Have you ever re-read an email thread between yourself and another; perhaps a business associate or friend? Many of us do this to look at the previous question to see what the exact reason for a statement was, as sometimes we do not recall the actual meaning of the entire conversation. Every once in a while you will notice that your email thread was changed somewhat and you think, “Hey, I never said that?”
Indeed maybe you didn’t. You might think that you have a virus in your email program or computer. Perhaps someone you were corresponding with noticed it first? This happened to me recently and the other person asked; “Hey, there are weird typos added to previous email of mine!” They were wondering of course what happened to their email and what is going on with those weird word changes. You see Spell Check can change common names to common words or slang such as; “uhh” to “hush.” Which was the case in this particular email correspondence. Immediately the other part wondered; “Do you think one of our computers is corrupted with a virus or something?”
It did look very spooky, but upon looking into this it was discovered that actually; one of us, probably me made a mistake. Was it allowing a virus into the computer? No, I think I hit spell check and kept going after my section, so it changed the others too? When the Microsoft Email program asks “spell check is done, would you like to continue the rest of the document?” My mistake probably was I hit “yes.” Like many people often do, I probably just kept hitting the spell check button to get it to hurry up rather than pressing, “Yes send email anyway.” You see? If you hit F7 while doing an email it will check the spelling for you? Or set your default to on your browser; “tools”, “spelling” “options”, but in ongoing rich HTML it wants to keep going, unless you tell it to stop and send?
Some programmer should change that feature for “Internet Safety” so no one can go back and change what you previously said for a lawsuit or “Gotcha” in a dispute. Think of a crooked or a vindictive government regulator or prosecutor who is more intent on making a case than providing truth, justice and the American way. Perhaps they are coming up on an Election or promotion? Maybe they want to prove themselves, there is a strong history of manipulation of evidence and data by Prosecutors due to political ambition.
A conspiracy theorist might think such a simple mistake was done intentionally or by a secret surveillance group or maybe someone else did this? Perhaps they believe their computer has a worm or a virus? My thoughts are anything is possible I suppose yet if someone wants to read my emails and screw with them? Hey, go waste their time see if I care? If someone put a computer program virus to mess with our emails or yours for that matter then obviously, “they know not what they do,” so I cannot be bothered?
The truth is there are usually many more mistakes in email than other writing as it is a fast, quick means of communication. Generally the time factor supercedes the need for accuracy or many read throughs to insure perfection. Maybe you might re-read some of your emails and notice your mistakes and the mistakes from others to understand and help you illustrate this point. You may notice missing letters and some other minor mistakes in your writing. Many people often make the mistake of writing “you” when they meant “your.” But those are typos and very common in email correspondence? A few mistakes are no big deal, however if all your emails are full and riddled with them, then you need to read your emails over and the other person before hitting send. For most small mistakes do not bother humans in email communications, as their mind fixes it as they read, but if you look close you will see a lot this in your own email conversations.
You should use spell check in your emails, but realize it does not pick up all the mistakes like using “you” instead of “your” or “there” when you should have used “their,” you see. When using spell check in emails you need to take the time and not allow human error or lack of wanting to click a set of buttons to stop the ‘Spell Check’ when it gets done with your section. Some folks will simply rapidly click the fix on the spell check button to advance to the sending of the email? It is a frustrating thing humans do as they think things like; “Come on you dumb computer, send the dang email already!” Then they go on and hit the fix button, 20 times thru the last three correspondence of the thread; “Click, Click, Click, Click, Click, Click, Click, Click, Click, Click, Click, Click, Click, Click, Click, Send it already come on! Click, Click, Click, Click, Click…finally!” “Dumb, stupid, computer, uuh!” Which would have been changed to “Hush”?
So pay attention when sending emails so you do not change the previous conversation and thread of the other party. Eventually Microsoft will fix this problem in the future, but until then you need to be cognizant of your emailing and spell check protocol. Think on this.
“Lance Winslow” – Online Think Tank forum board. If you have innovative thoughts and unique perspectives, come think with Lance; www.WorldThinkTank.net/wttbbs/
Just another day, doing as you always do with your computer. Making documents, working on your finances, updating your family’s website or conducting your home or online business.
