Be Alert for Microsoft Tech Support Call Scam

It isn't like we don't have enough to worry about. Scammers to the left and bad hackers to the right. This is just a heads up to those people that don't know about scammers now are calling folks claiming to be from Microsoft (they are not) and offering to fix your problems for money.

Actual Microsoft Safety and Security Center

Or a message pops up on your screen stating that you have hard drive troubles and to call this number or visit a web site. Oh please do not do that. Nope. Bad thing.  What may have happened is that maleware has been placed on your system to mimic trouble to get you to pay for a fix that could be worse than the cure.

Microsoft does not cold call for consumer support services. It is a billion to almost trillion dollar company.  They might have trouble moving Windows phones but they ain't that hard up.

The call or alternate web site is a scam. Read up on how the scammers work the unaware folks and other things that you can do to protect yourself.

I have some ideas on the topic:

1. Install MalewareBytes and run that bad boy once a week if you are on the free version or better yet pay for it and get 24/7 protection so that nothing gets installed on your system without you knowing about it..
2. Install CCleaner and run that as well to get rid of old Internet cache files and cookies you did not want or asked for.
3. Make sure that you have a total protection anti-virus, spyware, maleware protection package updated on your computer. Make sure there is a good firewall included as well.
4. Create and use one-purpose passwords for life critical web sites. This means a separate password for banking, credit cards or anything it would disrupt your life if thieves got a hold of it. 

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I've Never Been to Me on the Finally Friday Freakout

I'm still searching for an adventure to juice my imagination. I've become a drone. I was gong to take a cooking class just to experience taking a day long cooking class. It was cancelled.

I just missed out on a photographic workshop in New Mexico. It was happening this weekend. Couldn't do it on short notice. Ah me. Unlike the lyrics of this song, I need to find a bit of paradise so I can get my bearings.

This is Charlene singing her hit, "I've Never Been to Me."



I've made mistakes this week and survived them. Took naps when I needed. Finally faced up to the fact that concepts like organization and planning are not dirty words. I've never been to this part of me that is spending time fighting information and task overload.

I've never wanted to be so organized it would take the spontaneity out of life. I use to be able to hold everything I do in my head. That is past tense. Or just tension cuz I can't do that anymore.

There are reasons why you need to write things down and then make sure you read the list. What got me moving toward being more willing to accept organization skills was iTunes.

I was looking for a podcast to subscribe to and I cam across Merlin Mann's 43 Folders.

Took a listen. Let me forewarn you that Merlin sometimes uses the full breath of the English language. The ancestors would say he "can be a little salty."

This means that he has the potential to cuss up a storm. Sometimes. Only when he needs to get you to focus. Or he is ticked off.

Rooting around the podcast archives there is good stuff about creativity, procrastination and making changes that may or may not involve tools. Merline also calls B.S. if the tool becomes more important than the task.

I like his videos even more than the podcasts. Dude take it to the edge and bring it home more of the time. You should view his presentation at Webstock.

Dang. So yes, go visit yourself and then if you have time check out some of Merlin's videos or podcasts.

One more thing. I now understand that Merlin is a really famous Internet person. Some are gonna say "Duh, where have you been?" "Why didn't you know?" or "For real?"

I didn't. I was not in a time or mental place that I would have listen to a podcast on organization and creativity. Creativity yes, organization, no.

When I was ready I found the right person at the right time.

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Brief Moment with Andy Behrman Author of Electro-Boy

After the past few days I could be very happy curled up with some Justice League of America cartoons and leave you fool adults to yourselves. I want to write about moving forward and doing positive things and yet I get sucked into Ahnold-land and Anglo-Franco confusion about the "Perp Walk."

Well, the only thing I can do is to share what I've seen these past few weeks. The first Mental Health Day in Pasadena has come and gone but I do have some video of a few of the participants that were nice enough to speak with me.



Andy Behrman is an author who has spent some time dealing with the high and lows of mental illness. He doesn't have access to the media like a certain actor but he does have a story to tell about living in a manic state.

Yes, California can make you crazy but I'm thinking that isn't what he means. This video was records at the first Mental Health Day in Pasadena 2011.

