I know lots of people who have had their compter screwed up by the trojans and bots "out there" - the "bad uglies" as I call them. I only know a couple of people who admit they've been scammed and actually lost money, and only one person who says they've had their identity stolen (not talking about people I've heard of, but people I count as friends)

I don't know if Canada has anything like the Internet Crime Complaint Center in the US, but I'll try to find out. In the mean time, if you are in the US and have been scammed, or have been scammed by someone you think or know is IN the US - then please take the time to fill in a complaint at WWW.IC3.GOV

"IC3's mission is to serve as a vehicle to receive, develop, and refer criminal complaints
regarding the rapidly expanding arena of cyber crime. The IC3 gives the victims
of cyber crime a convenient and easy-to-use reporting mechanism that alerts authorities
of suspected criminal or civil violations. For law enforcement and regulatory agencies
at the federal, state, local and international level, IC3 provides a central referral
mechanism for complaints involving Internet related crimes..."

I've been watching a breaking story about a "new" (actually known about in deep security circles but not by the bad-uglies until recently) way that your security and privacy can be attacked.

This is truly a nasty one because it involves all the various platforms including MAC and Linux - and is not limited to any particular browser.

As an example of how nasty - it is possible with one of the methods shown in a "proof of concept" attack to take over your web-cam and microphone and send video of what they see/hear to streaming servers - you DON'T want that to happen!!!

The Digital Rag is at the interface between the general, not-so-technical public and the technology that surrounds us.

Even a technology that has been around since being patented by Alexander Graham Bell in 1870 is not all that well understood in its most basic form, and with today's electronic exchanges, call forwarding, caller-id, Voice Over Internet Protocol (VOIP) and such is even more blackmagic than before.

This is especially true of the technologies that are used to generate those oh-so ever annoying dinner-time calls from Florida travel companies and other of what today I and many others call "Voice spammers"

Well, today is the day that the Canadian public finally gets what may be at least a little respite from the seemingly unending deluge of unrequested interruptions of their lives by uninvited phone calls. Today the Canadian Do Not Call List goes into effect - except it seems to be offline at this point (8:28AM PDT September 30, 2008)

While we're all waiting for Bell Canada to get their multi-million dollar solution up and running and able to handle the expected load you might take a look at the backgrounder I put together called Canadian Telephone spam.

In part 1 of this series  we learned the basics of what a domain name is and how the registration is done
In part 2 we discussed what domain name(s) to pick

In this, part 3, we'll discuss more about why or why not to have multiple domains, and how to get some of the benefits of multiple domains while saving a lot of money that otherwise might be spent on domain registration.

A long-time customer sent me a note yesterday about his problems with his assistant's computer.

It all started with his suggestion that a faster computer might be a good thing - but the assistant didn't want the hassles of moving everything over from Windows XP to Vista. OK - so my customer phoned up his favourite vendor - an multi-national tier-1 distributor and asked for a machine with the "Upgrade" option of XP installation instead of Vista (and commented to me how this really was a complete oxymoron - asking and paying for an "upgrade" to an older operating system)

Time went by and the system didn't arrive. Phone calls and more time, and he finally cancelled the order.

At this point he decided to heed my advice that I've given freely for years now - put in as much RAM as possible/practical to get the most out of your hardware and operating system. In this case the old computer was from another Tier-1 supplier and should not have been a slouch - fast CPU and not bad disk, etc. - but it only had 2x256 DIMMS in it for a total of 512 Megs of RAM. This on a machine with a CPU in the 2+ GigaHertz range.

Now my rule of thumb for years has been "1 Meg of RAM for each MegaHertz of CPU speed" - which in this case meant something around 2+ Gigs of RAM. The machine has 4 RAM slots and the specs say it will take 512Meg DIMMS in each slot for a total of 2 Gigs. My friend went down to the local computer shop and purchased 2-512Meg DIMMS - quoting the machine model number and all.

Well, it turned out that the sales person had given him the wrong RAM - almost fit but was not really even close - was 184 pin (old style) when the machine really required 240 pin DDR2 style.

His comment in his e-mail to me was "I've never forgotten words of wisdom you gave me 20 years or more ago... and that is that people who sell computers don't make their living by using them... the comment related mostly to advice about software for business functions... but it's also true of hardware... they know the spiel, not necessarily the technology."

The upshot is that, now that the new RAM is in place (and he has replaced the older CD-ROM with a new DVD-burner)  the machine is performing much better - and at minimal cost.

Read on for the rational behind putting more RAM in an older machine

In an article on his personal blog (Defending the Upgrade of Highway 1 - Gateway Project) Richard Pitt talks about the critical role batteries and the electric vehicles of the future will play in our North American transportation infrastructure.

The march of time is showing just how true this is.

By now most people around the Internet have heard how Vice Presidential hopeful Sarah Palin's Yahoo e-mail account was compromised. Regardless of whether or not she should have been using a public and insecure service for her business/government e-mail (the subject of another story I'll write)  the fact is that how it was compromised could lead to similar compromises of almost anyone I know.

It all has to do with how some sites decide that it is really you asking to reset your password.

And oh, by the way, this also applies to those pesky questions you are asked when you fill out online surveys or applications for free magazines - you know, the ones that want to "verify" you for their auditors.

EE Times has a story today about the BBC's showing their DIRAC codec that they've been working on for years (Slashdot 2004)

"What does this have to do with the general public?" you might ask. It has to do with how efficiently and cost effectively internet TV can move into the realm of cable TV or over-the-air broadcast.

Part 2 in a series. See Part 1 - Basics

What domain name should I register, and what should I do with it?

These are marketing questions pure and simple. Domain names are part of your marketing structure - they identify brand or they become one of your brands, and branding is what it is all about. Any good marketing book will tell you that picking and establishing a brand is the single most important part of getting your business successful.