with a box that is, probably, checked. If it is checked then ‘Anyone can register’ which isn’t what you want. You want to un-check that box to prevent people from adding themselves as users. You can still add users but you have to be logged in as admin in order to do that.

The second thing you want to do, now that we are on this subject, is to limit comments on your posts. Yes, you want comments but you don’t want spam. There are two ways to prevent this. The first is to go to Settings then to Discussion Settings. What you are looking for there is ‘Email me whenever’ and ‘Before a comment appears’. In the second one, make sure that the box is checked beside ‘An administrator must always approve the comment’. Then, in the section above, make sure that you get an email when someone makes a comment and when one is held for approval.

If you have your WordPress installation set up this way, you won’t get surprised by someone adding themselves to your user list AND you won’t get spam comments showing up unannounced, either. Sure, you will get spam but you can check the comments and delete them. How can you prevent spam completely? You can’t. But you can add a plugin that will put check all comments and automatically put the ones that are spam into the proper folder. Here’s how.

Akismet is a standard plugin that you get with WordPress. To get it working, you need to activate it. To activate Akismet, you have to register and then get what they call an ‘API Key’. Don’t worry, it’s free. All of the links are there on your WordPress Plugins page. The key is the only thing you need before Akismet roots out spam for you. It won’t send an email but it will hold all the comments that it thinks are spam, and it is never wrong, until you show up to delete them.

There are other ways to secure your WordPress installation, these are only two. WordPress is probably the most documented bit of brilliance on the ‘net. Keep learning and keep safe, people.

Thanks for reading!

Google’s Chrome browser is getting more popular every year. It’s been my browser of choice since it came out. It’s fast, light and translates every page I throw at it. But it’s not perfect. If it was perfect, it wouldn’t crash, right?

Chrome is constantly updated, according to Google. If you are familiar with it, however, you’ll know that it sometimes freezes and then crashes. A little menu will come up and tell you that Google has crashed, that such and such a page or plugin is not responding. Should Chrome wait for it to get better or do you want to close the program? Believe me, it’s frustrating.

What to do about it? Google doesn’t seem to be able to come up with a solution. Believe me, I’ve tried to find an answer to this online. There are ample forum posts about it but no real answers that I could find. We all know that it has something to do with Flash but Chrome is updated on a continuous basis, isn’t it? Hell, you can’t even upgrade Flash using Chrome because every time you try, Chrome says that you’re using the most up-to-date version already. OK, if that’s the case, why the hell does it crash?

Here’s the solution that worked for me the last few times Chrome has crashed. Step by step, it’s pretty easy. Let’s say that it’s a fix, not a real solution. Google will still crash at some point but this is how you can get it working again for a few months.

1. Close Chrome.

2. Go to your Control Panel then to Programs then to Uninstall a program.

3. Look for Adobe Flash, highlight it and delete it. Make sure all of your browsers are closed. You’ll also have to close MSN, Yahoo and QQ, if you have them open.

4. Reboot your computer.

5. Open Internet Explorer or Firefox or Safari or Opera, any other browser BUT Chrome.

6. Head over to the Adobe site and download Flash. Here is the link: http://get.adobe.com/flashplayer/ 

7. Install the latest version, then close your current browser.

8. Start Chrome and surf away. Your days of frustration are over.

I don’t know why this solution works. It doesn’t make sense at all. Chrome won’t allow you to install Flash on its own but it seems to depend on the Flash version that is installed on your computer, even though it says you are using the most current version.

Whatever the reason, this works. Good luck!

Thanks for reading!

On January 31st, 2012, you’ll be forced to accept Facebook’s new timeline profile. There are some new privacy settings that you might want to adjust. In the change from the standard Facebook interface to the new timeline interface, your previous settings won’t survive the transition. You’ll have to adjust them again.

Why is this important? For me, it’s not. For you, if you are a teenager or a single woman, for example, there are dangers to having all of your activities past and present open to the world. Ex-partners, teachers, prospective employers can now access all of your past information very easily. There isn’t much danger of me being stalked but for many people, that is a very distinct possibility.

TIP: The best thing about the new timeline interface is that you can see immediately how your profile looks to strangers or to any of your friends. See the little arrow just to the right of the gear icon on your profile page? Here it is:

Click on the View As line.

Once you click on the ‘View As’ line, your profile will change to show how strangers will see it. You can then change the view to show how your friends will see it, depending on your settings for each of them. You may want to hide things from some friends. In that case they will not see the same profile as everyone else.

