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One of my newsletter subscribers wrote me to ask:

To improve security when using Wi-Fi at a coffee shop or traveling, I’ve seen advice to uninstall “File and Printer Sharing for Microsoft Networks” on the active wireless connection in the Properties menu of Control Panel Network Connections. Is it necessary to do this – is there any downside to uninstalling this? Would it be sufficient to uncheck the box, or do I need to fully uninstall it?

I guess another way of asking this question is, What is the purpose of this Sharing feature? I’m reluctant to delete something I might need.

Also, do I need to do make this change every time I go to a new hotspot (or even to the same hotspot), or will once do it for all future Wi-Fi logins?

Read my response and advice in my article Wi-Fi Hotspots and Computer Security

Technorati Tags: WiFi hotspot, WiFi security, wireless security, coffee shop, internet access

As I wrote earlier in AdwordAccelerator — indispensable tool for Google’s Adwords, the membership was filling up in AdwordAccelerator.

Well, it happened, but all is not lost…

Sign up for the AdwordAccelerator waiting list

Technorati Tags: Adwords  Google  
AdwordAccelerator  tool  research  

Powweb ran their super April special a few days into May, but it’s gone now. That was the first time they had offered a Buy 1 Year Get 1 Year Free deal.

Now, in May, we have what I call the
Procrastinator’s Special
Powweb‘s new web hosting special
“Buy 1 Year Get 6 Months Free
Buy 2 Years Get 14 Months Free”

The full Powweb “One Plan” package is only $7.77/month
Then, you get free months – and a 30-day money back guarantee
Plenty of disk space, bandwidth and additional features:
Email (pop3 and smtp), webmail, PHP, Perl, FrontPage Extensions,
blogs, photo galleries, shopping carts, forums and more.
Powweb is my choice and all my sites are hosted there.

Want a new job? Want a better job? Want your first good job?

You probably need better career education and career training.

Get the education and career training you need for the real world. Technical schools, career colleges and vocational schools can give you the exact skills that can get you into a better job.

Get more info on career education. Easy sign up to get information from both online and “brick-and-mortar” schools.

Happy New Year!

I hope everybody has a wonderful 2006!

Terry
www.TerrysComputerTips.com

Satellite Radio. I first heard of it several years ago, as I know you did, too. The initial concept was a hard-wired unit in the car for an exhorbitant price and monthly charge.

How the times have changed! I have several friends who have gone the satellite radio route, whether they live in big cities or small towns.

One of the most interesting ideas is being able to actually listen to the station that I want to, even if I’m in the middle of nowhere, on the Interstate, 300 miles from home.

Combine that with a portable model that lets you carry your satellite radio receiver into the house and plug it into your stereo/hometheater system, and you have a big winner. Check it out.

The temptation is there. I think I’ll have to get the Mr. & Mrs. Smith DVD, of course, the Serenity DVD. The other science fiction / fantasy ones will have to go on the “maybe someday” list. Here’s the schedule of the coming releases that interest me:

November 29, 2005    Mr. & Mrs. Smith

December 6, 2005     Fantastic Four

December 6, 2005     Star Wars – Clone Wars, Vol. 2

December 13, 2005    Sin City – Recut & Extended Version

December 20, 2005    Serenity

December 20, 2005    Battlestar Galactica – Season 2

Here’s a more complete schedule of upcoming DVD Releases.

The rotten eggs exist. We all know it and we hope we never meet them. Unfortunately, now, some of the rotten eggs of society are showing up with a new title — “hurricane refugee.”

In an article on Tuesday, November 1st, Associated Press (AP) reported that a New Orleans evacuee was killed in Houston. The article goes on to say that an 18-year-old pickup owner apparently stabbed the 38 year old evacuee, when the evacuee tried to carjack the 18-year-old’s pickup at knifepoint.

The rest of the article talked about the tragic strangling death of a friend of mine, Betty Blair of Pasadena, Texas. Betty was a caring person who was helping evacuees personally, in addition to assisting through her church. Betty was the widow of Bobby R. “Bob” Blair, a former co-worker, a former boss and a friend.

Continue reading “They’re not all bad…”

Southwest Louisiana from the Texas border to New Orleans took the brunt of Hurricane Rita. <br />
<br />
New Orleans, which had just started to let residents back in, suffered renewed flooding in the low-income 9th Ward, which was where the main levee break had occurred after Hurricane Katrina. With Hurricane Rita, the waters overtopped the temporary repairs and washed much of them away as they rushed into the areas that had just been pumped dry.<br />
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In an early view of Baton Rouge after Hurricane Rita, we had different scale of impacts but similar impacts from Rita compared to Katrina.<br />
<br />
Widespread power outages, but more intermittent this time. Wind gusts apparently knocked out some circuits. In my area, power was on, then off, then on, then flickered off-on-off, returned about 1am for 5 minutes, then back off until 8:30am — back on until 8:55 and off until about 9:45. A few attempts to power on again. Then off. Weith Hurricane Katrina, it was off, period.<br />
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Wind: Baton Rouge was much closer to Katrina, so we had much more wind — both in the amount of wind and the strengh of the wind. Before, the winds were from the west and north. With Rita, they are from the East and South, so the impacts are different. Thank goodness we had no appreciable rain between katrina and Rita.<br />
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At 10am, we're having a very few gusts of wind, but mostly light breezes. Rain has stopped for a while. Baton Rouge got only about 1 inch of rain from Katrina. We're about 3 to 4 inches now from Rita — this time we were on the "wet side" (the east side) of the hurricane.<br />
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I can't wait for the power to return. The last few attempts were for 1 or 2 seconnds. Not only are we still having wind gusts, but as the day gets warmer, house air-conditioning systems are triggering as the power comes on. This puts a huge, instantaneous load on the circuit. I thing this overload is what is tripping the systems now.<br />
<br />
[time passes]<br />
12:40 — Power finally returned, maybe for good this time. Using my portable power system (combined battery + inverter to get 120v AC), I saw on our little TV that DEMCO, our power company, had 21,000 people without power in Baton Rouge and that Entergy had 61,000 without power in Baton Rouge. These are almost the same numbers as those reported during Hurricane Katrina 3 weeks ago.<br />
<br />
The rains continued…<br />
<br />
Power went out again shortly after 1pm. It returned again about 2:30, with a number of subsequent blips and brownouts. As frustrating as this has been, I am thankful that I already have power. And, don't have the flooding and wind losses of people south and west of Baton Rouge.<br />
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