F. Y. I.
On this page I hope to provide you with some helpful information: something that you might not have realized.
Topics:
In Memoriam
In November, 2001 a long time friend of mine passed away. Among other
things, she was an independent writer at a number of online publications. The
main one was Women's Village, where she was a Contributing Editor, and
they have had a page with a link to a memorial they wrote about her, as well
as links to the last articles she wrote for them. You can read about Deborah
Prussel and her articles at
Women's Village. You may also search the web for her name, she
is the only Deborah Prussel on it.
Orianna Fallaci, a famed Italian journalist, interviewer, and author, has
written a powerful essay that condemns Europe (and the world) for how they
are treating Israel. The English translation could be titled "I Find It
Shameful". It is well worth a read by everyone. The main point about her
writing this, for me, is that she was a liberal who favored the Palestinian
cause; but at least after 9/11, she has realized what the Islamic world is
attempting to do. I have found the unofficial English translation at many
web sites. Rather than repeat it here, I have provided a link to one
of these pages:
I Find It
Shameful. You can get a bio here of Orianna Fallaci.
Everyone in the nation can now get free credit reports once a year. There
are 3 ways that you can order them: online, phone, and mail. If you do it
online, your report is supplied online. You have to print it for a hard
copy. If you order by mail, you apparently need a form that you get online.
By phone, you request it from an automated service, no human, but you'll get
it in the mail.
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I Find It Shameful
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Free Credit Reports
The web site is at
Annual Credit
Report
The phone number is 1-877-322-8228.
By mail:
Annual Credit Report Request Service
P.O. Box 105281
Atlanta, GA 30348-5281
The web site provides you with the following information:
You are entitled to receive one free credit file disclosure every 12 months
from each of the nationwide consumer credit reporting companies through the
Central Source. It is entirely your choice whether you order all three credit
file disclosures at the same time or order one now and others later.
The advantage of ordering all three at the same time is that you can
compare them. (However, you will not be eligible for another free credit
file disclosure from the Central Source for 12 months.) On the other hand,
the advantage of ordering one now and others later (for example,
one credit file disclosure every four months) is that you can keep
track of any changes or new information that may appear on your credit
file disclosure. Remember, you are entitled to receive one free credit
file disclosure through the Central Source every 12 months from each of
the nationwide consumer credit reporting companies – Equifax, Experian
and TransUnion – so if you order from only one company today you can
still order from the other two companies at a later date.
Do NOT use another site for your free credit report. If you read other sites
carefully, even though they might use the word 'free', they are NOT.
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Opt Out
These credit bureaus also sell your name to banks, etc. so thay can mail
you advertising. To have your name and address removed from all
mailing lists offered by the main consumer credit reporting agencies: Trans
Union, Experian, Equifax and Innovis, call 888-5OPTOUT (888-567-8688).
This is not about my privacy policies, as I do not gather any personal
information. I am sure you have been swamped with privacy statements from
every credit card and financial institution you deal with. Probably from
some that you didn't even remember.
They tell you how they share
everything they know about you, and how you can tell them to
stop sharing some of it. All the information has already been shared, so I
don't know how much good it does to opt-out. It will also take several
months for them to stop sharing, even if you ask them to opt-out.
But
from what can you opt-out? Not all are the same. Some don't even let you
opt out of anything. Most do not let you opt out of sharing data about you
with their affiliates. What they let you opt out of is the sharing of non-public information with unaffiliated third parties. Some even state that you can
opt-out of sharing information except for that which is permitted by law. If
not permitted by law, why are they sharing it? Some do let you opt out of
information sharing within their family of companies.
But they all
should be like The Vanguard Group. They only share with third parties
information needed to provide a service you have requested. Within the
company, information is shared to let you know of other services they offer.
Online Travel Arrangements
1. Almost anything that starts with or says 'ad' or 'ads' or
'advertising' or in some other way says 'ad'. This means that 'adweb'
is to be deleted, but 'adobe' is OK.
This isn't hard to do since programs that
let you delete cookies should display them alphabetically. If not, try
another one. Anti-spyware programs will find these if you use Internet
Explorer. There are many, many more, but these are the ones that I get.
If you want to see a full list then visit
Spyware Information Center .
If you want a program to see and delete the cookies in Internet Explorer,
then see my Tools page.
Quote
If the Arabs laid down their weapons today,
there would be no more violence.