Step 1 – Hide Your Past from Strangers: Follow these steps to ‘Limit the Audience for Past Posts: http://brianmahoney.ca/2011/09/facebook-control-your-old-post-privacy/ You must do this again, even though you may have done this in the past. Once you have done this, take a look at your profile as I have described just above this to ensure that your past is hidden from strangers/people who aren’t your friend.

Step 2 – Hide Your Friend List From Everyone: If you have family members on your friend list, it might be a good idea to hide your list from them. If you have your privacy settings wide open, everyone can see your list, allowing them to troll through it for ways to contact you. Whatever the reason, I think it’s a great idea to hide your list of friends from everyone. Here’s how you do that:

1. See the photo up above this? Click on the ‘Update info’ section. This will bring you to a page that allows you to edit virtually any part of your personal information. It also provides a link to your other personal settings. Click on the arrow beside the word ‘About’ and you’ll see this:

This has links to all of your personal settings, including your friend list.

When you click on ‘Friends’, you’ll see a complete list of your friends, of course. What you are looking for now is the Edit button up on the top right. Click it and you’ll see this little menu:

See the padlock on the right? Click it.

Once you click on the padlock you will see this menu next:

I would choose 'Only me' here but it's up to you.

As you can see, I have chosen ‘Only me’ for my friend list. Any friend who has a mutual friend will be able to see a list of mutual friends but that’s it. See the tip below but for now, no one can see your whole list except you.

TIP: The new timeline will not allow you to hide mutual friends from anyone on your list. Keep that in mind.

Everyone has different levels of security that make them feel safe online. I’m pretty open about most things but I don’t see why my friends have to see who I am friends with. I can further adjust these settings by grouping my friends into smaller groups. More on that in a future post.

Thanks for reading! Comments are welcome.

This morning I received a spam email from my own hotmail account. No, my account hadn’t been hacked. Yes, someone had spoofed my email address (and my name) and had sent it to me using my own email address but from a different IP address. Don’t ask me how they did it but they did. I wanted to block that person from sending me any more emails like that but I didn’t want to block myself, obviously. Every now and then I send an email to myself. Let’s say I change a password on some account on the ‘net. The easiest and most secure way to keep a record of that change is to send it to myself in an email. Of course, I don’t put anything in the email that gives the account that I’ve changed. I use a code. Anyway, here’s how I blocked that person from sending more emails from myself.

As we discovered HERE ,  it’s easy to find out where an email originates. Using Hotmail as an example, right click any email in its folder (as opposed to having the email open) and choose ‘View message source’. Every email system is a bit different but you can view an email’s source in any of them. If you don’t know how to do it, use Google or ask me in a comment below or on Twitter.

Once you find the source, there will be an IP address at the top. There will also be an email address, in my case it was my own. Since I know that I didn’t send the email, I knew that someone had spoofed the original email. Regardless, the IP address was there. I checked the address, of course, and it turned out to be somewhere in Israel. No problem there, I would block the IP address, not the email.

TIP: If you have the time, it’s always good to block an IP address as opposed to simply blocking an email address. This post is a perfect example of why you’d want to do that.

OK, now I had the IP address and it was an easy task to block it using Hotmail’s great system. It’s described HERE.  Once that was done, I can rest assured that I won’t get any more emails from that address, certainly none from my own email address.

A good point to all of this is that if a spammer can send me an email from myself, they can also do other things that will make me think the spam is legitimate. As the Internet changes, you have to keep on your toes to prevent your accounts from being compromised.  Make sure you use a good virus and email protection system AND keep reading my posts. If you have questions or concerns about computer or email security, make a comment and I’ll work out an answer for you.

Thanks for reading!

With the death of the MagaUpload site, the keyword these days seems to be backup… your own data. I’ve written three posts about how to do that, the first one is HERE, but the point of this post is about security in the cloud, not losing your data. There is ample information online to prevent data loss. If you manage to lose a month’s worth of work, it’s your fault not your computer’s or the loss of some cloud storage site.

The point of this post is cloud security. Here is an example of the what I mean. A couple of years ago, I was sharing some photos with a friend in another country. At that time I was using hotmail and the photo-sharing section of my hotmail account. I had the privacy settings such that only my friend and I could see the photos. A couple of the photos were adult pics, harmless but still of an adult nature. Since my friend and I were the only people who could see them, I thought they were safe from prying eyes. Turns out they weren’t. Hotmail/MSN/Microsoft or whoever, sent me an email complaining about the type of photos I was storing there and requested me to delete them. They were deleted, of course, but that single incident made me very aware of the complete lack of security in the cloud.

