Virus

Hi Mom,
I just received your email about viruses and I wanted to tell you about a new one that just popped up. This new virus looks just like your McAfee or Norton anti-virus software that is installed on your computer. The catch to this virus is it will tell you that you have a virus and you must run this anti-virus to get rid of it, but here is the key. It wants to charge you and get your credit card information. That is how you will know you it is a virus. McAfee and Norton will not ask for that. This is an old scam used in a new way. If you download this it will attack you hard drive and put your computer out of service and if you do happen to give your credit card info, it could compromise you financially.You can get it fixed by a professional or you will have to run your own legit anti-virus software to remove it. Again, A red flag to watch for is if an anti-virus program pops up and asks you for your FINANCIAL INFO you know that something is wrong. Never give this info if you are not sure who it is going to. What you want to do to prevent this type of infection is to make sure that your anti-virus software is correctly installed and is current and up to date. I hope this answers your questions and helps you out in knowing what to watch for out there on the internet.


Your beloved son,
Kevin

Politicians technology

I picked President Obama as my research project and found his approach to technology to be fascinating. President Obama and his new media team came up with Obama`s vision of open- source democracy. After he was sworn in, his new media team took control of the website Whitehouse.gov. They came up with three top priorities for the new administration. They are as follows:

Communication: In using google-you tube and others the President keeps the people up to date on the important issues. This allows us to visit the briefing room his blog and we can sign up for email updates so we can know about announcements and other news that might come out of the White house.

Transparency: The President is allowing us to see what is going on within his administration. His executive orders and proclamations.

Participation: The internet is playing a huge role in letting us participate in Obama`s non-emergency legislation. For five days we will be able to review and comment on whatever bill is being put forth before the President signs it.

My take on this is, I think it`s awesome to be able to be apart of something that we as the general public probably never thought we could have. In my opinion I think it`s the Presidents age and the sign of the times that make this at all possible. In the most recent past, even though we had this technology, the good ol boys didn`t want to give in to technology and would have never thought about letting us public be apart of the government as we are now. Kudos to President Obama.

My source was techcrunch.com

Google

After listening to this news about Google trying to create it`s own OS I have this thought. While I`m sure that google will make some kind of money from this I think most likely it will not be a profit. They already are making a huge profit from their interface that runs on windows now. Why do they want to ruin that. I don`t believe that any OS will overtake windows in the near future or ever for that matter. From what I have heard and have been reading there are alot of other people way smarter than me that have that same opinion. A great man once said " If it ain`t broke don`t fix it ". I agree.

Linux

What is Linux ? Linux is a operating system cloned after the OS Unix. This OS was invented by Linus Torvald and he had assistance from a bunch of hackers from around the world.

Who uses Linux ? Well from what I have read it seems that Linux with it`s open - source operating system is growing ever more popular in the Corporate world here in the US and around the world. Even the Military and Intelligence agencies in US, Canada, France, England, Spain and other countries are now running this OS along with China`s post office.

Would I use this OS ? I think once I get more computer savvy that I might use some of it`s software that is cheaper and from what I have read works just as good. For right now I think I`ll will stay with good O`L Windows.

Fighting Cybercrime

After listening to this interview with Joseph Minn and Barrett Lyon I was shocked. I cannot believe that these people from Russia, China and other parts of the world are software savvy enough to figure out how to get into our computers. I would think that our Government would have been on top of this along time ago. Thank goodness for Mr. Lyon. It also amazes me that the very people doing this are helping China steal our military secrets. This I think is scary.

Multimedia devices

After doing some research I found a new multimedia device being introduced by NEC in June. This device is an projector that is designed to be used in small spaces. This projector is the WT600. It uses no lenses like the projectors that are being used theses days , but uses aspherical mirrors that bounce the image back and forth until it is projected on the screen. This will project a large image up to 100 inches diagonally even as close as 8-10 inches away from the screen. This unit weighs around 10-12 lbs. and it has all the inputs and ports to connct to your laptop or PC. You can also use it wirelessly. I think this will be great for small venued presentations as well as large venues. The cost of this projector is expected to be around $7000.00 to start. You can find more info on this device at http://www.pcworld.com/article/110222/multimedia_devices

Hard drive

From the BIOS setup on my computer these are the settings related to my hard drive.
Drive configuration : Diskette Drive A: The size of my installed driver is 3.5 inches at 1.44 MB
Primary Master drive: is my Hard drive
Primary Slave drive is off
Secondary Master drive is my CD-ROM Device
My secondary Slave drive is off
IDE Drive UDMA is on
Hard disk drive sequence is as so: #1.System BIOS boot devices
#2 USB Devices (not installed)
Boot sequence : #1. Hard disk drive C:
#2. IDE CD-ROM Device

DMA - (direct memory access) This the fastest way of transferring data to the memory because it don`t have to go to the CPU 1st.

Low level formatting - Creates the physical format that defines where data is stored on the disk.

SATA - Serial ATA is a drive interface that is a flat and thin cable. One end connects to the driver and the other end to the motherboard connector.

ATA - Is an AT attachment. Parallel or Serial.

IDE (Intergarated drive electronics) is a 40 pin data cable that conncts to the motherboard. Used for CD or DVD Drives.