The best news in awhile..!!!

Since this is probably my favorite game of all time.  I just have to say I am pumped that a new Rollercoaster Tycoon is slated for August 2015.

Secure your laptop on campus

You may be confident in your academic abilities to make it through the next four years of school, but what about your laptop's ability? Given the varied distractions of campus life, laptops frequently go missing and are a favorite target of thieves. To help get your laptop through school with you, I offer the following tips to keep it safe and secure on campus.

Before we get to the heart of the matter, however, I must first start by imploring you to find a backup system and use it regularly. Get yourself an external hard drive of subscribe to an online backup service and back up your laptop's data on at least a weekly basis. This way, should your laptop get lost or stolen, you won't lose your study notes, term papers, photos, music, and the rest of your data along with it.

After pledging to back up your laptop, please continue to the following five tips.

1. Register your laptop with campus safety.

Most colleges and universities let you register your laptop. You will likely get a sticker to place on your laptop to act as a theft deterrent. And in the event of a theft and recovery, your registration information will help your school return your laptop to its rightful owner.

2. Insure your laptop.

You can purchase a separate renter's insurance policy for your laptop. Take a look at options such as College Student Insurance or NSSI, among others. Alternatively, you might look into adding a rider to your parents' home insurance policy.

3. Lock it when you're not near it.

Don't leave your laptop unattended in public places. If you are downing large amounts of caffeine at a campus coffee shop in order to finish a paper, you will likely need to make a few trips to the bathroom during the writing process. My advice is to take your laptop with you. Otherwise, use a Kensington lock or another cable lock to secure to a fixed object (that is, not your chair) before taking your leave. Same thing goes for the library, cafeteria, and other busy spots on campus.

And if you have a car at school, don't think a locked car is a secure spot to keep your laptop for any length of time, even if it is artfully hidden under a sweatshirt or gym bag. Keep it with you or locked in your room.

4. Always keep your dorm room or apartment locked.

When you get to school, talk to your roommates about room security measures. Keep your dorm room door locked when you and your roommates are all out. And if you have a roomie who is constantly losing his or her keys and leaves the door unlocked as a result, then get yourself a laptop safe.

5. Install tracking software.

LoJack isn't just for cars. Increase the odds of getting a stolen laptop back by installing tracking software. Check out LoJack for Laptops. For $30 a year, LoJack can help locate your laptop and lock your data from prying eyes while a recovery attempt is made. LoJack's software sits in your laptops's BIOS, so it will still work even if a thief installs a new OS or replaces your hard drive

Why Comcast is never on time

TV

By Brad Reed on Aug 4, 2014 at 11:35 AM

Email @bwreedbgr

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Now we know why Comcast’s customer service is so terrible — basically, Comcast puts enormous pressure on its employees to upsell its customers on more expensive services while putting significantly less pressure on them to resolve customer problems effectively. And now The Verge has written a new report that seemingly solves the mystery of why Comcast’s technicians almost never show up on time, and unsurprisingly it’s because Comcast has once again decided that its bottom line is more important than delivering good service.

The Verge talked with more than 100 different Comcast technicians and they said that Comcast basically tries to book their schedules so tightly that it leaves them no room for error if unexpected complications arise at a certain job. In fact, the technicians said that Comcast will often intentionally overbook them because the company figures that at least one of the appointments will call in to cancel anyway.

Comcast tells The Verge that it doesn’t allow for double booking and says that its own internal metrics show that Comcast technicians show up on time for the job 97% of the time. However, anyone who has ever had to have a Comcast technician come to their house to do work will probably wonder just what advanced experimental mathematical formula or illicit substances Comcast is using to calculate these metrics.

“They schedule the jobs expecting that one of your jobs will cancel,” one Florida Comcast technician told The Verge. “I usually run over somewhere and have to make up the time at another job. You have to start trimming corners to make up that time you lost. It’s gotten worse lately because of the extra stuff they’re making us do, and they haven’t given us any extra time.”

“Comcast got sloppy and started scheduling impossible tasks in a two-hour window,” explained a Pennsylvania Comcast technician. “They often scheduled multiple jobs in the same window. They would only give you 45 minutes to install a triple play (voice / internet / tv), but those jobs can be complicated and can take up to four hours.”