A site such as Dropbox tells its users that they encrypt everything that is stored there. I assume that other sites make the same assertions. But do they? How do you know? With the United States in the throes of panic over terror and its associated threat, how do you know that the cloud storage companies are not government backed? The U.S. government, for one and I’m sure there are others, reads every email or text message you send. They also listen in on your cell phone calls and, probably, your landline calls also. If you don’t think they do, check out this PBS ink: http://www.pbs.org/wgbh/nova/military/nsa-police.html and see what you think. America’s Internet connections are split in two. One line is for the public, the other is for the government. Trust me, you’re being watched.

If you accept that private citizens are the subject of government spying, and they are, what’s to be done? Well, if you encrypt your own data before you plunk it up on the cloud, you should be fine. If you can figure out the GNU Privacy software, available here: http://freecode.com/projects/gnupg , then you’re well on your way to keeping your personal data private.  Another, easier to use bit of software is Truecrypt which locks up files, folders and complete disks in an extremely secure, password-locked vault.

Look at it this way, if Microsoft knew that I had a few adult photos in a folder on hotmail that was only accessible to myself and one friend, then it follows that none of the cloud storage facilities are safe from prying eyes, no matter what the companies tell us.

As far as losing your data due to a government takeover of a site, there is no excuse for that, as far as I am concerned. If you are too lazy to burn a few DVDs, tough luck. Even backing up your data to an external drive isn’t safe. Learn how to burn DVDs and back up your private data, at least every month if not every couple of weeks. You’ve been warned!

This site has lots of information on backups, security and other Windows-related computer problems and solutions. Make use of it and keep your data safe!

Thanks for reading!

Interested in exploring how the other half lives? Why not check out QQ? I’ve been using it for over four years and I love it. What is it? Read on.

QQ is the most popular instant messaging application in the world. At this moment, when it’s 1:30 AM in China, there are over 80 million users online. At other times, holidays and festivals usually, I’ve seen the number as high as 120 million or more. Seeing as how there are over 500 million Internet users in China, it’s easy to see that a good portion of them use QQ.

Besides being popular, QQ offers many features and benefits that make MSN and Yahoo pale in comparison. Instant translation, for instance, is a very useful feature for me. I can carry on rudimentary conversations with anyone in China that has an interest in chatting with me. I can share photos,videos and files instantaneously. I can stream videos in my chat window and my chat partner and I can share the experience in real time.

If you’re interested in Karaoke, QQ offers QMusic for free. There is a search feature included. Just search for a song, any song, it doesn’t have to be in Chinese, and QQ Music will play it. If someone has uploaded the lyrics to this song, they will scroll across the bottom of your screen. If the words don’t sync with the music, you can slow them down or speed them up to match the tune. I use it all the time.

If you are single, there are literally millions of possible matches out there for you. Each QQ profile has a Qzone which allows you to upload photos, maintain a log (blog) and decorate your space as you see fit. Other users can search for you and check you out, depending on your privacy settings. While Chinese people might be conservative, they are not shy. Complete strangers will add you, sometimes just for the thrill of talking to a foreigner.

Knowledge of Chinese is not required to use QQ. If you download the QQ International version from here: http://download.imqq.com/download.shtml and set up an account, you’ll see the translation settings on the left side of the text entry pane. Using the ‘Search Contacts’ link at the bottom of the main window, you can choose the ‘advanced’ setting and find users who match your desired demographics. It makes a difference if you try to translate your words for other users. Don’t insist on English or you won’t get anywhere.

China has an ancient and very interesting culture. Don’t head into this with any preconceptions that Chinese people are less important or less significant than you are. While Europeans were living in huts, the Chinese were building multi-story skyscrapers. The Chinese culture is fascinating to study and thrilling to be a part of. Some of their festivals are thousands of years old, with their origins lost in the mists of time, part fact and part myth. When you consider the fact that no culture has survived as long as that of China’s, and some have lasted a long time, you’ll perhaps understand why it’s important to get to know about China and its people.

QQ is a good jumping off point, in my opinion. Don’t download QQ from anywhere else but the official QQ site. I have both versions, the Chinese and the International version, simply because the Chinese edition offers a few more features than the International one.

