Beehives on the farm

Beehives on the farm

Originally uploaded by marcn.

While Trevor was at a gymnastics clinic today, I wandered around Sterling, MA taking some photos.

I put most of them in 'My Creative Commons' set.

This Week's Del.icio.us bookmarks

Shared bookmarks for del.icio.us user
MarcN

• del.icio.us: We rock (part 2) --
  Tagged as: [delicious mp3]


• Dean Gray presents American Edit --
  Tagged as: [mp3 remix]

govbenefits.gov used to cover phisher's hacking

I just got spam from a phisher allegedly from tax-returns@irs.gov saying I have a $571.94 tax refund that needs to be claimed in 12 days.

The URL had me fooled for a second -- it looks like a link to govbenefits.gov with a long
identifier. It turns out that the badguys are using a poorly secured redirect page (externalLink.jhtml) on govbenefits.gov to send people to porterfam.org. Of course the resulting page asks for SSN, credit card number, etc -- all the things needed for identity fraud.


And here is the email:

From: tax-returns@irs.gov <tax -returns@irs.gov>
Reply-To: no-reply-2005@66.34.46.216
To: my email
Date: Nov 26, 2005 12:16 PM
Subject: [IRS] Tax Refund


You are eligible to recieve a tax refund for $571.94.


To access the form for your tax return use the link below:


http://www.govbenefits.gov/govbenefits/externalLink.jhtml?url=h%74t%70:%2F%2F%77%77%77%2Eporterfam%2E%6F%72%67%2F2+005%2F%3F_cmd=/cgibin/2005/trefund/id=96596,00
(copy and paste this link in your browser address bar)


12 days left to apply for your refund. You may not receive your refund as quickly as you expected. A refund can be delayed for a variety of reasons. For example, a name and Social Security number listed on the tax return may not match the IRS records. You may have failed to electronically sign the return or applied after the deadline.


This email has been sent by the Internal Revenue Service, a bureau of the Department of the Treasury.

The bad guys are getting pretty tricky...

Helping my parents into Open Source world

My parents are non-technical people, but they just purchased a nice new HP laptop while out visiting us.

Before they left I set them up with a bunch of new F/L/OSS software,
a TheOpenCD V3.1 disk and free web-based services.

I just sent them list note about what we setup:

---

I installed the following software on the new HP laptop -- they are
all from the CD that went home with you.

• OpenOffice V2.0 -- This is a complete, free replacement for
  Microsoft Office tools like Word, Excel and PowerPoint. It will let
  you open documents that people may send you that those tools.




• GAIM -- free alternative to AOL, Yahoo!, MSN, etc's own version of
  IM or Chat programs. You still need free accounts on those services
  (and you already have them for Google, Yahoo and AOL), but you don't
  need to have 3 different programs running to chat with people on
  each of those IM servers. GAIM connects for your to each of them.
  




• FireFox -- free alternative to using Microsoft Internet Explorer
  (also known as MSIE, the blue E that I removed from at least Dad's
  desktop). MSIE has a history of being plagued by virus, spyware,
  etc. Firefox is not completely immune, but much less of a risk.
  You may hear people refer to Mozilla browser, Firefox is a version
  of that.

There are other free programs on the CD -- it is called TheOpenCD
(http://www.theopencd.org) and you can pass it on or give copies to
your friends -- to look at the other stuff on there to to see if there
is anything interesting to you on it. You can install them on the
office PCs or the desktop PC at home.

I also setup a number of free accounts for both of you.

• Email -- Instead of using Microsoft Outlook and getting your mail
  from Roadrunner or Frontier (which ever you end up choosing for
  email), just get your email from google's free GMAIL service. Use
  any computer and go to http://www.gmail.com/ and log to do your
  email. (Account info below)




• IM -- Dad and I got accounts for IM Chat accounts on AOL (sometimes
  you see it referred to as AIM), Google Talk and Yahoo!. (account
  info below) The GAIM program is all setup for each of those account.
  Just go to the menu Tool s then Account and click 'Online' for your
  accounts. It already has the password information set there. This
  will let you chat with my kids who use AOL, Lori that uses Yahoo!
  and me who actually has accounts on all of them.



• Photos -- You already had an account on Flickr (now part of Yahoo!,
  http://www.flickr.com). You used your old AOL.COM address to create
  an account. and there is a way to change the email address to match
  your Yahoo! account. Dad and I also installed FlickrUploadr and
  there should be a link of the desktop. Double click on it to start
  it and then use the file explorer to drag and drop photos from your
  hard drive (or CD or Camera) to FlickrUploadr. Then press the
  Upload button and the photos will be copied to
  http://www.flickr.com/ where people can see them.
  

Account info that you can pass on to your friends:

• Email
  
  Mom: XXXXYYYYYY@gmail.com
  
  Dad: XXYYYYYY@gmail.com
  
  


• AOL IM (if your friends use AOL pay service or free chat only, which
  my kids use)
  
  Mom: XXXXYYYYYY
  
  Dad: XXYYYYYY
  
  


• Yahoo! IM (which Lori uses)
  
  Mom: XXXXYYYYYY
  
  Dad: XXYYYYYY
  
  



• Google IM (sometimes called Google Talk -- anyone with a google
  email account can IM using the same account info)
  
  Mom: XXXXYYYYYY
  
  Dad: XXYYYYYY
  
  


• Photos -- tell friends to see your public photos here:
  
  http://www.flickr.com/photos/12345678@N00/
  
  There is a way under 'Your Account' to pick a better address,
  similar to what I have:
  
  http://www.flickr.com/photos/marcn/
  
  You are currently using a free flickr account. For $25/year you can
  store many many more photos on flickr.com. If you start using
  flickr, that would make a nice start of a xmas gift from us.
  

This Week's Del.icio.us bookmarks

Shared bookmarks for del.icio.us user
MarcN

• dubyamovie.com --
  Tagged as: [dubya humor politics]


• Google Guide Quick Reference: Google Advanced Operators (Cheat Sheet) --
  Tagged as: [google guide useful]


• Animated Virtual Harmonograph --
  Tagged as: [math]


• The Sojourner Chronicle: News Item --
  I knew that Thomas Tank Engine would come to no good! Tagged as: [humor]

Do not throw apples, climb or shake trees $100 fine

Do not throw apples, climb or shake trees $100 fine

Originally uploaded by marcn.

I just really like this photo :-)

This Week's Del.icio.us bookmarks

Shared bookmarks for del.icio.us user
MarcN

• mann: Announcing Flickrfs! --
  Tagged as: [flickr gnu linux]

Nozell aquires Novell

Nozell aquires Novell

Originally uploaded by marcn.




When I, Marc Nozell, aquire Novell Inc, it will be a very simple matter to update their corporate branding.

Well, I can dream can't I?

This Week's Del.icio.us bookmarks

Shared bookmarks for del.icio.us user
MarcN

• Official Google Blog: More video to watch! --
  Tagged as: [system:unfiled]


• The Blog | Nora Ephron: What's Eating George Bush --
  Tagged as: [politics]

How Much Is My Blog Worth?

Wow!

I was reading rentzsch.com: Tales from the Red Shed about how much technorati.com values his blog. According to this applet...

My blog is worth $15,242.58.
How much is your blog worth?

Nice to see that someone values this lil' blog.