Fast and Furious

Does it ever seem like everyone's out to get you? On the Internet, that is. Your every keystroke being followed, prying eyes over your shoulder when you enter in a password, fake Nigerian princes luring you with the promise of riches? You're not paranoid, you're pragmatic.

Internet threat detector Kindsight has just released a chart that tracks the movements of the top 20 perpetrators out there. Some of them are repeat offenders. Here are five of the fastest-spreading viruses that you'll want to avoid catching.

Go Fetch

In the past, I've talked about a fantastic tool called Dropbox that allows you to syn files across multiple computers. If all you need is access to your work files, though, a VPN may be a better choice. Whether you’re at work and forgot some file on your home computer, want to play some music on a train, or just want to move some files between your computers, accessing your files from anywhere is a life saver.

The best way to do this is with a program called Hamachi. Think it’s hard? Here’s a detailed how-to.

Hide and Seek

Here's a nifty little trick: you have files on your computer that you rarely need but want to hide them from prying eyes. Sure, you could try to encrypt them but that's difficult for many of you. How about if you had a partition on your hard drive that nobody knew even existed? When you add a drive to your PC, by default it gets a drive letter, whether it is a removable drive or even a fixed hard drive inside of your PC. Lets take a look at how we can hide these drives. Note: This will completely hide the drive, even from you. You’ll have to open up disk management to un-hide it.

Moving Day

Many dental offices we work with are starting to replace their computer hard drives with the newer and faster solid state drives (SSD). If the thought of reinstalling Windows and all your favorite apps has kept you from upgrading to a Solid State Drive read on to learn how to migrate Windows 7 to a speedy new SSD without reinstalling everything.

The Time Has Come

For most of us, the Web browser is the first application we use when we turn on a computer. It's how we check email, read the news, chat with friends and do just about everything.

What many users don't realize, however, is that the Web browser is the most important security defense our computers have — and yet 60 percent of the browsers accessing the Internet today are outdated. An outdated browser ends up impacting everyone's security, privacy and performance.

To help users understand the importance of the browser you use, the Online Trust Alliance (OTA), a Web-industry trade group based in Bellevue, Wash., that promotes security and trust in online marketing and commerce, recently unveiled the "Why Your Browser Matters" initiative.

Giving Thanks

As many of us yesterday celebrated our Thanksgiving meals (and impending food comas), let's not forget to pay our yearly tribute to the wonderful developers who bring us our favorite free apps. Here are 50 free apps for your downloading feast.

The Fix is In

Many people are experiencing horrible iPhone 4S battery life. Apple Support Forum is full of complaints that their iPhone 4S battery is draining drastically. No one is certain about the main cause of the problem and even Apple hasn’t yet said officially about this puzzle, although, there’re reports that Apple support staff is contacting some of the people who post in Support forum individually to solve the problem. According to Apple, iPhone 4S has standby time of up to 200 hours but many buyers of the device aren’t even getting 24-hours standby time.

No one is sure about the main cause yet but trying different changes and turning off a few things on your iPhone 4s can really improve your device batter life. Here are some of the tips which can help you.

Cloudy Day

ST. PAUL, Minn. – (November 22, 2011) – Patterson Dental Supply, Inc. announces new updates to CAESY Cloud, its online portal that gives users instant access to CAESY Patient Education multimedia presentations via the Cloud. Six new Orthodontics presentations are now available to help practices keep patients informed:
Braces Care for Adults, Early Intervention, Retainers, Molar Uprighting, Invisalign Teen, and Identifying Oral Habits for Kids. Additionally, a number of existing presentations have already been updated, including Orthodontic Alternatives, Invisible Braces Alternatives, Adult Braces Procedure, Child Braces Procedure and
Invisalign for Adults.

Launched in July 2011, CAESY Cloud currently offers more than 280 multimedia presentations, which dental offices can access on PC and Mac desktop computers, Smartphones, and the iPad, iPhone and iPod. In addition to the new Orthodontics content, the latest updates to the online system include a new banner at the
login page that immediately notifies users of updates or new features. With all content accessible through the Cloud, subscribers just need to log in to access the latest videos and updates.

