Denver Public Librarry ads WiFi

I just found out that the Denver Public Library has added WiFi. This is very helpful for anyone wanting to do research at the library so they don't have to wait for a computer. I have yet to use this new tool long enough to comment on the speed and quality of the network but it was easy enough to get on and register when I tried.

For more information go to: http://denverlibrary.org/leisure/computers/wireless.html

Many of the other library systems including the Arapahoe Library District and the Boulder Public Library System have had WiFi for a while now. Many cities are adding Wifi Networks to public spaces as well as city wide municipal WiFi. As with private access it is always critical that you practice proper WiFi security.

Who Needs Your Social a good article

Who Needs Your Social Security Number?

Because Social Security numbers (SSN) are unique to each individual, many businesses have made them the method of choice for establishing identity on customer accounts. That’s why having your SSN makes it so easy for an identity thief to set up bogus accounts in your name – and why you should push back on businesses who demand it from you.

Who really needs your SSN? Your employer and your bank or financial service company may require it to comply with federal law, and if you use Medicare or Medcaid, your doctor’s office will need your SSN to file claims for those charges. Beyond that, few others actually need your SSN. What they do need is some form of identification. A driver’s license, state-issued identification or passport is usually preferred, and some companies will ask for a second piece of ID to confirm your license. This can often take the form of a birth certificate, credit card bill, bank statement, pay stub or company security badge. Just make sure none of those documents contains your SSN.

Be prepared to offer these forms of identification when you decline to give your SSN. You may be told that you cannot conduct business with the company without divulging your SSN. Ask for a supervisor – and keep asking, on up the chain of command until you find someone who understands the importance of guarding your SSN and agrees to accept other forms of identification. If that doesn’t work, consider paying cash rather than establishing credit or billing account – or find another company to do business with.

On average, victims of identity theft spend 60 hours and $1,180 cleaning up the damage, according to the Federal Trade Commission. Take the first step in protecting yourself by giving your SSN only to those who truly – by law – need that information. If you have questions about how we use and protect your SSN or when a requirement to provide your SSN is legitimate, please feel free to contact our office at any time.

Article from:
Peter J. Peterson, CFEd™
Heartland Financial Consultants
8033 Marshall Circle Arvada, CO 80003-1706
Phone (303) 884-1046
PeterJPeterson@comcast.net

Basic Web Design Tips for Your Website

This article on basic web design tips was written by Beth Boen of Creative Exchange Marketing. The article is very approachable for anyone with a basic knowledge of Internet use.

Beth was one of the great speakers at Emarketing Building Blocks and is an excellent source for marketing support for your small busienss.

Happy Thanksgiving

A very Happy Thanksgiving to all those reading my blog!

I hope it is filled with blessings of abundant health, happiness, family, joy, and love.

Peace,

Steve

Linked In Training

Yesterday I got an opportunity to take a computer class myself. I took Mike O'Neil's LinkedIn 101 session. LinkedIn is one of the many social networking websites which are changing the way we communicate with others we know.

I am writing about this not only because it was a good class but because it reminded me of my personal commitment to continued education. I do lots of reading, listening to blogs and eBooks but this is the first class I have taken in a while. Learning more about the tools we use is important if we are going to stay at the top of our game.

You can see my profile on LinkedIn

Mail Big Files

There are many file transfer companies out there helping users send large files between each other with the ease of email. Not all of them meet their stated goal but here is on that looks like it does. Mail Big Files - http://www.mailbigfile.com/pro/ not only allows file downloads as big as 2GB it offers secure file transfer which many of the other services do not. The service is paid through PayPal and is only $19 a year.

I have only used this for one download and I am not rushing out to buy it for my needs but I know many for whom this would be a very good tool.

A Great World Communuty Grid Article

Here is a great article about participating in the World Community Grid.

http://www.t4tcolorado.org/article/volunteer-computing-background

I think the idea of making your computer a volunteer is a great way to think about it. Also the BONIC client is a better way of participating in the grid than I have shown before.

