Paul's Internet for Beginners Blog April 2008 Archive

It's scary: this 21st Century threat has grown even larger than all spam, viruses, and hacker attacks combined. Even the word "spyware" is insufficient to describe the breadth of nastiness ... Read More

Bloggers always want to add photos to their web logs. But how does one find legal and free photos? Susan Gunelius has some tremendous advice on finding no-cost graphics, and ... Read More

Murphy's Law: what can be misunderstood will be misunderstood. That's why you should be double careful with everything you write, especially in email. Things like personal responses to sender's questions, ... Read More

So, you want to see computer crime on the silver screen? Well, folks, these next 20 movies are absurd, unreal, and even preposterous. No, you won't learn secret packet-sniffing techniques ... Read More

"Internet cache" is a large store of temporary internet files that you've viewed, and that you may return to see within the next few days. Alas, these cache files build ... Read More

Spammers are the first people you want to hide from...these spammers use special programs to extract email addresses from chat rooms, web site forums, comment sections of blogs, and Usenet postings. ... Read More

Emoticons (aka "smileys") are stylish hieroglyphs for online messaging. And yes, About.com has compiled a massive master list of emoticons for you to use. Send loving roses, cute kittens, or happy smiles. Draw ... Read More

While participating in an online discussion forum about Barack Obama, you see this weird expression "TLDR". This odd phrase appears multiple times after some long posts, but what exactly do ... Read More

This 90 second video has taken the United Kingdom by storm.  Every day, over half a million viewers have logged on to see this video since it released in November of 2007. ... Read More

"OK, so all these wireless network signals around me can't be any good. I hear that brain damage and memory loss is caused by computer wireless signals. Is this true?" ... Read More

Really Simple Syndication feeds can be extremely useful! The purpose of RSS is to regularly update your hobby interests by receiving dynamic web feeds directly to your screen. Examples include: ... Read More

You've probably heard about Internet con games. That's where dishonest-but-clever web publishers either fool you into divulging your financial information, or they convince you to install their software and make money for ... Read More

"Crapware": this unpleasant word describes all the software that you don't want on your computer. Useless download managers, unwanted drivers, annoying toolbars...all the things that you personally want removed because ... Read More

As you perhaps know, eBay is a part of daily internet life. Every 24 hours, eBay transacts over $65 million dollars in goods for 200 million registered users. Most everything ... Read More

A "virtual private network" is the 21st Century way of working from home or from a remote office. By using the Internet to extend your company's office network across many ... Read More

Every day, we log into our Windows XP or Vista, our email, our eBay and  PayPal accounts, our bank accounts, our Hotmail accounts, and more. These passwords never seem to end! Well, ... Read More

You see these odd technical expressions around the net. Techie guys will say "we use full SSL for our shopping carts". They will also say "our network administrators use full ... Read More

Are you a concerned parent? If so, an internet filter might be a good tool for you. A filter is a piece of software that helps block out unwanted content, ... Read More