OK, So I Lied.

I didn't leave for a day or so: I'm back on the same day, but I hope with a good purpose.

At the end of August I "went off the air" with an internet problem that gave me fits. I swore it was the local phone company's DSL function that was the problem, but they swore it was my computer that was at fault. I am disgusted to acknowledge that they were right. A new utility program I installed to help my computer run better had tweaked my browser settings so that it would run faster but it didn't work like it should and wound up making my internet connection intermittent and then flat out dead. It took me a lot of work to find the problem, but now all is well.

I should explain that I regularly place a lot of stress on my computer because I like to see how far I can push its performance levels. I also love to try out new programs I find interesting and useful. What this means is that I regularly crash my machine. Sometimes it's easy to get it going again, and sometimes I have to wipe the hard drive clean and start over, depending on how much the "test" program screwed things up. On the good side, I regularly back up my data, music, photos, etc., so I don't lose much if my homebuilt system crashes. I, of course, urge everyone I know to back up his/her stuff regularly, which for me is the first day of each month. I have a DVD burner and it takes three disks to get it all backed up, but I have a lot of music (all legally obtained), photos and short videos to save.

I make two copies of each backup disk: One copy stays in my emergency tornado bag and the other stays at my daughter's house across town. I should state that my emergency tornado bag used to be my emergency earthquake bag before I abandoned the wilds of Los Angeles for the metropolis of Alma, Nebraska. I would urge everyone who backs up his/her computer to make two copies and stash one copy with a friend, relative or safe deposit box (as I know one friend has done). If just one backup copy exists for any of us and our place is burglarized and the thief for whatever reason grabs the disks around the computer, the backup is gone. Likewise, if a fire roars through a home and burns the backup disks, nothing good has been accomplished by the backup. Protect your photos, music, data, whatever. Make two backups and store one in another location - and backup your computer on a regular basis.

For those who like to use their computers but are not necessarily very computer savvy, please be careful of the emails you answer. In particular, a thing called "phishing" can really put a dent in your bank account. In phishing, we receive an email from what seems to be ebay, Amazon, Citibank, Bank of America or whatever and it tells us that some kind of personal information must be verified to solve some kind of problem with our account. If you look at the web page it looks exactly like the web site for that company, but it is a fake and once you follow their instructions and enter the information (social security #, credit/debit card number, address, etc) you are screwed. Normally the legitimate outfits will never ask for more info by sending you an email, and if you get one and think it might be real, do not, do not click on the link they provide you in the email. Close the letter, leave your email program, open your browser and use your bookmark or you favorites entry to go to the website for that company. If it's legitimate, you'll be able to navigate to the part of the website you need.

Another current danger is the invitation to make money by taking surveys, and if you do take the survey (which asks lots of personal questions)you will probably not enjoy the experience. One of my daughters is several hundred dollars poorer after having gotten involved in such an exercise.

The fake websites, those that are "phishing", seem to have one trait that can be a dead giveaway - they usually don't use good grammar, and that's because they don't come from the U.S and they were not put together by native English speakers. I got one supposedly from ebay recently and the page was a dead ringer for a legitimate ebay web page. In reading the explanatory text, however, it was obvious that whoever wrote it had an excellent command of the language but made a couple of grammatical errors that a native English speaker would never make. So, read everything on such a page word for word with a critical eye. As an example, I found one that used the word "irregardless". Wrong, wrong, wrong. No informative text from a legitimate organization will ever use that word. It is in the dictionary as an improper form of "regardless" and should never be used. Actually, I learned that lesson on that word many years ago in college English when I turned in a typewritten, double spaced six page assignment. In the third paragraph of the first page I used the word, "irregardless". The instructor read that far, circled the word in red and gave me an "F" for the entire assignment. Needless to say, I have been extra sensitive to the use of that word since then, and when I saw it in the fake email all my alarms went off.

Enough lecture from professor Brown. Have a good day.