Internet tips

Keep tabs on what Google knows about you

Google is listening.

As Marguerite Reardon and Tom Krazit reported on May 14 in CNET's Signal Strength blog, the search giant has swept up wireless-network addresses, along with other data its Street View vehicles have been collecting on their unprecedented world tour.

Google or some other company may have already plotted the location of your home or office wireless network, but you can make it more difficult for the next nosy megacorporation--or a neighbor or passing stranger--to discover your hot spot by disabling its Service Set Identifier (SSID).

By default, wireless access points transmit their presence to let wireless … Read more

The Web's best desktop-app replacements

Microsoft Office has been and will continue to be the most popular productivity software in the world. That's not likely to change with the release of Office 2010.

But the fact is, much of the work we do in Word, Excel, PowerPoint, and other Office apps can be accomplished perfectly well using the basic features available in the Web-based equivalents to these and other desktop apps. Here's a quick look at three such services, all of which offer both free and paid versions. I'll also describe a bunch of specialty sites that can help smooth out your … Read more

Protect your privacy online and elsewhere

Facebook is taking a lot of heat — again — about failing to protect the privacy of its users. (See Caroline McCarthy's The Social blog for a recap of the service's most-recent security gaffes.)

No matter what safety precautions Facebook and other social networks and Web sites take, eventually somebody's private data will become public, whether due to human error or a successful hack attack. Either way, your Web activities and the personal information you post to an online profile may be viewed by strangers, regardless of the account's security settings.

There are ways to minimize the risk … Read more

Add-ons make Firefox a social-network powerhouse

It's easy to fall behind the activities of your social-network connections. Before you know it, you've got dozens or even hundreds of your friends' status updates, new photo albums, and site and video suggestions stacked in your network home page. Yoono, the Facebook Toolbar, and TwitterBar are three Firefox add-ons that keep you a little bit closer to the people in your online social circles.

Integrate your social networks with Yoono If you find yourself jumping between Facebook, Twitter, MySpace, LinkedIn, and other social networks, you can view all your network alerts in a single window by adding … Read more

Facebook offers security tips for teens, parents

Facebook brings families closer together. But as with any medium, Facebook is sometimes abused, occasionally to damaging effect.

The Facebook Privacy Settings options let you control who has access to your personal information. The page includes a Block List that prevents contact with the people and e-mail addresses you specify without their knowledge.

A welcome addition to Facebook's security arsenal is the new Safety Center that provides information specifically for children, parents, educators, and law enforcement. The Safety for Teens section addresses bullying, public bad-mouthing, and how to report abuse. (If you'd like to remove an unflattering photo … Read more

NCAA Basketball Tournament brackets you can share

The U.S. will likely experience a slight dip in productivity over the next three weeks as the attention of many workers turns to the climax of the college basketball season: the NCAA Basketball Tournament. For many people, the annual NCAA basketball pool is as much an office tradition as the summer picnic and holiday party.

Google Docs makes it simple to create a tournament-bracket spreadsheet with a form that uses drop-down lists and text boxes to record people's game picks. (You can also print the spreadsheet for making your game selections the old-fashioned way.) All picks are displayed … Read more

Three online contact managers compared

In a perfect world, the addresses, telephone numbers, and other contact information of your family members, friends, and associates would be entered in your various address books automatically. I'll settle for an online service that lets me transfer the information from my phone and e-mail contact lists simply and accurately.

Last July, I described how to sync calendars and contacts between an iPhone, Gmail, and Outlook. The contact info on my iPhone is always the more current than my Gmail and Outlook contacts, but I access the three contact lists about equally.

Neither the iPhone nor Gmail contacts can … Read more

Fixes for five common Firefox problems

For several months, the Vista PC in my home office refused to upgrade Firefox. The first few times this happened, I uninstalled the old version of Firefox and reinstalled the new version. (Instructions for installing Firefox are provided on the Firefox support site.)

Though this allowed me to upgrade the browser, the uninstall/reinstall process took far too long. The Firefox error message instructed me to "make sure there are no other copies of Firefox running on your computer, and then restart Firefox to try again." I closed Firefox, opened the Windows Task Manager Processes list (press Ctrl+Alt+Delete, choose Start Task Manager, and click the Processes tab).

Sure enough, there was an entry for "firefox.exe *32," even though there were no Firefox windows open on the system. I selected the rogue entry and chose End Process to close it. With the phantom process gone, Firefox updated without a hitch.

Here are solutions to four other common Firefox glitches.

Browse safely with Internet Explorer

Unless you're brand new-to using computers, the recent news that an Internet Explorer hole was exploited in China-based attacks against Google Gmail users and dozens of high-tech companies was no surprise.

Lately, malicious software has increasingly targeted holes in media players such as Adobe's Flash Player and Reader PDF software, so the Chinese attack on IE is in some ways a throwback. Many tech pundits have responded by recommending against using Internet Explorer at all. The free and easy availability of alternative browsers such as Firefox, Opera, Apple's Safari, and Google's own Chrome would appear to … Read more

Fast fixes for two common copy-and-paste failures

Like many people who work for a company that's located hundreds of miles from their home, I rely on remote-access programs, specifically the Remote Desktop Connection utility built into Windows. I recently encountered a relatively common bug in the program: in the midst of a remote session, I lost the ability to copy and paste.

Closing and restarting the remote connection fixed the problem temporarily. A more permanent solution is described by Pinal Dave on the SQL Authority blog. Press Ctrl-Alt-Delete and click Start Task Manager. Choose the Processes tab, select rdpclip.exe, click End Process, and close Task … Read more