First of all the Conficker virus is a pretty aggressive bot-net creating virus that spread throughout the internet a few months ago but recently a new variant came up and started infecting computers again. For those of you who don’t know, a bot-net is a large group of infected computers that virus software creators gain access to after their virus infects computers and it allows them to have control over this group of computers to do whatever they want to such as hacking or other malicious acts.

The Conficker virus will do a list of things to your machine to hide the fact that you are infected such as disabling your Windows Automatic Updates, disabling anti virus software updates, and blocking certain websites that would provide help on updating either Windows or your anti virus. Luckily there are companies out there that make virus removal tools to help get rid of these types of viruses.

Enigma software has been the best removal tool I’ve used to date, it’s fast and simple to use and doesn’t really require any input on your part except for hitting a button or two. You can download the Conficker removal tool here. (the link will automatically kick off the download)  For those of you who want to do a little more research first, you can visit Enigma Software’s homepage here.

Now I want to make it clear, due to the recent FTC regulation change (opens a pdf document) that this is NOT a sponsored post, but a helpful post that you will hopefully pass onto your friends to help them find out if they’ve got the Conficker virus or not.  So pass it on.

Got any other good virus removal tools?  Share them in the comments section or send me an email

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People are willing to share more information today than they were 5 years ago and it is affecting everything from friendships to relationships, and even jobs.  People are getting fired for posting pictures of how drunk they got over the weekend or posting comments like “callin’ in sick today, so hungover…”  Relationships are being torn apart by ex boyfriends or girlfriends leaving menacing comments or current boyfriends / girlfriends leaving nasty remarks that someone’s ex might see if they go to that person’s myspace or facebook profile.  Some people go as far as uploading videos for their entire friend’s list of people to see of themselves at parties getting drunk and acting slutty or trying to act tough and fighting someone.  Is this too much information for people to see about you?  Do you really want to have your friend back home show everyone how stupid you look when you’re drunk, or how immature you sound as you leave comments on people’s pages in hopes of it hurting someone’s feelings, just to make yourself feel better?  Do people really care about the status of your bathroom trip that you tweeted to twitter?

Part of the problem, and this lies more with Myspace than Facebook, is that the profile pages are public for everyone to see until that user sets it to private.  Now if there was a way of preventing certain friends to see you pictures and comments, and prevent other users from seeing them, then that would alleviate a lot of the problem.  But people don’t want to do that much micromanaging to their account.  Curiosity will always triumph over rationale, and it’s been bred into humans to be jealous and there’s not much that can be done about that.

Social media has undergone a change that has brought it away from it’s original goal of helping people connect and communicate with friends and family, and has turned into yet another popularity contest outside of high school for people to go through and try and gain acceptance through.  What good can come of this?  How are people supposed to grow up if they’re constantly in a state of mind like that of a high schooler?

Now don’t get me wrong, there are sites that are considered social media like linkedin which connect professionals who are looking to expand their network of contacts in hopes of branching out into a new job or new field of interest.  This is what most social media should try and aim to get back to.  Social media should be a way for people to connect and share thoughts or ideas but not promote animosity between people.

Tell me what you think.  Do you think we share too much information with the world, or is this what the new generation should be getting i

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Most cables are made out of wrapped pairs of wires, which you can imagine can’t really vary that much from one cable to the next.  Now each of these wires will be wrapped in some sort of insulation that prevents them from touching each other when they’re inside the main cable.  This is where some cables might have a thicker insulation than others, but they are still basically the same wire.  Now there is a way that some cables will differ from others in that they will have a shielding wrapped around them to protect from electromagnetic interference, which is static that comes from electrical components.

Recently I received an HDMI cable from www.optimization-world.com and I can tell you that this cable is just as good as some premium brands that will remain unnamed (mainly because they feel the need to sue everyone) I put it through a little bit of a rough test banging it around and forcing it into and out of the connectors on my T.V. and it still worked fine.

If you were to cut open premium cables and discount cables you’d find that inside they are almost identical.  The only thing that really separates premium from discount cables are the type of connector on the end.  And that can only go so far as HDMI cables all have the same type of connector.

Now throughout the course of time that I worked for Magnolia, I had several premium cables fail on me right out of the box some of which cost upwards of $100 or more.  The cable I got in the mail costs $9.99. Why would anyone want to pay so much for a cable they can get for a fraction of the price?  I’m not just saying this because they gave me a free cable, as I have plenty of cables that I already use and this is just a bonus one for my next T.V. purchase, but this cable is just as good as the others.  It feels sturdy, it’s got some of the same features as premium cables such as gold connectors and being certified HDMI.

Do you have a preference on what cables you use?  Do you stick to one brand or do you shop around and look for good deals?  Let everyone know in the comments section.

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• First, open your FTP program and login to the account where you want to change the message.

• Navigate your way to your wp-admin folder and inside you will find a file called admin-header.php

• Now you’re going to open the file using your favorite text editor, not MS word but a good one like Notepad++ and you’re going to find line #108 which reads “<p><?php printf(__(’Howdy, <a href=”%1$s” title=”Edit your profile”>%2$s</a>’), ‘profile.php’, $user_identity) ?>“

Now all you have to do is change the “Howdy” to read something more exotic like bon jour, or buenos dias.  Or maybe leave a message for one of your authors like “post more!”  Just remember that this will change the message for anyone that signs into your blog whether they are an admin or an author.

And there you have it, you’ve given your admin page a little personal touch and you won’t have to see the ugly wordpress “Howdy” greeting again.

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Now keep in mind that when using these shortcuts that you have the proper menu at the time. For example, if the keyboard shortcut you want to use is listed as a Finder Menu shortcut, then you must make sure that the menu at the top of the screen says “Finder”, otherwise you will be using a shortcut that might not be available at the time.

For Those of you who are unfamiliar with Mac keyboards, the command key is the one that looks like this:

• Shift-Command-Delete     Finder Menu     Empty Trash
• Command-Delete     File Menu     Move to Trash
• Shift-Command-N     File Menu     New Folder
• Command-N     File Menu     New Finder window
• Command-O     File Menu     Open
• Command-S     File Menu     Save
• Command-P     File Menu     Print
• Command-I     File Menu     Get Info
• Command-D     File Menu     Duplicate
• Command-L     File Menu     Make Alias
• Command-R     File Menu     Show original
• Command-E     File Menu     Eject
• Command-F     File Menu     Find
• Command-Z     Edit Menu     Undo
• Command-X     Edit Menu     Cut
• Command-C     Edit Menu     Copy
• Command-V     Edit Menu     Paste
• Command-A     Edit Menu     Select All
• Command-T     File Menu     Add to Favorites (Mac OS X 10.2.8 or earlier), Add to Sidebar (Mac OS X10.3 or later—use Shift-Command-T for Add to Favorites)

So there you have it, Easy Tech Talk’s list of most useful Mac keyboard shortcuts.  Do you have a shortcut that you use often that isn’t listed here?  Leave a comment and tell me about it and I’ll update my list with it.

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