DNSChanger

Last weekend there were scary stories in the press where the FBI was saying DNSChanger is gonna kill the Internet on July 9, 2012. It is not infected everyone and the good antivirus and antispyware programs that people have kept updated have detected and cleaned it. Here is a story that I think presents a decent approach and explains why it was overblown. I have read these people articles for many years and gotten many tips from them on Windows and Office. http://windowssecrets.com/top-story/dnschanger-is-not-the-end-of-the-world/ Dwight

Microsoft Skydrive

Microsoft's Skydrive is their program that gives you storage on the cloud. With it you can store up to 7gb (gigabytes) of information free that can be visible to just you or select others or the public. You can put all types of files there. If you have large files to share this is one way to do it. Also with Skydrive are versions of Microsoft applications called Office Web Applications or OWA. If you signed up with Skydrive in the past, you need to go back in your account and take advantage of a free offer. You use Windows Live ID to log in so you probably are still using the login elsewhere, but it does have a password reminder. It uses your email address as username. When you go in Skydrive you will see on the bottom left where it tells you that you have 7gb of storage. If you click on that, you will go to page with upgrade options. You can buy additional space here. Now for the nice freebie. For a limited time (they do not say how long) there is a free upgrade for existing Skydrive users to upgrade to 25gb free. Google has also introduce their cloud storage which only gives 5gb of storage and works with Google Docs. it is called Google Drive. If you store items in their format they do not count in the 5gb. Skydrive and Google Drive are two additional options to backup some of your stuff and also to be able to access anywhere. Dwight

The impossible dream

I have accomplished the impossible dream or climbed the tall mountain or accomplished the labor of love. Tonight I scanned the last of my uncle Sam's 23240 approximately slides. I have scanned all that are developed although he has a roll to be developed and a roll in the camera. I still have to edit most of them to then put on DVDs for his family and get prints for him. I have done the editing on about 3000. I started doing this project in September 2006 and finished on April 4, 2012. My cousins have called a labor of love for several years. There were times I wondered if I would finish in my lifetime, but I have reached the first goal. Now to do the editing and make the DVDs. His collection of 23000+ slides covers 60 years an dare in amazing good shape and the slides look like new after I scan and quick edit. Most I scanned as TIF (uncompressed) format and then edit to JPG with a auto color on most. A few needed a red or blue tint removed. Dwight

Five years at GNTC

Last week marked my fifth year as an instructor at Georgia Northwestern Technical College in Rock Spring Georgia. The time has been marked by a lot of good things and also by a couple not so good events. Overall it has really been a good five years. In 2007 I was hired as a database specialist instructor at Northwestern Technical College. Since that time a number of changes occurred in my job title and the name of the college. The first fall I was teaching 2 hours a day at Chattooga County High School in Summerville. I taught A+ preparation to a group of high school students that year. During that year my job on campus evolved from database instructor to networking instructor when the adjunct Cisco instructor ceased teaching. Since I was already an approved/certified Cisco instructor I could teach the classes with no additional training needed. I also picked up the Windows networking classes partly as part of database and then as the networking program. I initially taught traditional in-person classes and now have evolved to where most of my classes are on-line and rest are hybrid. In 2009 the college merged with Coosa Valley Technical College and became Georgia Northwestern Technical College. After being hired as database instructor I was chosen at the state level to head the database curriculum committee in the state teachers organization which maintains the curriculum standards. When I moved to networking the instructors from the state chose me to head the networking curriculum and I still hold that chairman ship (the joke at the state meeting in February was the only way I can quit as chair is to either retire or die). Since I have been at GNTC I have made a number of friends on the faculty and with students and former students. I have participated in several activities at the college including being on the faculty volleyball team my first year (we will not discuss our success, but lets leave at we finally won a game in our last match and had a perfect record in matches). I also took a blacksmithing class at GNTC which was real interesting learning. When i started at NTC we were using Blackboard as our on-line CMS. Then abruptly one July we switched to Angel where we are now, but expecting change in the future. I served as a trainer for Blackboard and Angel for a while as I had administered Blackboard at HGTC. I still get faculty questions on how to do stuff in Angel. I have added lots of videos and audio lectures to my on-line/hybrid classes as I have learned a pocket recorder really works well for doing audio recordings of my lectures and since it is digital it is simple to transfer to the PC, edit and upload the lectures so on-line students benefit and hybrid can listen again if they want. I have received additional certifications since being at GNTC including MCT, MTA, Adobe Photoshop, Critical Thinking and just a few weeks ago five certifications from BrainBench. We had a good snow winter 2011 that closed the college a week but the other years not much snow and this year never saw any. I lived thru the tornadoes a year ago that devastated much of the area, but stayed in air when went over my apartment. Two years ago I saw the major flooding we had as I had to drive thru water about a foot deep top get back that Sunday night. This year and next year I am serving as chair of the library advisory board, and had not served on a library advisory board before. I enjoy the scenery and the weather and the people in the area and have become involved in First Baptist of LaFayette last year and enjoy the Wednesday night programs including Bible study and dinner. I was in their Run for God program last year. I am active in the Fort Oglethorpe Kiwanis serving on the board of Directors and as webmaster. Although the club meets in Georgia it is in the Kentucky-Tennessee District and for the past two years i have served as editor of the district newsletter, K-T Notes, after serving about five years as technology chair/webmaster for the Georgia Kiwanis district. My first teaching job in Georgia was in Brunswick (southeast) and it looks like i will finish my career at the opposite corner of Georgia in the northwest Dwight

