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Paul talked a bit about top-level domain names. That's the part of a web address that ends in .com, .org, .net, etc. He mentioned a website that lists its address as legacypresents.co. In this case it was just a typo and should have been legacypresents.com. But you can actually register your website with .co as it really exists and belongs to the country of Columbia. Country abbreviations can be top-level domains as well as the more familiar .com. He said people choose these more obscure domain names because the name they want to use with .com, for instance, may already be in use <e.g. sex.com may be taken but sex.co might be available>. To find out more about a top-level domain name, use the web address in the form of nic.co (to find out about .co).

Paul went on to say that domain name registration started back in the '70s and that the names are not case-sensitive — upper & lower case letters are treated the same. If you want to put your website's name on a business card, you can use studly caps (like PaulCastro.com) <see also camelcase> to make it easier to read. Everything to the right of the top-level domain IS case sensitive — PaulCastro.com/buyhisicecream.html treated differently from PaulCastro.com/BuyHisIceCream.html on some webservers.

Paul also said that email addresses are not case-sensitive — you can capitalize any part of zen at kvmr.org. If you have a Gmail account, you can embed periods in that portion of the your email address to the left of the @ and you will still receive the email — mail to fred.blogs@gmail.com will be received by fredblogs@gmail.com. If you use a name with periods when you signup at a website, you'll know if that website sold your email address when you start receiving spam mail that's addressed to that particular email address.

Glenn said that when he created account on his iPad, it automatically created an account at me.com. He said, "even though under 'check my email' it's not listed as an account, it comes in as mail from the iCloud, and if I do anything outside of my email client, where I'm specifically looking at something from my gmail account, which would then show my gmail account as the return address…if I click on a webpage, for example, in reply, it automatically goes to the @me.com"

Paul thought he needed to change the default settings. Go to preferences -> settings -> mail contacts & calendars; there you should find settings for the default calendar & default account. On that settings page you can also change your signature — what appears at the bottom of all your emails. This can help the recipient to verify the mail is really from you.

Glenn said he didn't intend to go anywhere for Black Friday sales but he noticed that Best Buy had an iPad on sale for $60 less than what he paid for his 15 day earlier. He contacted Apple and was told to go back to the store where he bought it to see if they will price-match. After calling the store and after some discussion, he was able to get a $60 refund. He intends to apply that amount to buying Apple Care <it's like an extended warranty>.

Glenn joined twitter but hasn't used it much yet. He said he's still not impressed with Facebook. It's gotten a little easier for him to use but he's not been able to figure out where some 'events emails' are coming from.

Paul mentioned bulletin boards of the '70s & '80s. Because some of them had questionable content, they would put up statements saying law enforcement is not welcome. He said it wasn't true then and it's not true now that you can protect yourself with such notices. This relates to recent notices appearing on Facebook pages saying "I give Facebook no right to use my pictures or likeness or words". Don't rely on making such a statement; in fact, it's your terms of service (with Facebook) that takes precedence. Snopes.com (a clearinghouse for fraudulent statements & urban legends) had a surge of interest in the legality of that statement. UrbanLegends is another site that debunks popular myths <and it's there I found an article about the Facebook postings>.

Paul wondered who would spread urban legends and Glenn speculated that they may be a form of phishing, He thought it's a way of harvesting a verified email addresses.

Paul said that the "I love you virus" from about 10 years ago was the first socially engineered virus. It was written in Visual Basic by an 18-year-old in Philippines and came as an attachment. "It only succeeded because it said I love you and the body of the message said something about send this to someone you love". He noted that these messages propagate like chain letters of the past and that they tend to come in waves about 18 months apart so the same messages get recycled but with a few words changed to avoid spam filters.

Glenn was unable to take a call to the show using his iPad. Paul reminded listeners that was because the iPad has no support for Flash or ActiveX.

Marilyn called. She had a computer crash and had to replace her hard drive with a refurbished one. It came with Windows XP but was missing Microsoft Works, which she thought normally comes with XP. She thought she needed to use Works because the people she sends documents to use that program.
– Works is not part of XP. It's up to the computer manufacturer what's installed on a machine and there's no guaranty Works is included.
– It was suggested she use Microsoft Word and save in Works format using the 'save as' option <in the 'File' menu>.
– If it's important to maintain the format, use PDFCreator & save it as a PDF document.
– You can also use the same 'save as' trick to create spreadsheets that can be read by Works.
– Use Google Docs create, edit and share documents.

Marilyn also wanted to know how to change the default program that displays a .jpg image when she click on the .jpg file. The current program is Microsoft Photo Editor but it has trouble displaying some of her larger .jpg files.

She also asked about a program that reduces the size of her photos to make them easier to send them thru email. She just got Picasa, which is supposed to be able to do the reduction, but she still needs to learn to use it.
– To change the default program: right-click on a .jpg file -> open with ->go to bottom where it says 'choose program' then select the program you want to be the default, and put a check in the box "always use this".
– There are a series of programs called PowerToys that added functionality to Windows XP. One of the programs was called Image Resizer. For Win7 & Win8 users there are similar programs for resizing but make sure they are described "acts just like the powertoy does in XP"
– There is another program in the PowerToys suit called TweekUI that Paul likes.
– Glenn said you can get it from Cnet, generally a safe site to download from, but be careful which 'download' button you use or you may get stuff you don't want. <I think this is it here>
<You can find Image Resizer, TweekUI and other useful programs here.>
– To find more resizers just google with the words: image resizer xp

Douglas, a photographer, called wondering if Facebook owns images posted to that site.
– Facebook can't do whatever they want with your image. "However, they can display it on Facebook themselves at their own will. They're just not allowed to sell it to other people or take it off Facebook or sell it to anybody else". And it's not their job to keep your images from being stolen. It's all in the terms of service agreement.
– When using Facebook post a thumbnail or a watermarked image with link to where a full size image can be found (like on a photo sharing site).

Marsdon (maybe Marston) called to ask about the Firefox plugin called DownloadHelper, which facilitates downloading of Youtube videos. He sometimes gets the error message "Javascript application: conversion requires an external application that appears to be missing on your system"
– When DownloadHelper runs it gives you several options for converting the format. Paul always downloads directly without converting.
– Paul was going to have him check the version he's using, but he's using a Mac and Paul doesn't have a Mac handy. They asked Marsdon to contact them after the show.
– Paul said the latest version of Download Helper is 4.9.12 for both PC & Mac. Marsdon may just need to update.
– After downloading a Youtube video in the native .flv format Paul uses Videolan to play the .flv file.

Dec 1 is the Nevada City Hackathon. For more info visit nevadacityhackathon.com
<Also mentioned the the 10-24-12 show notes>

Last updated 11:16 PM 11/28/2012