CAESY Cloud requires no installation. All that is needed to access CAESY Cloud is an Internet connection—networked connections between participating computers are not required. Dental professionals can simply sign up for the service by visiting www.CAESYCloud.com and gain access to the presentations for immediate use
from anywhere. After subscribing, users simply visit the website to access the full library of CAESY’s robust patient education presentations. A low monthly subscription fee makes CAESY Cloud available to dental practices with little initial investment.

CAESY Education Systems has been dentistry’s premier developer of leading-edge patient education technology and content since 1993. Patterson Dental Supply, Inc. acquired CAESY in May 2004. The award-winning multimedia information on preventive, restorative and esthetic treatment options helps dental practices worldwide educate their patients and grow their practices. The CAESY content is distributed via video and computer networks, DVD players and CAESY Cloud throughout the clinical and reception areas of the dental practice. The family of products includes CAESY Cloud, CAESY DVD, Smile Channel DVD, and CAESY Enterprise, which includes CAESY, Smile Channel and ShowCase. For more information, visit www.caesy.com.

Learn from the Best

Help shape the field of informatics in healthcare by training in dental informatics at the University of Pittsburgh! At the Center for Dental Informatics, you can get training in a cutting-edge discipline and conduct innovative research on:

• electronic dental records
• decision support
• human-computer interaction
• reuse of clinical data for research
• evidence-based dentistry
• teledentistry

Getting training in a variety of aspects on informatics opens up unique career opportunities, such as in software development, information technology management, academic teaching and research, and consulting.

We are currently recruiting applicants at the certificate, MS, PhD and postdoctoral levels. The program is highly multidisciplinary and is open to individuals with a variety of backgrounds, such as information science/computer science, dentistry, medicine, information technology or related fields.

Financial support, in the form of a full scholarship, a stipend, health insurance and more from the National Institutes of Health is available to eligible http://beta.blogger.com/img/blank.gifindividuals. Applications are accepted immediately. Program start is August 2012.

Please note: The NIH also offers a loan repayment program for educational loans for up to $35,000/year for 3 years.

For more information, please visit our Website at

End of the Line

Most geeks will tell you it’s well past time to get rid of XP and upgrade to newer, safer operating systems. It can be tough to explain, so keep reading this list of real world reasons to let XP go.

Forgive and Forget

Forgetting your password is never any fun, but luckily there’s a really easy way to reset the password. All you need is a copy of the Windows installation disk and one simple command line trick.

Pass the Buck

If you're trying to break into a Windows computer—whether you've forgotten your password or are hatching an evil plan—you have quite a few options. Here's how to do it, and how to keep your own computer protected.

Static Electricity

Do you have an external USB hard drive or flash drive that you use frequently for backups or for use with applications? Every time you plug it in you may get a different drive letter for that drive.

There is a way to assign a static drive letter to an external USB drive so you always get the same drive letter for that drive.

Mr. Fixit

Technology is great until it breaks and you have to spend hours trying to figure out what's wrong before you can even fix the problem. Often times the entire ordeal will take even longer because you've failed to consider the obvious, or a particular strategy that worked in the past. Here are the top 10 tactics for diagnosing and solving the many problems that occur with your computers, smartphones, web sites, and mor

Self Abuse

Whether you dread going to the dentist or eagerly open wide every six months, here's some news that may shock you: You currently have a few habits that are ruining your smile.

Drop in the Bucket

Dropbox is a great way to store files in the cloud and access them easily from devices big and small. Today we’re taking a look at how you can supercharge your Dropbox experience with free space upgrades, app integration, and more.

Return to Sender

We have a plethora of ways to share large files, but nothing may be simpler than email—if only there wasn't that pesky typical 25MB limit. WinZip's ZipSend service overcomes that barrier, with up to 2GB per email possible.

ZipSend isn't really sending 2GB in the email message; what it does is connect to the new ZipSend file sending service (powered by YouSendIt) from your email client, automatically zips the large files, and inserts a link to the files at the top of the message. The plugin integrates with Outlook, Gmail, Yahoo! Mail, and Hotmail. Perhaps it doesn't sound too revolutionary, since it's just a connector to another file transfer service, but the one-click integration in your email client and the large 2GB limit are certainly attractive.