Your knowledge of English will help you find new friends. I started out by helping my QQ friends with their English and many have accepted me into their lives. There is no age limit to QQ and you’ll find grandmothers and grandfathers keeping track of their relatives who might be spread all over the world. While many users access the Internet with cell phones, the chat speed isn’t affected and many of the new phones accept video feed from webcams. If you thought China was behind the times, you’re in for a big surprise.

Thanks for reading! Comments are welcome.

Why would you want to make a list on Twitter? If you have less than 50 people that you follow, you probably don’t. If you have upwards of 100 or more, you have to sort out the noise. Some people tweet endlessly. Some people tweet when they have something important to say or share. Making a list on Twitter can help you filter out the babble from the good stuff. Here’s how to do it.

Click on your profile then click on the ‘Lists’ tab. Click on ‘Create a list’ . The menu that comes up looks like this:

Add a name then some type of description for your new list.

This menu asks for a name and a description. I’ve divided my lists into about 11 groups. Since I have a rather eclectic set of interests, five or six lists wouldn’t work. Some people are nice but just tweet too damn much. I have to keep my main crew in one list that I follow all the time. The rest are ones that I check on now and then. If someone adds me on Twitter, I feel that it’s a compliment for some reason. Usually I follow them back. If they tweet too much, they go on my ‘Dunno’ list and I forget about them.

Once you have a few lists set up, go back to the main Twitter timeline and then click on the Following link on the right side of the window. Wait for the full list to load. If you’ve got a few hundred people that you follow then this could take a while. Once you’re there, you’ll see something like this:

Click on the 'Add to List' link.

See the ‘Add to list’ link? Click on it and a your set of lists will pop up. This is what you’ll see:

Choose which list the person will be on and click it.

As you can see, I’ve got Jesus on my Comedy list. Follow ‘Him’ and you’ll see why. Once you choose which list you want the person or company to be on, click anywhere out of the box and it will disappear. If you’ve got a huge number of people that you follow, do a few at a time and keep track of where you start and end. Also, make sure that you put each new person that you follow on some kind of list. That will save you work later on.

Once you have all of your ‘followees’ sorted, go back to the main timeline, click on ‘Lists’ again and you’ll see a menu of all of your lists pop down. Choose which one you want to take a look at and click it. All of the tweets from those people will become your timeline. Once you’re read all of the tweets that interest you, move to another list. Some of my people are on two lists and you may find that this is something you might want to do.

I hope this helps you keep your Twitter account simpler and more fun. The site can be a terrific source of information. It’s up to you to sort it out. This is how I did it.

Thanks for reading!

I ran into this problem this morning. Somehow I had lost a folder on my desktop. Maybe Windows got confused. Maybe I had moved it off-screen. Maybe it was under another folder. Whatever the reason, I couldn’t get it back Here’s how I solved the problem.  (It’s so simple that you’ll kick yourself for not thinking of it. I know I did!)

1. Right click your desktop. The following menu appears:

Right click then choose 'Sort By'

Once you see this menu, choose ‘Sort by’ and this next menu will come up:

Choose any arrangement you want. They all work to recover the lost folder.

These are the choices to sort all of the items on your desktop. If you sort by type, everything will be lined up on the left side according to file type with folders at the upper left. Your missing folder will be among them…hopefully.

If the folder still isn’t there but you can see it in Windows Explorer, see if you can find out where it is by choosing ‘open file location’ in the right click menu. Then you can track it down. Good luck!

Thanks for reading.

Uncharted 2: Among Thieves is a PS3 game. If you are here then you already know that. Except for Gran Turismo 5, I don’t normally play any games on it but my son brought home Among Thieves on loan and, lo and behold, I started playing it. There are several boss levels in it, the Yeti one is really hard, but the final boss level is even harder. Here’s how to beat it easily.

First, make sure you have lots of ammo for your pistol. It also helps if you are a good shot but the targets are quite large so don’t worry too much about it.

Second, make sure you have perfected the ‘shoot while hanging off a ledge’ skill. Hang with one hand and aim then shoot with the other.

This level starts with Lazaravic drinking some of the special goo in the pond. He becomes invincible, he thinks, and decides to kill Drake on his own. Here’s where the action starts. You would normally race around and shoot the blue resin when Lazaravic is close to it. In this cheat you’ll just have to hang on to a ledge and shoot.

