Posts Tagged ‘Computers’

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Why US service men and women stationed overseas should use a proxy server

Thursday, February 2nd, 2012

Right now, the servicemen and servicewomen of the US Military are overseas fighting for your freedom. They chose to serve in the military knowing full well that someday they might be put in harm’s way. These dedicated men and women put country above their own safety. Now in far away countries, they fight for us on the front lines. Over the years, these front lines have changed. Yes, the danger is still there, but so are options to relieve their boredom. Enter the world wide web. Just like us, they have access to the Internet.

So what do they do on the Internet? Believe it or not, many of them watch TV. Sure, they might be able to watch TV using a TV set, but the shows available in country are either in a different language or they are old reruns of old American TV programs. While I’m sure that “I Love Lucy” is still a favorite, and who doesn’t want to watch “Gilligan’s Island”, current US TV shows are not usually available. On the Internet, they can stream TV shows from the major networks. They could have watched the last episode of “Monk” or the new “White Collar” show on the USA Network. Or maybe they want to watch baseball. The Internet makes this possible.

Instead of TV, they might be on social networking sites like FaceBook or MySpace. For those who have not served in the military, you can’t imagine how much of a gift these websites are to lonely young men and women far from home. With a click of the mouse, they can see friends and loved ones. They can catch up on the latest happenings in their families or circle of friends. They can see videos, pictures and general updates. And maybe, just maybe, some of the loneliness might go away. Yes, they are still at the front. Sure they are still in harm’s way. But they have a connection back to their normal every day lives. Unfortunately, they can’t always connect back to these US websites. You’d think the Internet is available everywhere.

The purpose of companies streaming their television shows onto the web is so that people will see them, and eventually decide to buy them on DVD. People outside the country however will not be able to buy these because they are simply unavailable. Companies decided that they were actually losing money because such people couldn’t get a hold of their products! They didn’t seem to consider all of the people IN the US that were buying. After all, what could it hurt if a few foreigners watched an episode of The Office, or even Stargate Universe? Well you wouldn’t think that it could hurt at all, but the production companies didn’t quite see it that way. For this reason they started to block IP addresses outside of the United States. The same went for several social networking websites because they suffered from the same advertisement problem. This however did not stop the military personnel from viewing their favorite websites. They instead turned to proxies.

An anonymous proxy changes the IP address of the user to one it has control over. A good anonymous proxy is also encrypted and protects any information sent over the web. With the change in the IP address to an IP address in the United States, the user can access US websites that are blocked because of the IP address. With encryption, the surfer can by pass in country blocks out in place by restrictive governments. For many surfers an anonymous proxy is a way to protect their online identity. For our servicemen, it’s a way to access the Internet freely just as all people in the US can.

For additional information on how to mask your IP address so that you can avoid any type of website censorship or blocks, please go to our change IP website.

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The Apple iPhone - Is It As Good As Apple Says?

Wednesday, January 25th, 2012

In common with all Apple products, the Apple iPhone is not inexpensive, so the question all prospective purchasers must ask themselves is: is the Apple iPhone hyper or hypo? Is it value for money, in other words?

Obviously when you look at any contemporary device, you have to take the entire package, including software and functions into account, not only look at the phone, which can not do anything without an operating system.

This is the nub of it really. The iPhone, along with numerous other contemporary phones, needs an operating system to make it work in the right manner. If this software is good, then the phone is simple to use.

Well, Apple has a lot of experience with operating systems (look at the Apple Mac), so it is not a problem to believe that Apple passes this test with flying colours. The Apple iPhone is fairly intuitive and therefore easy to use.

The iPhone has the ability to store and play MP3 files. This is a fantastic feature because it means that you just have to carry one item instead of two. Furthermore, any tune that you have saved to your phone can be used as a ringtone. You can load your own MP3 files from your computer, you can download them from the Net or buy them from Apple iTunes.

You can replay these tunes back through peripheral speakers using the built-in Bluetooth technology or you can use headphones, wireless or not. This all works very well and produces a good quality sound.

