OK, so I just wanted to offer a note about this whole Conficker.C issue.  You’ve probably heard about it on the news – it’s been getting a lot of publicity over the last few days.  The truth of the matter is you are probably safe if:

• If you keep your computer up to date with Windows Updates
• You have up to date anti-virus software

Seriously, that’s it.  This worm is taking advantage of a security hole that Microsoft patched in October of 2008 – it’s not a new patch. 

Now, how do you know if you’re infected?  It’s pretty simple really:

• Launch your anti-virus software by double-clicking the icon for it in your tray (down by the clock in the lower right-hand corner) and run an update.
• Try and go to Windows Update Site

That’s it – if you can, you’re safe (the first thing this does is prevent that from happening).  If you can’t, it errors out or something else strange – you may be infected.  Luckily, there are lots of detection tools you can download.  Just know that you’ll need to download these on a non-infected computer and copy them to a thumb drive because this program will block these sites, too.

So, there you go.  The Internet may be a little “slow” today because there WILL be infected systems and it WILL generate extra traffic, but the sky is not falling, machines are not going to take over the world and you do NOT have to pass this one to ten of your friends.

One last thing – if you DON’T have up to date virus software – WHY NOT!!!  Seriously, there are some nice programs out there that are completely free and will update themselves.  My personal choice is AVG.  You can download it here.  You can pay for Symantec or McAfeeor others if you want, but for virus-protection AVG does pretty much the same thing for the cost of $0.

Drop me a line if you have any questions or problems.

The iPhone – I mean, that’s so last month.  Now we’re hearing all about the Google G1 or Android and the Blackberry Storm.  Phhbbtt!!  Those phones are NOTHING!!  You want a next gen phone you have to check out the Pomegrante!  This thing will rock your world – click the picture to check out the flash presentation on it.

Make sure and check out all the features.  The videos will just impress you to no end!  Once you watch the videos on the features you’ll be asking yourself…Preset beats or freestyle?

Have you ever wondered where your church finds some of those videos they use on Sunday morning?  Maybe you’re looking for something a little on the humorous side to use with your youth group?  While there are a ton of sites out there with some great stuff, Sermon Spice is the site that has been the one with one of the largest collections of videos.  Just check it out.  You can preview all of their videos on their site. I’ve used a number of their videos over the last year or two for different things.

Every month they even have a free video that you can download and use – free – everyone loves that!

And they even have their own blog which is pretty cool.  They’ve also got a podcast interview with the Ragamuffin himself – you can check that out here.

OK, so my wife’s computer decides to start acting up. Me – being the computer geek I am – figure “Hey, no problem. I can fix that in no time.” It’s now going on day three and I’m rebuilding a machine from scratch – thanks dad for giving me your old box.  I’ve got to reinstall the operating system, all the apps, get her old drives recognized and transfer all the data over from them to the new one and then configure all of her stuff and make sure she’s up and running so she can get some work done.

I’ll bet this wouldn’t happen if I had a Mac!!