Computer Tips -Tech Info

There have been a couple of interesting articles lately about the evolution of Google Base. When it came out, I remember thinking I would have to spend some time thinking about how to use it. It has interesting potential to be a VERY powerful tool for Google in their competition for web traffic. One article in particular, tells how in a sense Google Real Estate has started appearing…. “When searching “houses for sale” in a regular Google search, some users might see a one-box that helps narrow down what type of house they are looking for.” Now, Google Real Estate might not be an official product launch, but an example of integration of Google Base information into regular search results.

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This isn’t necessarily tech related, but modern life related I guess. I can’t count how many credit card offers we receive in the mail each month. I have visions of a few acres of forest land somewhere being tagged with our name and the subtitle… “credit card offers”. I’ve never followed up on an unsolicited card offer that I recall and as I was tearing one up recently, I noticed a little not at the bottom….

“You can choose to stop receiving “prescreened” offers of credit from us and other companies by calling toll-free 1.888.5.OPT.OUT. For more information about prescreened offers, please see the PRESCREEN & OPT-OUT NOTICES in the Terms and Conditions section of this offer.”

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For some time I’ve wanted a good pair of noise reducing headphones for “mowing season”. Ideally they’d have am/fm stereo so I could listen to the radio (or something broadcast from my little FM transmitter…) REALLY ideally, they’d have a way I could patch something directly into them. I’ve found such a thing from Amazon.com in the Peltor HRX52A-01347-BD-GV Racetunes AM/FM Radio Headset and Hearing Protector with Audio Jack and Scanner Patch Cord.

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I feel like I’ve done this article so many times in the past…. there are so many things I’m hoping to post and time seems to evaporate before my very eyes. This afternoon I hope to be posting a few things that have been on that list. I also have a few other projects that I’ve been VERY eager to get a start on, which may happen this afternoon (or in whatever’s left of it.) As of late, of course, I’ve been trying to not work through the day, into the evening and late into the night. My pattern of filling all my free time between and after appoinments trying to make posts was quite tiring, maybe I can at some point try to find a balance where I’m not investing toooo much time chasing stories that are already out there.

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I noticed something yesterday when I had logged into the adsense page at Google. They’ve now added “adwords” referrals. For those that don’t know – Adwords is the name for the program where you can advertise your site on google, or through their advertising network (such as this site for example.)

The deal seems to be that when someone spends $100 in advertising (within 90 days of signing up) from a referred click (and they’ve never been an adwords user before.)…. then the referring site get’s $20…. not bad. As for adwords itself….

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Some time back, I was teetering on the brink…. I’ve used Evolution as my linux mail client for ages (since I switched), because it had the calender integrated etc… However, Kontact has REALLY looked nice for some time, but I didn’t have time to mess with changing. Then one day, I was trying to send a message with Evolution and got a pop up box saying…….. “error while performing operation”, and “MAIL FROM command failed: Unknown” huh???

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While we wait for Microsoft to release a patch for the MOST recent Internet Explorer vulnerability….. it looks as though MS is “planning” to release a patch on their routine patch day of April 11th. (However they could always change their mind…) As before though there are some 3rd party patches. I’ve got to say I’m slightly uncomfortable with the prospect of a third party patch when there are workarounds (use another browser, disable active scripting….) However, for some those aren’t enough options. I know of two unofficial patches.

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I thought this was a great idea…. rsync.net Okay for 2$ per GB of storage per month (or $24 per year for 1GB of storage) you can have your very own secure online storage drive. For you windows users think of a G: drive or a Z: drive that you could SECURELY connect to from a home machine and a work machine…. If you’re concerned about a catastrophic failure of one of their datacenters, then pay $3.50/GB/month for a more geographically dispersed plan (uses redundant data centers..) The best parts (I think) are this…. ssh encrypted connection to your drive and no transfer fees.

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If you use Internet Explorer to browse the web, I’d suggest finding the instructions to disable active scripting, or drop it and use something else in light of the recent exploit floating around. It seems that in spite of Microsoft’s infinite wisdom that “Microsoft has determined that an attacker who exploits this vulnerability would have no way to force users to visit a malicious Web site. Instead, an attacker would have to persuade them to visit the Web site, typically by getting them to click a link that takes them to the attacker’s Web site”…. the reality is that legitimate sites have been hacked and the malicious code has been added. (Over 200 legit sites…)

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Well, it’s annoying to me when my own computer has issues that I can’t seem to track down and off and on for the last year I’ve had annoying seemingly random shut downs (I mean it’s as if someone pulled the power plug). It was an AMD XP 1800 system. The first I noticed the problem, I was trying to transcode video. A few minutes into the process – bang power off and it would be followed by a painfull 30 seconds of the system trying to post, shutting down, restarting, off, start, off, start with the floppy drive getting a seek every second or two as it seemed to try to muster the power to boot. For this reason, my first suspect was the power supply, 4 drives, hefty processor, hefty video card, (sound card, network, tv card, etc.etc.etc) maybe my generic 300 watt wasn’t steady enough?

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