You have several choices for storage space for MP3 files. You can choose to have six, eight or sixteen megabytes of music related ROM (memory) installed at the time of buying the phone. However, you cannot upgrade this memory later nor can you use a Flashcard as you can with other telephones. This is a pity, because it means that the iPhone’s MP3 features cannot be upgraded.

The battery is a bone of contention. When the battery of a standard phone becomes depleted, you buy a new one and off you go again. Indeed, numerous power users of mobile phones have one battery on charge and one in the phone all the time.

However, you cannot do that with the iPhone, because the battery is not removable. While the battery does not work, you need to purchase a new, costly iPhone.

The touch-screen is very sensitive, so you have to take real care that it is not activated when the phone is in your bag or pocket, otherwise, you could be phoning someone without realizing it. However, this does not happen as often as you might think, but it is a worry though.

The Internet browser is not quite what you are used to on your home or laptop computer. For example, the browser will not store passwords or user names. This is probably because Apple is worried about your details being hacked through the iPhone’s wi-fi connection, so you have to used to bearing in mind any log in details that you require.

Owen Jones, the author of this article, writes on a variety of topics, but is now involved with looking for free online ringtones. If you would like to know more, please visit our web site at Family Plans For Cell Phones.

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What Type Of Privacy Rights Do Teenagers Think They Have

Sunday, January 15th, 2012

Parents need to grant their children privacy as to time and space as they become older. The principles of confidence and responsibility are primarily learned by children in the household. For this reason, children require parents who can permit them to live in an atmosphere that grows conviction and accountability. This can materialize if children begin to encounter in the family unit the privacy that they need.

Parents occasionally get offended when they understand that their kid desires his or her own private time. When addressed in an incorrect way, children will find it complicated to learn to cultivate faith and trustworthiness. The best approach for parents to manage this sort of situation is to chat with their youngster. They should question why he or she wishes to be alone.

It is very fundamental for parents to understand why the child wants some exclusive time and space. Then, they should decide whether their child does not fib. It is also important that they make clear the reason is just an element of growing up, and not hiding something. There is something wrong with a child who wants to be alone too frequently - he or she requires therapy.

As soon as the parents are positive that their child demonstrates standard behavior, they should openly give encouraging support setting. The first phase is for the family to assemble mutually and set various regulations. One straightforward rule is knocking on the door before entering one’s room. This should be appropriate also to parents, not merely to the child. This also means that parents should not be upset when their teenager posts a “Do Not Disturb” sign on his or her door. This is an indication of growing up, but they should also be alert.

Parents should not neglect their child’s privacy. Relationship risks crop up when children get insulted by their parents’ impositions. They sense that they cannot do anything aptly when they are out of eyesight. As a result, children do not have the occasion to build up faith in other people. They feel handicapped when they already venture out into the bigger world. It is for the reason that there was no such type of situation in the residence. Parents should work to reach a balance concerning protection and privacy - these two should go together.

Privacy is not something that is automatic. It needs to be defended. When online, 1 of the best ways to protect your Internet privacy is to use an encrypted proxy to mask your IP address.

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MMORPG’s

Monday, January 2nd, 2012

MMORPG’s stands for either ‘multi media online role playing games’ or ”massive multiplayer online role playing games’. It comes to much the same thing anyway really. Massive multiplayer online role playing games have done much to popularize the Net. Indeed, some individuals merely go online to play these games and chat with other people who play them as well.

Originally, massive multiplayer online role playing games were mostly text-based, but gradually images were added and then animated images and now we have a virtual reality, in which online, virtual villages and towns are created by players from all over the world, each player with the same purpose: to complete a task and move up a level.

However, the games are so complex that everyone can choose their own tactics to complete their quests and so some people rise through the levels rapidly and others more gradually. It is unlikely that any two players will complete a complex massive multiplayer online role playing game in the same way.

In a way, Flash, Java and high-speed broad band connections have played a large part in making these games more popular, because the graphic images are more lifelike and movement is more natural. Before the advent of these attributes, there just was not the technology to have anything but text-based games with a few (almost) static pictures.

