Chad's News

The linked article has a printable accident checklist (PDF) that should probably be in everyone’s glove box. I’ve learned to call the police, even if it doesn’t seem like much damage, because car body repair is hideously expensive. In my first significant accident, back in the early ’90s, I had to pay a $500 deductible because I didn’t get enough information to track down the other person (who was at fault) or his insurance company.

Link: http://www.seriousaccidents.com/…
(via Lifehacker)

SharpKeys is a Windows utility that lets you change the meaning of keys on your keyboard. You can map a key to be something else, or disable it entirely. I have an old M-series keyboard without a Windows key, and this is a way to create one. Also, don’t even get me started on Caps Lock. I use the Tab key quite often, and my left pinky has an annoying habit of hitting Caps Lock instead. In the past I would physically remove Caps Lock from the keyboard, but SharpKeys gives me the ability to disable it (or even make it into another Tab).

Link: http://www.howtogeek.com/…
(via Lifehacker)

Update: Parrish notes that KeyTweak does the same thing without requiring .NET.

Just a reminder that this weekend is Daylight Saving Time in the US. Turn your clocks forward one hour on Saturday night/Sunday morning.

When I call tech/customer support, it’s usually for an issue not covered by the automated phone system or the company’s website. So I need to speak with a human being. One strategy to skip past the automated system is to repeatedly press zero, but that doesn’t always work. Which is where the gethuman database comes in—it has specific instructions on how to reach a human being at a variety of companies.

Link: http://www.gethuman.com/

January was a good month for class action lawsuit settlements. Some of them have very broad participation requirements.

• Apple iPod Nano scratches
• Dell computers
• Bank of America overdrafts
• Vonage fax service

“Mirroring” (aka RAID level 1) is where a computer has two or more identical drives, and anything that gets written to one is also written to the other(s). This provides a basic level of protection should one of the drives fail. But there are many, many reasons why it’s not a viable backup method, especially for a commercial website. At a minimum, any backup should be physically separated from the computer itself, preferably at a significant distance in case of fire, flood, or similar disaster. I’ve been hearing a lot of radio advertisements for a remote backup system called Carbonite. Also, PC World has a list of 17 online backup sites. If you’ve tried one of these I’d like to hear your opinion on how well it works.

Windows users: ever had one of those stalled print jobs that won’t go away? I’ve gone to the extreme of unplugging the printer and rebooting Windows in order to get rid of them. “Stalled Printer Repair” is a free utility that forces the removal of stalled print jobs.

Link: http://www.fantasticfreeware.com/…
(via Lifehacker)

System Information for Windows tells you most everything about your Windows computer. It’s free for personal use. I suggest selecting the “Secrets” option at the bottom of the “Software” section—you may be surprised at what it uncovers.

Link: http://www.gtopala.com/
(via Lifehacker)

Friday, November 28th is the biggest shopping day of the year. Now you can plan ahead and find the best deals, at BlackFriday.info. The last time I did a Black Friday sale, I arrived at about 6:00am only to find over a hundred people waiting in line already. By the time I got inside the store, they’d run out of the hard drives I’d intended to purchase.

Link: http://www.blackfriday.info/
(via Lifehacker)

Here’s a neat tip—store a spare car key underneath your license plate, using one of the license plate screws to secure it. Sounds better than those magnetic holders.

Link: http://consumerist.com/…

US citizens are entitled to a free yearly credit report from the three major credit reporting agencies. The official site for this is www.AnnualCreditReport.com. Do not confuse this with www.FreeCreditReport.com, which tries its best to separate you from your money.

Link: http://consumerist.com/…

These days, nearly every network adapter has an associated number called a MAC address. This number is (almost always) unique and is defined in the network card hardware—making it permanent and unchangeable. Thus one aspect of wireless network security is to only allow access to devices with specific MAC addresses. And while this is a good practice, it will not keep out a determined hacker. Despite what I wrote above, MAC addresses can be easily spoofed at the operating system level. The linked article explains how to do it in Windows. This is another reason why there is no such thing as total network security without encryption (and even then, it has to be the right type of encryption).

Link: http://www.online-tech-tips.com/…
(via Lifehacker)