Save Memory by Disabling Unnecessary Ubuntu Services

Facebook Etiquette: 10 Rules for Better Socializing

A Funny Video about Online Predators? Yup!

Good discussion, and great video, linked at the bottom of the article.

David Pogue launches all-out war on canned voicemail messages

"In case you've held off on owning a cellphone or calling anyone who has one, they go a little something like this: At the tone, please record your message. When you have finished recording, you may hang up, or press 1 for more options. To leave a callback number, press 5. (Beep)"

Install Guest Additions to Windows and Linux VMs in VirtualBox

Remove Text Formatting the Easy Way with PureText

"Wishing that there was an easier way than using Notepad as a “middleman” to remove formatting from text that you are copying and pasting? With PureText you can easily remove that formatting with a simple Windows hot-key combination."

Benign security warnings have trained users to ignore them

"Researchers found that users won't hesitate to engage in this risky browsing behavior, especially since most warnings are for benign things like expired certificates."

How to stop cell-phone use behind the wheel

More than 100,000 icons in one place - The ultimate icon collection.

Kudos to TechHit support

I so rarely have a positive experience with anyone's tech support :-) that I need to give props to TechHit for their excellent support. In brief, I was having trouble dealing with a problem with Windows XP's sort order, in which three files would be sorted as so:

file1.ext
file2.ext
file.ext

I can't think of *any* good reason why the unnumbered file should sort after the numbered ones: according to all rules of alphabetization and common sense, it should be:

file.ext
file1.ext
file2.ext

and this issue becaome apparent when testing TechHit's MessageSave utility (http://www.techhit.com/messagesave/). I sent an email to their tech support crew, and they actually replied with some things to try, listened to my feedback, and ended up solving the issue! Good job, people. Note that it wasn't really their problem (ahem, Microsoft) and this was a pre-sales technical issue, as I hadn't yet purchased the product.

By the way, the resolution was to use an underscore as the separator (which is configurable with the advanced options of MessageSave). Then the proper sort order is achieved:

file.ext
file_1.ext
file_2.ext

So for those of you keeping score:
TechHit +1
Microsoft -1

Essay: Dumb-dumb bullets (concerning PowerPoint)

"PowerPoint is not a neutral tool — it is actively hostile to thoughtful decision-making."

The Computer Hardware Chart Identifies Your PC's Parts [Hardware]

..."helps you identify countless different types of hard drives, RAM, ports, CPU sockets, power connectors, and more"...

Get Smarter

"Pandemics. Global warming. Food shortages. No more fossil fuels. What are humans to do? The same thing the species has done before: evolve to meet the challenge."

NirCmd - Windows command line tool

"NirCmd is a small command-line utility that allows you to do some useful tasks without displaying any user interface."

Baen Free Library - read science fiction books on-line for free