Most of these massive multiplayer online role playing games charge a monthly fee. Some offer trial accounts and these are a good means to get the feel of a game. Guild Wars.com offers a free, playable trial version which is great fun to play. However, the download is colossal, which gives you an idea of the magnitude of the whole game.

For instance, the download to enable you to play the free trial version of Guild Wars encompasses more than 5,000 files and is more than 135 MB in size. This does not take long to come down, 10-15 mins on an average broad band connection of six or seven megabits and it is well worth the wait. However, when you have set up your character, there are another 30,000 files to download.

Other providers of massive multiplayer online role playing games use advertising or a combination of advertising and payment to fund their games, whilst yet others might permit you to play free of charge but offer more alternatives or levels of play if you do pay. The best strategy is to play the free trial or whatever and see if you enjoy the game first.

Being able to play massive multiplayer online role playing games has its pros and cons. The benefits are that you are in the safety and comfort of your own residence and it does not have to be costly to play a game that might have cost millions to develop and maintain and the disadvantages include eye-strain from too| many late nights and procrastination of things that you should be getting on with.

Owen Jones, the author of this article, writes on numerous subjects, but is at present involved with Mortal Kombat Controls. If you have an interest in gaming, please go over to our website now at Mortal Kombat 4.

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Defeating Writers’ Block (part two)

Wednesday, December 28th, 2011

Regardless of what the statistics tell you, some sites will soar and others will flop and you are a better man than I am if you are able to work that out 12 months in advance. My rule is, that if a web site does not triple my financial outlay in a year, I ditch it.

I do not count the pieces of writing because they can get recycled to aid other pages and the web pages can be recycled as new web pages on new or old web sites or, at the last resort, into pieces.

For that reason, I have classes of loosely related sites based on the foremost topics I have identified, to wit, love, sport, cars, health, travel etc.

The main thing is to begin with what people want - not what you would like. Then, try to find a niche within that market that interests you. The more different your personality is from the average, the more important this is.

Never start with yourself, but you can twist the topic back to something that you know something of or are willing to research because you are interested in it. I do a heck of a lot of research and love doing it.

I am not interested in collecting gold and gems, but my wife is and she wants my opinion frequently, so I am learning. Her son is getting married on 28-12 and he has to give his wife an ounce of gold as a gift - that is what her mum wants for her, which is a further incentive to learn about gold, investing and market trends and swings, because I have to pay for that gold.

There are so many items to write on.

I would like to write a site on orchids - I know nothing about them, but they grow like weeds here and they are my wife’s favourite flower. If that is too narrow, perhaps ‘Thai Gardens’.

I was in Nan the other day renewing my visa. I have already written a site on how to get a visa, but there is a stone-age tribe living in Nan Province of northern Thailand! 285 km from my home. They live in bivouacs and are nomadic. They are 10,000 years behind the remainder of Thailand.

My wife is getting skin growing over one of her eyes. It can easily be taken off and will need soon, but I can see a website on cataracts coming up.

There are hundreds of millions of us Boomers so subjects for us are sure to be well-liked. We are aging, entering a new stage of life, are computer literate and are not destitute. That’s a fantastic blend.

A further thought is: a man on the radio said the other day that there are more middle-class people in India than the total population of Europe. Imagine that!

And it is increasing by hundreds of thousands a year. And China is double the size of India. So they have (or soon will have) a middle-class equalling the populace of Europe and America combined. That is excluding the upper-class.

Discover what interests those nouveaux-riches and you will strike it big. I think that they love old-world style. Old European ’style’ - not antiques, but silver salvers, beautiful whiskey glasses, posh dog collars, fancy walking sticks, Panama hats, silk scarves, sensible shoes, home schooling, English language courses, etc, etc.

Owen Jones, the author of this piece, writes on a variety of subjects, and is now concerned with Blogging. If you would like to know more, please visit our website at PLR pieces.

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Why Should I Be Networking My Home Computers?

Tuesday, December 27th, 2011

If there are a number of computers in your household, you can easily network them together. As simply as if your home were an office. You might be asking yourself why you should want to do that, but there are good reasons. If business thinks that it is a decent notion, then there has to be something to it.

