Reports surfacing this week outline how an “Executive Office of the President” White House computer network used by high-ranking advisors to President Obama was invaded, most likely by hackers working for the Russian government. The attacks took place in early or...

When is the last time you put a roll of film in your camera to take some photographs? Can you even remember? If you’re like most people, it’s been a very long time since you used an “analog” film camera to take pictures, if you’ve ever even used a film camera in the...

The worlds of technology, computing, entertainment and the Internet changed dramatically in 2001 when Apple Computers released the most successful product they had ever made. Curiously enough, that product was not a laptop or desktop Macintosh computer. Instead, it...

Ask most people what fun things they can do with their computing devices and a common answer emerges: games. After the words have been processed, the sheets spread and the emails sent, turning one’s high-powered number-crunching machine into a facilitator of frivolous...

I got involved with computers because I thought anything that had to do with technology was fun; therefore, I figured computers should be fun, too. I have my friend Jack to thank for introducing me to computers and getting me started in my career as a computer repair...

“Surfing” the Internet used to be a popular pastime. You hopped on your computer surfboard and rode the waves of the Internet, randomly surfing and exploring from one website to the next. In recent years, though, random Internet surfing has become a much more...

After a five-year sabbatical, I am once again preparing myself to visit sunny Las Vegas to attend the annual Defcon computer security conference. Billed as "the largest underground hacking event in the world," Defcon is always attended by an intriguing mixture of...

To not as much fanfare as I thought the story deserved, news outlets covered the U.S. Department of Justice's June 2 announcement that a coordinated multi-national effort had led to the actual arrest of some big-time Internet criminals, and the crippling of one of the...

There I was, merrily copying some files from my desktop computer to an external hard drive, when the unthinkable happened: I accidentally murdered my external hard drive. It was a really nice external hard drive, too, a three terabyte drive made by Seagate. One...

Remember the great Target Stores credit card hack of 2013? 110 million Target customers, including myself, had their credit card information put at risk and/or stolen last November and December because of Target's crummy Internet security practices. In typical...

It had to happen, and now, it has: the first unfixable security flaw that attacks users of Microsoft's outdated Windows XP operating system has hit the Internet with a vengeance. The official word from Microsoft? "Too bad for you; you were warned." If you have read...

Are you in the habit of regularly changing the passwords for your online accounts? You should be; changing passwords regularly is a required part of every wise Internet user's safety routine. The reason for changing online account passwords is simple: the Internet bad...

Have you ever wanted to track down someone’s whereabouts, but didn’t know where to start and you didn’t want to pay a high-priced private investigator? To the rescue comes the Internet, which is brimming with ways to find long-lost relatives or investigate shady...

"Friends don't let friends go without a backup." "Don't be an April Fool." These are only two of the slogans adopted by World Backup Day 2014, an effort by Ohio-based 614a Ltd. to encourage people to backup their precious computer files before they are lost. World...

If your computer uses Microsoft's Windows XP operating system, and you are not prepared, you may be in for a shock, come April 8, 2014. Microsoft is going to throw you under the bus. About three weeks from now, on April 8, 2014, Microsoft will end all support for the...

Remember the great Target Stores credit card hack of 2013? 110 million Target customers, including myself, had their credit card information put at risk and/or stolen last November and December because of Target's crummy network security practices. Do you remember who...

Back in "the old days" (for me, the early 1990s) when the Internet started becoming popular, most folks didn't much care about things like computer viruses, email scams, online criminals or the Russian Mafia. Sure, there were problems here and there but, for the most...

Most everyone these days uses some sort of wireless network to distribute an Internet connection around their house or business to multiple devices. Most people also know they should password-protect their wireless network to keep away unwanted guests. But, what if...

Last week, we looked at the origin of the word "hacker" and how most people have come to equate it with "computer criminal." Even with that knowledge, though, they still don't know what these bad-guy hackers actually do. How do hackers "hack" something? Do they use...

If you pay attention to the news, it seems like every time you turn around, here comes another news report about how some company has been "hacked" by "hackers." "Hackers" steal credit card accounts from Target, Neiman Marcus gets "hacked," the Yahoo website serves up...