Wikipedia – Grading and Growing an Article

Information submitted by Judy Jones
Wikipedia Article Grading System
Wikipedia Grow and Article

Checking the authority of information is essential if you are investigating topics.   Wikipedia articles are graded for authenticity, reliability and completeness.  The grade FA is featured article status, and is professional, and thorough, and is a source for encyclopedic information until new information becomes available.

Other categories are A(essentially complete), GA(well written, factual, broad, neutral and stable), B(suitably referenced, reasonable covers the topic and understandable), C (may have some gaps or missing elements), Start, Stub, Fl, List and non-standard grades.

There are 3,493 FA articles, 71, 049 B articles 84,136 C articles and over 2.9 million are not graded (and therefore, not reliable, but maybe still useful information).

How to check if you’ve been compromised by bad email link

How to check if you’ve been compromised by bad email link.

Look at your sent email. If it shows you’re sending email to everyone in your address book, a bot ‘robot’ is sending the malware to everyone in your address book and your friends will think it’s from you.

Look at your contact list. The newer versions delete your contact list so you don’t see tons of email being sent out. And you no longer have have addresses to warn your friends not to click on link in email that was sent with your email address.

What to do if you have either of the above two problems.

Change your email program password. The bot is probably not in your computer just accessing your email but for security of mind run your virus protection and malware protection. If you already have up to date protection, these bots from infected emails probably won’t get into your emails.

What do current virus emails look like.

Be very cautious of emails that have (RE:) or (NO SUBJECT) written in email subject line. Some folks do just forget to write in the subject line but it is also an indicator of possible virus replication email.

In the body of the email if there’s just a link, contact your friend through a new email don’t send the bad one back to them they might click on the link to see what they sent and resend the malware out again. Yes that happens. Ask in a new email if they sent you an email with just a link.

Or if the email tells you to check out the fabulous new (fill in a product) that your friend just purchased and a link be wary.

Great indicator of malware sent email, if the email is not signed the way your friend signs their emails. The bot doesn’t sign the way your friend signs their emails.

Palladium Pro removal instructions

Submitted by Jerry Heere

Palladium Pro removal instructions:

1. Restart your computer. Once the “Palladium World’s leading security solution” window comes press Ctrl+Alt+Delete or Ctrl+Shift+Escape. You should now see the Windows Task Manager screen as shown in the image below or a screen where you can select the Task Manager to be run.

Click on the Processes tab. Then click and highlight palladium.exe and click End Task. If it asks you “Are you sure you want to terminate the process?” click yes (or press Enter). This will close the ThinkPoint program.

2. While in Windows Task Manager, click the File -> “New Task (Run…)” from the menu on the bottom right. Type in explorer.exe and click OK. Your desktop and icons should start up as normal.

3. Download Malwarebytes Antimalware, SUPERAntispyware, Hitman Pro or any other free malware removal program and scan your computer.

Detailed Palladium Pro removal instructions:

http://deletemalware.blogspot.com/2011/01/how-to-remove-palladium-pro-uninstall.html

http://www.bleepingcomputer.com/virus-removal/remove-palladium-pro

Palladium Pro removal video: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=wKzAqXkMH2w

Good luck!

Random Musings From Mel: Apple vs. Microsoft

There was an interesting article on the New York Times web site of May 26, about Apple surpassing Microsoft as the largest tech company, and second only to Exxon Mobil in total market value. As a long-time Mac fan I was pleased to see that. Nevertheless, the article reveals that Microsoft still has more than twice the net income of Apple. The personal computer operating system market share remains more than 85% Microsoft Windows, as the chart below illustrates.

The trend however is towards a greater share of that market for Apple operating systems (Mac, iPod/iPhone/iPad) and Linux. The ostensible primary reasons for these market shares are that: (1) Windows has far more software and hardware choices than the Mac and Linux, (2) the Mac is easiest to use, (3) Linux and its applications are free, and (4) both Linux and Mac are more secure and reliable than Windows. As an avid user of all of these platforms, it seems clear to me that each platform has its pros and cons. If you’re not satisfied with your current computer system you have viable alternatives that may be better suited for you.

—Mel Ellington

Tip from Mel: Facebook…How to Guard Your Privacy.

Unbeknownst to many Facebook users their personal data is readily retrievable by many organizations and individuals.  To protect your personal data on Facebook you should make sure you are sharing and exposing to the public no more than you want to.  To help you configure your Facebook privacy settings, there is a web site at http://www.reclaimprivacy.org/ which can quickly and easily aid you in doing just that.  It only takes a few minutes and is not complicated.  In a few clicks you’ll be done.

–Mel Ellington

Tip from Jerry: FACEBOOK password thieves

New Password-Stealing Virus Targets Facebook

http://abcnews.go.com/Technology/wireStory?id=10130401

Found by Jerry Heere

Stan Bowers’ Easter Egg Hunt Slideshow

Slideshow by Stan Bowers

Easter Egg Hunt 4-3-2010

Tip from Jerry: Free Software

Courtesy of a good friend, here is a great list of free programs.

–Jerry Heere.

Click here: Free_Programs

Mel’s Tips: 2 Firefox enhancements

FEBE is my most important add-on for the Firefox web browser.  It’s the first one I install after I install Firefox. What FEBE does is allow me to save and reinstall all my other Firefox add-ons, including extensions, bookmarks, passwords, themes, and various preferences. That saves me a lot of time. It’s also nice to know that I have all my customized and personalized browser settings backed up. FEBE is available at https://addons.mozilla.org/en-US/firefox/addon/2109.

My favorite tab enhancement add-on for Firefox is Tab Mix Plus.  It allows me to color and control my tabs in many great ways.  I explored many other tab customizing add-ons and Tab Mix Plus appears to have the best available features.  I especially like the ability to choose background and font colors for my tabs.  I use yellow for the tab that is displaying my current web page, green for tabs/web pages I have not looked at yet, and brown for tabs/web pages that I have displayed.  See the example below of my colored Firefox tabs. You will find it at https://addons.mozilla.org/en-US/firefox/addon/1122

–Mel Ellington

Here: The Demo movie not shown at the VOCC

This is a demonstration of the importance of sound in a slide presentation.

Watch it all the way through, it’s short.