The Next Window

Yesterday, I taught a 2 hour workshop on <i>Preventing Adware and Spyware</i> at the Cajun Clickers Computer Club.<br />
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It was a <b>beautiful fall day</b>, breeze about 10mph, temperature 72&deg;F, sunny and clear. I still had about 10 people attend the session.<br />
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This small group was interested in the topic and was prepared with questions. We had a very good time for the 2 hours — so much so that we never even took a break. I don't think anyone left early, either!<br />
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We got chased out of the lecture room because the Digital Video SIG was meeting next. They patiently waited while I ran the class all the way to 1pm and then started packing up. Even while packing my notebook and accessories, I had club members trying to ask additional questions. We moved into the hall for another few minutes.<br />
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Tomorrow, I am teaching a workshop titled <i>Preventing Spyware and Adware</i> at the Cajun Clickers Computer Club (www.clickers.org). Yes, this is the same Cajun Clickers Computer Club that did a lot of volunteer work for the State in our <a href="http://www.thenextwindow.com/exit.php?url_id=781&amp;entry_id=154" title="http://www.thenextwindow.com/categories/14-Hurricane-Katrina" onmouseover="window.status='http://www.thenextwindow.com/categories/14-Hurricane-Katrina';return true;" onmouseout="window.status='';return true;">Katrina Pet Rescue Project</a>.<br />
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Free applications that bring along spyware and adware are bad enough. The worse type are the spyware and adware programs that show up because of your web surfing or email habits.<br />
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You may be suckered into clicking the web ad that says "Warning — you might be infected…" — or that might be an offensive, but legitimate ad for a real adware/spyware fighter. Or, you may be the lucky recipient of an Active-X "drive-by download," just by visiting a web site. All too often, these downloads are not spyware/adware themselves — they are "downloaders," designed to give you much more grief. <br />
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Unfortunately, there are even people who market alleged anti-spyware programs that are really spyware/adware installers. Not cool.<br />
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After the workshop tomorrow, I will create and add new <i>Preventing Spyware and Adware</i> pages to my <a href="http://www.thenextwindow.com/exit.php?url_id=782&amp;entry_id=154" title="http://www.terryscomputertips.com" onmouseover="window.status='http://www.terryscomputertips.com';return true;" onmouseout="window.status='';return true;">Terry's Computer Tips</a> site.<br />
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<center>Original article posted to <a href="http://www.thenextwindow.com/exit.php?url_id=783&amp;entry_id=154" title="http://www.thenextwindow.com" onmouseover="window.status='http://www.thenextwindow.com';return true;" onmouseout="window.status='';return true;">www.TheNextWindow.com</a></center><br />
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I've just updated <a href="http://www.thenextwindow.com/exit.php?url_id=750&amp;entry_id=151" title="http://www.terryscomputertips.com" onmouseover="window.status='http://www.terryscomputertips.com';return true;" onmouseout="window.status='';return true;">TerrysComputerTips.com</a>, my computer tips, articles and free newsletter site, with a <a href="http://www.thenextwindow.com/exit.php?url_id=751&amp;entry_id=151" title="http://www.terryscomputertips.com/ms-office/hands-on-excel.php" onmouseover="window.status='http://www.terryscomputertips.com/ms-office/hands-on-excel.php';return true;" onmouseout="window.status='';return true;">Hands-On Excel</a> tutorial for Excel beginners.<br />
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The tutorial starts with an intro that discusses what Excel is and why you might want to use it. The next six parts create a spreadsheet with stock prices across time, shares of stock, and values, including graphing the results.<br />
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While the tutorial focuses on Excel, it would also work very well for the free, open-source <a href="http://www.thenextwindow.com/exit.php?url_id=752&amp;entry_id=151" title="http://www.openoffice.org" onmouseover="window.status='http://www.openoffice.org';return true;" onmouseout="window.status='';return true;">OpenOffice.org</a> office suite.<br />
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<b>WOW!</b><br />
Fred Langa's <a href="http://www.thenextwindow.com/exit.php?url_id=699&amp;entry_id=147" title="http://www.langa.com" onmouseover="window.status='http://www.langa.com';return true;" onmouseout="window.status='';return true;">LangaList and LangaList Plus!</a> newsletters mentioned my <a href="http://www.thenextwindow.com/exit.php?url_id=700&amp;entry_id=147" title="http://www.terryscomputertips.com" onmouseover="window.status='http://www.terryscomputertips.com';return true;" onmouseout="window.status='';return true;">Terry's Computer Tips website</a> in last Sunday afternoon's issue.<br />
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My visitor count for Sunday was about <em>5 times normal</em>. My visitor count for Monday was about <em>12 times normal</em>.<br />
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Many of these visitors signed up for my free <i>Terry's Computer Tips </i> weekly newsletter while they were there — they also visited my advertisers, too.<br />
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THANK YOU FRED!<br />
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All this was the result of Fred's reciprocal link program — I put a link on my site, he puts a link on his site and he mentions my site in his "Loaded the Code" article. This section is simply a listing of about 10 sites, without descriptions, that added links to Langa's site recently.<br />
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<center>Original article posted to <a href="http://www.thenextwindow.com/exit.php?url_id=701&amp;entry_id=147" title="http://www.thenextwindow.com" onmouseover="window.status='http://www.thenextwindow.com';return true;" onmouseout="window.status='';return true;">www.TheNextWindow.com</a></center><br />

