Tech Thoughts Daily Net News – October 12, 2010

PC Maintenance: How to Be Good to Your Computer – Here are 14 things you—or those who torture you most with unnecessary tech support calls—can do to repair your relationship with your computer, starting today. Remember, some of these tips might sound basic, but they’re often ignored. And, hey, everyone has to start somewhere.

Lifehacker: Five Best Disk Image Tools – Disk image tools allow you to take physical discs and drives—DVDs, hard drives, and other media—and turn them into virtual images for ease of storage and manipulation. Here’s a look at five of the most popular disk image tools.

Best Buy’s $30 PlayStation 3 Firmware Upsell Practically Criminal – Best Buy seems to believe its customers live in a country where the internet and basic common sense don’t exist. The electronics retailer reportedly charges consumers $30 to run the PlayStation 3’s automated firmware installer at point of purchase. To be clear, that’s $30 in addition to the standard $300 you’ll pay for the system itself.

Top 5 Social Engineering Exploit Techniques – Learn to pwn humans for fun and profit, or simply learn these techniques so you can avoid being scammed.

Poll Results: Just how excited are you about Internet Explorer 9? – On September 2, 2010, I asked the readers of the TechRepublic Microsoft Windows Blog this poll question: Just how excited are you about Internet Explorer 9? The answers to the poll question were predictable. As IT professionals, TechRepublic members are naturally at least somewhat interested in Internet Explorer 9, but there does not seem to be an extraordinary amount of excitement about it.

Triple Clickjack Attack on Facebook – While exploring the WebPulse logs and trolling for shady JavaScript, I happened across a very interesting Facebook clickjacking page. Located at: youtube2mp3instant.com, it looked like this ………..

GnuCash COULD be a QuickBooks killer – I am a certified QuickBooks technician. And, to be perfectly honest, QuickBooks stinks. When it works it’s great…but when it doesn’t work, it’s a NIGHTMARE! It’s terribly sensitive to network hiccups, it isn’t smart enough to switch itself out of single user mode after a scheduled backup, it’s slow, it constantly can not find data files, it’s expensive…the list goes on and on.

Company News:

CNET: Virus and Spyware Removal – Is your PC infected with a virus or spyware? A Certified Expert can help fix your PC now. Our technical expert will help remove malicious software from your PC and help you install and configure security software to make your PC safer.

ATandT Launches Voice Encryption Service – According to AT&T, the service is targeted at government agencies, law enforcement, financial institutions and international business. Known as AT&T Encrypted Mobile Voice, the service combines KoolSpan’s TrustChip and SRA International’s One Vault Voice and supports BlackBerry and Windows phones on the AT&T wireless network.

An inside look at Windows Phone 7 and its first phones (images) – Microsoft is hosting in New York City a grand unveiling the first bath of Windows Phone 7 hardware that is promised before Christmas.

PayPal Alternatives That Let You Shop Around – PayPal’s tagline says it’s “the world’s most-loved way to pay and get paid,” but it’s not the only game in town. New services aim to do for money transfers between individuals what PayPal did for e-commerce: provide a way to make payments online without having to give recipients your credit card or bank account information. In addition, businesses seeking an alternative to selling goods and services via PayPal can find plenty of options.

Kensington Releases ClickSafe Keyed Laptop Lock – Kensington, a manufacturer of computer peripheral solutions, has announced a new laptop lock, the ClickSafe, to protect your PC from potential theft.

Off Topic (Sort of):

Eight Crazy E-Mail Hoaxes Millions Have Fallen For – E-mail fills our in-boxes with come-ons to see celebrities naked and to get rich quick. Even though we know deep down that these are fakes, why do we contine to think, ‘Maybe?’

The ACLU, Science Fiction, and Human Rights – Cloning, artificial intelligence, nanotechnology, and other science fiction technologies may be beyond our reach with the technology of today, but the ACLU is already considering them and the civil liberties problems they may cause tomorrow.

Faux Pas 2.0: Things to avoid in the tech workplace – Social media is a force for good and it can be used to propel your name and therefore your personal brand for every corner of the web to see. If you have something good enough to share, people will take notice. But as a younger generation – let’s be honest now, we’re not very good at it.

3 shockingly bizarre things about Christopher Columbus – Columbus was an interesting dude, but what you think you know might be completely untrue. And that whole world-was-flat thing?

Today’s Quote:

“Nobody got anywhere in the world by simply being content.”

–    Louis L’Amour

Today’s Free Downloads:

Giveaway of the Day: Phantom Armor – Phantom Armor Phantom Armor is an easy-to-use security solution (for Windows operating systems) that protects your PC/laptop real environment against malicious activity and unwanted changes. Phantom Armor can run your system in a virtual environment called Phantom Protect Mode’. Phantom Protect Mode’ redirects each system change to a virtual environment with no change to your real environment. If you experience malicious activity and/or unwanted changes, perform a reboot to restore your system back to its original state, as if nothing happened.

Visual CD – Visual CD allows you to create catalogs of files you’ve moved onto a CD, DVD, Blu-Ray, or other optical media so that you can figure out where a particular file is without having to load every disc. It can also catalog files you have on your hard drive.

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