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Facebook - be very aware of the privacy settings
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Example - facebook profile |
By now everyone's heard of Facebook, whether they've joined up or not. Facebook, for those still mystified, is what's known as a social networking site. In short, once you've joined you create a personal profile which you can cram full with all sorts of information about yourself, including pictures and videos. You can then find the profiles of your friends and invite them to 'be your friend'. If they accept they then have access to your profile and become listed in your 'Friends' section. Whenever any of your friends update their profile or their 'current status' (eg. John Smith is travelling through Europe) you are notified of the change in a 'News Feed' which is displayed once you've logged onto your account. If your friend adds a photo album of their new baby or a video of their wedding vows you'll know about it and be able to view it with a single click. An example Facebook page can be found here.
The great thing about Facebook is how easy it is to stay up-to-date with what your friends (and family!) are all up to. The worst thing is that by default, your profile is open to any Tom, Dick and Harry who has joined the site. You have to go into the privacy settings (which are fairly complicated) to manually shut the doors you want closed. The most important privacy setting to amend is to limit access to your profile to your friends only.
To do this, go to Privacy > Profile then change the Profile drop-down-menu from "All my networks and all my friends" to "Only my friends". Exceptions do however exist, eg. if you 'poke' someone they might be able to view your profile for a limited period of time. In short, before you pour all your personal information onto the site, be aware of who can see it.
Office 2007 Explained
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Microsoft Word 2007's 'Ribbon' feature. |
Microsoft coincided their release of Windows Vista (the new operating system) with the release of their new Office suite (Word, Excel, PowerPoint etc) earlier this year, and it's not the usual "I don't notice any difference" affair! The main modification you'll notice is the new toolbar at the top of the page which replaces the usual symbols (open, save, print). It has been named the 'Ribbon' by Microsoft, and is much wider than the previous toolbar. The Ribbon is designed to make the features of the application more discoverable and accessible with fewer mouse clicks as compared to the menu-based user interface used until Office 2007.
The other big difference with Office 2007 is the format in which it saves files. For example, usually a document created in Microsoft Word is saved as a '.doc' file. Word 2007 however saves it as a '.'docx' file. This new file format (which applies to Word, Excel and PowerPoint) has the advantage of making the size of the document smaller and hence faster to email and transport. The disadvantage is that if you send it to someone with Office 2003 or earlier they won't be able to open it, unless they download and install the Microsoft Office Compatibility Pack. An easy workaround for this is to instruct the Word, Excel and PowerPoint 2007 applications to save files in 'Word 97-2003 Document' format by default. To do this go to the 'Office Button' in Word, Excel or PowerPoint 2007 (the round thing at the very top left), then click on 'Word Options' > 'Save', then where it says 'Save files in this format:' use the drop-down menu to select the '97-2003 Document' format.
Microsoft Office can be bought from here. Compare the different suites here.
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Don't Get Scammed, Get Tough!
Scams have been widely reported lately, and for good reason - they're everywhere on the net! If it's not an email in your inbox asking you to type in your bank details, it's a website giving you a false impression of breached security of your computer so you download a fake fix which turns out to be malware directing you to a ligitimate-looking website which will charge you to 'cleanse' your computer of viruses (breathe!). Yes - they can be complicated and very well organized, these scams aren't created by bored kids in their bedrooms but by organized gangs that operate worldwide.
So how do you beat them? Be over-cautious! IF IN DOUBT - SAY NO! Should I trust this website? Should I trust this email? Should I trust this pop-up? Should I send £5000 to someone I've never met on a dating website because they said they need it for a passport? Should I trust this ad telling me I've won a competition I never entered? Many scamming cases go uninvestigated because the person who was scammed is too embarrassed to admit to the authorities that they fell for it! They had said YES when they should have said NO! The same rule can be applied to your firewall. We've all seen firewall messages saying something along the lines of "so-and-so application is trying to access the internet - do you wish to allow it?" and you think: Hmmmm...Should I? Well, if you recognize the program and trust it, say yes. IF YOU'RE IN DOUBT - SAY NO!
Get into this habit and you'll save yourself from being scammed, robbed, attacked by viruses, trojans, spyware, adware plus a whole load of other nasties no doubt being invented as we speak! Here's a little test...
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Recommendations...
Microsoft Office Home and Student Edition (3 User Licence = Install on 3 PCs) £89.98
Kaspersky Internet Security 7 (3 User Edition = Install on 3 PCs) £27.98
Pentax Optio M30 Digital Camera (7.0 Mega Pixels, 3 x optical zoom, 2.5" TFT Display) £129.36
SanDisk SecureDigital Card 2Gb (for most digital cameras) £11.28
2GB USB 2.0 Flash Drive £8.99
Apple iMac 20 Core 2 Duo 2.0GHz/1GB/250GB/SuperDrive £803.95
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