Email Chain Letter: PUBLIC SCHOOL TEACHER ARRESTED
A public school teacher was arrested this morning at John F.Kennedy International Airport as he attempted to board a flight while in possession of a ruler, a protractor, a set square, a slide rule and a calculator. Read more
High-Speed Internet Service Choices
There are a couple of choices in high-speed internet service providers in the Northern Berkshire. There are a few differences in the services that are offered by Time Warner Cable and Verizon:
Verizon DSL offers two services – a basic, 768 kbps service that is perfectly suited to loading websites, retrieving email, and downloading small files such as antivirus software updates. This service will perform these jobs at such a speed that there is no advantage to having the higher speed connection. The one limitation of the 768 kbps service is transferring large files via email or web browser, or watching streaming media, such as audio or video.
Verizon’s other service, their 3000 kbps service, is more comparable to Time Warner Cable’s service, which typically runs at between 2000 and 5000 kbps. These two services are virtually identical, streaming media, transferring files, etc. at lightning fast speeds. Their prices are not. Verizon’s service tends to cost approximately $15 to $30 less than Time Warner Cable service.
We hope this assists our clients in deciding which High-Speed Internet Service Provider is best for you and your needs. Please contact us if you have any questions or would like a Brainspiral technician to install one of these services for you.
Removing Security Warning when Opening Program in Windows XP
For those of you running Windows XP Service Pack 2, you have likely come across this problem at least once. You download a picture, document, or program you need, and before you can do anything, up pops a window, warning you of the (so-called) dangers of opening the file. “Warning,” the window advises, “This file is from an unknown publisher. Opening this file may damage your computer.” As helpful as this proposes to be, it is annoying for those downloading pictures of their vacation or their co-worker’s business document. For those continually annoyed by this, we offer this fix.
To remove these pop-up notifications, go to “Start”, right click on “My Computer”, click “Properties”, go to the “Advanced” tab, and select “Environmental Variables”. In User Variables, click “new”, and add the following: SEE_MASK_NOZONECHECKS, and give it the value 1. This will disable the pop-up security checks.
And you thought you had computer problems…
PROBLEM: A Lady Tries to turn on her computer, but it doesn’t come on and…she calls the “Support Desk”:
SUPPORT: ” Hello, technical support how can I help you?”
Read more
Which websites are dangerous?
With literally million upon millions of websites offering numerous services, entertainment, opinions, news, products, and downloads, determining which of these sites are good or malicious for our computers is largely a guessing game. That is, it was. McAfee provides a free product called Site Advisor that adds a small bar to the bottom of your browser that gives a green, yellow, or red indicator (think traffic lights) for the safety of the site you are currently visiting. Like all software, it isn’t perfect, and the few sites it isn’t aware of, it will give a gray indicator. The add-on to your browser is available at the Site Advisor website.
1954 Popular Mechanics Magazine Photo
This picture is amazing. One of our clients sent it to us. It’s hard to believe how far off their technology projects were in 1954. Consider now that a common digital stopwatch is more powerful than the ‘computer’ featured in the image. Wow!
Internet Explorer 5/6 Full Alpha Transparency PNG Hack?
If you want to use png’s in IE, here is a very simple javascript fix to
allow IE 5/6 to display pngs with full alpha transparency. IE 7 supposedly
supports pngs without any help.
File Sharing: The Real Story
Despite security and copyright problems that have plagued them throughout their existence, file sharing programs continue to be popular. The first Napster, Kazaa, & Limewire are the better known programs for file sharing, and they entice many consumers with their ability to get you the file, whether it be a video, audio, document, or picture file, for free. The good news ends there. Many of these free, or lite, programs, pay for themselves through collaboration with known spyware producers who pay the file sharing program makers to bundle their software with spyware and other nasties. To make things worse, there is no way of knowing what programs and files are being put onto your computer while these programs are being used. So in exchange for free audio, video, and text files, you get in exchange more spyware, worms, trojans, and viruses than you would have encountered through regular web surfing. Read more
Care for LCD Displays
LCD displays have dramatically improved how we use and locate our computers. Any of those who have transitioned from the massive, bulky CRT monitors to the sleek, crisp imaged LCD displays appreciate the flexibility in location, better resolution, and decreased energy consumption. However, these LCD displays, which can be found in desktop monitors and laptops, require different care than their massive CRT cousins. We offer these tips to avoid costly repairs and replacements. Read more
Reverse iPod Sychonization & Backup
We know your music is important to you. We know the iPod has changed the way we listen and transport music. We know how annoying it is when your computer has crashed and your iTunes library is caput.
We also know how to restore the contents of your iPod back to your computer. It’s not easy & takes some time, but it’s absolutely possible. So if you need some recovery, let us know. Get us your iPod for a day (you can even mail it it us!), and we’ll take care of the rest.