10 Ways to Keep Your Kids Safe on Facebook

Hard to believe that a college student and his buddies invented it and now it has spread so quickly that more than 40% of the U.S. population has a Facebook account.  Talk about going viral.  While this social network phenomenon started out as a tool for college kids, it has rapidly grown to include a younger and younger audience.  Facebook rules state that a user must be 13 years or older to have a Facebook account.  However, there is no way to verify this so there are many kids that are younger than that with their own accounts.  How do you protect your kids from the questionable material on Facebook?

1. Don’t let them get an account. Now, this may sound obvious, but it’s the truth.  The best way to protect your kids is to make sure they don’t have an account before they are old enough.
2. Make sure your child friends you. You need to watch what your child is posting on their friends’ walls and what kind of stuff is being posted on their wall.
3. Make sure your child only friends people they know in real life. Anyone can send you a friend request if you are a friend of a friend etc.  This can be an open invitation for predators.
4. Discuss boundaries with your child. Your child needs to know that he/she should not post any personal information online.  No reference to their full name, name of their school, their address or their birthday.
5. Limit your child’s access to the computer. Computers are a way of life, but as a parent you want to be able to monitor what your child is doing on the computer.  Make sure the computer is in a central location like the living room or office.
6. Invest in parental control software that monitors your child’s computer activity. You can’t always be with your child.  If you have software like PC Pandora you can see exactly what your child is doing on the computer and on Facebook accounts even if you aren’t home.
7. Do not allow your kids to post pictures. Pictures lead to online bullying and sometimes too much information.  What if your child posts a picture from his soccer game?  Seems innocent enough, but this gives out personal information that may put children at risk from a predator.
8. Allow your child to use your Facebook account. This may sound funny, but if they aren’t posting under their own name they may be more conscientious.  Plus, you will indeed have access to see everything they have posted.
9. Make sure you have their passwords. There is no such thing as privacy in your house.  You should have their e-mail password as well as their Facebook password.
10. Make sure you set the privacy settings on Facebook. Facebook will show your phone number and other personal information if you don’t turn it off.  Make sure you are there to help your child set up their account.

Ubuntu 11.04 Now Available To Download

Ubuntu version 11.04 is out now and it has new features which makes it easier to use. The new version was released on Thursday and its unofficial name is ‘Natty Narwhal’. There is a new unity interface added and the most noticeable change here is located on the screen’s left side. It is quite similar to the taskbar of Windows 7 and you can drag and drop the icons to and from it. The apps can also be launched easily and quickly.

Unity interface was made originally for the smaller Netbook screens and it gives you easier file management. It also has new dashboard for easier access to the files and applications and Workspaces which make managing multiple windows easier. There’s always the Classic interface of Ubuntu if you don’t like these new elements.

You will be able to connect iPhone to Ubuntu for navigating the file system but there is no support for Android phones here. It is said that the new version also works well with Ubuntu One, a cloud based service. You can sync your files and preferences in cloud.

So do you miss something on migration to Ubuntu? For us, we don’t use it all the time because there isn’t any speech recognition software here like the Dragon NaturallySpeaking. Apart from that, there isn’t any program of easy text completion which can fill a big amount of the boilerplate text by few hotkeys. If someone would create such apps for Ubuntu, we’d definitely be interested.

The positives of Ubuntu include an OS that is free from any worms and virus. Also it is an open-source OS so you don’t have to pay anything for it. Ubuntu has one compelling aspect, its customizability. Compiz is one of our favorite tools for graphical customization and it is enabled with wild graphical transitions between the window and application movements. The best effects are the virtual 3D desktops and windows that’ll wobble and bend when you shake them.

One cool Ubuntu characteristic is that you can download the 698 image, then burn it to a disc and then run it from the CD itself without installing it on your machine. It is a great way for trying out this Linux based OS (operating system) that is getting pretty refined and it is almost as easy to use as PC or Mac.

You can download the latest Ubuntu version from here http://www.ubuntu.com/download/ubuntu/download

Facebook Has Changed Their Security Again…Are You Safe?

Facebook has changed their security again and failed to let us know about it.

Take a look at your URL address (the top box on your screen.) If you see “http” instead of “https” you DO NOT have a secure session & can be HACKED.

Go to Account – Account Settings – Account Security – click Change. Check box (secure browsing), click Save. Facebook have automatically set the non-secure setting!