Somewhere on the playing field there is a raised section in front of two trees. Each of the trees has a resin bubble on it. Of course, as you have figured out already, the resin grows back. See where this is going? The ledge looks something like this:

This looks like the spot but I can only see one resin pile. The trick might work here as well.

I can’t do a screen capture, at least I haven’t figured out how to do it yet, but this is similar to the spot I am talking about. You are hanging by one hand while Lazaravic walks around yelling at you to fight like a man while shooting down at you. Don’t worry, he can’t hit you. You might take some damage but move from side to side and you’ll be OK.

Every now and then, when the resin is big and glowing, stick your pistol up and shoot it. In the scene with two trees and two resin bubbles, they will re-grow in short time. Keep shooting when they have regenerated. Each time you do this, you will weaken your invincible foe.

After a time, Lazaravic will move in front of the right one and simply stand there. This happened when I had one bullet left, your situation might be different. Then again, I didn’t have a full clip on me when I discovered this. Regardless, either shoot your way through this or lob a grenade at the resin when he is standing in front of the tree, not moving. A black screen will follow and the monsters will proceed to take care of Lazaravic. You’ve done it!

I checked Youtube and couldn’t find this cheat but it may already be out there. Good luck! Actually, I don’t think it’s a cheat. I mean you are fighting. It’s not a glitch really. It’s just another way to win the level.

Thanks for reading!

I’m in a bit of a tough situation now, as many people my age seem to be. My only surviving parent, my Mom, is having a very difficult time keeping track of her memories. This isn’t unusual but it is painful just the same. Here are some tips for you that might help with the problems that people with senility encounter.

As you probably know, long term memory isn’t usually the problem. Older memories seem to migrate to another portion of the brain over time (think backing up your hard drive) and they are kept safe from the ravages of pre-senile dementia. It’s the current or short-term memories that get lost. For example, my mother calls frequently asking about things like bank books and long-lost relatives. Each time she calls I explain the situation. Each time she seems to understand. Each time she is very anxious until I explain the situation. It’s sad and difficult but it’s all a part of growing old for some people.

We came up with a fairly simple idea to help my mother remember things a bit better. At a local dollar store we picked up a photo album, the kind with the sleeves to hold the pictures. There were only about twenty-four pages and the clear plastic sleeves were about 5.5 x 5.5 inches. As we already had a fair idea about what she was having trouble remembering, we wrote out little points for her to read about. These included a short history of the family, seeing as how she forgot how she got her current last name, and details about where she had lived in the last few decades, family names and the names of her grand and great-grandchildren, that sort of thing.

In each slot, we also printed up some nice background paper with flower patterns and matching colours. Besides the text, we also included some photos complete with names which identified the people in them. As time goes by we will add details to this scrapbook, keeping it up to date for her. It seems to be working quite well, I think. She discovers it each morning and reads it cover to cover. When she calls now, she seems to remember things from the book. Of course, and this is important to make clear to the person you do this with, everything is absolutely true. Because a memory seems real and valid, you must ensure that everything in the book is factual and you must remind the person, almost to the point of insane repitition, that what is in the book is completely true, no matter what her memories tell her.

Another idea that might help is if you attempt to explain what’s happening to the person. Think of 500 First Dates for this. If you can explain that the person’s memory is playing tricks on them and that it’s scary but completely normal for some people, then the anxiousness is abated somewhat.

The second idea that might help, specially if you live close to the person you are trying to help, is to keep a day to day diary, something with big squares to fill in the day’s events. Yesterday, for example, my wife and children visited my mother. When she called me that afternoon, she insisted that they hadn’t been there. With the diary, I could easily point out that they had been there and what had happened. While she knew that the flowers they had brought came from us, she could not remember the visit. The diary would have helped. Unfortunately, we live about 250 KM away. Don’t worry, my brother is within a mile or thereabouts and my Mom is well taken care of.

The hi-tech part of this is simply the photo and text printing. You could also use an iPad or tablet or simple computer application for this as well but the person, of course, would have to be computer literate. The kernel of an idea is here. See if you can work out the specific details, depending on your situation.

Thanks for reading! Comments are welcomed.

