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Welcome to this week's edition of the Computer Kindergarten Newsletter.
Today is Sunday, September 28, 2008
In this Issue:
Special Feature: Worst Email Scams
Tips & Tricks: Create a Desktop Shortcut for Your Favorite Program
This Week's Topic: Secure Passwords
Question: Internet Explorer Status Bar
Websites of Interest: Rosh Hashanah; Movie Reviews; Astronomy Picture of the Day; Translation Website
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Special Feature: Worst Email Scams
The following is from switched.com:
Scam #9: Donate To Scammers!
The Come-On:
People in China and Myanmar need your charity.
The Scam:
Preying upon people's guilt after the disasters that killed thousands and affected millions, e-mails ask for charitable donations. Many times, the e-mails will warn against spam e-mails and unsecure transactions before taking you to a legit-looking page to donate directly to defrauders.
What You Can Do:
Don't give in to unsolicited charity pleas. If you're going to donate over the Internet, visit the charity of your choice directly, by typing the Web site address directly into your browser's address field.
Be sure to read our next newsletter to learn all about the Pay Or Die scam.
Please visit our newsletter archives for information on the scams we have highlighted in previous editions of this newsletter:
Investment Pump & Dump scam:
http://computerkindergarten.com/html/072008.html
Cancel This Order! scam:
http://computerkindergarten.com/html/072708.html
You Win! scam:
http://computerkindergarten.com/html/080308.html
Nigerian Letter scam:
http://computerkindergarten.com/html/081008.html
Gone Phishing scam:
http://computerkindergarten.com/html/081708.html
US Bombs Iran scam:
http://computerkindergarten.com/html/090708.html
Make Money From Home! scam:
http://computerkindergarten.com/html/091408.html
Phishing for Stimulus scam:
http://computerkindergarten.com/html/092108.html
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Tips & Tricks: Create a Desktop Shortcut for Your Favorite Program
Find the program you want in either the Programs menu or by maneuvering through sublevels of menus, for example, into Accessories to find the Paint program.
Point to the program, hold down your RIGHT mouse button, and drag the program to your desktop. (If you use your left mouse button, you will remove the program from your start menu, and you’d like to leave it there as well)
When you get the program to your desktop, release the mouse button. A small menu will appear. Two of your choices will be Copy Here and Move Here. Click on Copy Here; then you’ll have an icon on the desktop for the program and it will still be in your Programs menu.
Now all you have to do is double click on the desktop shortcut to open the program. However, if you’re working in a program and can’t see the icons on your desktop, you can still open the program by going into the Start button menus.
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Today's Topic: Secure Passwords
Question: I am thinking about working with my brokerage account online. I know I need a very good password if I’m going to do that. Do you have any useful hints about picking a secure password?
Answer:
The following is a good article by Tony Bradley from about.com.
In general, it is good advice to not use any real words as your password or even part of a password. Using common password cracking tools, an attacker can crack the password 'february' in a micro-fraction of the amount of time it would take to crack 'f1djt&9B' even though they both have 8 characters.
Another trick though is to just make the password very long. Longer passwords take longer for password cracking tools to guess, as a general rule of thumb. Using 'MyNameIsTonyBradley' is more secure than 'S3cur!ty' even though the second one uses a greater diversity of uppercase, lowercase, number and special characters.
Anything more than 7 characters is a good start. To assure a higher level of security, you should choose passwords or passphrases that are 15 characters or more.
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Question: Internet Explorer Status Bar
Question: On my old computer, when I downloaded something, Internet Explorer showed a progress bar at the bottom of the page. I cannot find it on my new computer. Can you help me get it back?
Answer:
You have to turn on the status bar in Internet Explorer. Here are the steps:
Click View on the menu. If you do not see the menu, press the Alt key on the keyboard. The menu will display. Click on Status Bar. A bar will appear at the bottom of your window. The next time you download something, you will see the progress bar appear there.
Visit our newsletter archives for previous articles on Internet Explorer 7:
Internet Explorer Back and Forward Buttons
http://computerkindergarten.com/html/092808.html
Internet Explorer History
http://computerkindergarten.com/html/091408.html
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Websites of Interest:
Rosh Hashanah
Rosh Hashanah begins at sunset on Tuesday, September 29. Learn all about the holiday at this website.
http://www.jewfaq.org/holiday2.htm
Movie Reviews
Take a look at the Rotten Tomatoes website for movie reviews and previews.
http://www.rottentomatoes.com/
Astronomy Picture of the Day
Every day, this website features a different photograph of our fascinating universe.
http://antwrp.gsfc.nasa.gov/apod/
Translation Website
This site will help you translate text from one language to another.
http://babelfish.yahoo.com/
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