Do your friends a huge favour, copy & re-post

In The News

Cisco Accused of Orchestrating Engineer’s Arrest

“Cisco Systems orchestrated the arrest of Multiven founder Peter Alfred-Adekeye last year in order to force a settlement of Multiven’s antitrust lawsuit against Cisco, a Multiven executive said on Wednesday. Multiven, an independent provider of service and support for networking gear, sued Cisco in 2008, alleging that the company monopolized the market for its software. Cisco countersued, charging that Alfred-Adekeye hacked into Cisco’s computers and stole copyrighted software. n May 2010, Alfred-Adekeye was arrested in Vancouver, Canada, on 97 counts of intentionally accessing a protected computer system without authorization for the purposes of commercial advantage, according to his arrest warrant. He could be sentenced to 10 years in prison and a $250,000 fine if convicted. The arrest came to light only this week after local Vancouver press reported it.”

Microsoft Counts Down To XP Death

“Microsoft have just released an end-of-support countdown gadget that ticks off the days until XP is no longer supported — but it only runs under Vista or Windows 7! It focuses the mind on the fact that XP is being forcibly retired. It is a wake-up call to think hard about the unpleasant situation and consider the alternatives.So as you watch the count down to XP’s death tick by think about the problems created by using software that actually belongs to someone else…”

Amazon Unveils Library Lending Program

Amazon’s Kindle is about to become a little more like your local library.

The company on Wednesday unveiled Kindle Library Lending, which allows customers to borrow Kindle books from more than 11,000 U.S. public libraries.

Kindle Library Lending will be available for all generations of Kindle devices and free Kindle reading apps later this year. If a Kindle book is checked out more than once or that book is purchased from Amazon, all of a customer’s annotations and bookmarks will be preserved via Kindle’s Whispersync technology that wirelessly syncs books, notes, highlights and marks the last page read.

“We’re doing a little something extra here,” Amazon Kindle director Jay Marine said. “Normally, making margin notes in library books is a big no-no. But we’re extending our Whispersync technology … Your notes will not show up when the next patron checks out the book. But if you check out the book again, or subsequently buy it, your notes will be there just as you left them.”

Security Advisory for Adobe Flash Player Users, Adobe Reader Under Attack!

Adobe today warned of a critical hole in Flash Player that is being exploited in the wild to take control of computers or cause them to crash.

“There are reports that this vulnerability is being exploited in the wild in targeted attacks via a Flash (.swf) file embedded in a Microsoft Word (.doc) file delivered as an email attachment, targeting the Windows platform,” the company said in an advisory. “At this time, Adobe is not aware of any attacks via PDF targeting Adobe Reader and Acrobat. Adobe Reader X Protected Mode mitigations would prevent an exploit of this kind from executing.”

Adobe said it is “finalizing a schedule” for releasing updates for Flash Player 10.2.x and earlier versions for Windows, Macintosh, Linux, Solaris and Android, Adobe Acrobat X (10.0.2) and earlier 10.x and 9.x versions for Windows and Macintosh, Adobe Reader X (10.0.2) for Macintosh, and Adobe Reader 9.4.3 and earlier 9.x versions for Windows and Macintosh.

Since Adobe Reader X Protected Mode would prevent an exploit of this kind from executing, the company said it will address the issue in Adobe Reader X for Windows with the next quarterly security update, scheduled for June 14.

How To Reformat Your Drive

Here is a little tutorial about formatting your hard drive, this is dedicated to my friend Micheal who has asked be about this twice now and to save time I thought I would type it up and share it with the web at large. Enjoy!

A hard drive can be used on any type of computer—PC or Mac. But in order for the computer and drive to talk to one another, the drive has to be formatted.

Seagate external drives come preformatted but Maxtar’s do not—some for PCs, some for Macs. So if you buy the right drive for your computer, you don’t have to do anything else. Just connect the drive to your computer and it will work.

But if you have a drive that’s formatted for a different type of computer or a drive that isn’t preformatted, you’ll need to format the drive before you can use it.

One very important point: FORMATTING ERASES EVERYTHING ON THE DRIVE. So if you’re formatting a drive that has already been used, be sure to copy any files you’ll ever want to see again onto a computer of backup drive.

Formatting your drive for Windows Vista / Windows 7

STEP 1: Open Computer Management like this:

1. Right-click on the Computer icon.
2. Click Manage.

If you’re prompted for an administrator password or confirmation, type the password or provide confirmation.

STEP 2: In the pane on the left, under Storage, click Disk Management.

STEP 3: Right-click the drive that you want to format—be sure it’s the correct drive—then click Format

STEP 4: To format with the default settings, in the Format dialog box, click OK, and then click OK again.

