Tech Stuff | Ain't Complicated

Wanted: Boost Mobile Reviews

Here’s this enticing bit of news from Clark Howard:

Boost Mobile offers new unlimited calling/texting/web plan

Most of the Big 4 carriers have plans that hover near $100/month. But on Thursday, Jan. 22, Boost Mobile will roll out a nationwide unlimited calling/texting/web plan with no contracts for just $50/month.

There are, however, some downsides. The cell phones available through Boost are antiquated, according to Clark. And they’re not subsidized, so be sure to look on eBay or Craigslist for a deal on a used one. In addition, Boost operates on the Nextel network, which doesn’t always offer the best call quality.

And here’s some additional plan info from the Boost Mobile site:

Unlimited talk
Unlimited text including multi-media messaging
Unlimited web
Unlimited walkie-talkie
Voicemail, long distance and nationwide network included
No hidden fees, no contracts and no credit checks
No roaming charges
Low rates for international calls and international walkie-talkie

I’m a Verizon user at the end of my (third?) two-year contract.

Do you have experience with Boost Mobile?

Promises

I was acquainting myself with some of what’s new at the White House. Virtually, that is. On their Web site. And I came across this gem:

Well, that seemed kinda tacky and tactless and hardly in keeping with any kind of reconciliation and civility and statesmanship and bipartisanship and postpartisanship and blah, blah, blah. 🙄

So I got curious about what other promises (current or broken) I might turn up there using their search feature. Well, a search for the term promises turned up this:

What’s with that?! That’s not a very helpful search feature. Well, I decided to see if Google could do better:

Maybe the techno gurus who run whitehouse.gov need to use the powered by Google option, if nothing else. 😀

Then I remembered seeing a headline that might explain the faulty search feature on the White House site:

Oh, “it’s all Bush’s fault.”

Well, that’s just how the game is played I guess. Nothing seems to have changed in that regard. 🙂

I know, I know. There are weightier things going on there. But a little low-key levity seems in order. 😆

And if the BDS2-afflicted conspiracy cooks want to use my discovery as proof of less-than-the-promised-transparency…too bad I helped.

Seriously, though, an appeal to President Obama: More magnanimity, please. Sow it, reap it — sounds like a good deal to me, sir.

Possibly the Biggest Virus

Nasty worm wriggles…into your computer?

A nasty worm has wriggled into millions of computers and continues to spread, leaving security experts wondering whether the attack is a harbinger of evil deeds to come.

US software protection firm F-Secure says a computer worm known as “Conficker” or “Downadup” had infected more than nine million computers by Tuesday and was spreading at a rate of one million machines daily.

The malicious software had yet to do any noticeable damage, prompting debate as to whether it is impotent, waiting to detonate, or a test run by cybercriminals intent on profiting from the weakness in the future.

“This is enormous; possibly the biggest virus we have ever seen,” said software security specialist David Perry of Trend Micro.

[…]

Perry urges people to harden passwords by mixing in numbers, punctuation marks, and upper-case letters. Doing so makes it millions of times harder for passwords to be deduced, according to Perry.

OK, it’s time for me to start methodically (or is it methodicly?) changing and hardening more of my passwords…starting the with the one in my browser.

You should, too!

PC Privacy

Police look to hack citizens’ home PCs

Police and state intelligence agencies from several countries may soon be working together to secretly hack into private citizens’ personal computers without their knowledge and without a warrant.

According to a London Times report, the police hacking process, called “remote searching,” enables law enforcement to gather information from e-mails, instant messages and Web browsers, even while hundreds of miles away.

Furthermore, the Times reports, a new edict by the European Union’s council of ministers in Brussels has paved the way for international law enforcement agencies to begin remote searching and sharing the information with each other. According to the Times, the United Kingdom’s Home Office, the nation’s lead government department for immigration, drugs and counter-terrorism enforcement, has already quietly adopted a plan that would enable French, German and other European Union police forces to request remote searching be done on UK citizens’ computers.

I haven’t much to say here except this: If you have DSL or some other form of “always on” broadband, disconnect your computer when you’re not online.

Perilous IE Flaw

Yahoo! News reports:

Microsoft releasing emergency patch for perilous IE flaw

Microsoft will release an emergency patch on Wednesday to fix a perilous software flaw allowing hackers to hijack Internet Explorer browsers and take over computers.

The US software giant said on Tuesday that in response to “the threat to customers” it immediately mobilized security engineering teams worldwide to deliver a software cure “in the unprecedented time of eight days.”

Read it all

The Meaning of Is

Here’s part of the story:

Flirting goes high-tech with racy photos shared on cellphones, Web

Passing a flirtatious note to get someone’s attention is so yesterday. These days, young people use technology instead.

About a third of young adults 20-26 and 20% of teens say they’ve sent or posted naked or semi-naked photos or videos of themselves, mostly to be “fun or flirtatious,” a survey finds.

A third of teen boys and 40% of young men say they’ve seen nude or semi-nude images sent to someone else; about a quarter of teen girls and young adult women have.

[…]

Most of those surveyed (73%) said they knew sending sexually suggestive content “can have serious negative consequences,” yet 22% said it’s “no big deal.”

Adrift.

And so the moral decline continues.

What Happened to Ain’t Complicated?

So this blog disappeared completely off the Web.

Why?

Some hacker deleted it for me.

Thankfully, I just got done reinstalling and restoring it.

I’m so grateful the database was out of the hacker’s reach.

Now I need to restore a bunch of other stuff til I get it back to what it was.

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