If the Israelis laid down their weapons today,
there would be no more Israel.
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Twelve Tribes of Israel
The 12 tribes of Israel is really a puzzlement. It seems that most
knowledgeable people, including rabbis, probably are a little confused,
without knowing it. Well, the Bible does refer to the 12 tribes. The common
statement is that the 12 sons of Jacob are the 12 tribes. But lets look a
little deeper.
Jacob's 12 sons are Reuben, Simeon, Levi, Judah,
Issachar, Zebulun, Dan, Naphtali, Gad, Asher, Joseph, and Benjamin. But
there are three ways in which we can define what the 12 tribes are: the
sons, the families or clans of these sons, and the territories that each
family obtained. Now comes the confusion. What is the definition of the
tribes? All 3 are used.
Joseph's children Manasseh and Ephraim, each got a territory for their clan.
That makes 13 territories and 13 clans,
since Joseph's family became 2 families and territories.
Levi's family did not get a territory. That may bring it back to 12
(which is how some define it), except,
that the Levites were spread out over all the
territories as the priestly clan. Thus, even though there was no territory
for the Levi clan, they were still a clan.
In conclusion, we have 12
sons, 12 territories, and 13 clans. How many tribes? Are we going to say
the Levites are not a tribe? Actually, they were not included in the census
since because of their sacred duties.
One further note, the Dan tribe moved from their territory to an area much
further to the north. Maps show their original area, but they later lived
in a different area. Do we now have 13 territories (2 for Dan)?
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New Computer
July 25, 2006
Well, I've gone and done it. I've been a hold out. I've gotten along with
Windows 95a since 1996. It was a great system, a Gateway P-166 with 2.1 GB.
It still works fine. I've only had to replace the floppy drive and the
CD drive. I also had upgraded its RAM to the max 128KB. I'm told that when
I found software to be able to burn CD (music and data) on a W95a system,
that was not common. There seems to be only one type of printer left that
handles a parallel port.
Yeah, I've caved in. I bought an upgraded Dell E510: 1 GB RAM, 250 GB disk.
I called one night and it was shipped by noon the next day. I then
ordered DSL. We'll see how this goes.
Going to DSL, I'm also switching ISPs. My old ISP charges too much for DSL,
and they just dropped their 800 number. All those newsletters and sites I'm
registered at, where I'll have to change my e-mail address. I have no idea
who they all are. Then, of course, is notifying those people who e-mail me.
At least I'll have a few weeks left on my last quarterly payment at my
old ISP. Plus, I'll have to move this website, and set up automatic
forwarding for the remainder of my time. Hopefully, Google will find me
soon. And I try to spend very little time at the computer. That's what
will make it even harder.
Why have I waited so long, skipping W98 and all those years of XP? If it
ain't broke, why fix it. I always found ways around things to do what I
want. That in itself is a challenge. I don't like all these constant
changes forcing people to keep buying, so I just refuse to go along with it.
I don't want to start over so often learning a new system; it slows down
my productivity. And then, viruses go after XP, not W95.
Why have I finally given in, when I may have even a few more years on my
old computer? First, I want to have a good computer to take my data and
programs from, even though I have backup. I prefer being able to use a
proven and relatively stable XP rather than getting caught with an unproven
and unstable Vista. Some things might interest me that I can't do on my
W95 over dial-up, so I might as well take advantage of them. I've listened
to podcasts, but it's a tough thing to do over dial-up. Some websites that
I make strong use of are changing in ways that I might be locked out
without current software. I've been able to handle it so far, but maybe
not soon. I have liked the challenge to show I can still do it on W95.
July 26, 2006
I ordered DSL from Verizon. The information on their website tells you that
you need DSL filters on your phone lines that are included in a kit they
send, and they show how to install them. It says that you need them for wall
mount phones also, but that you have to purchase them at your local computer
store. Elsewhere, Verizon says that you can't go out and buy the DSL
filters, they won't be compatible, use theirs. So, I call a Verizon DSL rep,
who says she will send me the wall mount filter. This is great. A few
minutes later, less than 24 hours after I placed my order, the installation
kit arrives. It includes the wall mount filter. I guess they have to update
their website. I understand they used to require you to get it on your own.
I called to cancel the sending of the new filter, 20 minutes after the order
was placed, and was told it was too late to stop the order. Boy, are they
fast, too.