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Poetry In Plain Sight - Eleanor Higgins

About two weeks ago Eleanor and I were sitting on the library bench talking about stuff. We were outside appreciating the beautiful weather. Eleanor was at Cal State Northridge University during the Northridge quake.

The Internet was just still in the GOPHER space, e-mail was king and if you had 56k you were doing pretty good. After the Northridge quake Eleanor told me about folks teaching in their cars and communicating via e-mail. Buildings were destroyed. Everything changed.

We joked about that old erroneous meme about warm weather and earthquakes. Intellectually we know it is not true. Fear and the need for an answer kinda trumps facts. It should not be so but look at America the past two years.

We done gone plum stupid; in my opinion. This poem, however, is not stupid. It is kinda cool.






This is Eleanor's poem about not wanting to be a grown up tonight. It is a fun poem and it is ok to have a bit of fun when your emotional knees are knocking.

One way for people up and down the Pacific Coast can do to help with that emotional knee knocking is re-stocking your Emergency Supply Kit. Batteries, radios, top-up cards for the cell phones, money and the essentials.

Yes, that is a grown-up thing to but in transactional analysis there is the child, the teen and the parent all contained in one body. Let the kid play as the other two of you get busy and stock up on what you need to survive for a couple of days.

To Get You Started:

• Ready.gov Make A Plan
• FEMA.gov Plan, Prepare and Mitigate
• California Department of Public Health Be Prepared California
• Oregon Department of Geology and Mineral Industries Are You Ready page
• Washington State Military Department - Emergency Management Division information page

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Health Insurance Workshop for Artists At The Armory

For those in the Pasadena, CA area and are of the artistic persuasion you might want to consider attending a free workshop called Health Insurance 101. I don't know much more about it than the post card I picked up at the Armory.

From the Health Insurance For Artists website:

This workshop provides unbiased information to help you navigate the tangled web of our health insurance options. Topics include:

• How to compare benefit designs.
• Individual & family plans.
• Guaranteed-issue group plans for the self-employed.
• Association plans for artists.
• What you need to know about health insurance reform.

Folks, I don't know if this is truly informational, a sales pitch or a two for one deal. If you go have a pound of questions ready and don't sign anything until you check it out.

On the other hand I do know that artists shouldn't have to depend on the fundraiser skills of friends and well wishers to pay for emergency health care or long term health care needs.

There next session of the workshop is September 11, 2010 at the Armory Center for the Arts 145 North Raymond Avenue, Pasadena, CA 91103

Seems like you to have to RSVP at http://armory.eventbrite.com.

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Different Voices - Civil Debate Session BlogHer 2010

One of the things that I appreciate in a good web site or blog is the opportunity to find different voices and ideas about a topic.

It is far better to know want to know what other people think and believe about a topic. Being smug and correct is a good way to get your feelings hurt down the line.




This is a clip from the Change Agents: How to Start, Engage in and Moderate Civil Political Debate session at BlogHer 2010 in New York City. The panelists are Denise Tanton, Pam Spaulding and Suzanne Fortin.

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Dealing with Thread Hijacking - Civil Debate Session at BlogHer 2010

We've all seen it happen. Folks are having a discussion and someone plunks down a screed or a twenty page smoking gun on why the rest of us are so pathetically wrong.



In this clip Denise, Pam and Suzanne share methods on how to deal with that problem. This is from the Change Agents: How to Start, Engage in and Moderate Civil Political Debate session at BlogHer 2010 in New York City.

The panelists are Denise Tanton, Pam Spaulding and Suzanne Fortin.

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A Book I Haven't Read or I'm Slipping

I am a book junkie. This means when I buy or acquire a book I read it. I have to get rid of a few books. This is causing internal trauma. Some books I know I can find good homes for them.

Other books like my four different 1999 tutorials on Microsoft Access should, no, they gotta go to the recycling bin. Nobody should still be working in Access2. Oh my gosh, I might have the software on stiffy discs someplace in the closet.

So I look at the other books in the pile that I meant to read but didn't. A decade has gone by. Strategic Planning for Information Systems is one of those books. I got it for a 25 cents.



