http://www.ComputerBob.com/journal_archive/2004/06.php .
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Last night, our new next-door neighbors, Mike and Annamarie, stopped in to introduce themselves, welcome us to the
neighborhood, and give us a beautiful potted
Peace Lily.
Max and Mini instantly fell in love with them, and even Petey came out and let Annamarie pet
him a little, which was very unusual -- visitors usually don't get to see either of our shy cats until about their tenth visit.
Mike and Annamarie both seem very nice, and we're looking forward to living next-door to them for a long time.
According to a report in ThisIsLondon, computer users are being warned to stop using Microsoft's Internet Explorer browser until Microsoft releases a patch for yet another newly discovered "gaping hole" in that browser's security. Users who continue to use unpatched versions of Internet Explorer are in danger of having important information, such as credit card numbers, passwords, and bank account information, stolen from their computers by hackers.
Several years ago, I discovered that I have psychic power. In
the past couple of weeks, I discovered and confirmed that I have a second psychic power. It all
started about 2 weeks ago, when I went shopping at a local Winn-Dixie grocery store for the first time. In the bread aisle, as I
turned and looked at a loaf of bread about 4 feet away, that exact loaf of bread suddenly jumped off the shelf onto the
floor. I thought that was pretty weird, and told my wife about it when I got home. Then, this past weekend, I visited that same
store a second time. In the pop aisle, as I turned and looked at a 2-liter bottle of soda pop, its large label suddenly
came loose from around it and fell to the floor in front of me. At this point, I can't tell whether I have the power to actually
make food and food packaging attempt suicide, or if I just have the power to know when they are about to do it. Either way,
I'll have to try to figure out how to harness my newly discovered second psychic power to make the world a better place.
At least one type of biometric computer security system needs some improvement -- recently, a PC World writer repeatedly fooled a fingerprint scanner with fingerprints that he had molded into Gummi Bear candy.
Last night, I decided to name our new tree Angelo D'Tangelo. Angelo appears to be doing fine in his new home at our
new home.
Yesterday, on the advice of my uncle Dom, my cousin Rita, and Pat, the woman who sold us our dream home, I bought a
4-foot-tall
Minneola Tangelo
tree at a local nursery. This morning, I planted it in the sunniest spot in our back yard. The Minneola (AKA Honeybell)
is the most popular variety of tangelo, with large fruit, bright reddish-orange skin, and lots of sweet juice. In fact, many
Florida citrus groves and tourist shops sell and ship more Minneola tangelos than oranges to customers all over the world. The
new tree really looks great out the west windows of our south-facing Florida room, and it helps make our dream home feel more
like it is really ours.
Today, my wife and I are "joyfully exhausted."
Friday night, we slept in our house for the first time, on an inflatable mattress on the floor of our bedroom. Unfortunately, our mattress had a leak, and it completely deflated every 45 minutes. After filling it 4 times, I finally decided to just stay awake and do some more work around the house, and to bring some more things to the house from our rented mobile home. Several hours later, I slept for about 2 hours, on a thick comforter right on the floor.
Saturday, we went with our brother-in-law, Jim, in his pickup truck, to pick up a wonderful love seat and matching chair, another chair, a practically brand-new Sealy double-bed with a huge, heavy headboard, and several bed pillows, throw pillows, sheets, and blankets. The pastor and his wife, from the church where my wife is the secretary, gave us all of those items free of charge. No more sleeping on the floor for us.
On Sunday, we borrowed Jim and Linda's truck and moved all of our remaining possessions out of our mobile home and storage room. One of our new neighbors, Marie, stopped by to give us a whole bag of homemade Blondies and a very sweet card and note, welcoming us to the neighborhood. Then, Sunday evening, I bought a brand new 7HP self-propelled push mower and mowed our lawn for the first time.
This morning, the cable guy connected our home, so now we can watch the TVLand channel again.
Once again, we thank God for providing this beautiful, wonderful home to us.