The Verge’s full report is well worth reading and can be found by clicking the source link below.

Tags:

Comcast

Source:

The Verge

Comcast Offers Low Income Families Six Months of Free Internet Service, Will Forgive Old Debts

Free broadband service to those who qualify

Just in time for the back-to-school season, Comcast today announced it will hook up any new qualifying family who has not yet applied for Internet Essentials with up to six months of complimentary service. Families who are approved between today and September 20th, 2014 will receive the full six months of free service, even if they owe a past due balance, which Comcast is willing to wipe away.

The latter is part of an amnesty program for certain low income families who could quality for Internet Essentials, but have a past due balance. If the bill is more than a year old and they're now eligible for the program, Comcast will offer amnesty for the debt for the purpose of connecting to Internet Essentials, as long as the customer meets all other eligibility requirements, the company said.

"Internet Essentials is about transforming lives and inspiring a new generation of leaders to be digitally ready to access the information and tools all students need to succeed in the 21st century," said David L. Cohen, Comcast Executive Vice President. "By offering six months of free Internet Essentials service, along with an amnesty program, we hope to convince even more families that there is no better school supply than having broadband Internet at home. With it, kids can do their homework and parents can be more connected to their children’s teachers and schools."

Comcast's broadband adoption program has been in place since 2011. It's connected more than 350,000 families, or about 1.4 million low income Americans, and is available in 39 states and the District of Columbia.

Internet Essentials runs $10 per month. There are never any price increases, activation fees, or equipment rental fees. At present, speeds check in at 5Mbps downstream and 1Mbps upstream.

Is there a "most" secure browser out there? Doesn't appear so...

All of us like to think we use the safest web browser possible whether it's Chrome, Firefox, or any other of the many options. Each has their pros and cons, but is there one browser that can carry the unquestionable title of most secure? According to Skybox Security, the answer is: no.

What Makes A Browser Secure?
Even tackling this question is hard, as the security experts admitted, because how do you begin to measure security of a web browser? Skybox Security decided to take a few different metrics into account including fewest exposed vulnerabilities, most published (and patched) vulnerabilities, and the shortest time between security patches.

Based on the number of vulnerabilities published on each web browser since January 2013, Opera is the winner. Does this mean Opera's software developers are doing better jobs than the ones over in Microsoft or Google? Skybox Security doesn't think so; Opera's market share is around one percent so there's probably not a lot of interest in finding Opera vulnerabilities.

Own Up To The Vulnerabilities
The next category that Skybox assessed was the browser with the most published and fixed vulnerabilities. The assumption is that a vendor who publishes and fixes vulnerabilities would leave fewer attack vectors for hackers to exploit. Chrome and Internet Explorer come head-to-head for this one, but upon closer inspection you'll find out that vulnerabilities are still popping up in Internet Explorer 6 over 14 years after its release.

Finally, the cybersecurity company looked at the amount of time between security patches. This makes sense since browser vendors shouldn't take a long to fix vulnerabilities once they find out there's an issue. Chrome is the most responsive to security vulnerabilities and the obvious winner for this category. On average, Chrome releases a new version with security fixes every fifteen days while Internet Explorer and Firefox release security updates about once a month.

Windows 8 venturing into Vista Territory

Windows 8's uptake was stuck in reverse for the second straight month as the reputation-challenged operating system fell behind the pace set by Windows Vista six years ago, according to data released Friday.

Web metrics firm Net Applications' figures for July put the combined user share of Windows 8 and 8.1 at 12.5% of the world's desktop and notebook systems, a small drop of six-hundredths of a percentage point from June. That decline was atop a one-tenth-point fall the month before, the first time the OS had lost user share since its October 2012 debut.

Windows 8 accounted for 13.6% of the personal computers running Microsoft's Windows. The difference between the numbers for all personal computers and only those running Windows was due to Windows powering 91.7% of all personal computers, not 100%.

While in June Windows 8's user share came dangerously close to the sluggish uptake tempo of Windows Vista, in July Windows 8's pace fell below Vista's for the first time.