mikehall's blog

The link in this e-mail goes to a German website trying to run malicious scrips. Phishing "Is a way of attempting to acquire information such as usernames, passwords, and credit card details by masquerading as a trustworthy entity in an electronic communication." http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Phishing - - On the attached image, notice the .de website when the mouse hovers over the link. If you want to check it out, go directly to the website by typing the web page into your browser bar. When in doubt, don't click.

If you're looking for a free Office-compatible suite then there's plenty of choice around, with tools like LibreOffice and OpenOffice.org offering a host of powerful features.

Another option is simply to install Microsoft's Office 2010 Starter edition, though. It's cut down, but still has more than enough functionality for many purposes, and can be used without a product key. The package only includes Word and Excel, and if you're familiar with the regular editions then running either of these will quickly reveal some limitations.

List of Programs we recommend keeping updated

Keeping updated helps keep your computer secure and free of spyware and viruses.  With fake security alerts it can be difficult to know what to keep updated.  If you see pop-ups for the any of the following programs, you should click to update them.  For Windows 7 systems you click on the arrow in your system tray to see all notifications.

I'm always looking for alternative inputs to standard keyboards for smartphones.  There's a cool new for iphone, android, and windows mobile.  Instead of tapping on each letter you just draw a line between letters, making for faster entry.  It's called Shapewriter.