DoF (Denial of Fans)

The Rockies site may have been attacked by too many hits using a technique called a denial of service attack or DoS, but this would not have happened if the Rockies had not first created a DoF attack. The Internet is a great tool, but it is not the solution for every problem and it does not eliminate the need for people to get together to celebrate the victories of their team. That being said, a quick explanation of what happened and why things appear to have gone down the way they did.

The extremely big sites like the mlb.com, Amazon.com, Google and others survive by sharing the load of the traffic amongst many computers. The problem with this is that there still is a bottleneck trying to get into the server. Imagine only one gate into the baseball stadium....it would be a mess. When your computer goes to that gate to get routed to one of the many sub gates (servers) your connection may time out and give up. This is for the protection of your computer and of the site you are trying to visit. Avoiding this kind of problem requires planning and lots of bandwidth. In the event of a DoS attack the gate is blocked by so much extra traffic that no one can get in.

Now what happed to those people who got in and then got kicked out?

The first thing that may have happened is that the servers behind the site were not powerful enough to handle everything. The other possibility is that there was a single gate to pay once you waited to get the tickets. Either scenario is very possible.

The Rockies and their vendors are not likely to release server logs of the events, so knowing exactly what happened is unlikely. Rest assured, tickets or no tickets, watching the game will be a blast. We cannot let management’s attempted DoF attack taint our excitement for the players and their great accomplishments.

GO ROCKIES!

Jott Vote

The people at Jott (the service that transcribes voice message to email see bellow) are now bringing you the ability to Jott Presidential candidates. This means you can share your opinions with them....no promise on them listening. http://jottthevote.com/

Another Backup Story

The other day my computer was having trouble so I decided I should just reformat to clean it up. I made a complete backup of all my files and when I went to use the drive I had made the backup on died. Fortuantly, I use Carbonite, to keep an updated offsite backup of my files and though it is a slow retreival proccess I will get my files back.

What would happen if your hard drive died? What would you loose? If these questions scare you - then you need a better backup plan!

Blogger Code of Ethics

More and more the world is being shapped and cometted on by bloggers. As blogging grows bloggers are now debating a code of ethics. http://www.cyberjournalist.net/news/000215.php

Just something interesting to see.

Intresting Article for Email Marketers

If you are interested in eMail Marketing this is a great article.

New York Times To Close TimesSelect Effective Midnight Tuesday; Will Open Last 20 Years Of Archives

With the NY Time archives becoming free what else will?

http://www.paidcontent.org/entry/419-new-york-times-to-close-timesselect-effective-wednesday/


We will only see?

New Denver DataMan Site

The new Denver DataMan website it is on it way. The new site will look better as well as being easer to use. I am not going to set a launch date other than to say it will be soon! Check out www.denverdataman.com/drupal and post your comments here.

Silly but fun

Here is a fun site that lets you compare how many search results you get from different searches on Google.

http://www.onfocus.com/googlesmack/down.asp

I am not sure of any real use for this but it is kind of fun.

Google Does it Again

I may blog like I am the biggest fan of Google but they have just released a great tool for students and people doing research on more than one computer. The new Google Notebook service lets you take notes on any search results that you find in Google or on anything else without any software needing to be installed.

This is a great tool for anyone doing research but all the more so for those of us doing research on more than one computer. This would have been a great tool for thesis research!

Free time

Here is something fun to do in your free time
Peace,
Steve

Ask the DataMan Session Follow-up

Today's Ask the DataMan session benefiting KidsTek was a great success. Many wonderful questions were asked and answered. Here is the follow-up to some of the questions.

When discussing computer security we address passwords. Click here for a guide on creating a secure password. Come October 4th to the Denver DataMan Digital Street Smarts class to more about computer security.

The following is the answer to who can open MS Office 2007 files from Microsoft:
"By installing the Compatibility Pack along side of Microsoft Office XP, or Office 2003, you will be able open, edit, save, and create files using the Open XML Formats new to the 2007 Microsoft Office system. Office 2000 users, as well as users of Windows 2000 SP4 and later, can convert Open XML Formats to binary file formats [the pre-office 2007 file format] from within Windows Explorer." Click here to download compatibility pack directly form Microsoft.

