Patrick E. Bennett, Jr., Computer Consultant ... computing support for small business

A short and sweet write up of one man's frustration with Windows in his business and his and his employees' experience kicking the tires on Linux.

"Code Red: How software companies could screw up Obama’s health care reform." by Phillip Longman for Washington Monthly.

Rather than shoveling $20 billion into software that doesn’t deliver on the promise of digital medicine, the government should put a hold on that money pending the results of a federal interagency study that will be looking into the potential of open-source health IT and will deliver its findings by October 2010.

As it happens, that study is also part of the stimulus bill. The language for it was inserted by West Virginia Senator Jay Rockefeller, who has also introduced legislation that would help put open-source health IT on equal footing with the likes of Allscripts and Microsoft. Building on the systems developed by the VA and Indian Health Services, Rockefeller’s bill would create an open-source government-sponsored "public utility" that would distribute VistA-like software [note: VistA is a strong, practitioner-developed, open source healthcare management software], along with grants to pay for installation and maintenance. The agency would also be charged with developing quality standards for open-source health IT and guidelines for interoperability. This would give us the low-cost, high-quality, fully integrated and proven health IT infrastructure we need in order to have any hope of getting truly better health care.

Great great article!

A new error condition has been identified in various versions of the Windows operating system (NT, 2000, XP, Vista, and Windows 7) which results in a user getting nothing but a black screen after entering their user name and password at the login screen.  The condition has been named "the black screen of death", a play on words referencing the infamous Windows "blue screen of death" that has been around for years.

At present, Microsoft has issued no fix.

Microsoft has announced they plan to fully document the data structure used for its flagship email client, Outlook, and make it easily and freely available to developers.

This is a move that could result in huge improvements to interroperability between email programs and innovation in the communications and groupware suite (email, contacts, calendaring, tasks, etc.) software sector.  At the very least, it will mean that your email will no longer be locked up in an Outlook prison, but can be easily backed up and restored, read even if you do not have a working installation of Outlook, and even easily transported from one computer to another.

In a stunning revelation of the obvious, Microsoft seems to have had the profound insight that "data portability was becoming increasingly important to customers and clients."  Maybe they're finally getting it.

-- Learning and Skills Building --

Scholastic Puzzler

BEGINNER: Drag and drop puzzle pieces to complete the jogsaw puzzle - teaches drag and drop mouse skills

Build-A-Bear Workshop-United States Puzzle

BEGINNER: Drag and drop U.S.A. 50 States Puzzle - teaches mouse skills

Character Scrapbook

BEGINNER 2 - Create your own story character, including choosing hair, eyes, nose, mouth, etc., and 10 significant character traits. Teaches mouse and keyboard skills.

Super Hyper Spider Typer

BEGINNER, INTERMEDIATE, and ADVANCED: Keyboarding skills building game. Hungry lizards with words on their backs are after Berry the hairy spider! Save Berry from these colorful, wacky creatures by typing words quickly as they appear on their backs and help her from becoming someone's lunch!

First Day of Typing - Alphabet

Resources K-3, online activity using the alphabet with printable worksheet

Online Safety Video and Quiz Activities (BrainPop)

Animated Science, Health, Technology, Math, Social Studies, Arts & Music and English movies, quizzes, activity pages and school homework help for K-12 kids, aligned with state standards

Online Sources - how to use the internet to do your homework (BrainPOP)

Animated Science, Health, Technology, Math, Social Studies, Arts & Music and English movies, quizzes, activity pages and school homework help for K-12 kids, aligned with state standards

NASA - Roving on Mars - mouse skills game

This is the Flash version of the Roving on Mars game.

Free Typing Games (Choose #12 Letters and Numbers)

Play any of these fun games to improve your typing skills.  Be sure to choose Lesson "#12 Letters and Numbers" before beginning the game!

Prongo.com - Educational Games

A number of fun educational games that engage the student with the computer.

Kaboose Computer Connections

Lessons and worksheets covering computer fundamentals.

-- Utilities --

Dropbox - File Storage and sharing utility

This is what happens when open source philosophy and technology, like that behind Linux, BSD, and OpenOffice.org, meets one of our most beloved gadgets, the camera.

It appears that the days of trust in WPA-TKIP wireless security are over.  Is your wireless network secure?  Get in touch; I'd be happy to evaluate your wireless network and implement security-enhancements.

A nice little article detailing the veratility of BSD Unix.

A very scary article from the NY Times on "keylogger" malware - hacker software that secretly infects your Windows computer and then sends every thing you type (including your online banking password) to the hacker.

Mr. Stewart found that each of those machines, in turn, was programmed to notice when their users visited any of 4,600 specified Web pages, including banks, brokerages and other sorts of sites.

Then Clampi starts sending a real-time stream of the user’s actions using a modified version of standard instant messaging software. The hackers log into the user’s bank account, quickly copying the one-time password if one is used. They start initiating wire transfers to accomplices (mules is the term of art) who send the funds on to the crooks. Sometimes they have even set up “mules” or fake employees who earn fat salaries by direct deposit.

One victim of Clampi was Slack Auto Parts in Gainesville, Ga., which lost $75,000 to the scam, according to a post in the Washington Post’s Security Fix blog.

This may be the point at which the cost of using Windows instead of Linux (or even Mac O/S) far outweigh the benefits.

Here's a nice little review from ZDNet of 10 backup solutions that work with Linux (and in some cases also work with Windows and others).

You really need to be backing up.  In my 15 years of experience providing technical support to small businesses, failure to implement and execute a good backup strategy - and regularly confirm that it is working - is hands-down the number one most common sin, and probably the single most costly one also!

You know what to do if you need help evaluating, implementing, or confirming your backup solution: contact me, I would love to help!