What's Noo?
A blog for noobies by Patric Welch, techie and all around fun guy.
Some people have a negative connotation of the Internet due to the abundance of viruses, fraud and scams. But what if you could use the Internet to avoid a scam? I recently used my TiVo HD DVR to subscribe to a video podcast called Scam School. Scam School is the brainchild of Brian Bushwood and aims to expose scams to the public to prevent people from falling for them. I was a little skeptical when I watched my first episode. My guard is usually up pretty high when it comes to scams but I have to tell you, I fell… Continue reading...
I'm a big fan of eBay, mainly because there's a never-ending audience for things you are trying to sell that you think no one would ever want to buy. Take for instance the used irrigation system controller I sold on eBay for $38 after the service man who was upgrading the system told me he was going to throw it away. Or the bundle of typewriter supplies I sold on behalf of a client of mine on eBay for $21, just when you thought the typewriter was extinct. But what I don't like about eBay are the unfortunate people that… Continue reading...
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I have whole-heartedly adopted text messaging. I clearly see the benefits of using text messaging and many times find myself choosing to send a text message over an email. I even love picking and choosing what types of alerts I want to receive on my mobile phone via text message. For example, I have my mobile phone integrated with my Google calendar such that I get a text message reminder before each of my appointments. This is especially helpful when I am out and about, away from my computer. Since I almost always carry my mobile phone with me, I… Continue reading...
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Sometimes techies take things for granted. Like thinking that everyone, even noobies, knows what the little padlock icon in Internet Explorer or Firefox represents. If you're not familiar with what I'm talking about look at the two images below. The top image shows the padlock in Internet Explorer. The bottom image shows the padlock in Firefox. The red arrow in the image above points to the location of the padlock icon in Internet Explorer 7. The red arrow in the image above points to the location of the padlock icon in Firefox 3. Why are these padlocks so important? Because… Continue reading...
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Noobies are notoriously awful with password administration. Most of them use the same user name and password for every secure web site. Even worse, noobies love to use easy to crack passwords like the word password, their pet's name or some variance of their children's names. And the software companies aren't helping either. Internet browsers such as Internet Explorer and Firefox have options to remember passwords for you. Most noobies are thrilled with this feature when they see the popup window appear on their screen asking them if they want their browser to remember their password. A simple click of… Continue reading...
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