Flipping through looking at headings like "Sophisticated Extrapolation" does not bode well for me diving in and reaping the warm fuzzy glow of knowing what the heck the guy is talking about.

It is hot. The brain chemistry is jacked up and I did nothing but breath.

You know how you can feel the chemicals releasing in your brain and something has changed? It takes you a while to sort it out but you have to pretend to act normal?

For the men folks the equivalent sensation would be that you looked at an object of desire and you got lost inside of yourself for a moment. You eventually come back but it is not the same.

I want to clear my space but I get lost in memories that are no longer valid. I want ice cream. I'm drinking Aloe Vera kinda sorta juice instead. I put off clearing my space for another day.

It is 8pm. I'm going to take the book and see if I can pretend to be a linear thinker.

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The Gift of Self-Pleasure - IFM's Video Site

Part of searching for erotica as opposed to, you know that other stuff, is that you have to be very careful not to pick up spyware, pop-ups and garishly designed web sites. This is where the viral and social media aspects kick into play.

My hat tip for today is JanesGuide, which has been evaluating adult web sites since 1997.

We need a site like JanesGuide because there is no way most women can type into a search engine and not get bombarded with really noxious listings. Many of the sites for a variety of reasons are behind authentication walls or are for profit web sites. Still others are just link bait that attempts to get you to subscribe to crappy content.

On to business. Increasing the temperature from The Netherlands comes a site that has sex, cinematography and self pleasuring in a comfortable short form video package. From the About Us page:

IFM is a project that defies categorisation. Our society tends to draw distinctions between pornography and erotica, art and sex. We desire to allow them to intersect without exclusivity, and we want to cross the borders between these categories to create a holistic erotic experience. Our content meditates on the value of the explicit and the unseen, the realities of everyday female sexual desire, and the beauty of a human lost in passionate self-pleasure.

On the front page you can click an introduction video that will show a demonstration of the contents of the site. If you like it it is $25 a month. There does seem to be a lot of video both produced for the site and by amateur contributors. There is solo, girl/girl and a clown.

No, really a female clown. February 6, 2010.

The videos can be watched on site or downloaded in mp4 format. If you are a visual person or you like to watch other women making themselves happy this might be your kind of place.

Ok, miles to go before I sleep...

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Antarctica – Posts from Way Down Under

It is the Austral Summer. It is travel season for those making their ways to Antarctic research stations. There are a number of scientists, students and even an artist or two who have recorded their experiences. Yes, there are bloggers in Antarctica. You think you have a shaky Internet connection? Try blogging from Antarctica.

Making the Journey

Many of the American scientists and researchers travel to the McMurdo Station. Ice Stories, Dispatches from Polar Scientists have a number of folks blogging from both poles. In 2009, the focus is on Antarctica. On the website there are stories, photos and videos of the experiences of those that are going or have just come back from the coldest place on earth.

Heidi Roop is spending three months as a science technician at the West Antarctic Ice Sheet Divide. Heidi writes about how many miles she had flown and how many more miles she has to go. You can view a map video from her starting point in Arizona to her destination, the McMurdo Station.

The science community are not the only folks going to Antarctica. There is at least one artist making the trip. Elise Engler will be leaving in December 2009. Her task will be to document the work and social life at the station.

Things To Do

Shilpa Gulati, is working on her doctorate in Mechanical Engineering. I learned from her University of Texas at Austin Mechanical Engineering department page she is in the West Lake Bonney area working on the Environmentally Non-Disturbing Under-ice Robotic ANtarctic Explorer AKA ENDURACE Robotic project.

Shilpa also has a blog where she goes into details about the project and her experiences.

We spent the morning looking at data from yesterday and trying to debug the communications failure problem. We had some ideas but we were not sure what the exact problem was. The mission for the day involved traveling to the narrows – the part of lake that connects west lobe to the east lobe. The bot swam about 1.5 km to reach the far east – this is the farthest the bot had ever been. Much remains unknown about this part of the lake and we were very excited to see the visualizations from the sonars on the bot. We might go there again later for getting more data.

There are photos of Shilpa and her team members as they work on the software and hardware challenges of getting the robot functional.

