Unfortunately our busy lives seem to have taken a toll
on attendance lately. The Quicken SIG had no attendees at the September
meeting. Bo is willing to give it another try and will be at the church
on October 16th at 6:30pm. For those of you who expressed interest
in the Quicken program, please make an effort to attend or at least
email Bo <bo_woz@netzero.net>
and let him know if he should continue or not.
No matter how many times we hear or read some-thing, it doesn't seem
to sink in until we experience some disaster ourselves. My cousin
recently wrote in response to an email I'd sent that she was delighted
to hear from me because she had lost my address when her computer
crashed. Now she knows the reason for making hard copies of important
information and the three wisest things to do. Backup, backup, and
backup!
You don't need to have a crash to lose files or suffer frustration.
You might find a sneaky virus will cause you to pull out your hair,
or at least it will add to the gray hairs. All I can say is "Thank
goodness for antivirus software". Especially if it is kept up
to date. The first weekend of October brought disaster to USADatanet's
mail. They shut down the server apparently, since no mail is coming
from them. That is a good thing because we were getting nothing but
viruses. This virus is the current version of W32xxxx.xxx. The name
today may be different from what comes in tomorrow. If you have experienced
this virus, visit Norton's site to find out how to get rid of the
pesky thing.
Do NOT open any attachments from anyone unless you are positive the
person has sent you a legitimate file. When it doubt, throw it out!
And for goodness sake make sure you have antivirus software installed
and that it is updated frequently. There are new viruses coming out
every day and if you don't update your definition files, you are asking
for trouble. If you don't know how to download, install and update
antivirus software, please call one of our helpline people listed
on page 2, or a board member. Any of the afore-mentioned people will
be able to help you.
Perhaps another problem is the choking of the mail servers by chain
letters or hoaxes or just plain un-necessary email. We all hate spam,
but many of us contribute to the flooding of other people's email
boxes with forwarded email. Before you hit that forward button, look
at the email—are there sentences of all capital letters? Please
to forward this to all the people you know? The promise of something
for nothing? The warning from a large, well known company? Or is dear
ole Billy Gates going to send you thousands of dollars for merely
forwarding messages to all you know? The following websites will give
you all the info about these promises and others. Please check out
these sites and learn to recognize the signs of a hoax before you
pass it on to all your friends. If you do choose to send an email
on, remember to use BCC [blind carbon copy] when you enter all your
friends addresses. The best way to lose a friend is to add his/her
name to a long list which will most likely be forwarded many times
over. Who knows where these addresses will wind up?
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