Cerebral Palsy Alliance

Archive for June, 2008

How safe is social networking?

It’s estimated that about 250, 000 people will join Facebook today. Are you one of them?

Before you take the plunge into the wild world of social networking, Web2Go shares a few tips that will help keep you safe online.

Back in the early nineties, when you wanted to catch up with friends you had to make a phone call or send a fax (what’s that? ; )). Web 2.0 has changed all that. Now, the coolest way to catch up with old school friends, work colleagues or complete strangers is by jumping on a social networking site like MySpace, Bebo, Friendster or Facebook.

Social networking sites are basically like bits of web-based software that enable people with similar interests to get together and do all sorts of stuff like share photos and music, leave each other messages and challenge each other in games and quizzes. (Hot tip: Facebook’s Paper Scissors Rock and Scrabbulous games rule!)

If you feel like frittering away a few hours pouring over other people’s holiday or wedding snaps or finding out what that person who never really liked you at school is up to right now, social networking is for you. It’s the perfect electronic retreat from reality that, I recently realised, produces the same voyeuristic thrill as peeking into a complete stranger’s supermarket trolley at the checkout. He, he, he.

With that in mind, how much do you really want the rest of the world knowing about your life? Many social networking sites now offer beefed up privacy measures to keep the casual voyeurs and wannabe identity thieves at bay and even the Australian government is now in on the act with the recent launch of its Stay Smart Online campaign. (If you think it’s not possible to have your identity pilfered by a fellow social networker, check out SBS’s Insight program, ‘Stolen ID’.) A world wide survey published a few weeks ago also named Australians as most likely to be victims of cybercrime.

You might be contemplating chopping your Internet connection into small pieces right now but it’s really not that bad if you’re prepared to follow a few simple steps to combat cyber stranger danger:

Keep your birth year private on your social networking profile.Change your passwords regularly.Publishing all of your contact details online is never a good idea (but it’s surprising how many people still do it anyway).Keep your Internet security software up to date and scan regularly.

Tell us about your social networking nightmares and successes.

Have you taken the plunge? Are you thinking about it or are you a stickler for phone and fax?

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HELP! My computer ate my homework : ((

Web 2.0 is fantastic – when it works!

This week Web2Go offers you some digital lifelines for those dreaded moments when your computer decides to eat your homework.

Last week my computer was taking a long time to do things. In computer world that could mean anything and everything from a computer cluttered with too many junk files to a virus.

In the spirit of experimentation, I decided to search for an answer on Google. Typing ‘my computer doesn’t work’ into the search box returned 2, 930, 000 results. I wasn’t really in the mood for seeking out a needle in a digital haystack, so I cheated and rummaged through my Internet Favourites folders for a few tried and trusted sites to share with all you Web2Go groupies out there ; ).

If you prefer preventative measures over cures, PC Hell’s ‘10 steps to trouble free computing’ is a great way tune up your computer and keep those blue screens of death at bay.

Kelly’s Korner is a comprehensive problem-solving resource for people using Windows XP and the popular ‘How To Geek’ blogs will give you the heads-up on grappling with Microsoft Windows Vista annoyances. The ‘How Stuff Works’ website also has a great computing section that could help you out of a few tight computer spots.

Of course, if you feel bamboozled just reading about these computer problems you’ve also got the option of calling in the big guns i.e. your repair person. (You’re also welcome to contact Web2Go and we’ll do what we can to point you in the right direction.)

My advice if it’s all too much? Find the nearest Internet café or library and take a bit of stress-relieving revenge with a game of Cubicle Freakout.

BTW, it turned out that I needed to defragment my hard drive to make it work more efficiently. In a nutshell, that means asking the computer to gather up all little bits of information that get scattered across the hard drive over time. Fragmented files take longer for the computer to find and open, therefore slowing your PC’s performance.

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Blogs: blah or blessing?

Blogs. Everyone who’s anyone these days seems to have one. So how do you get one, why would you want one and how could it help you and your family learn more about living with CP?

When I was growing up, I had a pretty pink diary with a gold lock and ‘KEEP OUT OR DIE’ written menacingly across the cover.

This subtle warning was for the benefit of my parents and my cousin who I feared would find the keys and, overcome with temptation, read all of my innermost secrets. These days, noone has to wait to satisfy their voyeuristic urges, thanks to the humble blog.

Read more: Blogs: blah or blessing?

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Thunderbirds are Web2Go!

Hi. Welcome to Web2Go – the world’s first technology savvy blog for people with a disability and their families.

‘Web 2.0? But I don’t even know what the web is!’, you yell. The good news is Web 2.0 gives you opportunities for find useful information via the Internet to make your daily life easier. The great news is Web 2.0 is all about YOU.

As I only very recently discovered, there’s a difference between the Internet and the web. There I was, throwing around the terms interchangeably and feeling like a real guru, when actually, at least according to those in the know, I was making a total git of myself.

The Internet is the vast network of computers around the world that people use to access the web. The web (short for the World Wide Web) is all of the information, such as websites, documents, sound files and videos stored on that network of computers. Estimates about the size of the web vary from 109 million to 29.7 billion pieces of information.

The Internet, the web and email have become such a part of our lives these days. I was shocked to read at Wikipedia that they only really first appeared in 1989.

This first phase of the web was all about people being able to retrieve documents and information from remote computers. At the time, being able to do this was the coolest thing since not having to slice bread for yourself.

As Internet and web users became more savvy, it began to dawn on boffins everywhere that the web could be much more than a global information portal. It could also be a way of finding old friends, meeting new ones and sharing videos, photos and sound recordings (all of which you’d made yourself using a bit of free software and a ten buck microphone headset) with them. And that’s what Web 2.0′s really all about. The connections you make, the information you create and the ideas that you share with each other. Web2Go is looking forward to giving you some helpful hints and tips to enhance your Web 2.0 experience! For now, it’s over to you …

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