On any given Friday, thousands upon thousands (maybe even millions) of Twitter users enter the hashtag #FollowFriday (or #FF), followed by one or more “mentions.” While you don’t really need to know much about Twitter, hashtags or mentions (foreign terms to anyone unfamiliar with Tweeting), you might be interested in the concept of FollowFriday. The idea is for users to share the names of other “interesting people” that they follow and think you should too. These recommendations serve as positive comment cards for the digitally inclined.
A Twitter Search Shows How Popular #FollowFriday is
FollowFriday is a fantastic concept and I have decided to free it of it’s Twitter chains, or at least “borrow.” Here at JumpstartMyPC.com, we try to provide you with any information that helps you get the most out of your computer and we often do this in the form of reviews, how-to’s and links within our articles. In some cases, the site, person or service that we want to share doesn’t really lend itself to a full article, so we will use this FollowFriday concept as a way of highlighting the interesting people, places and things that you should know about or be following yourself.
We’ve all seen this before. A desktop with dozens, maybe even hundreds, of icons and shortcuts. I’m sure that the owner (and maybe you are the culprit in question) of this desktop had great intentions when they first started adding these colorful little images to their workspace, but things just got out of hand. I too used the desktop as a catch-all for some time, until I realized that anything more than about 10-15 icons was too much to handle. Part of the blame for this icon hoarding must fall on, what I like to call “future-surfing.” Future-surfing is the process of adding shortcuts of newly found web sites to your desktop for the purpose of returning to them later, when you “have time” or are “will be able to focus on it.”
We all find new and exciting sites as we explore the internet. These aren’t necessarily our “favorites” or sites we want to “bookmark” but sites we just want to investigate later and now there is a way to save the links for these pages without destroying our desktop. SaveLink is an add-on for Firefox that incorporates a new option to your File and right-click menus. That option, shown as “save link as file” allows the user to save an entire page or an individual link as a shortcut in a folder of their choosing. Below, we have some screen shots of this great Firefox add-on in action.
Intro: This article might be a bit “out of the norm” compared to our typical computer-based blog-posts but serves as an example of what using your computer can do for you. I found out about this program, and the details, via Google Reader. Reader allows me to follow multiple blogs and pick out the articles I want to read. In this case, I was following the Switched.com blog when I ran across the article titled States Extend Cash-for-Clunker to Appliances. The article contained the links I needed to drill down to the Texas Appliance Rebates web site.
That’s right, the highly successful Cash for Clunkers program will soon extend to home appliances, like dishwashers, freezers, refrigerators and air-conditioners. The thought process here is that the program will encourage consumers to put more money back into the economy, while removing older, less efficient appliances from the “grid.” As Terrence O’Brien (author of States Extend Cash-for-Clunker to Appliances) points out, “cars aren’t the only aging and inefficient products that people tend to retain long past their expiration dates.”
I recently stumbled onto a blog from Panda Security that focuses on “emerging threats” on the internet. Typically, with this kind of site or blog, the terminology and explanations are a bit over my head. Shockingly, the authors of the PandaLabs blog have managed to relay information on these threats in bite-sized, easy to understand articles that I don’t mind reading. When a threat is uncovered, they write a blog post with the information, including screen shots and a few details about the threat and then update their Twitter and Facebook accounts. I follow them on Twitter and now I have a better feel for what is going on in the ever-changing threat landscape.
If you are interested in this type of information, I strongly urge you to follow PandaLabs. However, I know how busy most people are and that they probably haven’t scheduled much time for following the latest malware threats of the world, so I plan on using Panda Security as a resource and relaying the information to you via the JumpstartMyPC.com blog.
Over the weekend, I had a discussion about helping family members with their computer. As with every conversation like this before, I heard the frustrations of one person (the expert) who was trying to help another (the person in need) with their computer. I realized that almost every one of us has been one of those two people at some point. I also realized that I needed to share more information on one of my favorite tools LogMeIn.com.
LogMeIn.com is a service that allows you to access other computers remotely, across a broadband connection. A quick installation of software on each end allows the primary user (the expert) to access, see and even control a remote computer from anywhere. More importantly, it provides the expert a way to help the person in need without getting in the car or imagining what the other person sees over a phone call. Below, we have documented the exact steps that two people will need to take to set up this wonderful tool.
