Homonyms

There are quite a few words that sound similar in the English language: they are called homonyms. I became confused many times in the past as I was not sure about which word was the one I heard. The context helped me figure out what homonym it was. Do you have any experiences like mine? Please share.

Do Tables Make Our Lives Easier?

Working on my Dot_2_Dot project last year I came across a lot of data that looked confusing and disorganized. For a moment I was overwhelmed with the numbers but quickly decided on organizing the data in a couple of categories and create a table with a title in MSWord with it. To make the table stand out, I gave it a border and contrasting background color. It looked great! Just by using a table I was able to turn some data into an attractive addition to my project. Please reflect on the above and share your reflections with me on how can MSWord tables help you better present your assignments and earn better grades in school?

Should you sell or discard your old stuff?

Our trash land fills are filling up in part because of our consumerist buy-and-throwaway society. Can it be good for you and for the environment if more use is extracted from items we would otherwise throwaway? I think that it is good and that we can make some money in the process. One just has to pay a visit to the suburbs any weekend and notice all the garage and yard sales going on. Some people set this up as a small business venture! So, if you have an old TV set, computer, computer monitor, laptops, printer, refrigerator, washing machine, bookshelf, bicycle, baseball bat, basketball, baseball glove, skates or anything at all; a nice flyer announcing your sale will be very important for you to reach a lot more people and sell your items. Placing your flyer in the lobby of your building, supermarket or church's bulletin board or on any other appropriate place is important and your flyer needs to be eye catching for it to be effective. What do you think? Do you have items that you could sell instead of throwing away? Your trash could be somebody else's treasure. What would you sell and how much would you sell it for? Please detail. Thank you!

Can Spyware steal your identity?

Not only your identity... It is a small program you do not know about that got installed in your computer and that came from a suspicious site. You do not know it is there as it is hidden. How did the program enter your computer? It can enter your computer in many different ways. You could have gone to a p2p (peer to peer) site such as Limewire. P2p means "peer to peer", by the way. How do these programs work? Let us say that your mother uses the computer to purchase something using her credit or debit card; as she types her CC number, expiration date and security code, the spyware program relays your mother's name, address, CC information and more to the criminals' computers. Once they have this information, they can make a plastic card with your mother's information and use it to clean up her bank account and/or charge her CC to its limit. Stealing someone's identity is easier if you have all their information and this is a far worse situation than criminals just maxing out credit cards. In conclusion, it is essential to have a spyware protection program like Windows Defender installed in all your computers so that your personal information is kept safe. What do you think? Do you know anyone who has been the victim of this type of crime?

Why do I need an antivirus software for my computer?

A few weeks ago I was using my computer online and my computer caught a virus. Luckily my free antivirus program stopped the virus less than a second after it got in. My antivirus program sounds a very loud alarm and a rather large window appears on the screen warning me about the virus and asking me what I wanted to do with the virus file. Antivirus software protects your computer against most viruses, worms, Trojan horses, and other unwanted invaders that can make your computer "sick." Viruses, worms, and the like often perform malicious acts, such as deleting files, accessing personal data, or using your computer to attack other computers. Viruses may also slow down your computer. What did I do? Here is what I did:

• I immediately instructed the program to delete the virus file
• I could also have instructed it to send it to quarantine (a form of electronic "jail" for virus files). This is completely safe
• You can imagine the relief I felt thanks to my free antivirus program Avast.
• If I had not installed it, the virus would have infected my computer undetected!

I use Avast... It is free and it updates itself a few times a day. Please share with us on this blog:

• any experiences you have gone through with viruses or with antivirus software during the last few years.
• You may also share the status of your antivirus program right now: is it active or expired?
• Further, you may tell us if you think your computer has viruses and why.