Suddenly, strange errors start appearing, your computer makes loud scratching sounds and then, nothing.
A hard drive crash can mean much more than the loss of a part of your computer. Often this is the primary place for storage of your information, family photos, work related files, favorite mp3s and other things that have often taken months if not years to make.
The loss of an operating system like Windows is not as serious, you have the disk already, all your programs are on CD, but your personal information needs to be protected by you.
What steps need to be taken to make sure that such a loss does not occur?
The actual idea of data protection is not new, but still many people only face it’s reality when it’s too late.
The most essential basic steps are as follows:
- Virus protection software
- Personal firewall if you use the internet
- Save personal files to CD or DVD
Virus protection and firewall software will protect you from attacks that can destroy software and your files. Saving files to another place makes sure there is a permanent record of all those things you need. The more frequent you save elsewhere the less you will lose in case of disaster.
All of the above protect you from loss of software due to some programming, but other things can cause data loss too.
The other things are hardware related, meaning that the actual place the files are stored is damaged or destroyed.
Some things that could cause hardware failure or loss are
- Lightning strike
- Theft
- Hard drive failure
Lightning is very hard to protect from. The very fact that it is such a powerful force means that the most basic of lightning protectors could not protect from a direct strike. True protection for this costs a lot and is very often not preventable. If you live in a region with frequent strikes, take greater care in backing up frequently to a somewhere and perhaps even moving that informatino to another site.
Theft happens from time to time, once your computer is gone, there is not too much hope of getting it back.
Hard drive failures are when the drive itself fails due to some internal problems or any of the preceding physically harmful events.
All of these are quite horrible but what can be done to prevent it.
Backups have been and will continue to be the best way. If you have a copy of something in two places there is always another one if worst comes to worst.
Another option that is becoming more and more sensible and cost-effective is a RAID hard drive array. This basically means that two hard drives work together as a pair, mirroring the data, each being and exact copy of the other one. So if one fails, the other one takes over and the defective one can be replaced.
And finally, if you do face the loss of a hard drive, there are data recovery experts. For a fairly large fee they will open your hard drive and try to recover what was on it. Never attempt to open and fix yourself as the inside of the hard drive is a contaminent free space, with zero dust, even a few particles can make the drive unrepairable.
So make sure you’re not the next one to get an unpleasant surprise and make sure that you are well protected from the loss of your all important information.
Peter Stewart is a computer enthusiast, his interest in computers and focus on practical down to earth advice inspired his two websites. http://www.computer-buying-guide.com – Practical buying tips http://www.computer-reviews.net – Fair and honest reviews and opinions
Every once in a while, a rumor floats that Cisco’s getting ready to change the version number of their CCNA and CCNP exams, which also means the questions will be changed.
This prompts a flurry of posts to certification boards around the ‘Net (and my mailbox!), with Cisco certification candidates in particular wondering if they should hold off on their studies until the next exam versions come out.
The answer is an unequivocal no. NO. You should never delay your studies for any reason, but especially this one.
Let’s say Cisco changes the CCNA exams tomorrow. They’re not going to remove questions regarding LAN switching. They’re not going to take distance-vector protocols, OSPF, EIGRP, or subnetting questions off the exams. These are core subjects that everyone who works with Cisco technologies needs to know. And it goes double for anyone who wants to work with Cisco technologies.
The second reason is that studies that are delayed for one reason are often delayed again for another reason. “I’m too busy, it’s summertime, etc.”.
If you’re serious about your Cisco certifications, start studying today. The knowledge you acquire every time you study does not become invalid because an exam version changes. It’s not the certification that makes you valuable, it’s the knowledge behind the certification – and you need to start building that knowledge today.
To your success,
Chris Bryant, CCIE #12933, is the owner of The Bryant Advantage (http://www.thebryantadvantage.com), home of free CCNA and CCNP tutorials, The Ultimate CCNA Study Package, and Ultimate CCNP Study Packages. Video courses and training, binary and subnetting help, and corporate training are also available. Pass the CCNA exam with Chris Bryant, CCIE #12933!
For a copy of his FREE “How To Pass The CCNA” or “How To Pass The CCNP” ebook, write to chris@thebryantadvantage.com!
