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This is the main blog for Mike McBride Online, where you can keep track of everything I'm in to in one place.

Friday, February 18, 2005
 
Privacy article

Craig sent me a link to this USA Today article that describes some simple steps you can take to ensure your privacy.

Simple apps, tasks increase your privacy manyfold

Have a good weekend!

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I don't know about this

I don't know what you have to do with a graphic to turn a one-page Word document into a 11.5MB monster, but I now do know exactly what happens when someone tries to send two of them attached in one message to a machine running Outlook 2000 and only 128MB of RAM, and it's not pretty!

I just spent the better part of 45 minutes using my own 512MB RAM-powered machine to download that message and delete it off our ISP's server so that my user can go back to actually using her email. Nice, there's time I'm never getting back.

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Thursday, February 17, 2005
 
It's official!

Last night was, finally, the official beginning of my term as a member of the Friends of the Columbus Library Board of Trustees. (There was a swearing in and everything..) It was an enlightening meeting, in terms of learning about the various ways the Friends work with the library and support the library. It should be an interest experience all the way around. As a member of the Communications committee, my first order of business is going to be getting involved in the formation of a Friends website, apart from the library's website. Currently there is only a small section of the library's site that details who the Friends are and what they do. That is going to change dramatically this year. Should be fun to try and develop that site into something informative and timely. Hopefully, over time, we can use it to build a sense of community among the members and increase their involvement in the organization and in the library! I'm glad I'll be able to be involved right from the beginning and watch it grow!

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Wednesday, February 16, 2005
 
A sign

When you work in IT for awhile you start to learn to read the signs. Today, I saw one of them, and thought I'd pass along the insight. When your boss heads into your office carrying a pile of IT product marketing materials, you my friend, are about to do a LOT of reading and research about whatever product those materials are marketing!

Hence, the great membership database product comparison of 2005 begins...

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Tuesday, February 15, 2005
 
Anyone tried this out?

The latest issue of WinXPnews points to a fairly interesting little tool that I had not seen before, the Netcraft Anti-phishing toolbar. It apparently gives you the hosting location of the site you're on and lets you easily report phishing sites. Anyone been using this and have any feedback on how well it works? I might have to give it a run at some point and see for myself.

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Monday, February 14, 2005
 
XP activation issues?

A reader asked me about a Sony laptop where every time he starts it up, it comes up and says it needs to be activated. Then it comes up and says "Windows is already activated" and contiues on in this circular logic pattern. It's been happening since installing the MS Anti-spyware and updating WMP, but is the OEM version of XP Home that came with the laptop so there are no actual piracy issues. I haven't seen this behavior in any of the SP2 updates I've done here, but figured I'd throw it out here and see if anyone else has?

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Now that's love

I admit, I do have an East Coast food bias. I grew up in Brooklyn, NY. There is no better pizza, there is no better place to get a bagel and there is no snack-cake product for sale here in the Midwest that can take the place of Drakes Cakes for me.

How much does my wife love me? She had some Drakes cakes shipped in for me for Valentine's Day. Thank you sweetie!

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