pictures out west

The pictures from my trip out west last July are now posted at http://tripwestjuly2011.shutterfly.com There are also some videos there which are not edited. I also have the pictures with me in them (leaving out pictures I am not in) in a separate folder if you don't want to look at all 2000+ pictures. There is also a folder with just pictures that Carl is in (Carl Bramell went with me). Dwight

volunteer of month

Last Sunday it was announced at Swainsboro First United Methodist Church (membership about 600) that I was volunteer of the month for October for my work on the web page, running video presentation system, sound technician, lay speaker, emailing bulletins weekly and Sunday school teacher. For those of you not sure what a lay speaker is, that is a person who is not a minister who speaks at church.

single logon

An article at CNN.com (http://www.cnn.com/2012/02/15/tech/web/government-online-id/index.html?hpt=hp_t3) today reported that the USA federal government is trying to develop a single logon for the Internet. The idea is that individuals will no longer have to remember lots of logons and passwords. The thinking is also that this will make the Internet more secure. This proposal by the Obama administration that is being developed has a number of problems. This is not the first time that a proposal has been proposed like this. Private industry has tried it before. There are concerns on our security information kept in one place and by the USA government. Does any body remember this was already tried by Microsoft and it flopped. Windows Live is the remnants of that. The program was called Microsoft Passport. You were going to be able to set up an account at Microsoft and log in anywhere. The approach remains with Windows Live for Microsoft websites, but most other companies and individuals did not want Microsoft having this information. Few companies trusted Microsoft and the people did not trust Microsoft. Yes the government has my address, name Social Security number, and drivers license but drivers license is at the state and Social Security number is at the federal government. Why would I trust my security to the USA government? I could just let the police have keys to my house and I will call them when I want in. Would I feel secure? No. Interesting enough the federal government passed a law several years ago that no longer allows agencies, state governments, etc to use a single identifying number everywhere, your Social Security number. How likely is it that the rest of the world is going to agree with doing a centralized logon that is developed and maintained by the US government? Can you see the Chinese lining up to join in, or how likely would the US join in a Chinese developed single logon? For it to be single logon the Internet it would have to have all countries participating. The Internet is not just in the USA contrary to what politicians think and it is used by all the world and the USA citizens access sites outside the USA all the time. What happens when someone hacks the federal database (and it will happen) and everything you have done that is on the Internet becomes available to the hackers. Not just accounts at one bank but all banks, all credit cards, payroll records, etc. This is truly big government that will then ruin everyone. The economy will tank and make the Depression look like nothing . This is not something the government should be doing and it is a waste of our tax dollars. This should be dropped by the government. Dwight