Isabelle Brissac at Project SCINI has photos of what a blistery day can look like at McMurdo. She is and Electrical Engineer working on an underwater robotics project. The team members of Project SCINI has a daily blog page called, The Daily Slog.

Of course, somebody has to feed these folks. They Don’t Cook Penguins is a blog written by Cook On The Ice, who prepares meals in challenging conditions. It is not like you can pop down to the store for basil. What do you do when it can take a really long time for a food delivery?

Coming Home

Sarah Rush recorded her experiences on her ICELilly blog posts at TravelBlog. This is one of her posts on the Dorm Room and the Humidifier:

In 24 days, I will be packing up my stuff, throwing it onto a C-17, and flying away to New Zealand where I'll finally see my Nate - and the whole Antarctica experience will be in the past. When a little blurb in a chapter of life ends, I'm left wondering what will happen next. What's next? When will I get a chance to feel that anxious/excited/nervous of the unknown feeling again? I think that when you're in the middle of an experience, a little reality is lost because you're so wrapped up in what is happening in front of your eyes. No matter how hard you try, you just can't imagine it ending and what it will be like to say, "When I was on the Ice....."

There was one of her posts that is always amazing to me no matter how many times or ways a Dream Comes True can happen:

Today was better than opening a Christmas present. Today was something of pure luck, something that I want to believe only my Mom made happen. She made so many things happen for me when she was alive, I owe so much to her and her only; but this was a gift I've been waiting for for since I set foot on this continent.

I am most grateful that I am no where near a place that requires three digits to express a wind chill factor. I am also grateful that I got a chance to peep in on extraordinary life experiences and photography. I hope you can find time to learn about the projects at the Antarctic research stations.

Gena Haskett is a Contributing Editor at BlogHer where this post originally appeared.

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PresentationCamp L.A. - Bringing Enthusiasm

This is a short clip from Lisa’s presentation on how to bring fun into presenting information.

My understanding is that you cannot expect to have people happy to hear what you have to say if you are a drip or a monotone piece of cardboard. Lisa Braithwaite gives solid advice about the mindset required to deliver a good presentation. 

For more info check out Cliff Atkinson’s blog or to see if there are other videos or notes, check out the PresentationCamp wiki.

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Domestic Violence Tombstone PSA

Using music, a tombstone and text I made a simple PSA on three statistics about women and violence. In the video I linked to Violence UnSilenced, a place where people can go to share or read stories about people in domestic violence situations.

People who are abused may not be able to talk about what is happening but in a private safe community place, web site or blog there can be a connection made to their personal danger.


Process:

I used Tombstone Builder. I started out with Tombstone Generator. Created a bunch of markers 15 to 20 or so. When I tried open them they wouldn't open. Grievous. This is no reflection on Tombstone Generator, I've used it before. I just was too upset to figure out the problem.

I then thought ok, I'll make my own but all of the real world tombstone makers have their logo or other watermark on the headstones. Understandable and because they are facing foreign mechanical knock-offs, I don't blame them.

I still needed a headstone. I found Tombstone Builder and I'm good to go. The music is from the Internet Archive, The Negro Prison Songs from Mississippi State Penitentiary. I assembled it in Serif Movie Plus X3.

My point in describing the process is that using basic tools and technology you can tell a story or convey information. Music helps a lot too.

Thoughts and Concerns

This was harder than I anticipated. I initially wanted to have parts of faces showing bruises. I did find those, most regrettably. I needed women of color. There is one recent woman of color who was assaulted by her partner.

Here is where the ethics kick in. I could make the case that this woman is a public figure and the photos have become public record. I could crop or distort the photos. I could focus on just the bruises.

To change factual photographs is not a good thing. It is dishonest. Damn me for taking a photo-journalism class but there you go, it is not a good practice to distort the actual recorded experience.

The second issue is that I don't know who took the original photos. I don't know who owns them. They look like police photos. Either way, I don't have permission until I find that out. Since I don't want to it is ok.

I decided not to use those photos. There is a real live person involved. I don't know this woman. I don't know the truth about her situation but I do not want to be perceived as benefiting from her sorrow.

It seems others have no problem doing so but I do. So yes, it would have been a better piece with photos but the ethical costs was much too high.

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