Saturday is going to be a busy day for me at the Cajun Clickers Computer Club.<br />
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At 9am, I'm leading the Web Design Special Interest Group. We focus on web design issue as well as creating web pages with FrontPage and/or HTML/CSS. Tomorrow, I plan to show the free open-source web design program Nvu (<a href="http://www.thenextwindow.com/exit.php?url_id=558&amp;entry_id=123" title="http://www.nvu.com" onmouseover="window.status='http://www.nvu.com';return true;" onmouseout="window.status='';return true;">Nvu's web site</a>).<br />
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At 1pm, we have the Digital Video Special Interest Group. I've been asked to come back and show my Home Theater PC again. My HTPC is a home-brew computer with SageTV HTPC software, three TV Tuner/Encoder cards and two 250GB hard drives. Well, I'm also using another 300GB across my home network. My web site's HTPC section shows and discusses my <a href="http://www.thenextwindow.com/exit.php?url_id=559&amp;entry_id=123" title="http://www.terrystockdale.com/htpc/htpc_1.shtml" onmouseover="window.status='http://www.terrystockdale.com/htpc/htpc_1.shtml';return true;" onmouseout="window.status='';return true;">my Home Theater PC</a>.<br />
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In Sunday's entry, I wrote about the latest worm — I also wrote about it in my <a href="http://www.thenextwindow.com/exit.php?url_id=556&amp;entry_id=122" title="http://www.terryscomputertips.com/archives/newsletter_20050815.php" onmouseover="window.status='http://www.terryscomputertips.com/archives/newsletter_20050815.php';return true;" onmouseout="window.status='';return true;">newsletter</a>, which was published on Monday, warning readers to get patched before it was too late.<br />
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It looks like way, way too many folks aren't doing their Windows updates automatically or fast enough.<br />
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Today (Tuesday), CNN reported that CNN, ABC, The New York Times were hit by Zotob. According to the <a href="http://www.thenextwindow.com/exit.php?url_id=557&amp;entry_id=122" title="http://www.cnn.com/2005/TECH/internet/08/16/computer.worm/index.html" onmouseover="window.status='http://www.cnn.com/2005/TECH/internet/08/16/computer.worm/index.html';return true;" onmouseout="window.status='';return true;">CNN article</a>, the worm primarily affects Windows 2000 systems and <b>early</b> versions of Windows XP. <br />
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One other kicker in the article — there are several versions of the Zotob worm circulating. This means that Antivirus programs aren't going to be updated fast enough to prevent the infections. You have to patch Windows to prevent infection.<br />
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Play it safe — <b>if you haven't done your Windows Updates yet, do them now</b>.<br />
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By the way, Microsoft has now made the "Microsoft Genuine Advantage" validation tool <b>mandatory</b> in order to do your Windows Updates. That tool, which does not appear to have any advantages for anyone other than Microsoft, makes sure you are not running a pirated copy of Windows.<br />
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<b>You will have to run Windows Updates twice — once to install the validator and confirm your Windows OS is not a pirated copy, and again to get the real security patches you need.</b><br />
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<i>Thanks a lot, Microsoft, for your perfect timing.</i><br />

