Calibre

This is amazing freeware if you have a lot of books! What can it do?

Library Management

E-book conversion

Syncing to e-book reader devices

Downloading news from the web and converting it into e-book form Comprehensive e-book viewer

Content server for online access to your book collection

       Calibre is free and open source e-book computer software that organizes, saves and manages e-books, supporting a variety of formats. It also supports e-book syncing with a variety of popular e-book readers and will, within DRM restrictions, convert e-books between differing formats.
       Calibre supports many file formats and reading devices. Most of these e-book formats can be edited, for example, by changing the font or the font size and by adding an auto-generated table of contents. Conversion and editing is only possible after digital rights management restrictions have been removed from commercially purchased e-book files.
       Calibre helps to organize the personal e-book library by allowing the user to sort and group e-books by metadata fields. Metadata can be pulled from many different sources (ISBNdb.com, Google Books, Amazon). Search for author, title or keyword in the whole library, is possible.
       E-books can be imported into the Calibre library, either by adding files manually, or by syncing an e-book reading device. On-line content-sources can be harvested and converted to e-books. E-books can be exported to all supported reading devices via USB or via the integrated mail-server. Mailing e-books enables, for example, sending personal documents to the Amazon Kindle. MUST HAVE! LINK

Free US Government Publications

Available as pdf downloads

Taking Charge: What to Do If Your Identity is Stolen
Handbook with tips about protecting your information, and instructions, sample forms, and letters to help recover from theft.

Best Practices for Keeping Your Home Network Safe
The cyber threat is no longer limited to your office network and work persona. Adversaries realize that targets are typically more vulnerable when operating from their home network since there is less rigor associated with the protection, monitoring, and maintenance of most home networks. Home users need to maintain a basic level of network defense.

Home Wireless Safety Checklist

Six steps owners of wireless networks need to take to ensure network security

Cars: Buying, Leasing and Renting, Understanding Financing

For Sale: Used Federal Government Personal Property

Learn how to find and buy everything from construction vehicles to cameras, computers and jewelry. This is your guide to types of items, how they are sold, and payment options.

Copyright Basics

Covers what can be copyrighted, who can apply, registration procedures, filing fees

 

How to Avoid Being Harvested by Spambots

One of the primary ways spammers get email addresses is by stealing them from websites. They do this by using "spambots," computer programs which automatically troll web pages and harvest email addresses.   It is important to protect your address so your address doesn’t get ‘harvested.’  My former employer was a great place to get these in one’s email…the Chinese were especially good at it. Using the tips and tricks below will be effective at stopping most spambots.

"Munging" Your Address:

This involves modifying the addresses on your site in such a way that they are invalid but easily fixed by human beings; the second is to hide addresses on your pages so spambots cannot find them.

You can make your address technically invalid by inserting random text that spambots won't be able to recognize as not being part of the address, but most human beings will understand they need to remove before sending to you.

tartajubow@REMOVETHISexample.com
tartajubowDELETEBEFORESENDING@example.com
Zartajubow@example.Zom (replace the Z with T and  C)

Spambots will still harvest these addresses, but when spammers send to them their messages will bounce. Unfortunately, this continues to create traffic on the network and your mail server.  Also many legitimate visitors to your website will incorrectly demung your address and therefore be unable to send messages to you.

The second strategy is to hide addresses from spambots so they are never even harvested. If you want to hide your addresses from spambots, you must understand how they work. Most spambots find addresses by looking for patterns of text that look like an email address. For example, email addresses always contain a @.  Spambots therefore scan the text of a webpage to find any @s. If you eliminate the @ from addresses then most spambots won't be able to recognize that your addresses:

Tartajubow-at-example.com

While this hides your address from spambots, visitors to your site will often still incorrectly demung your address, or not even recognize it is an email address, and therefore be unable to contact you.

A more sophisticated version of hiding your address, which still allows human users to see the addresses without any apparent munging, involves using ASCII character codes. For example, if you want to represent an @ you can either use the character itself, or you can use it's ASCII character code: @ (ampersand number-sign six four semi-colon).

If you use the ASCII code then human visitors to your site will see an @ because their browsers automatically translate the character code.  Most spambots currently do not recognize the codes and therefore ignore addresses created with them. The following addresses will all appear the same if they are included in the HTML of your site:

Tartajubow@example.com

For a full explanation see the article at Project Honey Pot

Online Dangers

PC World article on the 17 most dangerous sites on the Web…must read!

Tips from the Pros: Top 5 Ways to Stay Safe Online:

Stay up-to-date, stay paranoid, stay protected. That's the message from the security experts we spoke with while developing this story. Here are a few of their top tips and suggestions for protecting your computer against malware and hackers.

1) Keep up on patches.

Be sure to run Windows Update, as well as the software update features in the other programs that you use every day.

2) Be password smart.

As tempting as it is to use the same password in multiple places, don't. And use longer passwords, too-they're harder to crack. If you have lots of accounts to manage, use a password manager. (See "GPUs Power Games, Crack Passwords," for more on this issue.)

3) Use security software.

That may seem self-evident, but it can help block malware or software that is acting suspiciously, and security software companies are hard at work devising new ways to stop infections be­­fore they ever reach your PC. Check our antivirus and security software page regularly for the latest on security products.

4) If it sounds too good to be true... well, you know the rest.

No, someone in a faraway land isn't really offering you millions of dollars. No, attractive women from Russia probably aren't seeking you out specifically. No, those aren't magic cure-all pills.

5) Assume that everyone's out to get you.

PC security is one area where it pays to be paranoid. Just remember that no security software is fail-safe, and that you're still the one sitting at the keyboard. Assume that no site is safe. And don't automatically trust a link or file download, even if a friend sends it to you.

Auslogics Disk Defrag - Highly Recommended!

      A compact and fast defragmenter that is much superior to the defrag program that comes with Windows. Auslogics Disk Defrag comes recommended by the Official Windows Magazine as a tool for optimizing the latest hard drives.

     From its first release in 2007, the program has been tested and reviewed by numerous software distribution and analysis editions, both online and in print. It received the highest 5-star rating from CNet, SuperShareware, as well as Editor’s Choice award from Softpedia, Free Downloads Center, Download3K, TechSupportAlert.com and a number of other independent reviewers.
     Among the program’s advantages, the testers listed the following features:

Availability of multiple defragmentation options

Program’s small size and fast performance

The ease of use for an inexperienced customer

The fact that the application is available for free for home use

 Download from CNet

Free Computer Games

Hundreds of free downloads available: arcade games, 3D games, puzzles, shooting games, card games, board games, sports, casino and strategy games.  New games added regularly.

Free Government Publications

The U.S. the government offers many free publications on just about everything imaginable.  Want information on pet turtles, fleas on your pet, questions on child support, scams to get your money, American History, Gardening, you name it?  Most of these are 1-4 page informational sheets and some have nominal fees (usually $1-$2).  You can download pdf copies from the site.  Could be of some value for say, teachers, parents, display in some public places, somebody with a flea-bitten dog…I don’t know.