As of about 12:30 PM New York Time, my wife and I are the proud new owners of our dream home in the Sunshine State. Our
closing went perfectly smoothly, and everything added up to the exact penny of what it was supposed to cost. By 1:30 PM this
afternoon, a locksmith had already rekeyed the entire house, and by about 5:00 PM, with Jim and Linda's priceless help, we had
our antiques and our overnight essentials moved into our new home. By about 9:00 PM, we had moved
our pets to their new home. Now it's almost midnight, and I just finished setting up my
computer and Internet connection. I still have tons of boxes to move from the trailer to here, but at least we've moved enough
stuff to be able to spend our first night in our new home tonight.
Computer security company, F-Secure, has announced the discovery of the Zafi.B worm, an intelligent new worm variant that can disable a computer's antivirus and firewall software to help itself spread to other computers more easily.
If your computer doesn't have a constantly updated antivirus software package, check out the free and commercial ones listed in ComputerBob's Software section.
If your computer doesn't have a software firewall, check out
ComputerBob's Guide To Firewalls.
My Uncle Harold died early this morning, after a decade-long battle with Alzheimer's
disease. I remember him as an outgoing, gentle, loving man of God who ministered to and brought joy to countless lives. This
world needs far more men like Uncle Harold. Sadly, it now has one fewer.
For years, Microsoft's Internet Explorer has been configured by default to allow any Web site that you visit to do anything it wants to do. Unfortunately, some Web sites have chosen to take advantage of those insecure default settings to install worms, viruses, trojans, advertising, and other malicious code on your computer without your knowledge or permission. Microsoft's article, Increase Your Browsing and E-Mail Safety gives you step-by-step instructions on how to configure your Internet Explorer the same secure way that I've had mine configured for the past several years.
Those of us who own dogs have always known it, but now there's
scientific proof
that dogs understand human language.
As you may remember from previous Journal entries, several weeks ago, one of my cousins had a computer that became infected with the Cool Web Search trojan. CWS is a highly intelligent, constantly evolving virus that installed hundreds of unwanted (and often hidden) files and programs all over her computer, popped up hundreds of advertisements on her screen, and redirected her to porn sites whenever she tried to browse the Internet. After I spent 40 hours trying to rid her computer of CWS over long-distance phone calls, my cousin was finally forced to pay someone to reformat her computer's hard drive and reinstall everything from scratch.
Well, now there's some good news in the fight against malware, spyware, trojans, worms, and their friends. According to
PC World,
the U.S. Congress and several states are considering legislation that would make it illegal to install a program on a user's
computer without that user's approval. Such legislation would be a step in the right direction, but the problem is that it
would only be effective if law enforcement officials can find and successfully prosecute people who create malicious
software, and that task often proves to be extremely difficult or impossible.
The other day, my friend, Kathy, sent me a link to Despair, Inc. I'm sure you've seen motivational posters, calendars, notepads, etc., that have a dramatic-looking photograph along with a one-line inspirational message. In contrast, Despair, Inc. sells "demotivational" products. They look just like the motivational ones, but their messages are hilarious. One of my favorites shows a tiny stub of a pencil with teeth marks all over it. Underneath, it says, "Retirement. Because You've Given So Much Of Yourself To The Company That You Don't Have Anything Left We Can Use."
The mortgage, title, insurance, and appraisal paperwork and processing for our house are already done, so our closing date
has been rescheduled 3 days earlier, to the morning of June 18. That's 2 days after Pat moves out of the house, and only 15
days after she accepted our purchase offer. The termite inspection will be tomorrow and the professional home inspection by an
engineer will be this coming Thursday afternoon. Pat told me the other day that she will take care of any required repairs that
the home inspector identifies. She's a sweetie.
Today's Journal entry was so long that it is now a separate article, titled,
Trust Me.
Today, I received an email message from Andrew Pope, saying that he had received his prize package, and that his girlfriend has already earmarked the seashells to use on a picture frame.
I just added 42 new photos to my Florida Photos section. It now contains 334
photos of the beautiful and unique Sunshine State, including what is probably the largest photographic collection of
unusual Florida mailboxes in the entire world.