TELEKINESIS

To anyone that believes in Telekinesis...

Please feel free to raise my hand!

LOL

Instant Messaging Is Not A Private Matter

Instant Messengers Can Be Seen

And your instant messages might be a source of spam and/or phishing attempts. This is now a fact since Facebook is now using the chat feature to target advertisements at the chat users, if you haven't had an add through your messenger yet (I have) and you use your messenger quite a bit, some keywords might trigger an add for you, Makeuseof has an informative article on this here.

I like my Pidgin Instant Messenger and would sooner rely on it than other means of communication on line. In light of this new information I am making moves to encrypt the accounts I use in Pidgin by running the plugin "Off-The-Record". I have jumped in a little deeper now and have searched for a more secure chat method and found this wonderful cross-platform software called Retroshare.

Retroshare is a Open Source cross-platform, Friend-2-Friend and secure decentralised communication platform.
It lets you to securely chat and share files with your friends and family, using a web-of-trust to authenticate peers and OpenSSL to encrypt all communication.
RetroShare provides filesharing, chat, messages, forums and channels.

This Open Source software is available for Windows, Mac, and many of the most favoured Linux distributions. Although I cannot speak for the Windows side of the Platform, by the looks of what I can see on my Ubuntu 14.04 machines the team at RetroShare has done a great job. I have two of my three computers set up with RetroShare and will soon have it on my Netbook as well for when I am on-the-road, the ability to install it on each computer and have multiple locations with one ID is a great feature.

CUDOS! to the RetroShare Team!

XBMC Now Running On Any Platform

 

Over the past few years I have chosen this above all others for my Media-center PC and have never had any major issues.It has an easy to understand interface and set-up across the LAN is a snap, a perfect front-end to a Plex media server.

I just recently purchased a New VisualLand 10" tablet for my Daughter

 and have installed the Android version of XBMC on the device.... I was pleased with the result and it functions beyond my expectations.

Excellent Job from the XBMC Team!

Is DRM A Threat To Computer Security?

An eye opening article and must read for those concerned about security on their machines. Read it at MAKEUSEOF.

Another Convert

Yet another convert to the Linux community via The Setup Artist

Another of my friends has opted to move away from Windows and embrace the Linux community via a fresh setup of Ubuntu 14.04LTS Trusty Tahr.  I would like to point out to those still finding a bit of friction using Firefox (which is the default browser in Ubuntu) for online games that refuse to work with its version of Flash. Install Chromium Web Browser from the software center and check the add-on for Pepper Flash (your Software Center window should look like this)

 once installed using Chromium for the online games (ie. Facebook, Google Apps, PopCap, Pogo, etc) offers flawless integration.

In the aftermath of this convert I have sparked interest from two others that would like to try out a dual boot setup.  Maybe there are a couple more converts on the near horizon.

MultiSystem... My Most Useful Tool

PendriveLinux Mutisystem

I have to share my knowledge of this simple yet extremely useful utility. It is perhaps my most used and "can't live without" tool in my arsenal of computer repair / setup.

The first thing you need is a USB flash drive of a decent size... these days the pricing is getting much better and I opted for a previous review item, Corsair Voyager LS 132GB

The capacity of this drive has plenty of room for the task at hand, and at present I have 20 separate Operating Systems to choose from when I boot.

Although at the time booting from USB3.0 is not supported on most equipment it most certainly speeds the process of installing the live image to the drive, well worth the additional cost of the USB3.0 feature.

This allows me to keep my most widely used OS's and tools in one location and even allows me to keep them up to date.

With Dr.Web being one of the OS's installed it allows for easy removal of virus's from Windows PC's... Its a good thing Linux is around to Fix Windows!