Richard Pascoe's Website

Print Web Pages Your Way

If you print web pages and would like to be able to customise your printing here is the website for you.

While watching Tekzilla they discussed Print What You Like a website that will:

• Format any web page for printing in seconds - no more pasting into Word


• Save money and the environment by reducing your paper and ink usage


• Make printed web pages more readable by removing ads, widgets and other distractions


• Fix broken pages that don't print correctly

Having tried this I can say that here is an extremely useful site and is well worth a look.

Don't Want Spam , become Anti - Social

Ever had people drop in to your place , ring you etc when they were not invited and whom you did not really want to associate with in the first place.
Have you passed those people in the street and said something like " Oh we must catch up sometime "which really means " I hope to never see you".
Then suddenly these people appear on your doorstep or ring you.
The best thing you could have done is to avoid these people like the plague ,walk on the other side of the street if they approach or look at you and generally not acknowledge their presence but occasionally you weaken and say hello.
Call me antisocial if you wish but we all know those people.
This might sound harsh and you would be saying what has this to do with computers.
Well I was having coffee the other day and I was asked is their anything I can do to stop spam in my mailbox , I keep unsubscribing but they keep coming.
First things , never , ever unsubscribe to any spam like email.It is akin to saying hello to those people you want nothing to do with.
If you do you are sending a message back to " Uri  , Mike or Gupta " that you are there and actually exist.
Remember they get paid for spam and now you have said you are there the floodgates could open and are saying to the spammers keep them coming.
The same goes for faxes , don't unsubscribe to faxes either and if you don't read the fine print you can actually be charged for sending some faxes back.
If you are in a corporate environment or your mail application allows a "holiday reply ", you know the sort " I am unavailable for 2 weeks as I am away " then make sure it only goes to people in your address book as spam will be replied to again.
Finally if you are inundated and i have seen some horrors of inboxes with 60 -100 spam emails a day maybe it is time to switch ISPs , get a new e mail address or switch to G Mail , a web based mail solution.

Blogged with the Flock Browser

Tags: Spam

Stay Smart On Line with the Governments advice !!!

The government website  Stay Smart On Line has some good advice but their is a glaring exception in their advice and lets face it taking the governments advice on most things must be done with a huge grain of salt.

So what appears to be missing , well ,update your operating system appears to be missing.

Is this really that important I hear you ask , well yes it is.

Think of it this way, imagine your house is your computer and the lock on your front door is your operating system.

The criminal comes to your front door and because it has been 20 years since you changed your locks , he takes out one of those old fashioned keys and is in into your house in about 30 seconds.

Now had you updated your locks ( and security ) he would have been delayed for a while ( unless you had left a window open ).

This piece of advice is one of the most critical aspects of preventing infection by virus's and spyware etc.
If you look at the heading in the governments website Stay Smart Online it lists the following:

* Step 1: Set and protect your passwords
* Step 2: Use and update anti-virus software
* Step 3: Use and update anti-spyware software
* Step 4: Install and use a firewall
* Step 5: Smart settings for your Internet browser
* Step 6: Reduce unwanted emails—managing spam
* Step 7: Controlling your Internet Connection

Yes I agree with them all , they may not be in the correct order but where is "updating your operating system " or "keeping your operating system updated" or "turn on Automatic updates for your operating system"
Now if you look in Small business safe online section you will find the entry  "Keep your software up to date " but no mention of keeping your operating system up to date.
I actually e mailed the government department and received a "thank you for your e mail".
That's it nothing more. No gee thanks for your suggestion , we will get right on it , we will get some " boffin" to fix it , no nothing but thanks for the e mail.
My strong advice is keep your operating system up to date , Windows , Mac it does not matter turn on automatic updates and install all patches.

Blogged with the Flock Browser

Tags: staysmart on line

Blogged with the Flock Browser

Tags: governmentadvice , security

Tech Future

I believe that currently if you are involved in tech , blogging , Web 2.0 the greatest challenge is increasing the numbers of people that "get" tech.

I still get the following questions.

What are podcasts? Twitter ? Digg ?

Blogging ? - why would I read what someone did for the day.( Came from a leading Adelaide journalist who thinks the internet is vastly overrated)