By: Scott Roberts

Have you ever been working on your computer doing something memory intensive and wished you could slap an extra 2GB in. With the release of Microsoft Windows Vista memory has become prime real-estate in the PC world. Vista may have the solution.
It is called ReadyBoost. It’s a disk caching utility built into Vista. The general idea is instead of using the somewhat slow Virtual Memory on your hard disk you use a relatively faster flash memory. Vista has some minimum requirements for the flash drive you use. It must be a USB 2.0 drive inserted into a USB 2.0 port. There needs to be at least 500MB of free space on the drive. Most importantly not all flash drives will work, so Caveat Emptor (let the buyer beware).

How to:
1. Insert your flash drive of choice into your computer
2. Cancel the Auto Play pop-up
3. Navigate to “Computer”
4. Right-click on the flash drive you just inserted
5. Select the ReadyBoost tab
6. Select “Use this device.”
7. Use the slide tool to set how much space you wish to allocate for memory (When allocating space on your flash drive please remember that you cannot use this space for files)
8. Click OK and enjoy!

Notes:
• Vista will remember that you used that drive in the past for ReadyBoost and will enable it the next time you insert it into your computer. If it is a onetime thing you will need to disable it.
• Enabling ReadyBoost on a flash drive will only be remembered on that computer, if you plug it into another computer you will have to enable it for that computer.
• ReadyBoost is found only on Vista, but like most good things in the world of computers it will most likely be copied by everyone.

Source Links:
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Caveat_emptor
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/ReadyBoost

Instant messaging (IM) programs (MSN Messenger, Yahoo! Messenger, AOL Instant Messenger, etc) have become popular venues for malicious programs to use to spread. It is important, if you use one or more of these, to be aware of them and watch for them.

How do they work? IM viruses are designed to spread themselves via the IM program. Once you are infected, they work without you even knowing it is there...sending messages to everyone on your contact list hoping to infect them too. The messages are from your infected account and once they go to a contact they trust the message and click to download files or go to websites, since it's from you. And, in turn, infecting their machine too. Then the process starts all over!

How do you avoid them? (1) NEVER open, accept or download a file in IM from people unless you know they're definitely sending it to you. If you're not currently chatting with them, send them an e-mail or call them to check. If they're not sending anything to you, they're infected. (2) Always keep software, your operating system and IM programs, up-to-date. (3) Have an antivirus program installed and updated. (4) Keep spyware removal programs up-to-date too and run them weekly to find malware.

Ever wonder why you get grief when you want to use Wikipedia as a source for your research project?

Ever wonder about the reliability of the data available there?

Ever wonder what corporations and government agencies are editing the content for personal reasons?

According to the Wikipedia Scanner--the creation of Cal Tech graduate student Virgil Griffith--everyone from Diebold to the CIA to Wal-Mart regularly delete and change content!

ResNet #s Through Monday AM

2,866 on CCA Successfully (3,200 usually cap on this)

19 drop-offs (5 still being worked on)

74 walk-ins (computers worked on while student waits then takes computer at end of fix)

177 Install Fairs (95% successful installs)

Well, day 2 was a long day but there are 1,709 students successfully on Cisco! Another success of day 2 were are Keene Hall and Case Hall install fairs! We took care of a total of 68 people that won't have to stop by our office for a walk-in or a drop-off next week and that's terrific!

Day 3 promises to be successful as well. Our install fairs on Saturday are in Palmer Hall (3-5) then Telford Hall (5:30-7:30) then Walters Hall (8-10). Hope you can join us at one of these events so we can get you online before classes start on Monday.

It's 5:40 p.m. and we're nearing near the end of day one and we have 1,077 students logged on successfully to the network and 25 are in a temporary role currently working on getting connected. In our office we've had most people taken care of in a drop-off fashion where they wait about 30 minutes and get to take their PC home right then. We've only had a couple that were drop-offs that took just a bit longer than 30 minutes. All-in-all our staff definitly came through today getting everyone connected and online as quickly as possible and with almost no wait time!

Tomorrow we're available in our office from 8 a.m. until 4:30 and then have two Install Fairs in Keene (5-7 p.m.) and Case (5:30-7:30 p.m.) Halls! If you live in either building come out and see us for help while we're setup in your lobby. Hope to see you there! (LM)

This is our new blog. Welcome!

We're going to be posting here often so read along and be sure to give feedback.