Stuff

Pictures for Roy's Retirement are here

- Gary's stuff -

Check out my Notes for New Parents. This is a page I put together for a few friends who were having their first baby. It's all the stuff I wish someone had told me when we had our first child.

Links to some other sites:

Since many folks have been asking about it - here are some things that you can use to protect yourself, in order of priority (and ease of use/maintenance required):

• First, get yourself a firewall. It sits between your computer and your internet connection, either physically or virtually. You can choose to use a hardware and/or software firewall. If you have a broadband connection, I'd recommend that you have both a hardware and a software firewall (since most hardware firewalls don't watch out-bound connections, such as from 'spyware', software embedded in other programs that sends info without your knowledge back over the net). For more information, check out PracticallyNetworked.com.
  One brand with a good price point, and has frequent firmware updates (adding new features) is a Linksys Cable / DSL Router. They have models that provide one port, or ones that provide 4 or 8 ports - enough for any home, including 802.11a,b, & g wireless ones.
  For a software firewall, one that watches connections both into and out from your computer is what you want. A really good one (that's free!) is Zone Labs' ZoneAlarm. Look for the Free Download version to start with. If you like it, you can buy the ZoneAlarm Pro version.
• Next, get yourself a good virus scanner to check your system for virus/worm files, and to scan your incoming email to protect yourself. We used to use McAfee's Anti-Virus software that had come pre-loaded on our computer, but lately its gotten sorta flakey. We now use Norton AntiVirus. They offer a free 30 day trial. Go to their trialware page and pick the Norton AntiVirus version that you wish to trial. A good, free Anti-Virus solution is Grisoft's AVG Anti-Virus.
• OK, now, you need to look for stuff that you could have downloaded before that has spyware (remember, that's software that sends information out to the net that you aren't aware of) or advertising systems in it. A good free program is lavasoft's Ad-Aware . This program scans your computer for known spyware, and then will attempt to remove it from your system. Some common things are Webhancer and CometCursor, that allow companies to track the websites that you visit. Another good, free program is Spybot Search & Destroy, by PepiMK Software.
• If you get a lot of spam, there are a lot of potential solutions out there. A fairly low-tech, but reliable, solution that I like is MailWasher, by firetrust.com. For the more technically inclined, try a google search on bayesian filtering - one that looks pretty cool is POPFile, which is a POP3 email proxy that checks the email before your email client sees it.