Poll question (created by yours truly):
President Barack Obama's first 100 Days milestone is Wednesday, April 29, 2009:Vote (via PollDaddy):
In your opinion, how has he done thus far?
Last month I was invited by Mary Moulton of Washington County Mental Health Services (WCMHS) to provide feedback concerning The Survivor's Guide to Washington County they and the Turning Point Center of Central Vermont provide as an informational resource to members of the community whom find themselves in need, which -- as I understand it -- is a project sponsored by Green Mountain United Way (GMUW). It is in the form of a doubled-sided four section foldout business type card brochure. After some back and forth discussion with Mary, answering as well as discussing some of her related questions seeking feedback and, agreeing to help when and where I could, several e-mails have traded back between here and the two other WCMHS employees within the loop as well. It was also Mary's plan for us to have a face to face meeting at some point and this will occur on Monday morning between the four of us in order to review the final draft. One of my suggestions was to include a sample of the final draft to seek feedback from those representative of the population who would use the guide as well as others who could advise of what would be helpful as other potential informational resources provided within such a guide. Mary reports she is very favorable to this concept and has already spoken with at least one of the contact persons at the local homeless shelter located within Barre. Although one cannot really make out the contents of either side of the guide, the photo within this blog post is what both sides of the current (i.e., old) edition of the guide looks like, photos of which were taken by Webcam and patched together. The new edition of the guide is merely in draft form and is still a work-in-progress, one I will not see a sample of until this coming Monday.
“A successful man is one who can lay a firm foundation with the bricks others have thrown at him.”[via ThinkExist, here]
-- David Brinkley (American television Journalist, 1920-2003)
*Updated 2x* (with the usual edits; + additional related news item; + important update)
If you happen to be anything like me, at least when it comes to computer tech stuff, then you've probably been very concerned about whether your computer is either vulnerable or already infected with a version of the Conficker worm and most of the information provided thus far is so technical it is over one's head and leaves one unsure of what to do.
If so, the below listed tools and news articles they were found within may be of assistance.
However, as the news articles indicate, remember the danger from these worms is not over by any means and, since they seem to be waking up and the trouble caused by them is only starting to emerge, it will pay to be highly vigilant and be very careful about what one clicks upon and what attachments one opens no matter who they are from.
Thus it may be good to check from time to time, particularly if one's computer starts acting up.
If one works for an agency, organization or business that has tech people or, is a small business person who has someone providing computer tech assistance, it may be good to consider asking them for their advice and definitely heed them on it: i.e., do exactly what they say; and, if one has additional questions, make sure to ask -- and, if need be, request translations into plain English if at all possible.
My rules for myself include never to open an attachment from anyone that has been obviously forwarded from someone else and I am also careful about opening anything sent directly from someone as well.
In addition, if I have any doubts about an attachment, I do not open it. It also pays to be careful about clicking onto embedded links within e-mails and the like as well or so I have been told anyway.
Likewise and, by way of example, if I have any doubts about some window or pop up that pops up when visiting a Website, page or blog, then I do not click onto any aspect of it and open the task manager in order to close it if need be.
Then I just hope I remember to follow my own rules, something I may not always remember to do when I get real tired; which is why an additional rule is to shut down my computer before I get too tired and easily do something I'll regret afterwards.
Please know, however, I am no techie at all and am just as clueless as many others out there about this and other such stuff (yet understand enough that it is too easy to get tripped up by all the clever tricks employed by hackers and cyber-villains of various types, etc.).
Thus, if any of this has one in doubt and there are questions about these matters, it is best to make sure to ask someone trusted implicitly concerning computer tech stuff and also do one's own careful research.
Yet, above all, beware and stay alert out there.
That said, ...
Check to see if your computer is infected, fyi:
Conficker tools:
Don't forget the two most important rules -The only thing I would add is that it is advisable for anyone who uses a high speed Internet connection to also have a good quality firewall or otherwise a good quality full security suite that includes a firewall as well as anti-virus and anti-spyware protection, etc. and, make sure to keep them up-to-date as well as renewed of course.Do these two things religiously, and your chances of getting a worm/virus are greatly diminished.
- Get a good anti virus and keep it updated.
- Make sure you get your Windows Updates.
*Updated* (with the usual edits)
Decided to try the Disqus commenting tool on my blog and, besides plenty of great features of its own -- including some recent new ones and also an even better mixed comment tool for the sidebar, it is easy enough to install and only employs doing so with a template installation procedure and not a troublesome widget.
There does not seem to be an option to have the comments show under the blog posts right on the main or archive pages, however it quickly goes to the post page and to the comments section as the Blogger-hosted comment tool does.
While I have not tried posting a comment with it on my blog yet, I have previously posted comments using Disqus on other blogs and it works fine in that respect.
In addition, I've tested my blog using the Internet Explorer (IE) browser and it works fine on those browsers and there does not seem to be any blockage issues this time around, although the blog and also the commenting feature does load slower in IE than with Firefox 3 or Google Chrome (just reporting, not hinting).
Do not know about other browsers, but I think Disqus has been around for a while and may do a better job at browser integration as a result.
By the way, for iMac users, someone informed me today about a browser I never heard of before for Mac users: Camino, Mozilla Power, Mac Style.
Whatever browser(s) you may be using, please check it out and let me know how the blogs loads and works now, as well as feel free to try out posting a comment as well, particularly if you are new to using the Disqus commenting tool yourself.
*Note*: made several, mostly minor, edit for the purposes of clarification and readability; last updated on Saturday, April 11, 2009 at 3:38 PM [EDT].
Finally found out what has been causing people using the Internet Explorer browser to not be able to access my blog and, as a result, had to remove the Intense Debate comment tool widget application and along with the comments posted using it.
My apologies, however it was unavoidable, particularly since my attempts to reinstall using the template installation option beforehand were not successful either as no comments were showing up after all was done.
It is too bad, as I liked the Intense Debate features, including being able to offer the string of most recent comments within the side-column. Am hoping that Blogger will eventually get around to offer such as well, as this is among the features most desired both by myself and others, including a friend of mine whose blog I am an admin for the purpose of blog tool support.
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