Yesterday, I had lunch at one of my favorite Chinese restaurants in Baton Rouge, King Buffet (http://www.kingbuffet.biz). At the end of a lunch consisting primarily of sushi rolls, fried shrimp, shrimp &amp; broccoli and shanghai shrimp, I had the traditional fortune cookie.<br />
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My fortune was not a "fortune" per se, but it was a shrewd saying "We learn most when we are teaching."<br />
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That simple stated fact is a major reason why I like to teach workshops and lead special interest groups at the Cajun Clickers Computer Club.<br />
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While I can (and do) attend other workshops and SIG meetings, I find that I learn more when I am teaching. This happens in three ways. <br />
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<br /><a href="http://www.thenextwindow.com/index.php?/archives/112-Teaching-and-Volunteering.html#extended">Continue reading "Teaching and Volunteering"</a>

Today is a full day of volunteering for me at the Cajun Clickers Computer Club. <br />
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We have a "PC Tuneup Day" for our members every two months. In this event, we have about 25 volunteers involved in doing tuneups of our members computers. Some of the volunteers sign in the people with their computers, others keep the system flowing, some run the anti-virus station and others do the real techie stuff — cleaning spyware, adware, old programs and other junk off the computers. The goal is to send the members out with a computer that runs much more efficiently.<br />
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Twenty-five volunteers just to do the work? That's it, folks. We have one of the most active computer user groups in the country. Our club has over 1,800 member families. Membership gets all the benefits and free classes for all the immediate family members. That's the kind of thing you can do with an all-volunteer active group. You can check out our website at <a href="http://www.thenextwindow.com/exit.php?url_id=495&amp;entry_id=102" title="http://www.clickers.org" onmouseover="window.status='http://www.clickers.org';return true;" onmouseout="window.status='';return true;">www.clickers.org</a>. <br />
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Be sure to take a look at our <a href="http://www.thenextwindow.com/exit.php?url_id=496&amp;entry_id=102" title="http://www.clickers.org/register/index.asp?actiontype=calendar" onmouseover="window.status='http://www.clickers.org/register/index.asp?actiontype=calendar';return true;" onmouseout="window.status='';return true;">schedule of workshops and events</a> — if you live near Baton Rouge, that should motivate you to join. Membership is $42 per year for your immediate family.<br />
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We will probably have 50 to 60 computers go through the tuneup process on Saturday. I'm one of the guys doing the techie stuff.<br />

Today, I planned to attend the <a href="http://www.thenextwindow.com/exit.php?url_id=407&amp;entry_id=89" title="http://www.clickers.org" onmouseover="window.status='http://www.clickers.org';return true;" onmouseout="window.status='';return true;">Cajun Clickers Computer Club</a>'s Digital Video Special Interest Group. A volunteer group from the DV SIG, the "Clickers Video Rangers," is planning to digitally record some of the Clickers' four-part education programs, edit them and then prepare DVDs for sale to our members. <br />
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However, at the same time this afternoon, there was an "Ask The Experts" session scheduled in a different classroom at the Clickers offices. I ended up becoming the volunteer expert for this two hour session.<br />
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There were several good questions, with both novice users and advanced users asking questions and volunteering answers and discussion. I had a good time and hope the other folks did, also.<br />

In three words, "help and education."<br />
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If a few more words, a computer user group is a group of computer users, ranging from new users to advanced users. They have two main things in common: they are running the same general type of computer operating system — a Windows-based computer or an Apple MacIntosh or a Linux-based computer — and they are interested in learning how to use their computer more effectively.<br />
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For some beginners, that's learning to use a keyboard and mouse, how to copy files, rename files, etc. Other individuals want to learn more about topics such as word processing, spreadsheets, graphics programs, web design, genealogy.<br />
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Whether your local computer user group meets once a month in a public library or has 50-60 classes and events each month, check it out. The group is a success because its members make it one. Volunteer to do what you can — if you regularly use a program, volunteer to teach a class or workshop on it. If you can't teach, help set up for meetings, or help edit the club's newsletter, or anything else that needs done.<br />
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The more effort you put in to the user group, the more you will value its existence.<br />
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If you don't know where to find one, check with your local library. They can probably point you in the right direction. Your local computer store may also know where and when it meets.<br />