The foremost advantage for a family is the ability to share software. The main advantage for parents is the ability to see what their kids are looking at. Call that spying if you like, I call it taking care. Of course, that is your prerogative, but in an office situation someone is able to observe what traffic passes through the office machines, although in some countries this is illegal or illegal-ish.

The easiest manner to do this is with Ethernet cards or by plugging each computer into a residential gateway, which is often known as a router. The Ethernet cards are not costly, but it means running a cable from every computer to the foremost computer (known as a server). This is the fastest and most dependable way.

Otherwise you could plug every computer into the residential gateway using a similar type of wire. This latter method has a variation - it can be a wireless connection. However, the wireless connection will mean that all the computers need a wireless card, which means more money and it can be slower and more prone to interception by others outside the house.

There are also more complicated variations on these themes. For example, you could connect all the upstairs computers by network (also known as LAN) cards and have one of those computers use a wireless connection to the server or router to which the server is connected.

Once the hardware is connected, setting up a local area network (LAN) is not that difficult because Windows has a wizard to help you do it. This is a step-by-step wizard which makes it pretty easy to do, although in practice there are a couple of items that you need to understand to complete the process, not that it ought to be above anyone.

Once up and running, every computer on the LAN will be able to share any file that is designated as ’shared’. The term ‘file’ includes programs, text, writings, pictures, audio files and anything else on any computer in the house that is designated as ’shared’ by its author.

It also means that devices or peripherals can be shared. For instance, you will only need one printer and one scanner, which can be shared. Every computer will also be able to take part in multi-player games too - every player in their own rooms in conditions that suit them - lights on or off, et cetera.

Another enormous advantage of having an LAN is the ease of regulating Net security. It means one firewall, one virus protection system and one anti-spyware system all controlled by the most reliable person in the house or on the LAN.

Owen Jones, the author of this piece, writes on numerous topics, but is at present involved with Digital Cameras and Photography. If you have an interest in Gadgets and Adult Toys, please go over to our web site now at Gadgets and Adult Toys.

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Internet or Web Wiretapping Will Be The End of Internet or Web Privacy For Normal Web Surfers

Tuesday, December 27th, 2011

Completely private conversations may be a thing of the past if certain national governments have their way. In the past, Internet users only had to worry about the looming threats that were posed by hackers on the internet. Today though, hackers have new competition to face on the playing field. Not only do Internet users have to worry about the intrusive nature of hackers, but now they have to also fear the invasive nature of wiretapping. Many IT leading officials believe that Internet wiretapping will be the death of Internet privacy.

Historically, the public has always known that someone might be listening to their conversations while they use telephones. The government hasn’t really done a great job in hiding the fact that they monitor activity on landlines. Instead, public officials have always been rather brash with their promotion of wiretapping activities.

There have also been many instances where the government has warded off attacks from foes by using these capabilities. Many citizens are very concerned about the governments’ view on this matter. There appears to be no limit to the authority that public officials are going to give to these programs if they can prove the program to be in the best interest of public citizens.

Today, this attitude is actually coming to a logistical road block. Many citizens are outraged at the proposals government officials are recommending about the wiretapping policies. These outrages have rarely stood in the government’s way or even affected the rate at which they proceed to invade on the private lives of citizens. Public officials are being stopped by the technical limitations and technologies within the communication networks of Internet providers.

Some government officials are declaring that these limitations are unacceptable because they believe the enemy uses these networks to transmit important information about their plans. For this reason, some government officials believe the companies that own these networks should have to develop back doors in order to give complete access to government organizations.

In order to gain access to these private and encrypted communications, U. S. organizations will require companies to create systems that will decipher the information that is transmitted. The process of developing these back doors can be time consuming and expensive.

If these networks continue to comply with these requests for back doors, and they also start creating back doors into all of the networks they create, it is likely that no one will be able to communicate privately over the Internet in the future. Not just that, but most critics of these online wiretapping policies have also pointed out the fact that the security features communication networks provide to their customers will basically become pointless if they just give the info to any government organization that asks for it.