LPs or long playing records have been around for decades, probably over 60 years. Records themselves date back to the ’20s I guess, maybe even prior to that. The really old ones were 78s and very low fidelity. 78 means that the records spun around at 78 revolutions per minute. The later version, the LPS, spin at 33 1/3 RPM and can be considered high fidelity.  Even though most artists release their material on CDs now, we still say that they are releasing a record as opposed to CD. Some very cool artists are releasing their material on LPs as well as on CDs. A tour through any upscale stereo shop will include at least a few turntables on display. Last week I saw a magnificent $13,000 turntable at Bay Bloor Audio here in Toronto.

Playing an LP is a bit cumbersome, seeing as how you have to have the turntable, an amp and speakers. Since you can’t take your LP music out for a walk or a drive, most of us are recording our LPs to our computers, converting them from analog to digital using Audacity. Here’s how I do it.

Download Audacity and install it. Audacity is free, part of the  open-source community. Audacity is available from Source Forge here: http://audacity.sourceforge.net/ . Once you have it installed, download the MP3 encoder here: http://lame.sourceforge.net/ . The lame encoder is necessary to encode your Audacity files into MP3s. If you don’t plan on using MP3s , then it’s not necessary.

Next you need a turntable. There are all kinds of them out there, some use USB ports to get the sound from the TT(turntable) to the computer but I prefer a direct-drive Panasonic or similar unit. The USB ones are fine for a few LPs as long as you don’t really care about quality too much. Now there are some very good USB TTs but you’d have to spend a bunch of cash to get one. My Panasonic came from the local Goodwill store and cost me ten bucks. I had to change the plug end of the cord from a European prong thingy to a North American two prong plug but that was pretty easy. There are two types of older TTs; direct drive and belt drive. Direct drive means that the motor is directly connected to the platter (the flat thing that the records sit on) while belt drive units have a system of pulleys and a belt that goes all the way around the platter, using friction alone to turn it. Obviously, the belts wear out and stretch over the years. You get speed variations, known as wow and flutter, sometimes. Direct drive offers the best speed control. If you can get a DD TT, you’re all set.

My set-up routes the sound from the TT to a receiver and then to my computer. I don’t have a standalone preamp to boost the TT sound, making the receiver a necessity. The receiver has a preamp in it but I think a standalone unit would be simpler. All of the USB TTs have a preamp built into them. With my set-up, I can monitor the sound through my speakers attached to the receiver or I can monitor it through the computer which uses a different set of speakers. Regardless of how you do it, you have to be able to hear what you’re recording. There are too many variations to explain each set-up here. If you need help, make a comment with a question below or ask me on Twitter.

Fire up Audacity and set your recording levels while you’re playing an LP. Each LP is different. An AC/DC LP has different sound levels than a Glenn Gould LP, for instance. Try to get the loudest parts so they don’t peak. Just about peaking is fine but don’t let any part of your LP slip into the upper red zone. Here is a screenshot:

The red to the right of the L and R should be near the far right but not right to the end.

Once you have all of this set, start recording on Audacity then start your LP. There will be some blank space at the start but you can edit that out later on. Now, do you leave the spaces between each song in or do you record each song separately? Complete album sides are nice but so are singles, you can work that out on your own. If you are going to work on the sound that you have just recorded, save the file as an Audacity file as opposed to exporting it to another format.

If your LP is a bit dirty or scratched, you will most likely have to remove some noise. If you don’t want to adjust your MP3 player all the time, you will want to normalize or make all of your recordings the same level. Audacity is free but that doesn’t mean that it is simple. You can do simple things with it or some very complicated things with it. If you want a perfect recording, you can adjust and tweak to your heart’s content. This guide isn’t a complete how-to by any means. You’ll have to figure out what parts of Audacity that you want to use and get it working on your own set-up. There is a very handy guide here: http://audacity.sourceforge.net/help/documentation

Good luck! There are simple units that will do all of this automatically but, you know what they say, you get what you pay for. Give me a good, used turntable and Audacity and I bet my LPs will sound better than yours. Take the time to do it right.

Thanks for reading!

Everyone loves free stuff, right? I’m writing this post just after Christmas and free software is about the only thing that I can afford! I’ve mentioned all of this software in other posts. In this one I will simply highlight the best of the best of the best.

1. VLC Media Player - VLC is amazing, really. Not only is it the fastest player out there, it’s a wizard when it comes to repairing video files. If you’ve got an AVI that is somewhat corrupted, VLC will repair it. Save the repaired version and you’re done. As far as playback is concerned, VLC lets you slow down the action or speed it up with a simple keystroke for each. I don’t use VLC for music playback but it does that, too.

