Wow, did you hear abou this?

There are some amazing stories circulating on the internet and by email right now - and apparently they are all true! Here are some of them:

UPS Uniforms reported missing - believed to have been acquired by terrorists, who are planning to use them to gain unauthorized access to certain sensitive and vulnerable areas.

Ashley Flores, a 13-year old girl from Philadelphia, is missing - she has been missing for two weeks and we need your help to find her!

The "Life is Beautiful" virus - it is being distributed as a PowerPoint presentation that is attached to an email. The standard antivirus programs cannot destroy it!

Applebees is giving out free $50 gift certificates - all you have to do is forward this email to 9 of your friends!

Lipstick danger - some major brands of lipstick contain lead, which causes cancer! To test it, put some of your lipstick in the palm of your hand and rub it with a 24k gold ring. If the lipstick color changes to black, it has lead in it.

ATM panic button - did you know, that if someone forces you to go to an ATM machine to withdraw money, you can just enter your PIN number backwards, and the police will be immediately dispatched to that ATM machine.

As you can probably figure out, these "news" items all have one thing in common - they are all false. These are just some of the stupid hoaxes that continue to get forwarded by email, causing unnecessary alarm and clogging up the internet and millions of email inboxes.

If you get an email that says "Forward this to everyone in your address book", you should not forward it. You should delete it. It is almost certainly a hoax.

The same goes for email petitions. While some email petitions aren't necessarily a total fraud, they are essentially useless in effecting change.

If you get one that you just think has to be true, just do a search at www.snopes.com - this is one of the largest databases of internet hoaxes and urban legends. Or, you can send it to me and I will check it out (BEFORE you send it to all of your friends).

Christmas shopping has begun

The Friday after Thanksgiving is supposed to be the busiest shopping day of the year. I can imagine what the malls will be like around here - shoulder to shoulder, no parking spaces, more traffic than usual...

I am happy to do my shopping on the internet, thanks.

Googling from your cell phone

How did we ever get along without Google? For millions of people every day, Google is the first choice for information of any type. Did you know that you could even use Google when you don't have access to your home computer or a laptop? You can use it with your cell phone.

Here's an example of how:

Let's say you are vacationing in Clearwater, Florida (a great vacation spot, by the way :) and you want to find the nearest Starbucks for a quick $5 cup of coffee. You don't need a computer, you don't need a phone book, and you don't need to go out and flag down the nearest BMW driver. Just type this as a text message:

Starbucks 33759 (33759 is a zip code in Clearwater - if you don't know the zip, you could just type the city and state)

Then send that text message to this number: 46645 ("google" without the "e"). Within seconds, you will receive back a text reply that lists each Starbucks in that area. This will include the address as well as the phone number, so you can call them if you want.

And that is just the tip of the iceberg. Here are some other queries you can do on Google, right from your cell phone just like the Starbucks example above:

Want to know the weather for Waldoboro, Maine?
Text message weather 04572 or weather waldoboro, me and Google will reply:
Weather:

Waldoboro,ME
39F,Clear
Wind:N 0mph
Hum:76%
Sa:31-49F,Mostly Sunny
Su:27-43F,Mostly Sunny
M:25-42F,Partly Sunny
Tu:29-43F,Mostly Sunny

Want to know where a certain area code is located?
Text message 614 (just type the area code by itself) and Google will reply:
614: area code for Columbus, Ohio

Want to translate an English word to another language?
Text message translate automobile in german and Google will reply:
Google Translation:
'automobile' in English means 'Automobil' in German.

Want to know George Bush's birth date?
Text message George Bush birthday and Google will reply:
Q & A
George Bush
Date of birth: 12 June 1924

There are other things you can inquire from Google via your cell phone. You can read about them, and try them out, at this link.

The NEW free version of AVG Antivirus

(Note: today's post is the Computer Tip for Monday, November 13. Starting next week, the "Computer Tip" and Video Clip will appear here on my blog, instead of in the newsletter. If you are a subscriber to the newsletter, you will continue to receive it. The newsletter will basically just be a link to the current blog entry.)

For quite some time, the antivirus program that I have used and recommended is AVG. It does a good job, it is not bloated like Norton so it doesn't slow down your computer, and it is also free for personal use.

You may have gotten a notice from AVG recently that the free version 7.1 will be discontinued. I have received many emails about this, asking "Does that mean I have to buy the paid version now?". The answer is no.

All you need to do is get the new free version, which is version 7.5. You can get it at this download link. When you get to that page, you will see box that says "AVG Free for Windows installation files" and under that will be a link to download the actual file (the file name will end with .exe).

When you click on that, the file will start downloading (it is a fairly large file, so it might take a while if you are on a dialup connection). If you are using Firefox, choose "Save to disk" and the file will end up on your desktop, where you will double click to install the program. If you are using Internet Explorer, just choose "Run" and the file will automatically start installing when the download is complete.

You do not need to remove the current version before installing the new one.

Under "Component Selection", just leave all boxes checked.

Finally, you will need to restart the computer when the installation is finished, so be sure to save all of your open documents first.

If you are still using CounterSpy as your antispyware program (which you should), then you don't need to download the AVG anti-spyware program. And you don't need to download the "Trial Version" of the AVG paid antivirus program. Just get the free version, and you will have what you need.

You don't need to do this immediately, since the current free version will be supported until January 15, 2007. However, I recommend doing it as soon as possible so that your software is always as up to date as it can be.