Facebook took away another piece of your privacy the other day when they activated Places which lets everyone know where you are whenever you use Facebook whether you want them to or NOT.  Mark Zuckerberg may want his buds to know when he’s using the WC but I prefer to keep that item of national security to myself.  Here are directions for removing the Places listing from your Facebook setting.

Quick, hang out a shingle as a security company!  Money keeps flying their way.  This time the luck recipient is AVAST which is about to get $100 million to help them defend us.  Hope this really translates into more security.  Whose next?  Microsoft buys Symantec?!  Ed Rudel

This article will outline some of the basics of setting up strong passwords that won’t be easily broken by hackers.  That doesn’t mean that they are unbreakable, but it does mean that it will take a hacker a little longer to try and crack it and that means wasted time for them.  You become a less desirable target as they quickly move on, in most cases, to try and find easily cracked passwords.  Take some time to look this list over and print it out for your future reference and/or pass it on to friends. Do’s and Dont’s of Password creation.

Apple has brought the magic of the touchpad from your laptop to your Mac desktop!  The Magic Trackpad uses the same gestures, and then some, as the touchpads on the MacBooks, such as pinching, scrolling and page turning.  The difference is that this is now all incorporated into a wireless device that can take the place of your mouse and give you so much more in return for a mere $69.  Can you tell what my next purchase is going to be?  Seriously, this looks like a wonderful Bluetooth device to put next to your wireless Apple keyboard that will give you mousing capabilities and so much more.   Apple also offers 6 Nicad batteries and a recharger for $29 to make this economically and ecologically a hit.  Foster Braun

USA.gov has a ton of free mobile apps that give information about product recalls, most-wanted criminals and other federal government information and services.  Most of these tools use data from interactive websites optimized to work well in “microbrowsers,” the small-size, limited-functionality web browsers that come with many mobile phones. CNN Report

MacAfee offers the following solution to the mess that its most recent update caused on Windows XP machines.  These instructions come from MacAfee US.  Be very careful about downloading any other solutions from other sources because hackers are taking advantage of the situation to download phoney anti-virus programs which are actually trojans. Here is the MacAfee Solution. Please read the full instructions before you download anything.

Get what you DON’T pay for!  PC Mag reports on 196 programs that cost nothing but will make your computing life richer while keeping your wallet fat!

PC Mag recently put 12 anti-virus suites to the test to see who really give the best all around protection.  Remember, these are suites: they are like Swiss Army Knives with lots of functions, all of which take up Ram but just might offer some pretty comprehensive protection.  Full Story

A piece of software designed to run with one of Energizers’s battery-charger products contains a nasty Trojan according to Technewsworld. If you bought Energizer’s Duo USB battery charger and then downloaded the unit’s companion PC software, you should take steps to remove the Trojan immediately.

Ed Rudel

HOW TO – Recover data from your computer when Windows has crashed

Your computer has crashed and all of your data is still on the hard drive – Photos, Documents, music, and even your Taxes and Resume.

If your computer powers up but Windows will not start then a LIVE CD can be used to save your data to a Flash drive or an external disk drive.

A Live CD loads an independent operating system directly from the CD/DVD drive, instead of Windows from your hard drive.  This is especially useful when your computer is no longer bootable (Blue Screen of Death, Corrupted Registry, Virus, or even a minor disk error).  Just because your computer can no longer load Windows does not mean that your data is gone.  This just means that a Windows file is damaged, rendering it inoperable, but the location where your data files are located may still be accessible.

One of my favorite Live CD’s is Puppy Linux.  Yes, the name is cute. But the term puppy also implies “Small”.  Puppy Linux is only about 100mb and can be easily downloaded and burned to a CD.  There are many Live CD’s available but you must be careful because some provide an” Install Option” that might overwrite your existing Windows OS!  I recommend making one of these bootable rescue CD’s now, before you have a problem.

You will need 2 items.

1. Puppy Linux Live CD – (instruction below)
2. Something to copy your data to – USB attach disk drive or Flash drive.

This is a link to a Bootable / Live CD known as Puppy-Linux – Save the file to your Desktop.
http://www.puppylinux.org/downloads/
-OR-
Use this second link – It points directly to the Puppy Linux ISO  file to download http://ftp.nluug.nl/ftp/pub/os/Linux/distr/puppylinux/puppy-4.3.1/pup-431.iso

After you download and save this file do not just copy this file to a CD.  It is an ISO file (a CD Image file).

Most CD burning software (Roxio, Sonic, Nero) associate an ISO file type as a CD Image file.  When you double click on the ISO file, the CD-writing software should launch and prompt you to “Burn Disc Image to Disc”.  If you computer does not seem to support ISO files, click here

After the CD image is created, you should be able to place it in the failing computer and attempt to boot from the CD.
1.  Plug in your USB hard drive or Flash drive that you are going to copy your data to before you boot.
2.  Power up the computer and install the CD.
3.  Many computers are preconfigured to try to boot from the CD/DVD drive first, before they attempt to boot from the hard drive (where Windows is installed).  If  your computer does not boot from the CD /DVD then you can usually force a computer to select which drive to boot from by pressing or tapping  a function key after powering up the computer.

Common boot menu keys to tap in order to force your computer to load from the CD/DVD are:

DELL                Tap F12 key
HP                     Tap F9 key
Gateway          Tap ESC key

If you have not already done so, place the Puppy Linux CD into the CD drive.

Just let the CD boot up and start up.  It will ask you for Language settings, Keyboard settings, and Time Zone.

It will next ask you to choose Video Option.  I usually just select Xorg as this video option supports more video cards.

If your computer’s Windows XP hard drive is readable, it should show up immediately above the “Menu” start button (Bottom left).  It will usually be labeled as SDA1.

Note – Single Mouse clink in Linux.  Double mouse clicks opens things twice.

Note – Dragging and dropping files will prompt for Copy or Move

SDA1 would be your Hard Drive.

SR0 is your CD Rom

SDB5 or SDB4 – This is your External USB drive.  (The graphic symbol will look like a USB Flash drive/stick)

You should be able to open up your hard drive and your external USB device.  Size each windows so that both are viewable at the same time.

Drag and drop files from the failing hard drive to the USB backup device.

Your Documents are usually stored in the following location, on the hard drive.

Windows XP – C:\Documents and Settings\USERNAME

Vista and Windows 7 -  C:\Users\USERNAME

Folders you will want to copy include:

XP and Vista – My Documents, Favorites, Desktop

Windows 7 – Documents, Favorites, Desktop, Photos, Videos, Music

Below is a screen capture of the Puppy Linux interface.   Download yours today and familiarize yourself with some of the basics – Opening your Windows hard drive and locating your data.  After you make your own Puppy Linux live CD then you can check out many other, specialized,  Live CD’s at LiveCDlist.com.