My mouse has no tail! No, I do not mean the little rodent variety, but the ones fitting comfortably under your hand that you poke and prod all the time at your computer.

One of my readers/listeners, Jenny saw me in a local eatery the other day while I was working on something.  I go to several of the fast-food, pastry shops, coffee shops, book stores, etc. in the area that offer free Wi-Fi access to work on columns, etc.   If you ever see me, come over and say, “Hi!” too.

But now back to the story.  Jenny had never seen a netbook and she thought it was a “cute little thingy”.  Uh, thanks Jenny.  She had also never seen a wireless mouse – she did not say that was cute.  She wanted to know about them.  If one person does not know about something there must be plenty of others who do not know about it either, so here we go.

You know how it is when you are intent on something at your computer.  Your mouse slips to the edge of your mouse pad; you pick up the mouse and have to untangle the wire to get it back just where you like it.

A wireless mouse uses a laser instead of a ball on the bottom .  What do they look like?  Look at   the mouse you use now and cut the wire off of it really close to the mouse body.  That’s it, now you have a wireless mouse…NO! STOP! Not really, but that is what one looks like.

They work just as well as a wired mouse, are much easier to keep straight and fit into your backpack for traveling with your notebook.  They have a little USB bar maybe 1.5″ long that plugs into your computer which is how they communicate.

There are two slight drawbacks to the unwired mouse.  First is that they will not work on a glass top.  Before someone out there writes me, yes I know that they do make a type of blue-laser mouse that works on glass.  However, I have a friend who bought one.  He says that it does work, but it does not work as well as advertised.  Also it cost about 3 times as much.

The second little problem is that they use batteries for power.  I have two different brands, a no name that uses two-AA batteries and one from Microsoft that uses one-AA battery.  The one that I use at work five days a week, probably nine hours a day, lasts for approximately six months before needing a new battery.  The other, I would guess even longer.

Now you are asking, “OK, Ron how much?”  You can get the Microsoft mouse for less than $20 in the local area.  Try one out.  You will like it.

Tags: computer, Double Click, internet, microsoft, mouse, usb

Thanks to all of you who sent in the kind comments about the year in review columns for 2009(#1 & #2).  It is good to know that you are using them, liked the repeat of specific sites and that you are continuing to enjoy the column on a regular basis.  So, “Thanks!”

Today I wanted to talk about a very interesting free application that I stumbled upon this week and  the website where I found it.  Everything USB is an interesting site that has…well OK, you guessed it, lots of information about USB devices.  USB stands for “universal serial bus” and is the interface (plug) between your computer, most thumb drives/memory sticks and an array of other items that plug into your computer like camera cables, etc. with the little rectangular interface.  Take a look around there and you may find some interesting info.

One of the things that I found and have tried out for a week or so is called, “Predator“.  The Predator site says, “PREDATOR protects your PC with a USB flash drive” which is exactly what it does.

I know you have seen spy movies where they have to plug a device into a computer to unlock  it.  They don’t use the regular username and password we actually use.  Be aware that the majority of movies spotlighting computer use show them doing things computers in the real world don’t do at all.

With Predator installed on your computer you have entered the movie zone.  Once Predator is installed, you just plug in your thumb drive and get almost immediate access to your computer.  When you walk away from your computer just pull the stick out and drop it in your pocket.  Once, your USB device is out of the computer your monitor goes black and locks.

When you come back to your computer, plug in your device and it unlocks for you to use.

This program also requires you to set a Predator password just in case you lose your drive and can’t get into the computer.  If that is the case you simply press the enter key three times and it asks for the password.  You get three tries to enter the correct one.  If you fail it will lock down for 5 minutes and you won’t be able to try again during that time.  Neat little security trick if your friends at work try to get into your computer.

An interesting Predator feature is that it creates a log which you can read.  If anyone tries to log into your computer while you are gone it tells you what they tried and how it failed.  For instance, when you get back and check the log you could see if someone tried to get into your system with the wrong password, etc.  Check the site’s link above for more details.

Is this better than a username and password?  Nope, but it sure is cool.

Tags: add-on, computer, Double Click, doyle, internet, newspaper column, programs, Ron Doyle, thumb, thumb drive, Transferring Files, usb, USB drive, yego

This is the first Double Click column of 2010!  It is hard for me to believe but this is the beginning of the ninth year I have had the honor and pleasure of writing Double Click for all of my readers.  I am happy to continue as long as you like.  Please shoot me an email occasionally to let me know!  As usual…for my first column of the year and at the request of many emails I received, we will look at all of the Internet sites I mentioned last year.  So sit back and get your fingers ready.  By-the-way, if you are a clicker you can go to the DoubleClicks.info site and read the column the day it is published in the paper and actually click the links.

