Snow in July???

Posted on July 10, 2015 by SGVAUG BlogMaster

 
Size matters!!

Not really computer-related, unless (like me) you need a computer for more-than-basic arithmetic, but it is geeky…

Found this piece, by Rhett Allain, on Wired this morning. He starts:

THERE WAS A bunch of snow in Boston this year—and some of it’s still there. Yes, in July some of the snow has not yet melted. Why? There are a couple of reasons, some of them have to do with physics.

He ends:

But will the Boston snow pile melt? Sure, it will just take time. Hopefully it will melt before the next snow storm.

Oh. My. God.

In between, he does a great job of explaining the wherefores and whys in an amusing fashion. Check it out: It’s July. Why on Earth Is There Still Snow in Boston?

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Did You Know?

Posted on July 10, 2015 by SGVAUG BlogMaster

Time to replace your computer?

Unless there’s something really special about your place, your home network could be faster, and faster is always better!

In 9 Quick Ways to Instantly Speed up Your Home PC Network, Andy Betts provides a lot of good advice, and he explains the whats and whys. Most of the suggestions are pretty straightforward, and working through the list will get your network into optimal shape.

Click the link, head over to MakeUseOf, and get started.

Graphic from the article

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Should I Change My LastPass Master Password?

Posted on July 8, 2015 by SGVAUG BlogMaster

LastPass breach

You may recall the LastPass breach news from last month. If you’re a LastPass user, you got the e-mail from LastPass advising users:

…that the company had detected “suspicious activity” on LastPass servers, and that user email addresses and password reminders had been compromised.… no encrypted vault data had been compromised, but since the hashed user passwords had been obtained, the company advised users to update their master passwords, just to be safe.…

So, what’s a LastPass user to do? In a word, read. Ryan Dube has an in-depth, but easy to understand, article on MakeUseOf that gets into the hack itself, why the LastPass system is so secure, and whether you should change your master password.

Read it: LastPass Is Breached: Do You Need To Change Your Master Password?

Graphic from the article

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Scareware: Not As Frightening as It Sounds

Posted on July 8, 2015 by SGVAUG BlogMaster

:::sigh:::

The bad guys obviously have too much free time on their hands:

…What happens is that you visit a Web site and seemingly have your browser maliciously frozen. You’ll find that you can’t quit, nor can you navigate away from the page by clicking the Back button.

Next, a page or pop-up appears telling you any of a number of stories (often tailored to your location), perhaps that your Mac has a problem or has illegal material on it, or that your data has been encrypted by some malevolent entity.…

Yeah, right! Don’t believe a word of it.

Randy B Singer has a great article on TidBITs, explaining what’s going on and how to cope. Read it now, and you’ll not only be prepared if something like this happens, you’ll learn a lot of interesting stuff.

PYBT: Scary Internet Scam Becoming Disturbingly Common.

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Who are you and what do you do?

Posted on July 6, 2015 by SGVAUG BlogMaster

At The Sweet Setup:

Every week we try to post a new interview with someone about what software they use on their Mac, iPhone, or iPad. We do these interviews because not only are they fun, but a glimpse into what tools someone uses and how they use those tools can spark our imagination and give us an idea or insight into how we can do things better.

Today’s victim, er, interviewee:

My name is Richard J. Anderson. I’m originally from Philadelphia, and now live in New York City. By day, I’m a Web Producer for a specialty publisher focused on medical journalism. By night, I write about technology and culture for Sanspoint.com.

You can catch Richard’s complete story here: Richard J Anderson’s iOS and Mac setup.

“Back issues” can be found here: Sweet Setup Interviews.

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Who are you and what do you do?

Posted on June 29, 2015 by SGVAUG BlogMaster

At The Sweet Setup:

Every week we try to post a new interview with someone about what software they use on their Mac, iPhone, or iPad. We do these interviews because not only are they fun, but a glimpse into what tools someone uses and how they use those tools can spark our imagination and give us an idea or insight into how we can do things better.

Today’s victim, er, interviewee:

My name is Grigory Antsiperov, and I’m a first year Economics student at Moscow State University.

You can catch Grigory’s complete story here: Grigory Antsiperov’s iOS setup.

“Back issues” can be found here: Sweet Setup Interviews.

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Apple Watch Report

Posted on June 23, 2015 by SGVAUG BlogMaster

Got an Apple Watch? Want to integrate its fitness apps into your exercise/training program? TidBITs’ Adam Engst has got just the thing.

In his recent article, Exercising with the Apple Watch: The Software, he not only describes each of the apps in detail, he provides in-depth analysis on how useful they may or may not be, and how they might be integrated into your way of doing things.

In May, he reported on the “all the physical aspects of the Apple Watch that play into how well it works for fitness tracking of various sorts”. Here’s the link: Exercising with the Apple Watch: The Hardware.

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Backup, Backup,…

Posted on June 22, 2015 by SGVAUG BlogMaster

 

You know the drill, right? Well, alright, let’s see if you do (with apologies to Leonard Bernstein and Sergei Prokofiev…)!

When an article about something as critical as backups is summarized thusly:

How confident are you in your backup strategy? Confident enough to be certain that your data would be 100 percent recoverable even if a meteorite hit your house?

you know you’d better pay attention.

And when it’s Joe Kissell telling you about backing up, you know you’re in good hands. In Eleven Stupid Backup Strategies, he lists 11 strategies best avoided.

Check it out (at TidBITS). Now.

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Who are you and what do you do?

Posted on June 22, 2015 by SGVAUG BlogMaster

At The Sweet Setup:

Every week we try to post a new interview with someone about what software they use on their Mac, iPhone, or iPad. We do these interviews because not only are they fun, but a glimpse into what tools someone uses and how they use those tools can spark our imagination and give us an idea or insight into how we can do things better.

Today’s victim, er, interviewee:

My name is Chad Landman, and I’m a youth minister (pastor), independent designer, and podcaster.

You can catch Chad’s complete story here: Chad Landman’s Mac and iOS setup.

“Back issues” can be found here: Sweet Setup Interviews.

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Really Bad Viruses

Posted on June 22, 2015 by SGVAUG BlogMaster

Of the computer variety, of course!

8 Computer Viruses That Brought the Internet to Its Knees on WhoIsHostingThis? starts out:

…The first computer virus, called the “Elk Cloner”, was created as a teenager’s harmless prank, displaying random messages to users and played subtle tricks when the infected floppy disk was booted.…

It gets worse from there. To read the whole thing, click the above link; to preview the graphic, Continue reading →

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