2. Irfanview - Once you have tried Irfanview, I defy you to live without in the future. I’ve been using it for years, putting it on every computer in the house. Irfanview is quick, efficient and offers a feature list that boggles the mind. Screen capture, batch processing…it’s got it all. Make sure you download the plugins and make sure you download it from Tucows. CNET is reportedly putting malware in its downloads.

3. Google Chrome – Why is a browser on this list? Aren’t they all free? Sure, they’re all free but other browsers pale in comparison to Chrome. I can safely say that Chrome has opened up a whole new world for me, simply because it translates every website that I visit. The Internet is more than the boring English sites that you’re used to surfing. Check out what people around the world are doing on the web, visit and investigate your next international vacation spot, or just see what cool things are for sale in, say, China or Japan.

TIP: One of the best things about the Internet is that most sites are designed in English, even if they use another language for navigation. If you’re stuck on a site and can’t figure out what some of the buttons do, simply hover your cursor over a link and look down to the left of your window. Nine times out of ten you’ll find out what the button leads to, written in plain English.

4. Dropbox – Dropbox is both software and a service. With 1 gigabyte of free storage, Dropbox allows you to share documents from one computer to another around the world. Even if you are on someone’s computer in India, you can access your files via the Internet. There is no need to have the Dropbox application installed. Additionally, you can share files of any type with friends and relatives by giving them guest access to your online folder. Need more than a gig of storage? Open up a few free accounts. You can’t go wrong.

5. Burnaware Free – Burnware is a free, fast and dog-simple burning app. DVDs/CDs/ISOs, Burnaware takes care of it all. Roxio makes a fine product from what I hear but I have only used Burnaware for the past ten years or so. In my opinion, you don’t need any more than this for your daily burning chores. I back-up my computer religiously and you should too. DVDs are cheap and losing lifetime photo memories is expensive. Don’t let a crashed hard drive ruin your life. Get Burnaware and some DVDs for 20 bucks and relax. Your kids will thank you!

All of these applications have full sets of options and features that will make your computer experience much more fulfilling than any piece of retail software would. For that reason, if you’re a bit flush with cash, consider making a donation to the creators. Good karma will follow.

Thanks for reading!

In my last post I discussed gifts that involved the care and cleaning of your computer. Today, I’ll discuss some real gifts to spruce up your rig. Cost will be an important criteria so we won’t be getting into a new video card, know what I mean?

1. Keyboard: A new keyboard can add a whole lot of fun to your computer experience. If you are still using the plain, generic keyboard that came with your computer, why not spring for something better, something with more pizazz! Instead of the normal F keys on top and a number pad on the right side, some keyboards add a significant level of control. This means that you can manage things like the sound volume, the eject button on your DVD unit, fast forward or rewind with your media player or even such things as opening web pages or Google search. You’d have to load drivers for some of the new boards but you should be used to that by now.

2. Mouse: As with the keyboard, a new mouse will add some flare to your daily computing life. The two major prerequisites would be USB connectivity and optical (as opposed to a wheel). Every mouse sold today is  USB and I haven’t seen a wheel mouse to years but you never know. If you are a gamer, you can buy a mouse which allows you to control many different aspects of your favorite game, assigning weapons, for instance, to certain buttons. You can consider wireless with both of these gifts but I have found the battery replacement to be a pain. Wireless is mandatory if you use your computer for a media centre but there are custom remotes with digital keyboards that might be better.

3. A USB Key: You may call these flash drives but they are the same thing. Right now, a 32 gig drive can be had for around $20.00. With a drive that size, you can do a few things to make your work go faster. You could use the drive to enhance your RAM. (Here’s a post on Instructables.com about how to do it.) It’s also possible to load a complete operating system on a large flash key, allowing you to avoid using a slow hard drive. Linux has different packages for this and there are many portable apps out there which add  good amounts of fun and function. On netbooks without DVD drives, you could add movies to your flash key and play them from it instead of always using your desktop. This would be faster than streaming but not as fast as copying the movie or video to your netbook hard drive.

4. A New Monitor: CRTs are dead, LCD is the only way to go. Let me rephrase that a bit. LCD is dead. LED is the way to go. If you are energy conscious, consider getting one of the new LED monitors. Bright, long lasting and very energy efficient, these new LED units are a joy to use. Stick to a brand name such as Dell, Asus or any of the other recognizable names. If you see a good deal on a non-brand name monitor, at least do some research on it.

