Archive for March, 2009

In May of this year, Windows XP will no longer be supported by Microsoft. Then, the release candidate for Win7 will be downloaded by millions of people and the transition will begin, leapfrogging the ill-conceived Visa OS. Except for the skilled, it is going to be one tremendous slap around for most of the country. Those who were learning, and those who thought that they knew are going to be in for one big setback. Their newly acquired and hard earned computer skills will be once again. obsolete.

Computer literacy has, in the main, been explained in terms of ability to work within the Microsoft product family. Right now, there are hundreds of thousands in job-retraining programs and in remedial instruction to give basic computer skills. Once those machines begin to flow throughout the system, a lot of marginally skilled workers who are just now being able to start up a browser and fill out their Unemployment claim online are going to feel left out once again.

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Reuters reports that, as the economy worsens all over the world, cyber crime is increasing dramatically. Read the full story here.

The crimes include old friends, such as the Nigerian scam and auction fraud, as well as credit card fraud, Ponzi schemes, and, according to sources I have read elsewhere, mortgage relief schemes.

Here is an excerpt:

Scammers in the United States comprised 66 percent of complaints referred to authorities, followed by Britain at 11 percent, Nigeria 7.5 percent, Canada 3 percent and China 1.6 percent. Within the United States, the bulk originated in California (16 percent), followed by New York and Florida.

Fraudulent sales on online auction sites like eBay Inc and classified sites like craigslist.com contributed to a 32 percent rise in the hottest area of online fraud — non-delivery of promised merchandise, the report said.

That area alone made up about 33 percent of all complaints serious enough to be referred to law enforcement.

Other important areas included investment scams such as mini-versions of the $65 billion Ponzi scheme committed by New York financier Bernard Madoff in which money from new investors is used to pay existing investors.

This week, the Podcasts will be done using a Blue Snowball Microphone. We will show how a USB and a XLR mic works in Podcasting.

Geekazine is implementing a simple survey to find out what you think of the weekly Podcast. This is for the main Podcast only (Quickcast survey will be done later).  It will give you an opportunity to voice what you like or dislike on the show.

The survey does have an option for you to say who you are, however you can remain anonymous. I do ask that if you do not put in your name, to at least put in your location.

The link is below. Thank you for your input!

Take the Geekazine Podcast Survey

The latest answer, the latest of many, to the question of “earth, the universe, and everything” in computerdom seems to be cloud computing, in which users’ applications and data exist not on their local machines, but up there, somewhere, in the “cloud.”

(Aside: In the olden days, when I was a young ‘un, it was called “networking,” but “networking” is not a new, marketable term, so the marketeers disdain it.)

I am as skeptical of this as I was of doing grocery shopping via the internet.

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In 1993, Chris Clark purchased Pizza.com. He figured it would be a great domain to have. Boy was he right, but it took him 15 years to realize it.

After a couple attempts he decided to squat on the domain for a while – That is until last year. Chris decided after he heard Business.com was sold for 7 Million to try auctioning off his domain. He contracted the domain selling site Sedo.com to help out.

The end result: Chris sold the domain for $2.6 Million.

Other items on the Quickcast: Week in Tech History include Netscape forming, Netscape forming the Open Source initiative called “Mozilla”. Gmail goes into beta and also incorporates Google Calendar. All this and a lot more tech history in the Podcast.

Brought to you by GotoMeeting. www.gotomeeting.com/techpodcasts for a 30 day free trial

Podcast: Play in new window | Download (Duration: 21:27 — 9.9MB)

I have been reading on Conficker for a while now. It’s basically a worm that uses your computer to spread itself. The newest variant is feared to wreak havoc come Wed, April 1st. But if it does, how much damage are we really talking about?

First of all, lets throw it out on the table: if you have your Anti-virus and Windows updated, then totally scanned your PC, you should be good to go. If your Anti-Virus hasn’t been updated in a while (Some IT people feel they are impervious to getting a virus. Silly people), then update now.

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Keep those firewalls up and those computers updated. The New York Times reports on a cyber-spying ring originating from China. Read the full story here.

An excerpt:

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The best part is this is the last snow of the season and hopefully it won’t be as bad as they say. Just wet slush. Just a small annoyance, then warm weather.

Now on to some cool stuff. I stopped by SWAP – Surpluss with a Purpose the other day. Basically, it’s a shop that gets furniture, computers and other interesting stuff from the University and other government offices. They then refurb and resell.

I was at the shop the other day and picked up a couple SATA hard drives for a few bucks. I went there looking for office chairs and couldn’t resist the deal. Didn’t get a chair though. Keeping my eye open for the right one.

We have some cool stuff happening. The big news on Tuesday in which I cannot really talk about, but some other great news is that we are starting another website on the Portal. Will be talking more about that soon…

Had some great numbers of listeners for Week in Tech History and the Podcast. Thanks to all that downloaded and listened to both shows. Next week we’ll be introducing a new sponsor.

Frank has been doing some great stuff on the site. The Dell Mini video has been watched by a lot of you. Expect some more cool stuff from Frank.

Started up the other videos for the upcoming weeks. Should have the first one next week. Also going to be recording some video with Andy McCaskey in the next few weeks. Should be a lot of fun.

Band has a few weeks off. Good timing, too. I have a lot of work with the new site coming up.

That’s it for now. Keep tuned in for the special announcements next week.

On the Primary channel, I went through the Roland Booth and played drums with Johnny Rabb. However, we also looked at the BOSS Micro BR Digital Studio. It is a device that gives you the ability to have accompaniment while playing.

You can put in MP3’s and practice your favorite songs. If it’s too fast, you can slow down the riffs and get it right.

Paul Hanson is the Roland Rep that shows Jeffrey Powers and Todd Cochrane about this cool device.

Geekazine.com will have a Big announcement sometime on Tuesday. I cannot say what it is, only that it’s big news.

Please check in for the Video announcement on Tuesday, March 31st. apx 1 PM.