Geek Sights for Vacationers

Uwe mentioned FourEyesUp, where you can find by location or category the sorts of sights that tech people might like better than the usual tourist sights.

What Motivates Us

This is a truly amazing presentation about what motivates us, showing some surprising results.  Definitely worth the time to view it!  Thanks to Marcel for posting it.

Laptop Reliability Test Results

SquareTrade, the purchase warranty service available through eBay and many other vendors, did an interesting study on laptop reliability. The sampling was 30,000 randomly-chosen warranty claims on brand new laptop computers. The results are in: 1 in 3 laptops fail over 3 years, and netbooks possibly fail 20% more than laptops. The PDF article is a must read for anyone looking for a new laptop.

Square Trade also has research results on other products they cover.

Test Your Phishing Recognition Skills

Phishing has become an art. In its early days, it was fairly easy for experienced email users to recognize a phishing attempt. Nowadays, it's becoming more difficult. See how well you, or your users, can recognize some of the latest types of phishing attempts, with this simple test from Sonicwall.

tz&598fT87wpGH")!jK98%5ih^U

Strong passwords are just common sense, but they're very difficult to remember, especially for things that we don't use daily. Most of us now have anywhere from 20 to over 100 passwords and usernames, depending on our work, internet activities and software used. Where to keep them safe? Enter secure password programs to help us keep track of them all. Here are a few that are open source or freeware, and have encryption.

Keypass Open source, has a portable version, Windows and Mono, mobile, iPhone, Blackberry, Palm, Android and more
Password Safe Platform independent
Keypassx Cross-Platform
Password Corral for Windows

Outsource your life...?

Greg B recently decided that if they can outsource the people who take your order at McDonald's, maybe it's time to outsource his life, because it must now be possible to pay someone else to do it for less than it costs him to do it hinself. Craig helpfully provided a link to DoMyStuff to get Greg started.

Tea Time?

Got a favorite tea, but can't find it in bag form? This is one solution - buy your own bags and bag it yourself.

DIY Service Pack

Ever been faced with the conundrum of needing to update a new install of
Windows, which has to be done over the internet with Microsoft's update system, even though exposing an un-patched Windows to the internet is an unsafe thing to do and a security risk? Or Aunt Louise only has a dial-up connection, and you need to security-patch her system? This appears to be a legal method of downloading the needed security patches, which can then be applied offline to a legal installation of Windows. They also have a forum, if you have any questions about how to use the open source program.

The Cliffs of Insanity

Tim Leerhoff is co-creating the ultimate train set for his grandchildren. This is a work in progress, that is pretty amazing as it is already. It looks like they're having as much fun getting it made as the kids will have in playing with it later. Can't wait to see it finished. but just seeing the surprises along the way as this plan goes from drawing to outline to completion is a fascinating journey, The workmanship and attention to detail is just amazing.

XP Lite

Need a clean, lean profile for gaming or some other purpose? This little freeware utility helps create it. It's basic, no frills, but it gets the job done.

Last Freeware Version

Have you every downloaded a great little freeware program, used it forever, changed hard drives over time, and then could only find a more advanced paid version of it again to install on your new system or hard drive? This site has an archive of the last freeware version of quite a number of programs. Maybe you'll find your old favorite there!

RegShot

Ever wonder what registry entries/changes have been made to your system when you change something or install some software? This program can take a snapshot before and after, and then compare the two, and there's your answer to what's been changed! Nice open source utility for all 32-bit Windows, to keep in your bag of tricks.

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.