If you get DSL and you have a meter that is read over your phone lines, you
need to take care of that. It is mentioned in the details on the Verizon
site. The Verizon rep I spoke to knew nothing about it. I called my water
utility, who reads the meters by phone. They said they'd send someone to
replace the equipment they use. That will be done tomorrow. Fast.
July 27, 2006
The PC arrived today, via UPS. It took about 40 minutes to make room, slowly
unpack, and put it together. It took about 20 more minutes to initialize
the system, deleting some of the crap that I don't want (AOL and Trial
programs), initialize the internet interface, and get online. I found that
even though the system did not include security software, they had put
McAfee on the system anyway. I guess I can use it until I get up-to-date
with the free security programs that I use. I got 15 months, I guess, if
McAfee is not too annoying.
Now comes the long process of installing the software I will be using from
my old PC, going through the new software, and seeing how new versions of
programs handle the data files from old versions, considering that the old
versions are 10 years old.
A week later I got my notice that Verizon has my DSL line ready. First
thing I notice is that the speed of my 56Kbps dial-up connection is up to
50Kbps. Thus, preparing my line for DSL has also improved it. Anyway, it
was not time to connect the DSL modem and run the installation CD. Running
the installation CD did not go well. I got script errors (on a flash.Play
statement), and eventually the instructions stopped on an incomplete screen.
This was still in the initial instructions to install the DSL filters. What
I needed was the ending part, to make system changes, install any software
and program the modem. I saw that if I said I already had DSL, any early
question, then the installation procedure would skip to the final part,
which is what I wanted, almost. I still would have to have an account
setup. It seemed the only way to set up the account was with the CD. I
took the CD to another PC (even without DSL on it), and stepped through it
until I set up the account. Then I went back to my PC, could enter my
account ID and password, and I was on my way. Now it worked smoothly.
As a backup, I had chatted with a Verizon rep online, who gave me the manual
steps to program my DSL modem, just in case the CD did not work. I didn't
need them, but it was good to have.
Well, I've had my system now for almost a year. Most things went pretty
smooth after the initial traumas. Six months later I had a problem with my
mouse. It would double click when I only single clicked. I contacted Dell
and they sent me a new mouse. Then, with 3 weeks left on my one year
warranty, it seemed that the system died. I had turned the power off, and a
little later when I turned it on, all I got was the power light blinking. I
contacted Dell, and they had me disconnect all the peripherals and reboot.
The system came to life. After a number of tests that I had made, turning
the power off for 15 minutes or more, and removing or adding USB cables, I
discovered that it was my speakers. These speakers, Dell A225, use the USB
port for power. Apparently, in an unusual situation, they were drawing too
much power. This put the PC into standby rather than coming up. If there
speakers were connected with only the mouse and keyboard, it still went into
standby, but pushing the power button again would bring it up. With more
USB devices attached, it stayed in standby. After Dell verified my claims
by taking me through various tests over the phone, they said they'd send me
new speakers. It only took about 30 minutes on the first call, and an hour
on the second call. There were only seconds of wait time before a
technician answered. I had e-mailed them the results of my tests between
calls so that they would know my conclusion and how I came to it.
A little bit about the method I used to determine it was the speakers. The
speakers were the main culprit because I was told they draw the most power of
the devices attached: mouse, keyboard, printer, and floppy drive. The
determining tests for me were that I connected the mouse and keyboard and the
system came up. I added the speakers, and it caused a partial problem: it
went into standby (power light blinking green), but came up when I pushed
power button again. I then tried all devices except speakers and it came up.
Then, added the speakers, and it would not come up (just stayed in standby).
The new speakers arrived in 2 days, but unfortunately, they did not change
anything. It's a minor problem, since I rarely shut down the system. And if
I do, all I have to do is disconnect the cable, which I now connect in
the front of PC, before turning the power back on.
Well, things soon deteriorated further. A few days later it took 10 to 15
seconds of holding the power button to start the PC. Otherwise the button
would just blink amber. This means there is power, but power is not on.
Dell had me disconnecting internal cables and the CMOS battery to see what
happens in order to determine what part is not working properly: power
button, power supply, or motherboard. No conclusion, so they will send a
technician to install all 3 new parts. Ten days left on my warranty. Three
days later the technician called early in morning and scheduled a
time for later in the day. He arrived as scheduled, and it took 45 minutes.
