Archive for the ‘Computer Security’ Category

With the advent of identity theft I was like many other people who begrudgingly wandered over to my local Office Depot a number of years ago and picked up a $50 paper shredder.  Once I started my business and really started having to dispose of paperwork that could be valuable I diligently went back to the same Office Depot and picked up the “Super Duper” cuts, slices, dices and makes you a cup of coffee version for over $200.  The new shredder worked like a champ.  It turns up to 10 pages of paper at a time into a flurry of confetti.  All in all I can’t say enough about how well the shredder works… except for the fact it still can’t keep up…

The unwanted paperwork that I now receive for personal use, business use, and personal use because I am a business owner is unbelievable.  For awhile I would diligently spend up to 30 minutes at a go trying to shred all of the private paperwork I was being inundated with, but the shredder just couldn’t handle it.  After awhile I would start getting an overheating warning and the thing would have to shut off to cool down. Think about how much paper that is!  So much that the little motors literally risked being burnt out.  So out of frustration I took a play out of Grandpa’s book and took all the papers out to my little fire pit in the backyard and had a little cookout. It’s probably not very environmental, but at this point I don’t care.

Now I collect all of my private paperwork into a brown paper shopping by my desk, and once a month I go out back.  A shopping bag crammed full of paperwork takes about 20 minutes to completely burn.  It’s a nice, relaxing way to end the day.  There’s something very refreshing about sitting back with a beer and watching all that tedious information burst into flames.  It feels as if I’m making an offering to some god of bureaucracy, and that the god is happy.

And lets face it.  It’s a hell of a lot cheaper then the fancy, dancy, cuts, dices, slices and makes a cup of coffee shredder from Office Depot.

Microsoft has released a free antivirus program that works on all of their operating systems.  This is an easy to use program that keeps your Windows PC free from viruses and spyware.

I know some people are skeptical that the software will work very well, and as a beta tester for the original Windows One Care antivirus suite I can understand why.  I have two reason for being hopeful though.

The first is that Microsoft Defender has been a very good piece of antispyware software.  This free utility has been around for about 2 years and in my experience has worked very well.

The second reason is that the public relations problems Microsoft is having because of virus and spyware issues have to be affecting their bottom line.  Mac is claiming to be virus free and Linux is not only free, but more secure then Windows.  It seems to me that it may be a better business plan for Microsoft to give away a good antivirus suite, then to try to charge for one and then loose customers to other operating systems.

So far I have heard good reviews of the software.  I haven’t installed it yet, but will be doing so soon. 

You can take a look / download it here http://www.microsoft.com/Security_Essentials/

If you already have an antivirus subscription I would advise you to wait until your current solution expires before trying out Microsoft Security Essentials. If your antivirus is expired, or you don’t have any at all you might as well give it a try.  Some protection is definitely better then none.

This Class, and many more, are now hosted at EverymanIT.com.

This Class, and many more, are now hosted at EverymanIT.com.

Do you hate giving out your email address when you have to register for random services on the Internet? Do you hate all the spam you get sent just because a website that you don’t care about asked for your email once?  Well Mailinator may be the tool for you.

Mailinator.com gives you an easy to use, disposable email address that requires no registration.  You just go to the site, make up an email address and away you go.

The service is very easy to use, and the mail server is very fast.  I sent a test email to myself and received it in a second or so.

This is a great tool that I would suggest everyone thinks about using before they give their primary email address to a strange website.  Just remember there’s no security on the temporary email account so don’t use this for any site that may send you important information.

Check them out at http://www.mailinator.com/