In a recent post titled Developing a Blog Process I described how you can use a separate development blog to test your blog changes. This allows you to change your design at will without impacting your visitors.
One point I didn’t touch on was how to create a development blog. In this post I will explain how you can easily create one in Blogger.
The electronic gaming industry is huge with many games earning as much as blockbuster Hollywood movies. The industry brings in billions of dollars, which at times is more than the movie industry. There are many fans of electronic games, for which I am one, so it is by no coincidence that there are many blogs dedicated to this topic.
This week I look at the first gaming focused blog, since I started writing free reviews, called Insight on a Gamer.
I do quite a bit of scanning whether it be slides, negatives, or printed photographs. For slides and negatives I can easily scan multiple items at one time. Scanner applications are able to save each image to a separate file with slides and negatives.
Scanning multiple photographs is a different story. Many times people would scan multiple photos in at one time and then manually separate them. My scanner software can do that, but with automated settings only. Photoshop includes an automated action that can do this for you after the scan, and straighten your photos automatically.
I have written many posts regarding securing a computer in the past. Many of the posts have gone into detail about using specific software and hardware to secure your computer.
In this post I will provide a more quick overview of the main components that you should have if you want to secure your computer.
A good hardware firewall should be your first line of defense. This piece of hardware is connected directly between your modem and computer, so any data that is sent from the Internet to your computer passes through the firewall. This allows it to protect your computer from malicious traffic.
I have both a wired and wireless router/firewall connected to my modem. My wired router/firewall is the Linksys 10/100 Mbps Router. My wireless router/firewall is the Linksys WRT54G Wireless-G Router.
This piece of software performs a similar function to it’s hardware sibling. The biggest difference is that it is installed on your computer and runs once your operating system loads.
You should use this in conjunction with the hardware version since it provides additional protection from bad traffic. Not only does a software firewall monitor traffic that is sent to your computer from the Internet, but it also monitors traffic from your computer to the Internet.
Why should you monitor traffic sent from your computer? If you have spyware or a virus installed on your computer that is sending information to a server on the Internet, the software firewall will alert you. When you receive the alert you can block that software from sending information and then lookup how to remove it.
ZoneAlarm is the most popular free software firewall to use. I have tried other free firewalls, but found ZoneAlarm to be the easiest to use.
Everyone who uses a computer has probably heard about viruses and the trouble they can cause. There are many software packages on the market that can easily help clean your computer from many of these viruses. It is important that you install this type of software to help keep your computer clean and secure from viruses.
For a good free virus scanner, check out AVG. This is the one I currently use for my computers.
Similar to virus scanners, these tools are used to remove malicious software it finds on your computer. Spyware is meant to “watch” you as you surf the Internet, or even record your keystrokes. Installing anti-spyware software will help keep your computer free from spyware.
Two free and easy-to-use spyware applications are Ad-Aware and Spybot-S&D. I currently use both products on my computers.
This is probably the most effective “tool” you can use to keep your computer safe. Don’t open e-mails from recipients you don’t know, or visit questionable Web sites. You may also want to backup your data to keep it safe from computer crashes.
This post provided a quick overview of the tools you will need to keep your computer safe. Besides the hardware firewalls, there are good free alternatives of the tools that you will need.
In the end, however, the best tool you can use is good ol’ common sense.
I have reviewed a few personal blogs since I started offering free reviews in November 2007. They are probably the most difficult to review since they aren’t usually focused on a single niche.
This week I review a personal blog from a blogger in the Philippines who apparently will be moving to Singapore.
Most blogs display the last few posts on the home page, and Technically Easy is no exception. I like to display the last five posts that I have written so that visitors have a choice. If a visitor doesn’t visit the home page, but rather is redirected to a post, I wanted to display the last five posts in the sidebar.
For those with Blogger blogs, it is very easy to display the last few posts you have published to your blog.
When I started Technically Easy the one thing that I wanted to do was make sure that my posts were printable. By this I mean I wanted the printed pages to not include the menubar and sidebars, only the content.
Those who are just starting out in Web development may just create a second copy of the current page, and then create a text link to this page for printing. I wanted a more simple solution and realized the same task can be done easily with CSS.
There are many technology blogs on the Web today, such as my blog – Technically Easy. I haven’t reviewed many blogs that are focused on technology, and most blogs, such as this week’s review, are focused on the Web.
This week I take a look at a technology Web blog that is described by the author as helping to “improve the skills of Caribbean Web professionals.