Windows XP – End of Life

All the hype these days seems to focus around the Windows XP end of life date of April 8, 2014.  XP has been a very good operating system and has been around for 13 years.  In the technology world, that is very impressive.  The end of life date has already been extended once so it is doubtfull Microsoft would do it again.  Especially since they have since released Windows 7 and 8 which both appear to be pretty solid in terms of performance and reliability.

So, what does this really mean for businesses as well as home users?

For businesses, especially those under any sort of regulations, you must be running a newer version of Windows by the April 2014 date or you will be out of compliance and could face fines and penalties.  Aside from the cost to upgrade, there certainly could be issues with older programs and drivers.  This is always a risk.  If you are unable to run critical business programs on a newer version of windows, there are ways to remain compliant, with firewalls, virtualization, etc but it can get complicated.

For home users, you need to upgrade as well.  The hackers are holding back any new exploits (ways to get past windows security) until after the April deadline so when they do attack, the end users will have no way to repair it.

Facebook Privacy Updates for 2013

Here’s a look at the new facebook privacy settings, plus three more you should revisit to ensure you start the New Year off safe and secure.

1. How to Navigate Facebook’s New Privacy Shortcuts

Previously, if you wanted to change your Facebook privacy controls, you needed to navigate through a separate set of pages to find the setting you were looking for. Facebook has made this process a little easier with a new set of shortcuts found between the “Home” and “Settings” buttons in the top-right.

Clicking on the lock icon gives you three privacy settings to jump to: Who can see my stuff? Who can contact me? And, How do I stop someone from bothering me? Clicking each of these options will give you a rundown of who can see what, who can contact you, how to block someone and how to change your settings.

2. How to Review Old Facebook Posts With the Activity Log

Facebook’s Activity Log, which it introduced last year, shows an overview of the activity on your profile.

Facebook recently updated the Activity Log with a new navigation on the left side that lets you review your comments and likes, photos of you, and posts you’ve been tagged in. You can also sort your information to see public photos you’re tagged in and have hidden from your timeline, but which still appear on Facebook.

The updated Activity Log is most useful if you’re looking to browse or remove individual posts, or tweak the settings of an action or photo–not for updating blanket privacy controls.

3. How to Browse Your Apps Settings

If you’ve ever logged into an external website using your Facebook account, you may be surprised to find how many have access to your profile. To review which apps you’ve granted access to, navigate to your Privacy Settings page and select “Apps” from the menu on the left.

Here, you can see and change whether the app is allowed to post on your behalf, whether those posts are public, what permissions each app is granted and whether it can access your data at any time. You can also view when it last accessed your data.

You can also choose to remove the app. Note that while you remove the app from your account–and can choose whether to delete all of the app’s activity on Facebook–it may still have the data you shared with it, which you can determine by reading the app’s privacy policy.

4. How to Set Your Facebook Notifications

Facebook’s Notification Center is where you view and change what actions you’re notified about on Facebook and how you’re notified of them. Find this by navigating to your Privacy Settings page and clicking “Notifications” from the left side.

For example, you can choose to be notified on Facebook and via text message every time someone tags you in a photo. Or, you can choose to be notified via a weekly email digest about important friend activity you may have missed.

There are a number of settings and options on this page; browse through all of them to ensure you’re seeing what you want to see and are being notified only about important activity.

Reprinted from http://www.csoonline.com/article/725587/4-facebook-privacy-settings-for-the-new-year

Setting up your Texas.Net email account on your iPhone

Texas.Net was one of the first dial-up Internet providers in San Antonio.  Many folks have switched to high speed Internet but love their original texas.net email address.  If you are one of those folks, and would like to have your email on your smart phone, here is how to set it up.  I recently spent many hours working with a friend to get this to work and thought I would share with others who might want to do the same.

For your incoming server, use pop.texas.net but make sure you select port 110.  We had to first select no when it tried to connect using SSL.  Texas.net does not support SSL connections.

Enter your username (only the first part of your email address before the @ sign).

Disable SSL

For outgoing server, do not use mail.texas.net, instead, use cwmx.com with port 25
Disable ssl for this server as well
That’s it, this should get you up and running.