Formatting your drive for Windows XP

STEP 1: Open Disk Management like this:

1. Right-click on the My Computer icon.
2. Click Manage.
3. In the pane on the left, under Storage, click Disk Management.

STEP 2: Right-click on the drive you want to format. Be sure it’s the correct drive.

STEP 3: If you want, you can type a name for the drive in the Volume Label box. This is an optional step.

STEP 4: Click the file system that you want to use in the File System box. You can also change the disk allocation unit size, specify whether you want to perform a quick format, or enable file and folder compression on NTFS volumes.

Note: Before changing the default allocation unit size please refer to Microsoft Knowledge Base Article 314878.

STEP 5: Click OK. When you’re prompted to format the drive, click OK again.

Formatting your drive for a Mac

STEP 1: Open Disk Utility like this:

1. Click Finder.
2. Click Applications.
3. Click Utilities.
4. Click Disk Utility.

STEP 2: Select the drive you want to format. Be sure it’s the correct drive.

STEP 3: Go to the Partition tab.

STEP 4: Click on the Current Volume Scheme drop-down menu and select One (1) partition.

STEP 5: Click Options. From the Partition Schemes provided:

• Click on the GUID Partition Table radio button.
  –OR–
• Click on the Apple Partition Map radio button.

STEP 6: Click OK. Select other options as desired (e.g., Volume Name, Format, etc).

STEP 7: Click Apply. The Partition Disk screen opens.

STEP 8: Click Partition. At this point, the volume dismounts from the desktop and the drive is partitioned and formatted.
Note: When Volumes are created, Time Machine may open, asking if you would like to use the volume for backups. Click Cancel to proceed.

STEP 9: When finished, select the Disk Utility from the Apple Menu and choose Quit Disk Utility.

Having Trouble With IE?

Sometimes an Internet Explorer add-on will cause the entire thing to mess up and refuse to open.

You can see if this is the problem with your IE by going to the START menu and clicking RUN.  Type “iexplore -extoff” and then click OK.  If IE opens up, then it’s probably an add-on problem preventing you from opening it normally and you will need to disable the offending add-on.  Goto Tools–>Manage Add-ons and scroll through them.  The Microsoft ones are usually ok.  Look for anything that is marked corrupt or doesn’t have publisher information and disable it.  Close IE completely and try to open it normally.  Repeat this process, disabling add-ons until you hit on the one that is giving you trouble.  If you think you still need that add-on then goto the publisher’s website and look for an updated version.  Good luck!

Download IE9> HERE

Evernote for Windows Gets Social

Today, Evernote for Windows got its most significant update in months. The big news is sharing. For the first time, Windows users will be able to take selected portions of their Evernote memories and share them with friends, colleagues and classmates–all without ever leaving the application. That’s not all. We’ve also added a number of other much-requested features and improvements. Let’s take a closer look.

Get Evernote for Windows now »

Sharing your memories

We want to make it incredibly easy for you to share your thoughts and inspirations with the people that matter to you. The latest Evernote for Windows update gives you a set of sharing options to fit whatever needs you may have.

Quick note sharing
Now you can quickly share a single note with friends and family using Facebook, Twitter, email, and more. We’ve added a Share button into the menu bar. Click the button and select a sharing option.

To read more about this great product take a look at blog.evernote.com

Windows 7 Market Share

According to the latest results of the market share of desktop operating system in the U.S. in April 2011 compiled by StatCounter, you see people as they are finally leaving Windows XP back and get an upgrade to Windows 7. For the first time since he became the most popular operating system around, the share of Windows XP in the market has been superseded by Windows 7.

Windows 7 is now used in 31.71% of computers in the U.S., while Windows XP has been reduced to 31.56%. Now luck is not an advantage, but show that Windows XP has finally peaked and is on track now. Windows Vista is in third place with 19.07%, Mac OS X in fourth place with 14.87%, Linux is the last to 0.70% and other operating systems make up 2.09% number of the letter. Makes you wonder if there are users in Windows 3.1 still there. How many of you have yet to upgrade to Windows 7 from XP or Vista?

Mercedes-Benz Release New Concept Car: BIOME

The BIOME Concept, design by designers of the Mercedes-Benz Advanced Design Studios in Carlsbad, California. Designers taking their inspiration from nature, they designed a vehicle which is fully integrated into the ecosystem.

According to Hubert Lee, Head of the Mercedes-Benz Advanced Design Studios in Carlsbad “The Mercedes-Benz BIOME Concept is a natural technology hybrid, and forms part of our earth’s ecosystem. It grows and thrives like the leaves on a tree”.