BinaryWolf

Blogger Firefox Toolbar

The Blogger Firefox Toolbar is slightly different than the standard Firefox toolbar. It has all of the features and functions of the standard Toolbar, but it adds a few blogging components that will make posting and navigating your blog a little easier.

Ping-O-Matic

There are a number of services designed specifically for tracking and connecting blogs. However it would be expensive for all the services to crawl all the blogs in the world all the time. By sending a small ping to each service you let them know you�ve updated so they can come check you out. They get the freshest data possible, you don�t get a thousand robots spidering your site all the time. Everybody wins.

If you bookmark the Ping-O-Matic ping results page you can simply load that directly and have fast pinging of almost a dozen services a single click away.

Gravatar

A gravatar, or globally recognized avatar, is quite simply an 80�80 pixel avatar image that follows you from weblog to weblog appearing beside your name when you comment on gravatar enabled sites. Avatars help identify your posts on web forums, so why not on weblogs?

Think of gravatar.com as a dictionary that associates email addresses and avatar images. When you leave a comment on a weblog and provide your email address, the weblog can use your email address to look up your avatar. Since the dictionary is available to anyone, a single avatar image can represent you across many different weblogs.

Ebay Rethink - Electronics Recycling

The Rethink Initiative brings together industry, government and environmental organizations to offer a fresh perspective and new answers to the challenge of e-waste.

On this site you can find information, tools and solutions that make it easy � and even profitable � to find new users for idle computers and electronics, and responsibly recycle unwanted products.

Locally in San Diego there is the Residential Electronics Recycling Event:

Saturday, February 12, 2005
9 a.m. to 1 p.m.
Solar Turbines Incorporated
Employee Parking Lot
Kearny Mesa Facility
4200 Ruffin Road
San Diego, CA 92123

Appointments are required: Beginning, Tuesday, January 18, 2005, schedule an appointment by calling the Environmental Services Department (ESD) at (858) 694-7000.

They don’t list costs on their Web site, but Computer Recyclers of America (San Diego County) will take your old computer monitor.

QuackTrack

QuackTrack is the self-described world’s largest browsable blog index. Add your blog via BlogShares or contact support@blogshares.com.

Safe Personal Computing

Safe Personal Computing by Bruce Schneier

I am regularly asked what average Internet users can do to ensure their security. My first answer is usually, “Nothing–you’re screwed.”

But that’s not true, and the reality is more complicated. You’re screwed if you do nothing to protect yourself, but there are many things you can do to increase your security on the Internet.

Two years ago, I published a list of PC security recommendations. The idea was to give home users concrete actions they could take to improve security. This is an update of that list: a dozen things you can do to improve your security.

Backups: Back up regularly. Back up to disk, tape or CD-ROM. There’s a lot you can’t defend against; a recent backup will at least let you recover from an attack. Store at least one set of backups off-site (a safe-deposit box is a good place) and at least one set on-site. Remember to destroy old backups. The best way to destroy CD-Rs is to microwave them on high for five seconds. You can also break them in half or run them through better shredders.

Operating systems: If possible, don’t use Microsoft Windows. Buy a Macintosh or use Linux. If you must use Windows, set up Automatic Update so that you automatically receive security patches. And delete the files “command.com” and “cmd.exe.”

Browsing: Don’t use Microsoft Internet Explorer, period. Limit use of cookies and applets to those few sites that provide services you need. Set your browser to regularly delete cookies. Don’t assume a Web site is what it claims to be, unless you’ve typed in the URL yourself. Make sure the address bar shows the exact address, not a near-miss.

Web sites: Secure Sockets Layer (SSL) encryption does not provide any assurance that the vendor is trustworthy or that its database of customer information is secure.

Think before you do business with a Web site. Limit the financial and personal data you send to Web sites–don’t give out information unless you see a value to you. If you don’t want to give out personal information, lie. Opt out of marketing notices. If the Web site gives you the option of not storing your information for later use, take it. Use a credit card for online purchases, not a debit card.

Passwords: You can’t memorize good enough passwords any more, so don’t bother. For high-security Web sites such as banks, create long random passwords and write them down. Guard them as you would your cash: i.e., store them in your wallet, etc.

Never reuse a password for something you care about. (It’s fine to have a single password for low-security sites, such as for newspaper archive access.) Assume that all PINs can be easily broken and plan accordingly.

Never type a password you care about, such as for a bank account, into a non-SSL encrypted page. If your bank makes it possible to do that, complain to them. When they tell you that it is OK, don’t believe them; they’re wrong.

E-mail : Turn off HTML e-mail. Don’t automatically assume that any e-mail is from the “From” address.

Delete spam without reading it. Don’t open messages with file attachments, unless you know what they contain; immediately delete them. Don’t open cartoons, videos and similar “good for a laugh” files forwarded by your well-meaning friends; again, immediately delete them.

Never click links in e-mail unless you’re sure about the e-mail; copy and paste the link into your browser instead. Don’t use Outlook or Outlook Express. If you must use Microsoft Office, enable macro virus protection; in Office 2000, turn the security level to “high” and don’t trust any received files unless you have to. If you’re using Windows, turn off the “hide file extensions for known file types” option; it lets Trojan horses masquerade as other types of files. Uninstall the Windows Scripting Host if you can get along without it. If you can’t, at least change your file associations, so that script files aren’t automatically sent to the Scripting Host if you double-click them.

Antivirus and anti-spyware software : Use it–either a combined program or two separate programs. Download and install the updates, at least weekly and whenever you read about a new virus in the news. Some antivirus products automatically check for updates. Enable that feature and set it to “daily.”

Firewall : Spend $50 for a Network Address Translator firewall device; it’s likely to be good enough in default mode. On your laptop, use personal firewall software. If you can, hide your IP address. There’s no reason to allow any incoming connections from anybody.

PHPlist mailing list manager

PHPlist is a web application that implements a personalised mailing list manager or customer relationship management (CRM) system. It is written in PHP and uses an SQL database for storing the information.

PHPlist is designed to assist you to stay in touch with your audience, without flooding them with information they don’t want. PHPlist is an essential tool for anyone who is serious about creating, capturing and maintaining an offline audience, and will help you increase traffic to your website.

A couple of other free list managers are PHPmailer and the lite version of ListMessenger.