No conclusion as to which part, but we know that power supplies used are not
as good as they used to be, even though you can buy a better one. The
annoyances with this is that the parts are not new, but refurbished, and
there is no additional warranty on the parts.
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Use ActiveX in Opera
Opera is my main browser. Part of its safety is that it does not use
activeX. But that means that many websites can not be handled by Opera.
Now there is a way to do it. But it is complicated to set up. it would
be good if Opera gave you the option with just a checkmark. There
are 2 disadvantages in using activeX in Opera. You don't have the
prompts and controls that are in IE, and it is not automatic: you
have to hit a button as the page is read.
Following are the steps you
need to take, simplified.
1. Install Neptune
2. Install 'View in IE' button
3. Install userscript
4. Test it
Now for some more details:
1. To install Neptune, get it
here
and follow the 5-step instructions on that page.
2. The same page, near the bottom, has a link to get the 'View in IE'
button. After getting the button, you have to access it and put it
somewhere. The page tells you where to find the button. I dragged that
button to the left of the address bar and let it stay there. In my Opera the
tab they say that needs to be enabled is called 'Reuse existing page' and it
was already checked.
3. Then you need a folder to store your userscript. You can try creating a
folder 'userjs' as C:\Program Files\Opera\userjs. Then open a new text
file, and give it a name, like ActiveX.txt. Copy the script from
here
and put it into ActiveX.txt. Rename ActiveX.txt to ActiveX.js.
Follow the rest of the instructions from that page to tell Opera the location
of the folder 'userjs'.
4. The same page then has a link to a page to test what you've done.
The secret to using ActiveX in Opera is to click on the 'View in IE' button
while the page (test page in this case) is opening. With other pages, the
real page may open in a separate Opera page, while the first one shows as
bad. Good luck!
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Cookies
Cookies have a bad reputation. But, mostly, they are good for you. I'm
talking about the cookies on your PC. Browsers have options to challenge
every cookie. I can't imagine anyone using that, except to see how
frequently cookies arrive. To deny all cookies, will kill your ability
to surf, so that's crazy too. Some people wipe out their cookies regularly,
and maybe saving a few of them. It's too much to come up with a list, and
maintain it, of all the cookies I'd keep. Since many cookies are desirable,
and most are meaningless, I even copy them to new versions of my browser, or
to a new system.
But, there are cookies you don't want to keep around.
These are third party cookies. That is, cookies that don't deal directly
with the site you are at, but are from sites that they use; mostly for
advertising purposes. I had set Opera, my browser, to only accept third
party cookies only if they are set to the server itself. Thus, I wouldn't
have cookies on my system that can track me across websites. But, more and
more sites use third party software, that save the cookies under their own
server, in order to let you log onto the site. They are also used by sites,
like Yahoo, when you want to control any of your settings. Thus, it becomes
desirable to accept all cookies. So I go through, occasionally, and delete
some cookies. Which ones? Here is my list:
2. Almost anything that includes the word 'click', like 'fastclick' and
'doubleclick'.
3. Anything that has an IP address in its name. That is,
numbers, rather than just a site name. The IP address can be the whole name,
or added to the name of the site it services. In either case, get rid of
it. If they use an IP address, they are hiding recognition.
4. 2o7 (used with many common sites)
5. abmr
6. apmebf
7. atdmt
8. atwola
9. bfast
10. bravenet
11. casalemedia
12. chtah
13. edge.ru4
14. hitbox
15. revsci
16. tacoda
17. trafficmp
18. tribalfusion
19. zedo
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Response
I received one e-mail from a visitor to my site who said:
'If you were really interested in eradicating terrorism, you would remove the Israeli flag from your website.
Many of us find it offensive flying alongside of the American flag. And , in my opinion, Israelis are the major terrorists
in the world'
Of course he wrote it anonymously, via an anonymous e-mail address,
so that I could not answer directly. So I respond here, coward. If
you love the United States, and are against terrorism, how can you
favor what the Palestinians do in response to being offered their own
state? Palestinians who want peace are afraid of speaking because
they will be killed by the terroristic Palestinians. And of course
the same goes many times over for Islamists around the world. Even
in the US, they want it to be under Sharia rule. As to Israel being
terrorists, you are completely blind as to what is going on. You are
the type who would believe that the US government was behind 9/11 and
not some Muslims. Israel is no different than the US, except that it
lives in the middle of an Arab world that denies them the right to
exist. Most of these Arab countries don't allow any other religion
to be practiced in their countries and don't want them in the Middle
East. Israel does not go around attacking other countries, they only
try to stop others from attacking them. For you, and your ilk,
Israel either needs to disappear or they need to let others kill
them. Israel was attacked by the Arabs before 1967 because they
exist in the Middle East. It is not because of their controlling
land they won from Jordan and Syria in 1967. They took no land from
the Palestinians, because the Palestinians did not control the land.
