Yeah, I know, I should write something about Christmas and New Year, but I ain’t got time right now. I really need to use my time more efficiently. This was supposed to be something technology was going to do for us. But, as I often lament, technology (computers, in particular) seems to rob me of more time than it saves me. Which is why I particularly enjoyed this cartoon.

BEWARE, people. Some jerk (or maybe just idiot if allowed the benefit of the doubt) has been using, and trying to hijack, my bandolero email address. He’s been using it as the “contact email” for accounts he creates on unsavory (though some would say titillating) “social” websites, and also when ordering “toys” from advertisers on such websites and other online sellers. He’s also been trying to get Gmail to give him my password by means of the “I forgot my password” link. He’s also stupid, as I have acquired his name and address, and even had a look at his house from street level courtesy of google maps.

But here’s the warning: on some sites where he set up such accounts, his profile included links to my FaceBook and MySpace pages, where my bandolero address is supposedly only visible to “friends” and “friends of friends” according to my privacy settings. Whether there is more sharing among social sites than they let on, or more hacking between them than they’d care to admit, I don’t know. But, it was somewhat surprising to see my FaceBook photo and Gmail photo (he’s apparently uglier than I am though claiming to be only 40) next to photos of his (or should I say “my”?) admirers that were, well…, I’ll just say I’d have preferred seeing pictures that at least aspired to Playboy standards.

Okay, okay, I know what you’re dying to say, but don’t, I’m serious here. A couple of security newsletters I get have recently warned against FaceBook and Twitter accounts. I border on paranoid when it comes to guarding “personal information” but the focus is usually on things like account numbers, SSNs, passwords, etc. Theft of one’s email address used to mean seeing it forged on a gazillion spams. But now we also need to think about how much personal info somebody can get and use to our detriment by stealing just our email addresses, even without stealing our email accounts.

Think about it, and be prudent. I don’t think I’m ready yet to abandon FaceBook and LinkedIn, though I should’ve ditched MySpace a long time ago. On the other hand, I’m beginning to think again about chappells.us or something like it as a better vehicle for sharing things we’d really like to share but which it would behoove us to protect.

My laptop was getting more obnoxious by the week. Progressively getting slower, taking longer to boot up, taking longer for pretty much everything except aggravating my temper. All the symptoms of having picked up a virus, trojan or other malware from a website. But my battery of free security programs found nothing. I caved in and bought Spysweeper. It found nothing, either, and just made things even slower.

I started noticing it felt hotter than it used to under my right wrist. Well, okay, I thought, it is over five years old, after all. More’n likely getting ready to blow the power supply or something. Before it could do that, though, it started just shutting itself off. I gather they’re made that way, to automatically shut down when the internal temperature gets too high.

Of course, by now I was primed to use the imminent demise of the machine as an excuse to get a new one. Even started checking the BestBuy ads. But, the damn thing wouldn’t die; just kept after my goat. Last weekend the combination of aggravations got so exasperating I asked Becky if it would upset her if I got out the .38 and shot it. She said it would. So, I tabled the notion of hastening its demise.

Today it shut itself off before I could print a letter I needed to get out. So I turned it over to have a look at the fans. A busted fan could certainly cause overheating. Couldn’t tell antyhing from looking, except they looked kind of dusty. I grabbed a can of Dust-Off and shot a blast at each fan. The first thing was a major cloud of dust flying out the vent. The second thing was one of the fans didn’t spin. It occurs to me laptops maybe consume and store dust as well as desktops, despite what seems to be a more enclosed structure and less room. And it occurs to me I may need to replace a fan. Fans are what I’ve had to replace the most on all my computers.

Okay, okay, I’ll get to the end. At home after supper and between Olympic events I removed as many panels as I was comfortable removing and used about half a can of Dust-Off blowing through strategic locations. In the process, I dislodged a major dust-kitty that I had to slowly work out with tweezers, from behind one of the fans. Yup, it was actually keeping the fan from running. Got it all back together and the difference is incredible.

Sounds way better, runs way cooler, runs way faster, hasn’t shut off. Keeping fingers crossed, of course, but it’s looking (and sounding) like I’ll have to spill a cup of coffee into the keyboard if I’m gonna get me a new laptop in the near future.

Stinkin’ dirt, anyway.

You can download printable “tickets” to leave on their windshields, from this website. You can also upload photos of them.

Having finally beat back the invading ants, we were looking forward to a peaceful Sunday. Got up, had a relaxed breakfast, some coffee, read the paper, watch the talking heads on “This Week” with George Ste… whatever. I hadn’t noticed Becky had got out of her chair, as I was dozing, until I heard the screeching from the bathroom. So I rushed to the door and the floor’s covered with things about the size of ants but long straight-back wings, Becky standing in the middle of them, stomping like mad, and screeching. I joined the “dance” but realized I needed a bathroom myself, and went back to the “master” bathroom and there they were all over the floor, walls, shower. So I commenced to dancing some more, partly to stomp bugs and partly ’cause I needed to pee. I wasn’t making much headway just stomping; didn’t help with the critters on the walls. So I ran out to my desk and grabbed my latest Playboy, noticing as I ran through the kitchen they’re all over the floor in there, too.

Well, at this point, the screeching has mostly stopped and I have various scenarios playing through my head, none of which involved spending the day inside the house. Nevertheless, I proceeded to make good, though unusual, use of Playboy. We finally got enough of them squashed that Becky felt like trying a dash through the shower, so I joined her and we got cleaned up and dressed.

Becky’s figuring to bug-bomb the place, and I’m wondering how the hell I’m going to get a brief done that I was planning to spend the day working on. By this point, though, most of the bugs are dead ones and I’m thinking it looks like time for a vacuum cleaner. Instead, I hit the computer and did some searching on pests hoping to find a picture that would show me these were not termites. I quickly found a good authority and my hopes were promptly dashed, for the most part. The good news was there ain’t much use trying to bug-bomb the damn things. For the short term, the only thing worthwhile, according to this authority, was (and here I thought myself a genius of some sort) vacuuming.

While I did some additional searching for pest control candidates to call tomorrow, Becky cleaned up with the vacuum. At that point, it’s almost mid-afternoon and a decision is made to go out for burgers. If the place was swarming again on return, it would be bug-bombed. If not, we just hold the fort and call reinforcements tomorrow.

When we got back, there were a few stragglers, but not enough to let loose the bombs. So, I got to do a little work on the brief, and Becky did some other cleaning stuff. Normal people, of course, were outside mowing their lawns, washing their cars, etc., as it was just a perfectly gorgious day, outside.

We’d rate today:

Normally, I’d post something about how much I hate Daylight Savings Time. But, I’m just tooooo damn tired.

I noticed somewhere a couple days ago that the Brits went to “British Summer Time” last weekend. That answered a question I thought about two or three times in the last decade or two and didn’t exert the effort to find the answer. More evidence in support of the procrastinator’s favorite maxim, “All things come to those who wait.”