Will it be to an HR class about” inappropriate” browsing, the unemployment lines or worse!

Now I’ve not had anyone tell me that they have ever been on an illegal site before by “accident”  well actually no one has admitted to me that they have ever been on an illegal site period. That said, how can you be sure to avoid the embarrassing situation that might come up at work or even in the coffee shop when you click on one of those enticing short url links in a particularly good Tweet?

I have found an answer! It was by accident- I was looking at twitter using  firefox and found the powertwitter firefox add-on. It turns out that it will go out and if it can it will display the title of the page that you are about to be sent to via one of the other url shortening services out there.  A very useful thing indeed. So be safe online firs of all by dumping IE and  further  by using this add-on you can also avoid potentially embarassing situations like an inappropriate picture or web site comes up at the wrong time. (Oh hi Mom didn’t see you there *blush*)

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Here’s something you might not have ever thought before. There is no such thing as anonymity online.Prove it? OK.
Do you ever notice how web sites present different ads when you log on from different computers? Recently, While traveling it became obvious just how much information can be gathered by advertisers from simply where you log on from. Are you Familiar with IP addresses? If not take a seat while I explain how the internet is in no way as anonymous as you thought it was.
I could take a long time to explain how routers work and peering agreements but I’m only going to say this one thing. your data has an address that everyone on the internet can see. it’s not some kind of temporary type of thing either this stuff gets logged and can be reported months, even years later. In fact some countries right now are requiring this data be collected and maintained for years. So how does knowing this now help me? well for one thing there are tools out there that one can use to hide their IP. (Disclaimer time:I am in no way encouraging you to use this information to break the law or do anything that is or could be considered a crime. ) this can come in handy if you are in a location that disallows specific sites for instance in a country that has a State controlled Internet connection and you can’t get to http://www.wwtdd.com because it’s blocked. these kinds of tools will not only hide your originating IP address but in many cases will allow you to bypass these places restricted sites list. there are a number of good products on the market, there are also free sites set up out there but you should NEVER use them to do anything involving sensitive information as there are many free so call proxies out there that are not secure or even worse actively capturing data of anyone who uses the service. A better move is to go with a proven product such as the one that hide-my-ip provides.

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I was introduced to this site by a friend ad thought I would share it because it has a wealth of great knowledge for Apache based webhosts on the .htaccess file.

if you are not familiar with it the .htaccess file is a file that can be modified to control how your web server serves up files to whom and from where. it is a very powerful tool to use to prevent others from using your hosting bandwidth in cases of hotlinks to images or video. all of this is covered in this article. if you are not already using a web host I have had some good results HERE 1&1 internet has some very low cost plans and will even include registration of domain names in the costs of some of the plans for great savings. and so far I find them to be quite reliable. But back to the .htaccess file again if you have wanted to configure a web directory to have password protection this file is all that you will need to modify in relatively simple arrangements as with all technology of course it can become much more complex if you so desire. Check out 1&1 internet for a good web host otherwise be safe and let me know your thoughts on this topic.

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What can I say about CMS? or content management system if you are new to this stuff. still not sure all of the pitfalls regarding security especially on the open source stuff but I’m hoping somone will chime in. all I know is you’re not locked into needing a copy of Adobe Dream weaver on the machine you’re using to make updates and in many cases you can even upload new articles via email. I like that I really only need to have a web browser to be productive anymore. it’s funny how the computer has come full circle. it’s almost as if the terminal will be like the old days where it was a basic input/output device. I Wonder how this move to “cloud computing” will affect virus and malware infections in the wild, I imagine to make things secure there could be standards put in place that while a personal system is connected to a Cloud server that it’s internal operations were scaled back to the benefit of saving energy and while we’re at it possibly to limit communications out and into the system where a virus or other malignant piece of code might be attempting to make unauthorized connections. I think this might be a good idea for the minds at work reinventing the way computing is done back to an original model. I think it’s about time to get things handled. open standards will also make certain that there will be acceptance across all manufacturers and allow for this to be a successful launch where it is a “no-brainier” like DVD. Remember the blu-ray/HD-DVD fiasco of the past few years with competing standards, these feuds just cause the end user to wait it out. This delay will end up costing both entities far more capital in the long run and in fact even the winner of the battle looses in this regard since without a clear winner there was development of on demand programming making physical delivery methods less attractive in the long term. now what was I talking about? Oh yeah CMSs these are cool, check out joomla and wordpress and see how easy it is to take a server from endless 404 errors to a whole site in under an hour – no really! it can be done.

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One of the best ways to protect yourself is to make sure you know what is on your credit report. this information can save you 10,000 dollars or more when buying a car or other large ticket item through lower interest rates if your info is good. Equifax is one of the most famous credit reporting agencies. so stop guessing and find out what your score is and what it means. plus they have cool tools to help you manage your good name.

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