Updated Computer Junkie Links on Moffitt Website

If you are a computer junkie like me here are some of my favorites

I spent some time cleaning up my "Computer Junkie" links on our family website today.
I had a couple of bad links so I deleted those and added several new links of interest. I will list them below.

Gibson Research Corporation If you connect to the Internet with a MS Windows Computer YOU MUST spend some quality time reading the content here and TESTING your computer for security risks. If you do these things FAITHFULLY you will become a responsible Cyber Citizen that we will all love and appreciate. If that does not appeal to you then rest assured that your data will be safe and hackers are us will not be able to control your computer from a remote location. If that does not interest you please turn off your computer, put it back in the box and send it back to where you got it.

Please allow me to digress for a moment. My desire is that you USE your computer for your specific needs whether it be work or play. At the same time I want you to be aware that when you connect your computer to the Internet via your ISP of choice that you are no longer isolated and alone. You have entered into a community of other users world wide. That means that you could be in danger of both virus infection, hackers taking over your computer or someone intentionally deleting your data off your hard drive. Someone could take over your computer and USE it to launch DOS (Denial of Service) attacks on your friends, family or the business network down the street.

It is VERY important that you learn the basics with regards to safe computing both locally in your home environment but also with regards to interacting with others when you are connected on the Internet. Here are some simple guide lines you can follow to make CERTAIN that you and I both are safe.

A. always have Anti Virus software running in the background
B. ALWAYS be suspicious of ANY and ALL attachments.
C. run Windows UPDATE on your MS Windows Computer atleast once per week
D. ALWAYS run Live Update on your Anti Virus Software IF it is not set to run automatically for you.
E. Always be AWARE of ANY Critical Security Update alerts from Microsoft. INSTALL these critical updates without fail. If you are not sure about it ASK someone (like me) IF it is necessary. I can garuntee you if it is listed as Critical or a Security Patch I will probably say YES.
F. Go to http://www.grc.com and TEST your computer for security leaks atleast once per month
G. Back up sensitive data to a different hard drive or removable media on a REGULAR basis. Hard Drives are man made and they WILL fail eventually. What will happen to your data if your hard drive crashes? IT is GONE!!!! Period, end of story. All of those hours that you spent collecting and manipulating data is lost forever. If you have a CD Writer on your computer use it to burn (write) your data to a blank CD. Do that once per month if not more often.


Blogger.com Website
Blogger is one of the most used and popular websites for Web Journaling. There are MANY Web Journaling (blogging) services out there that will allow you to do the same thing. Some are FREE and some are NOT.

W. Bloggar
BloggAr software is a MS Windows application that allows you to input all of your Bloggar Server settings into this app and allows you to write, edit and publish your blogs whether you are online or not. To save some confusion this is how it works.

A. You use a BLOGGING (web journal) Service to publish your content (www.blogger.com)
B. You HOST your Blog (web journal) on a Blogger Type Web Server (yourname.blogspot.com)
C. You use Blogging Software (like w.bloggar) as an application to WRITE your web journal.

If that is not simple enough let me know and I will take a deep breath and try again.

Blog Express
First there was the WWW (world wide web). Then came plain text (ascii) e-mail and then e-mail clients (Outlook and Outlook Express) gave us the ability to send HTML e-mail. Hackers R Us (aka criminal idiots) figured out how to cause millions of dollars of damage by writing viruses (trojans, worms etc) that destroys data or causes Denial of Service attacks on personal computers and company networks. RSS (Really Simple Syndication) is a technology that has morphed from the need for a way to PUBLISH content but not have to worry about our Hackers R US folks. Blog Express is what Outlook Express is for e-mail and Usenet Newsgroups. If you are familiar with OE then you will LOVE Blog Express.