Customers of these communication networks are now questioning the true security of the info they send across these networks. Communication companies make promises that their information is safe and secure, but these customers know that their info is able to be exposed to third parties no matter what.

Once consumers can no longer access secure networks, they will no longer give these businesses the capital they need to increase their operations and develop new features and programs. For this reason, many citizens believe Internet wiretapping will be the end of Internet privacy. Consumers who need to use communication portals that are perfectly secure can always use third party programs and systems that are not regulated or susceptible to the requirements of government organizations. Communications networks might be hurt by the intrusive outlook of governments, but consumers will always have a way to slip by their all seeing eye.

Start defending yourself today by using a Private Proxy to hide your Internet surfing activities. Don’t wait until it’s too late and your privacy is gone.

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The Programs That Come With A New Computer

Friday, December 23rd, 2011

A new computer ships with a raft of programs, yet quite which programs you get depends where you buy your computer but it can also depend on which country you live in. For example, in the UK, all new computers come with Windows pre-loaded, but in Thailand some come with Linux although this is a new development.

How useful are these programs that come ‘free’ with your new computer? Well, it varies, to be frank, and in the remainder of this article we will take a look at some of the most common pre-loaded programs.

Sometimes you receive ‘Notepad’, occasionally you get ‘Wordpad’ and sometimes you get both. Wordpad is a more sophisticated version of Notepad and it can open old ‘Write’ documents. It can also open all rich text files (.rtf) as well as plain text (.txt) files.

Most computer users see Wordpad as an upgrade to Notepad and in numerous ways that is what it is, yet it does not have enough features to make me want to use it. I use Notepad each and every day, yet I very hardly ever use Wordpad. Wordpad can be regarded as a halfway house to MS Word the documents of which it can also read.

Wordpad is a practical program if you do not have Word, because you can create attractive-looking documents and embed sound and picture files and text can be coloured. Unfortunately, there is no spell-checker, but it can open Excel files too, which can be convenient.

If you have the MS Office suite, then Wordpad is redundant. If you do not have MS Office, download OpenOffice, which is a free Open Source contender to Office.

Outlook Express is a capable email client that can even perform some tasks that Outlook can not. It also has an address book. Outlook Express is good enough for most users, but if it is not, download Opera and integrate the email client and address book that comes with it.

The calculator that ships free with Windows is very powerful. The version that comes with Windows 7 can be converted into a mathematical, a scientific, a statisticians”, a programmers’ calculator and several others besides. You will absolutely never require another calculator if you have this tool. In one word it is excellent.

Paint is a passable image editor. It is not especially sophisticated, yet it can perform a number of useful functions. If you require more and there are a lot who will, you will be able to find much better free image editors on the Internet.

Windows Media Player is a very robust media player of sound, pictures and movies, yet occasionally you have to go hunting for a new codex, if you have to play something in an abnormal format. This is not a big drawback. WMP is a very practical and fully-equipped tool. You can play radio from all over the world through it as well.

The system tools supplied with Windows are adequate. They will monitor system resources and help you take care of your hard disks, but numerous users move on to more specialized tools in the end.

Internet Explorer is a decent browser, but again, many people drift away from it and use other browsers (|and there are quite a few). In short, the tools and programs supplied with Windows are all right to get you going (although there are a couple of gems), usually, you will want to upgrade, but this can frequently be done by downloading other programs free of charge.

If you are looking for new custom PC cases, or any other type of computer case, just go over to our website now at Clear Computer Case for more information.

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How To Recover Computer Data

Sunday, December 18th, 2011

If you make your money by using a computer, you ought to protect yourself against all computer disasters. If you were a taxi driver, you would take out car and public liability insurance. If you were an employer, you may take out plant and equipment insurance. If you were a landlord you would take out property insurance and loss of earnings insurance.

But what do you do if you work on line? Well, when you work with computers, data is your most valuable resource, but you cannot insure against losing it because you cannot prove that you ever had it. So, what can you do? The answer is that you have to have dependable backups and a number of of them.

