Flu Map

The H1N1 flu outbreak is definitely something of interest happening in the world, and which may have an effect on each of us personally and professionally. My father's father died in the flu epidemic that started in 1918, so my family was permanently affected by that pandemic. I'm not in any way in a panic about this spate of the flu, but that doesn't mean I want to put my head in the sand about it, either. I like to know what's going on, and found an official US government site about the flu that has a great deal of information, as well as a state flu map.

I also found this flu map that someone has created on Google maps, for tracking where the flu is spreading. They are gathering information from news, health and technology sources, and have a simple legend of blue for suspected cases, pink for probable cases, red for confirmed cases, gray for unconfirmed deaths, and black for confirmed deaths.

I don't know about you, but I appreciate having some idea of where the outbreaks are happening. Until I'm able to find some other official more detailed map from a government or world health source, this one is the best I've found so far in getting an idea of the spread of the disease, and where in my area of the country I might be more careful if I need to travel there. If you know of any others, please let me know.

Email security test

With all the exploits going on in email these days, it might not be a bad idea to test your email system to see how well it does against them. Here's one place to go to test it! Thanks to Lance Reynolds for the link.

Sumo Wrestlers ad

Thanks to Ted Novak for this absolutely hysterical one, also.

Think of the internet as a highway...

Scott Campbell posted this one, which turns the "internet as a highway" on its ear.

What if the internet were a place you could go to...

This funny Dave Chappelle video shows what the internet might be if it were a real place you could go to...thanks to Ted Novak for pointing it out!

Conficker Eye Chart

Here's a quick and easy test to see if you're infected with Conficker (or is it Confiker?). Quite simple. Thanks to Joe Marton for pointing this out!

Thunderbird Tag Tweak

Here's a Thunderbird tweak that I found helpful. You can already set tags for Thunderbird, but those only change the color of the text. This takes whatever color has been set, and, instead, uses that to color the background, making it much easier to find tagged items without doing a search.

Novell Community Toolbar

Here's another handy add-on for your browser - a toolbar, to keep in touch with what's going on in the Novell Communities. Thanks to Brad Averbeck for finding this for us, and thanks to Susan Salgy for creating it!

Novell Tid Finder

Remember the Novell TID Finder page? Now there's a Novell TID Finder Firefox extension that works the same way - just enter a TID number and off you go! It adds the Novell site to the search engines in your Firefox browser, so you just select the Novell TID Finder from the search dropdown list. Don't be fooled by where the add-ons people misfiled it under Thunderbird add-ons, it's definitely for Firefox.

Help Stevo

Stevo asked our help in testing his email system's defenses against spamming, so if you're interested in helping, contact him at pqnanxmqa2reaws@jetable.org. He'll be ever-so grateful.