Computers – Page 7

I think I need an new email program

August 9, 2007 by Tricia

My email program is acting funny. I use Eudora, a program that is apparently not going to be updated anymore.

I’ve got the most recent installation on this computer, but every once in a while it freezes up. It will start working again after three to five minutes but it’ll freeze when I’m deleting an email or when I click on something within an email.

It’s only done this two or three times, most often after the laptop has been on for a long while and perhaps went into hibernation mode, but today for the first time it’s freezing up and I’ve only been using the laptop for two hours – with no breaks.

The only difference today is that there was a Java update. I guess I should reboot and see if that fixes my email program.
Weird.

Anyway, it looks like I might have to look for a new email program soon. I hate Outlook express. Any ideas? I’ve always loved Eudora … If I could find a new email program similar to Eudora I’d be happy.

Anti-virus program slows my computer

July 20, 2007 by Tricia

My desktop computer is so slow right now! I’ve got two Firefox browsers open, my email program and Norton anti-virus is currently scanning my whole system for bad guys.

The antivirus program is a hog. I have no problems when I normally have two browser windows open, my email program and sometimes even adobe photoshop … but start up Norton and forget doing much anything else unless you want to do it very very slowly.

It slows my laptop too, which is newer and faster than my desktop PC so I know it’s the Norton’s antivirus.

Does it slow your computer down too? Do you do regular system scans for virus’?

PDF spam is on the rise

July 18, 2007 by Tricia

Have you noticed an increase in a new type of spam lately? I have! If you keep an eye on the email that you receive at your office or at home you’ve probably noticed an increasing number of emails that contain PDF files.

Apparently PDF spam is the new trend for spammers. I was just reading the press release from borderWare about the increase in PDF spam and their new BorderWare Security platform.

BorderWare’s latest security product has been designed to scan and analyze images within attachments in order to detect and block image spam that has been sent via PDF files.

The CEO of BorderWare Technologies is quoted in the press release as stating that their behavioral reputation service keeps the BorderWare Security platform aware of changes in attack vectors being used by spammers. Using the data collected they are able to quickly introduce new solutions to combat attacks.

I’m sure that spammers will increase their pdf spam attacks as well as continue to develop new ways to send spam to company and personal email boxes so a defense system such as BorderWares only makes sense.

To learn more read the press release and then explore the BorderWares various security related products.

My sites are using too much CPU resources? Help!

July 1, 2007 by Tricia

I’ve gone through a nightmare in the last few days!

I got a message from my web host on Thursday evening stating that my sites/ domains were using too much of the web hosts resources on the server that they were on and that they had moved my sites to a non-production server until I could either figure out what was causing the drain on resources or until I decided to upgrade to a VPS hosting plan or a dedicated servers hosting plan.

Well, both of those options are more expensive and while I know my traffic has gone up recently and continues to rise I’m certain that it’s not high enough to warrant upgrading my hosting account just yet.

So I stayed up Thursday night and worked on my sites. Looking over all the stats to see if I could figure out which files were being used too often or if there were any files or folders in my domain directories that shouldn’t be there.

I didn’t find anything abnormal but I did deactivate a few plugins that I thought might use more of the servers resources than the others. That’s all I could think to do.

I’ve also upgraded the Google Sitemap plugin that I was using to the newest beta version as that one is said to go easier on CPU resources than the last stable version.

So today … well today is Canada Day. We had a friend over for the weekend so I left my sites alone briefly last night and earlier today. We’d been supposed to go out of town, but that wasn’t going to happen when there was the possibility of me losing my sites or of them going down. You see I was still waiting to hear back from my web host. I’d written to them twice since I got their message on Thursday evening and didn’t end up hearing from them until today! Grrrr.

Unfortunately the message that I got from them today was that my sites CPU usage had increased! Aaaah! It shouldn’t have increased! What the heck????

They also told me that they’d disabled the index.php file for this site because:

We have been forced to disable your script(index.php) located in
(/home/thewe22/public_html/feverishthoughts/index.php) as they appear to have
been exploited.

Well what does that mean? Was my site hacked? Did someone try to access my site with a script?

I have no idea, but the result was that Tricia’s Musings was down for the count.

I was advised to again search for any scripts of files in my directories that didn’t belong (didn’t find any) and to upgrade my software.

So I’ve upgraded Tricia’s Musings to the most recent version of WordPress. As I said earlier I also upgraded the Google Sitemap plugin. I’ve turned off Bad Behavior (now I’ll be hit with spam!) and I’ve installed WP-Cache.

I still have a number of plugins running. I’ve turned off a number of them, but I do still have several activated.

If CPU usage is still high I’ll turn off all but Akismet and see how that goes.

If you have any ideas for me as to what else I might be able to do to limit the CPU usage on my sites I’d love to hear it.

Topicscape 3D helps you get organized

June 25, 2007 by Tricia

If you’ve ever felt overwhelmed by all the information that you’ve stored on your computer and have desperately wanted to find a way to get organized so that you can find the files you need within minutes you might be interested in a unique software program called TopicScape Information Organizer in 3D!

That’s right. It’s a 3D information organizer. You can get an idea of what your organized information might look like by having a look at this chefs recipe information organizer software. If you were to organize your own recipes that you’ve stored on your computer according to ingredients it might look something like the example that I linked to above.

It’s simply a new way to look at information. If you are a visual person you’ll love this software.

To use the program simply drag and drop files and information on to topic areas. Connecting the various topics in your own way will individualize your 3D Topicscape organizer in a way that suits your way of thinking.

If this sounds interesting to you, you can visit the site via any of the links above or read this in depth article 3d mindmapping software article to get even more information about this unique software program.

There’s a TopicScape lite and a Topicscape pro addition for download on the site. You can also down load TopicScape skins that will help you individualize the look and feel of your TopicScape installation.

Give it a try, perhaps this will be the perfect organization system for you.

I think I need an new email program

Anti-virus program slows my computer

PDF spam is on the rise

My sites are using too much CPU resources? Help!

Topicscape 3D helps you get organized

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