The difficulty is that computers do not often break down so we are lulled into the false feeling of security that we can take backups tomorrow instead of right now. However, the longer that you work with IT, the more you comprehend that there are no warning signs if you are about to lose all your data, which might be your entire income stream.

For example, say you make web sites for a living and update them regularly so that the search engines find them interesting. What would happen if your hard drive crashed or if they were destroyed by a virus? You may say that you would download them from your Net host and begin again, but that is not feasible, because most HTML editors will not decompile a completed web site.

That would mean that you could never update those web sites again, so they would become less and less interesting to the search engines, so your ranking would fall and your earnings would plunge. And why? Because you failed to insure your business by taking adequate backups. You failed to make proviso for data recovery in the event of data loss.

However, no matter how frequently you backup your data on physical media, you will always be running a danger because anything physical, any device is subject to failure and deterioration. CD’s do not last as long as we were promised. I have lost loads of work that I thought was safe on CD’s and hard drives are prone to fail with no notice whatsoever.

Even if you do conquer these problems of storage, what occurs if there is a fire or a thief really steals all your disks and computers? Your hardware would be insured but your source of revenue, your data would be gone forever. All that hard work. Your source of income. Gone. Forever.

There is another alternative and that is not to hold your data on your computer, in your office or anywhere within a thousand miles of yourself. This is called cloud storage or cloud data storage. Microsoft calls it Sky Drive and offers 25 GB of free, password-protected, storage available from anywhere in the world. This kind of storage is the best in secure storage providing the best value recovery planning for computer data.

Owen Jones, the author of this article, writes on many subjects, but is currently involved with researching the best virus protection software. If you have an interest in such software, please go over to our website now at Computer Antivirus Software

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Are There Any Problems In Downloading Ringtones?

Sunday, December 18th, 2011

A lot of people worry about whether downloading a ringtone from the Internet in order to personalize their phone is safe or not. Regrettably, there is no definitive reply to this question. ‘Is downloading ringtones safe’ is a part of a broader question, namely: is downloading anything from the Net safe or not?

Broadly speaking, the more up market the site you are downloading anything from, the less chance there is that you run the risk of downloading a virus. There is never zero danger, but there certainly is a great deal less. This means that you have to look at the web site that you would like to download from and calculate the probabilities.

The way to start doing this, for ringtone download web sites and all others too, is to look at the quality of the site. Does it look cheap? Does it look as if it was thrown together by an amateur or by someone who does not have quality on his or her mind. If the site does not ‘feel correct’ or if the costs are much cheaper than elsewhere, be suspicious.

Why would anyone want to trick you into downloading something from them - say a ringtone? Well, real ringtone aggregators (web sites that sell ringtones) pay royalties, so spurious sites will probably be breaking laws.

You might not mind about that, but what if there is a difficulty? Do you want to be involved? Or if your ringtone does not work, who are you going to complain to?

Another reason for people to sell you ringtones cheaply or give them away is so that they can put a tracking cookie on your computer hard disk. This tracking cookie will phone home each time you push keys on your keyboard (a key press tracker) or it could scan your hard disk for financial data.

For a further check, you could insert the name of the web site into a search engine in a style like: ‘worries with xxxx’ or ‘ringtone scam sites xxxx’, where ‘xxxx’ is the name of the ringtone site under your scrutiny.

Price is another cause for concern. There are sites that offer free ringtones, but most websites sell them. The average cost is about $3 for one or unlimited downloads for six months for $15 or $25 for a year. If the costs are much less then allow alarm bells to ring.

The ultimate way of preventing these things from happening is to have the best antivirus (AV) software installed on your computer and mobile phone or download the ringtones to your computer and then transfer them to your handset by Bluetooth.

The solution to not having to worry about downloading anything from the Internet is AV software. The very best costs just $60 for two years or so, so do not be mean, be protected.

Owen Jones, the writer of this piece, writes on a number of subjects, but is now concerned with looking for free ringtones for mobile phones. If you want to know more, please visit our web site at Family Plans For Cell Phones.

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