They may have lived on the land, but it was never theirs.
And while I am here, let me respond to this talk of peace talks. How
can Israel have peace talks with the Palestinians. The
majority of Palestinians don't want peace with Israel. They teach
their children to kill Jewish Israelis. They cheer when Jewish
Israelis are killed. They want to control the entire area and kill
or expel the Jews. There are no Palestinian leaders who want peace.
Peace talks is only one means in their battle to take the land from
the Jews. They were given Gaza, and they use it as a means to
attack Israel, rather than try to make a country. They make up history
and killings by the Jews to try to get the world on their side. Look
at the Jenin hoax, look at the Al Dura hoax. I'm sure there are some
good Palestinians, some who want peace, some who are fed up with their
leadership, but they are a small minority, and they do not lead the
people. All the westerners who back peace talks are blind to the
real situation. They ignore it, hoping that an agreement would
change the Palestinian desire, rather than increase their hope to
destroy Israel.
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Security Data Breaches
Security breaches are constantly occurring. Companies, schools,
and governments are so lax in securing our data. A lot happens
because they keep data on laptops, which get stolen. Anything secure
should never be put on a laptop by such entities.
This website provides a chronology of all these
data breaches. It's scary to know how much this
happens.
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Publisher Could Not Be Verified
After IE 7 was installed on my computer I started receiving a warning
'Publisher Could Not Be Verified' when trying to run a program that was on
another system on a local network - intranet. I did some research on the
internet and came up with several ways that were supposed to fix the
problem, but did not.
One was to use a Windows supplied program gpedit.msc. This is not on my PC,
which runs Windows XP SP2. This might work, but I could
not use it. I believe it might be for XP Pro, not XP Home.
Another method was in Internet Explorer go to Tools - Internet Options -
Security - Local Intranet zone. Then click the sites button and then
Advanced. Add the name of the server where the application is located,
something like \\server. I tried this, but it did not work, even though I
must admit, I may have entered the wrong name or it may have been on the
wrong computer.
Another popular answer was in Internet Explorer to go to Tools -
Internet Options - Advanced. Scroll down to Browsing and to have 'Disable
Script Debugging' checked and 'Display a script notification about every
script error' unchecked. Everyone who got this answer already had the
settings this way - it's the default. Same for me.
Solution I Found: In Internet Explorer go to Tools - Internet Options
- Security - Local Intranet zone. Then click the sites button. You will
find 'Automatically detect intranet network' checked. Uncheck it.
You may wonder why it involves Internet Explorer if you don't use it. A
number of programs, etc. use software associated with Internet Explorer to
handle security.
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Opera Browser
I love the way Opera works, which is why I continue to use it.
The main problem I have with it is how some sites do not work with
Opera. For those sites I go to Firefox first. Opera people say it
is because people don't program their websites according to the
standards. The main purpose of a browser is to show you websites,
it's not a software compiler which should stick to the rules. Of
course there are the really bad designers who don't even allow Opera,
but Opera has settings to bypass those, usually. So here are the
websites that I've had problems with when using Opera. I'll list them
as I run across them. I'm leaving out ones that don't display
properly. These are ones that don't work because Opera cannot handle
the code, usually javascript. If some Opera guru has some comment
about them, I'd love to hear from them.
Jewish Museum :
The menus near top of page don't show the submenus, so can't
enter site.
B101 Radio : This site has
a feature that allows you to listen to their radio station, but in
Opera it says "page not found".
Sirius : Won't start the
music.
Capital One : This used to
work, but now cannot login with Opera.
Risk Grades : Seems to let
you log in, but really doesn't; it does not have your personal info,
so it does not know you.
Walgreens : Using their photo
order is fine until hit SUBMIT, then nothing happens, always asks for
a new SUBMIT. But, I must admit that when I tried this I did
not include a phone number, since it seemed to be just an
option. Then when I used Firefox I included it, so may be
they require it.
Comcast : When trying to
pay bill, cannot click on link to sign in.
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