5. Chairs: A few years ago I sprang for a very comfortable, high back office chair. It reclines, swivels and has arms. It’s light so it rolls fairly easily on carpet. I don’t regret the purchase one bit. Ten years or so later, it still works perfectly. Head over to your local big box office supply store and take a seat in a few display models. Whatever you do, don’t get something cheap. I’ve seen a couple of  accidents with cheap chairs, one which could have ended very badly as in spinal or brain injury. Get a brand name or something that is solid. Cheap plastic legs won’t last. Watch for sales or sign up for email newsletters which sometimes include discount coupons. Have some fun with this and make sure you get something that supports your back adequately. Oh yeah, my chair goes up and down, too. To be really comfortable, you have to be at the correct height, right?

6. Speakers: I like to listen to music while I work. Cheap desktop speakers don’t cut it for me, not since I’ve been spoiled by 5.1 surround sound. Logitech is my company of choice for speakers. I have at least five sets around the house. You can choose a solid 2.1 unit or pay a bit more for a mid-range 5.1 setup. The .1 means a sub-woofer which is pretty much mandatory these days. The centre speaker of a 5.1 system usually sits on top of the monitor with the bracket already built-in. Some monitors have speakers with them but, personally, I’d steer clear of these. Multi-function devices usually scrimp on quality, I’ve found.

Happy Holidays and Happy Computing!

Thanks for reading.

It’s the holiday season, people. Your computer has given you a year of yeoman service, right? Why not treat your trusty workhorse to a nice gift for the holidays? Here are some suggestions:

1. Clean it up! If you use a desktop, carefully remove the cabling on the back, take the side panel off and vacuum the interior. I’m sure you will find lots of dust bunnies in there, specially if you keep it on the floor. Make sure you vacuum around the power supply intakes, the front intakes (take the front panel off to get to the dust underneath it) and the bottom of the case. If you are really a techno-weenie, remove the cooling fan from the CPU and vacuum the fins of the cooler itself. If you’re not technically minded, get a buddy who is to do that for you. You don’t have to take the whole cooler off, just the fan. Four screws usually do the trick.

2. A Vaccination Shot: If you haven’t done a virus scan in a while, make sure this is one of the first things you do for the holidays. I use Avast , the free version, and it works well. Just this week I did a fully system scan. First I ran it overnight because a full scan takes hours on my large drives, then I did a boot scan the next morning. Microsoft Security Essentials works well, too. Personally, I wouldn’t pay for an anti-virus program but you’re on your own if you want to spend your money that way. There are plenty of free or very low cost pieces of software that do the job. Lastly, download Malware Bytes and run it. Hopefully you won’t have any malware but if you do, Malware Bytes will get rid of it.

3. Update Everything: If you have everything set to update automatically, there still might be some software or hardware around that needs renewal. Your router? A firmware update is always a good idea. Your BIOS? Your fancy multi-function keyboard? I’m sure you will be able to find something to update. Most software gives you the option to update automatically and that’s always a good option to choose. I know Apple is a total pain with updates for iTunes and iCloud, etc. as is Windows. Whatever your feelings are on that, updates are generally better than the current version of most software. It takes time, sure, but it’s worth it.

4. Back Up : If you haven’t set up an auto-backup system for your computer, now is a good time to archive your personal data. DVDs are cheap and lost data is expensive. Digital photos don’t come with negatives. Once they’re gone, they’re gone forever. Time to download Burnaware and get busy. It’s free, fast and simple. Do it now, don’t put it off.

5. Get Rid of the Crumbs : My keyboard has served me well all year, helping me write hundreds of thousands of words. It’s time to unplug it and suck out the Triscuit crumbs. While I’m at it I will get a damp (not wet) J-cloth and clean off the various coffee and scotch spills. If you share the keyboard, maybe it’s time for a rub down with some anti-bacteria cleaner, too. Just don’t get it wet! If it does get a few drops of water inside it, put it in the sun for an afternoon to evaporate the moisture.

6. Watch It! : When your monitors are on, they look pretty clean but I can guarantee they probably aren’t. Get a soft cloth, dampen it and give the screen a wipe. Don’t use anything other than water and don’t spray the screen directly. Make sure your soft cloth is only damp not wet, grease free and lint-free. There are special cloths that you can pick up at the local big-box computer accessory store for this purpose. You don’t need any fancy liquid, just water.

Happy Holidays!

Thanks for reading.