Sunday, December 23, 2007
Denver Public Librarry ads WiFi
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.
Monday, December 17, 2007
Who Needs Your Social a good article
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
Sunday, December 9, 2007
Basic Web Design Tips for Your Website
Beth was one of the great speakers at Emarketing Building Blocks and is an excellent source for marketing support for your small busienss.
Thursday, November 22, 2007
Happy Thanksgiving
I hope it is filled with blessings of abundant health, happiness, family, joy, and love.
Peace,
Steve
Wednesday, November 21, 2007
Linked In Training
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
Monday, November 5, 2007
Mail Big Files
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.
Wednesday, October 31, 2007
A Great World Communuty Grid Article
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.
Tuesday, October 23, 2007
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
Tuesday, October 16, 2007
Jott Vote
Saturday, October 6, 2007
Another Backup Story
What would happen if your hard drive died? What would you loose? If these questions scare you - then you need a better backup plan!
Friday, October 5, 2007
Blogger Code of Ethics
Just something interesting to see.
Sunday, September 23, 2007
Intresting Article for Email Marketers
Tuesday, September 18, 2007
New York Times To Close TimesSelect Effective Midnight Tuesday; Will Open Last 20 Years Of Archives
http://www.paidcontent.org/entry/419-new-york-times-to-close-timesselect-effective-wednesday/
We will only see?
Sunday, September 16, 2007
New Denver DataMan Site
Tuesday, September 4, 2007
Silly but fun
http://www.onfocus.com/googlesmack/down.asp
I am not sure of any real use for this but it is kind of fun.
Monday, September 3, 2007
Google Does it Again
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!
Tuesday, August 28, 2007
Ask the DataMan Session Follow-up
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
Monday, August 27, 2007
Karis Community Launches new Website
Friday, August 24, 2007
Wikinomics
Stay tuned for more posts on this amazing book!
First TT4T Donation
Tuesday, August 14, 2007
eMail Marketing Tips
Monday, August 6, 2007
Words from the Road
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.
Wednesday, July 25, 2007
Think you'r kids are safe online?
See this article on the Boston Herald. http://news.bostonherald.com/localRegional/view.bg?articleid=1013242
Friday, July 20, 2007
First Denver DataMan Open Class Goes Well
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 2nd - Introduction to Outlook
August 16th - Digital Street Smarts - or an introduction to what the average user needs to know to stay safe on the Internet
September 6th - Home Networking - a beginners guide
September 20th – RSS and Podcasts – if you don’t know what this means you will still want to come!
October 4th – Digital Street Smarts - or an introduction to what the average user needs to know to stay safe on the Internet
October 18th –Constant Contact
November 1st - Buying your next computer – if you need too
November 15th - Address Books and Mailings
December 6th – Creating Holiday Gifts with Computers
December 20th – 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 - 11:30Rebekah & Co. Spa 1220 W. Littleton Blvd Littleton, 80120 |
Saturday, July 14, 2007
New Google Map Features
Check out this video for more information.
What else can the people at Google bring us.
Monday, July 9, 2007
World Community Grid has reached the 100,000 years of run time mark!
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!
Friday, June 22, 2007
The feature I want
Wednesday, June 20, 2007
World Community Grid Update
Tuesday, June 19, 2007
AnvSoft Web Album Maker
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.
Saturday, June 9, 2007
Some Thoughts on Microsoft 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.
Friday, February 2, 2007
Denver DataMan Enters The Blogosphere
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.