For more information on the World Community Grid go to http://www.worldcommunitygrid.org/ and download the software. If you download the software join the Denver DataMan team. Denver DataMan provides free World Community Grid Support to clients.

After the main Ask the DataMan session some of us spoke about a website called Jott.com that lets you send yourself and others email by calling into their system speaking your message. This is a great tool when your out and about.

I hope everyone who attended had a great time!

Peace,
Steve

Karis Community Launches new Website

Karis Community, a client of Denver DataMan Launches new Website! The new website was built by Denver DataMan and Cuttlefish Arts. With the new website Karis Community will be able to more effectivly communicate with potential clients, partners and supporters by having a nicer site as well as one they can update themselves!

Wikinomics

I listen to a lot of books on CD and I can not think of a time before this when I would call something a must read before I had even finished the second CD but Wikinomics is a must read/listen to book. Born out of its own multi-national collaborative project Wikinomics looks at how the world is changing because of what is often called Web 2.0. The economics and business concepts are interesting but so far the most interesting site I have found from it is Taking it Global a site dedicated to discussions on global issues.


Stay tuned for more posts on this amazing book!

First TT4T Donation

Tech Toys 4 Kids got its first donation yesterday. 12 monitors were donated by the Mile High United Way to be given to kids who do not have computers. Next week we will be getting the computers to match.

eMail Marketing Tips

This is a very good article from Constant Contact about how to build your eNewsletter list.

Words from the Road

Readers,

As some of you may know I am at a teachers conference at Washington University in St. Louis. Besides for the weather the conference is amazing. When we say Denver is hot but at least it is dry it is so very true. But this is a technology blog so I can take advantage of the air conditioning while I write it.

Besides for the great teaching skills I am learning while at the conference I am also getting to be part of some Web 2.0 type interactivity that I had yet to experience before this point. Basically while the conference is here it is also out on the web and somewhat open to the many people who could not make it or just know 85% humidity and 95 degrees does not mix well.

You can go to www.caje.org and see the wide array of outside sites that are being used -most for free - to host the virtual conference. I will be writing more about this topic of integrating free/low cost external services into a dynamic web presence. For now I will point out that I blog on Google for free rather than installing a blogging application on my site.

Web 2.0 is more than just fun and games. You Tube will become a tool (or another site offering similar services) for engaging others without boundaries. More than ever I am learning to understand the power of Web 2.0.

Think you'r kids are safe online?

If you think your kids are safe online, My Space, a popular social networking site shared the frightening news that there are 29,000 sex offenders with profiles on the site. These are just the ones that they have been able to identify! There are safe ways to use the Internet and there are safe ways to share the Internet with your children but My Space is NOT one of them.

See this article on the Boston Herald. http://news.bostonherald.com/localRegional/view.bg?articleid=1013242

First Denver DataMan Open Class Goes Well

The first Denver DataMan open class with Link to Share went very well. We covered an introduction to eMail.

Denver DataMan classes with Link to Share support the community by giving $2.50 cents of each tuition to KidsTek. Our goal is to raise $250 for KidsTek by the end of the year with these classes.

Here is a proposed list for class topics for the rest of the year.

August 2^nd - Introduction to Outlook

August 16^th - Digital Street Smarts - or an introduction to what the average user needs to know to stay safe on the Internet

September 6^th - Home Networking - a beginners guide

September 20^th – RSS and Podcasts – if you don’t know what this means you will still want to come!

October 4^th – Digital Street Smarts - or an introduction to what the average user needs to know to stay safe on the Internet

October 18^th –Constant Contact

November 1^st - Buying your next computer – if you need too

November 15^th - Address Books and Mailings

December 6^th – Creating Holiday Gifts with Computers

December 20^th – More Holiday fun with the computer

Classes are held at Rebekah & Co. Spa on the first and third Thursday of the month from 10:30 - 11:30

Rebekah & Co. Spa 1220 W. Littleton Blvd Littleton, 80120

New Google Map Features

Google maps has now added a new feature that adds a great deal of worth to this already excellent application. You can now change your route simply by dragging the route to a new highway. For example going from Thornton to DIA Google is sure that I need to take E470 but that is not always true. With this new feature I can drag my route on to 104th or highway 70 and it will recalculate it accordingly.