Here they are in their order of their appearance with short descriptions if needed.

• Open Office, a good free Microsoft Office substitute.
• Windows Live Mail, Microsoft’s free online email application.
• Thunderbird, another free email application.
• Avast!, a free antivirus and anti-spyware program.
• Windows Defender, Microsoft’s free application to protect your computer against pop-ups, slow performance, and security threats.
• Spyware Blaster, another app to protect against spyware, adware, browser hijackers, etc.
• Advanced System Care 3, free program used to maintain ands keep your computer running smoothly.  Note: some readers reported issues with this although it has worked well for me.
• Cuil.com, GoodSearch.com, Yahoo.com, Google.com, Live.com (now Bing.com) & Melzoo.com, various search engines (you know my favorite if you have read the column much).
• MySpace.com, Facebook.com & Twitter.com, three of the most popular social networks (twitter.com/rondoyle is the one that I use).
• Microsoft.com, the name says it all.
• Google Toolbar, the best of many browser toolbars, others mentioned; Alexa, AOL, Ask, Dictionary.com, Dogpile, eBay, MSN, Yahoo and Groowe).
• Google Desktop Search, Google application which enables you to very quickly and accurately search your local computer.
• TrueCrypt, application that allows you to encrypt your files for security purposes.
• Wallpaper Changer, allows you to change your desktop background at a specified interval. If you have Windows 7 you no longer need this.
• OnlineConversion.com, converts between most any type of measurements.
• Carbonite.com, Mesh.com & SkyDrive, cloud file storage; last two are owned by MS and are also free.
• Netflix & Blockbuster, DVD and digital movie rental sites.
• PayPal, eBay, iTunes , online payment and purchase sites.
• Hallmark & Dayspring, online e-card companies.
• Hamachi, a free hosted Virtual Private Network service that can securely connect computers on a network.

Next week we will visit part 2 of last year’s links.

Tags: 2009, google, internet, iPod, last year, microsoft, new computer, newspaper column, Ron Doyle, twitter, Urban Legend

I am repeatedly asked by some of my readers why I don’t write about games.  Well, there are a couple of reasons why I choose not to.

First, I don’t have a lot of time for gaming.  Before kids I used to play a lot of games.  Now that my kids are grown, and on their own it seems that life has taken precedence over that excuse.  Next, I refuse to purchase the latest and greatest expensive game consoles.  Yes, you can also read into that making a living and paying bills.  The last PC game I purchased years ago was “Morrowind” which was and still is a very good game.  Finally, I have found that the large majority of free games are of poor quality – simple as that.

Now enter Josh, one of my friends and coworkers, who introduced me to “Evony” (evony.com).  This is an online game whose slogan is “Evony-Free forever” and the free part is just that, free which conquers one of my excuses.

You may have seen “Evony” advertised with scantily clad women as shown on the first page of the site.  I have to tell you that if you avoided it due to that there are no women displayed at all in the game; other than their sometimes, not so exquisite faces.  I figure that the developers use that moniker to attract the young game playing men who have the time to invest.

This very well designed game is an enjoyable way to use some of your online time.  Basically you start by building your own town in an extremely large ancient world.  Of course, in most games of this genre you have quests that you must perform to make your towns and your game lord more powerful.  These quests start with getting imaginary people to come to your town and dwell by building cottages they virtually inhabit.  You have to adjust your taxes (yes, like life) to make your towns attractive.  You must create farms, sawmills, quarries and iron mines to give your people jobs and then use the yielding food, lumber, stone and iron to build your towns.

It takes the previously mentioned building materials, in sometimes tremendous amounts, and time to build your little towns into major ones to be reckoned with.  And time it does take, from less than a minute to build your first level one cottage to slightly over an hour to build that same cottage to a level eight.  But there are plenty of other things to be working on in the intervening time.  You may also log off of the game and it continues to grow in real time.

You probably guessed it too but what other things do these ancient worlds hold in store for you?  There is the banding together as friends in alliances to thwart evil in the land.  As you play you will be scouted by other, sometimes not so friendly, players who want to take over your kingdom.  They may then attack your towns.  Sometimes you will wipe out the invading forces and other times…well, you know.

If you decide to become a member of this community look me up, Elyod (pretty original name huh?) in Upper Lorraine at http://39.evony.com.  Before you know it you can join an alliance like mine, (7Seas) and have your online friends give you tips and help you battle the evils of the age.

