Got a chuckle from the
results of a survey printed in this month's Reader's
Digest:
"56% of women and 41% of men
say their pets are more affectionate than their partners.
45% of women say their pets are cuter than their partners;
24% of men feel the same way."
My favorite radio and TV
computer geek is Leo Laporte. He recommends that Windows
users run at least 3 different spyware programs as well
as keeping an antivirus program running and updated.
If you are going to run
Windows, he says, you have to become a security expert
and there are plenty of free programs you can use. He
wasn't kidding. I use the 3 he recommends: Ad Aware,
Spybot and Microsoft's Beta Spyware catcher and AOL's
spyware cleaner, too - as well as an anti-virus program
and a free version of Spyware Doctor. I keep the
immunizations options running, too.
I ran
Ad-Aware and it found the usual spyware cookies that I
get every day. Then I ran Spybot and it found about 6
more programs running spyware! Then I began to wonder
what else could be on my system so I ran a thorough
check with Spyware Doctor and I found about 5 more
programs including a key logger that records my
passwords and send them on. The other programs missed
this entirely!
Wondering how far I could
take this and having some time, I downloaded the trial
version of Webroot's Spy Sweeper (Leo's favorite
commercial program) and, yes, it found SEVERAL more
spyware items. I am not talking about the "minimum
threat" items, but actual threatening spyware.
Whew! This machine can so
easily be a conduit for spyware. My husband says he read
that we can not catch ALL spyware, but we just hope to
catch MOST of it.
While I love and use
Windows, Leo has a point about recommending an Apple
computer to new computer users. It doesn't have spyware
and virus problems. As for myself, I like to boot from a
Linux CD just for browsing the Internet. It also does
not have these problems.
The moral of the story is
to keep your Windows computer well-monitored or get
something else. An
acquaintance told me that he is afraid to do any online
banking due to all the problems out there. Now, I can see why
he'd be afraid if he does not keep his computer
well-protected.
I hadn't planned to turn
this into a cuteness blog -- but this photo from
Jennifer C. was too adorable to ignore. I wonder if they
are painful to hold. Even more, I wonder if the mother
is a bit angry.
I am 49, but I feel older
than that from taking this
quiz. (Thanks to
Fragments from Floyd for this link.) Also, I
have an
age calculator on my genealogy pages (look
down the page on the right). As of right now, I am
18,017 days old (and it lists weeks, minutes,
seconds, etc. Alas, it only works in IE.) You can find
out what day of the week any date falls on, too.
I don't know. Should we
throw up our hands in hopelessness and accept our fate
since it is too late to do anything?
Should we take drastic steps to conserve because we
might have a chance, still? Or is this just another
round of scare-mongering by overly dramatic people who
don't understand the long-term cycles of the earth's
weather?
I don't know the
answer, but the comments to this link on Digg.com are
interesting. I even got a chuckle out of some of them.
(If it is indeed too late, we might as well laugh while
we can.)