Check out this video for more information.

What else can the people at Google bring us.

World Community Grid has reached the 100,000 years of run time mark!

Though I have only completed 102 days of computing personally for the world Community Grid the grid completed 100,000 years of work as of July 7th. This milestone is one for the grid, computing, and for the research that the grid is doing!

Need proof that the grid works? At the sane time IBM announced this mile stone it also announced the completion of one of the grids genetic comparison project. Find out more about the research being done with the grid at http://www.worldcommunitygrid.org/projects_showcase/viewResearch.do

If you want to help save the world contact Denver DataMan to learn how to install the World Community Grid software on your computer!

The feature I want

So I was driving in the car this morning listening to a Podcast with no safe way to write down a URL or name of something that I want and I realized that my Ipod or another MP3 device needs a way to do bookmarking. I should be able to press a button and put a bookmark on a podcast, audio book or even a song and then go back to those later on the device and on my PC. This would be very easy, now how do I tell Mac?

World Community Grid Update

Last month in the DDM eNewsletter newsletter I wrote about the World Community Grid and I just wanted to update everyone that people have begun to join the Denver DataMan team and in the last month we have processed more than 27 days of data. If you are not currently using the World Community Grid you can join the Denver DataMan team when you register or you can login to the website and change your team at any time.

Click here to learn more about the World Community Grid and how Denver DataMan can help.

Join Denver DataMan in helping to save the world with World Community Grid.

AnvSoft Web Album Maker

I just found AnvSoft Web Album Maker and I am very impressed. The application helps even novice users generate very nice look photo albums. The product is 100% free and even has a free upload utility to share you albums from there site. I did not use the free upload utility but I did make an album of pictures for a client and it worked very well.

I have made a few examples from pictures I have taken while living in Colorado.

This software can be used for personal and business applications alike. I hope to share more software like this on the blog. If you have software you think I should share email me.

Some Thoughts on Microsoft Office 2007

As a software trainer it it is important for me to keep up with new software that my clients will be using. Though, I am not recommending updating to Microsoft Office 2007 yet, for most people, some of my clients have so I have as well. Actually, I have Office 2003 and 2007 on my laptop and they don't get along that well. All that aside here are some of my good and bad feelings about Office 2007.

1. The new tab and ribbon interface will take everyone a while to get to know it well but I like it. As I am finding my features again I think that is a cleaner interface and it lets you multi task within a document better.

2. Smart Art, the interface that replaces the chart creating feature in previous version of Office is amazing. I have used it several times since I upgraded and it is significantly simpler to use than charts plus it gives you more versatility with your data.

3. I like what has been done with mail merge but they did not finish it. The new mail merge interface is great and makes more advanced tools far more accessible but there are some very basic things that Microsoft neglected to included the easy ability to format conditional text.

4. Outloook, is an application that I think many people have a love hate relationship. It is still big and bulky but it has many new features which are nice. For some reason they took away some of the contact actions that I used to use, which is not very nice as well as the ability to link contacts to other contacts, as best as I can find.

At this point I should probably stop writing before I go on too long. Email me and I will share more.

Denver DataMan Enters The Blogosphere

Does everyone have a blog?

I am not sure but many have suggested that a Denver DataMan blog will give me an opportunity to share my thoughts on issues facing the tech world. I have lots of thoughts and I hope that you will enjoy reading them.

How often will I write on this blog?

We will see, I hope to write on the blog often but we will see how this grows. If you have an issue that you think that I should blog on then email me at blog@denverdataman.com and I will see what I can do.

As always the Denver DataMan website provides great resources access to the Denver DataMan eNewsletter.