Tags: Double Click, internet, Ron Doyle

Last week I wrote about “Google Chrome” and mentioned a couple of its better options.  “Google Chrome” is a good browser; however, at this point on the internet timeline I like another browser better.  “Better” used here is “as in my opinion”, so you are certainly welcomed to disagree.  Due to the huge number of emails about my favorite browser I will write this week about Firefox.  From the Firefox URL of mozilla.com, you can probably figure that FF is somehow related to Mozilla.  A very quick/short history of the browser starts in the 1990s as Netscape Communicator, later becoming Mozilla which is now Firefox.  That history leaves out a lot of the details but if you are really interested just Google for “history of Firefox” and you will find more than you care to know.

Why do I like Firefox more than other browsers?  Well, I can’t really put it in words but basically, for me, it is due to the “add-ons” available for Firefox.  You can make it a slim, fast running browser as it is downloaded from the URL above.  But also you can add add-ons which give it other abilities beyond those that come with it.  Be careful.  If you add too many add-ons it has been my experience that the browser can slow down significantly, especially when opening.

Add-ons are easy to find, download, install and use.  Every time I see something on the internet about Firefox it always includes the author’s favorite add-ons for their preferred browser, so that is where I will head today.  My “have to have” add-ons for Firefox are:

KEYSCRAMBLER:  When you type on your keyboard, the signals from the keys travel along a path in the operating system before it hits your browser. Keyloggers (the bad guys) are in this path and monitor, record and then send these keystrokes to the criminals who then use your secret data.  KeyScrambler stops keyloggers by encrypting your keystrokes before they get to this path. Keyloggers can only record the encrypted keys, which are completely impossible to read at that level.

IE TAB:  Sometimes web sites/pages are written to only use Internet Explorer.  The only one I have issues with is Microsoft’s “Outlook Web Access” which allows Outlook email to be used on the internet, usually by companies.  If I open it in FF they are jumbled and disordered but if I open them using the IE Tab in FF, the Outlook Web screens are displayed properly.

GOOGLE TOOLBAR:  This is the Google Toolbar that is available for most all browsers but this version is for FF.  It really ties your browser into all of your Google related resources on the web.

TABLOC:  This add-on obviously deals with tabs in FF.  It has many features but the one that I appreciate most is being able to double-click a tab and it locks.  Once a tab is locked when you click any link on that locked page a new tab will open.  That way it is much easier to go back to the tab that you started on before clicking away from it.

These are just a few of the add-ons that I like in Firefox.  Shoot me an email this week and let me know what you like about Firefox and its abundance of add-ons.

Tags: add-on, addons, computer, Double Click, doyle, FF, Firefox, google, internet, Ron Doyle

“A well known telephone scam is now being used on cellular telephones.”

“If you receive a phone call on your mobile from any person saying that he or she is a company engineer, or telling that they’re checking your mobile line, and you have to press 90#.”

“End this call immediately without pressing any numbers. There is a fraud company using a device that once you press 90# they can access your “SIM” card and make calls at your expense.”

“Forward this message to as many friends as you can to stop it.”

AND

“If you are ever forced to withdraw monies from an ATM machine, you can notify the police by entering your PIN # in reverse order. The machine will still give you the monies you requested, but unknown to the robber, etc, the police will be immediately dispatched to help you.”

OK, I’ve had enough from some of my well meaning readers and one or two relatives in particular.  Please STOP sending me warnings like these.  They are hardly ever true and I have written about ones similar to the above two before, but many people just don’t get it.

The two above are resurfacing from a couple of years ago.  And they, like all other crazy warnings are false. At least these two are based on pieces of truth.

The 90# was related to something that could have possibly happened in the past, but no longer.  In the past some commercial phone systems only required you to dial “9″ for an outside line, there is a very slight possibility that this could have led to something but no longer.  Also home phones and cells phones can not be affected by this so don’t forward this message to anyone. 

The Reverse PIN trick was explored by Joseph Zingher in 1994 or 1998 (I’m not sure this is true since I have found multiple references to him that disagree on his employment and dates).  He thought up the idea although no ATMs have ever used it.  I have read that it would cost too much money and the police may not be able to get to the scenes quickly enough.  In addition, under pressure, you may not be capable of remembering your PIN backward.  Consider also those pesky palindromic numbers like 2992 or 1221 or even 5555?

Just Google a few words from these warnings and find out BEFORE you send them to others that they are fakes.  For one of the above I just pasted “you have to press 90#” into Google.com and in a second found that it was an obvious Urban Legend.  Don’t waste your friends’ and relatives’ time.

Oh, by-the-way, have you heard that there is someone online who wishes to meet you and is lonely tonight…give it up please!

Tags: computer, computer help, doyle, internet, newspaper column, Ron Doyle, Urban Legend