Browsing the internet should be easy! Unfortunately, with all of the toolbars, icons, labels and preloaded bookmarks of the most used internet browsers (IE, Firefox) your viewable space can get a bit messy. If you have found yourself a bit overwhelmed by the “clutter” that has accumulated within your browser or simply want to see more of the web pages you are browsing, we have something for you. Welcome to JumpstartMyFirefox! We’re going to show you how to take your browser from A to B.
Over the past few years, Firefox add-ons have grabbed my attention more and more. Each time I found myself with a browsing need or problem, a quick Google search led me to a solution using add-ons, which are basically mini-programs that work within Firefox to customize some part of the browsing experience. I have installed and tested many add-ons during that time and today I bring you my own collection, titled JumpstartMyFirefox, to help you take back your browser.
With all of the social networking tools available today, it is easy to get wrapped up in the fun of it all and forget about the basic rules of life. One of the biggies – Don’t announce to the world that you are not home. Unfortunately, people are happily volunteering this information (along with plenty of other personal tidbits) to the entire world without understanding the potential dangers of doing so. Social media sites/tools are making it increasingly easier for thieves to track your moves and know when you are not home. A great new site PleaseRobMe.com pokes a bit of fun at the phenomenon and aims to educate the masses by showing what NOT to do.
“Listing all those empty homes out there” is the tagline for PleaseRobMe.com and categories like “Recent Empty Homes” are used to demonstrate the dangers of location-aware services. Location-aware services is a broad term that basically means any software, device or site that allows you to share your current geographical location with others. There are a lot of advantages to sharing your location (mostly social) but users should understand the dangers associated with broadcasting your whereabouts. Mainly, telling people you are at point X means you are not at home, thus making your home a target for thieves.
JumpstartMyPC.com was started to help PC users get the most out of their computer and no product exemplifies this idea like Dropbox! Dropbox is a file-syncing, file sharing, online backup tool that you can access from just about anywhere and you can start using it for FREE! I have written about this product many times, shared it with clients, friends and family and I use it myself, every single day. If you aren’t using it yet, you are in for a real treat. If you are using it, read on to find out what’s new and how you can now access your files without even using a computer.
DropBox is a storage application and service operated by Evenflow, Inc. The service enables users to store and sync files online and between computers. There are many great features to this product, but best of all IT IS FREE. Click below and watch the video (created by the folks at CommonCraft) to see for yourself.
“Malware Peddlers Look to Exploit Olympic Luge Tragedy“ That is the title of an article posted on mashable.com yesterday. Yes, the sad truth is that cyber-criminals are using a man’s death to find a way into your computer and your wallet. Many were interested in the details of the Winter Olympic tragedy and, in their search to find the video of the accident in question, were tricked into installing malicious software on their computer.
Scams like these are becoming more and more common. As PC and internet users we have just a few choices. We can avoid using the internet completely (not likely) or arm ourselves with the right tools to prevent malware attacks, spyware trickery, phishing scams, etc. Anti-virus and anti-malware programs can detect and prevent most malicious software when it gets to your computer, but what about preventing this malware from ever getting to you. This is where My Web of Trust (WOT) comes in.
It isn’t as if we needed another reason to perform regular maintenance on our computers, but a recent development in the world of Windows XP has proven our point once again. A recent article on engadget.com, titled Windows XP patch fiasco gets even crazier, Microsoft now scrambling for solutions, indicates that some recent Windows XP security patches resulted in BSODs (that’s Blue Screen of Death) for a small group of PC users. We’ll quickly give you the rundown on this development and show you how to prevent the issue on your PC.
First thing’s first: if you have a yellow shield in your system tray (the icon that indicates a Microsoft update is available for your PC) don’t update just yet. This goes against everything we have ever told you here on JumpstartMyPC.com, but it’s OK just this once. Why? Microsoft recently reported that existing malware on a “limited number” of computers caused those machines to blue-screen when the update was applied. There is a technical explanation for all of this (available in the engadget article), but all we really need to know is that our PCs must cleansed of any malware before any updates are applied. Microsoft has already “yanked” the patch, but some of you might have already downloaded the files without knowing it.
“