Six of One, Half Dozen of Another

The reason that many general dentists don't do ortho is simple: we're not comfortable with it. But, what if you could learn the skills to provide ortho to your patients and to boot, have the treatment completed in 6 months? Come register for my webinar on December 6 to find out how you can start providing this excellent treatment option to your patients.

Freetown

If 'free' is the magic word when you're shopping for iPhone apps, this essential set of 30 should be on your list.

Easy Does It

Let’s admit it, for those computer-phobes, a personal computer with a fully featured and robust operating system isn’t right for either them or you. As wonderful as a PC with a real operating system is, there’s maintenance to be done, patches and drivers to be installed, and enough dials, knobs, and gauges that a computer-phobic cyberklutz can really bork things up faster than you can say right-click.

But in a world where not having access to email, Facebook, and the Internet puts you as far off the grid as the Unabomber, is there a way for these folks to have an easy, trouble-free computing lifestyle? There sure is...check it out here.

Time Saver

Every time you format and reinstall your PC, you have to activate Windows again, which can sometimes be a pain once you’ve done it too many times. Here’s how to backup and then restore the activation status.

Print for Less

A few weeks ago, How-to-Geek asked people to share their tips and tricks for minimizing your printing costs and getting more out of your home printer. They responded and here's what they said.

Attached at the Hip

With so many of us in the dental field using mobile devices, we often want to be able to use those devices to get our laptops online when we travel. Problem is, almost all carriers charge for this service. Here's how to get around that. Of course, do this at your own risk as it may brick your phone and even if it doesn't, it's probably against your cell phone carrier's terms of service.

Picture Perfect

Most of us spend all of the time we’re on the PC staring at that monitor—shouldn’t it be a good one? Today, we’ll decode the specs and monitor jargon to help you find the best possible LCD screen for your needs.

Pass the Salt

LastPass is a password management tool that takes all the effort out of managing your passwords—it’s so effortless, in fact, that it’s the most popular password management tool among many IT pros. We all have reasons, most of them in common, for not using passwords as strong and varied as we should: it’s a pain to remember them, it doesn’t seem that important to vary passwords wildly, entering complex passwords for each web site we visit is a big hassle, etc. LastPass removes those barriers by making password generation, management, and deployment dead simple and seamless. Here's how to get started.

In the Air Tonight

The popularity of home and small office networks has increased dramatically over the last decade, a phenomenon which can be directly attributed to the increase in broadband availability, but credit is also due to the accessibility that Wi-Fi provides to consumers. Not only are Wi-Fi products easy to configure and relatively inexpensive to implement, but many home computing devices have wireless radios pre-installed.

While connecting to a wireless network can be as simple as a few button presses or taps, there is a lot that goes into making the bits magically travel through the ether. We’re going to take a look at some of the building blocks that go into making your wireless network stable and fast, with an eye toward security and standards. We’ll also cover some of the devices that can improve your wireless network and ways you can use your Wi-Fi while away from home.

See Ya

With all the great technology that we've seen over the past decade or two, it's important to understand that nothing last forever, and much of it will be gone before we realize it. Here are 7 Gadgets That Won't Be Around In 2020.

Hacky Sack

Hacking the registry allows you to tweak many things in Windows, such as the adding and removing items from the context menu, enabling and disabling Windows features, customizing the Control Panel, and many other items.

I have documented a large collection of registry hacks and here is a list of 20 of the best hacks.

NOTE: If you are not comfortable making changes to the registry, you should not do so. In any case, before hacking your registry, be sure you back it up.I also recommend creating a restore point you can use to restore your system if something goes wrong.

Mail Merge

It doesn't matter what you do, modern jobs seem to require that everyone barrage you with email at all hours of the day. If you're feeling overwhelmed and like you'll never get back to a clean inbox, here are ten of my favorite tips to help you manage the ever-growing mountain of email.

Five Little Monkeys

Apple's new mobile operating system is finally nigh and imminent. Apple fans have been eagerly awaiting iOS 5 since it was announced in June. Last week, Apple CEO Tim Cook confirmed an October 12 release date for iOS 5, at the same time that he revealed the iPhone 4S. Apple mobile devices like the iPad and iPhone are eligible to upgrade to a brave new world of cloud computing, with exciting new notification features and money-saving messaging.

If you're like many computer and electronic consumers, though, you might be a little nervous about the idea of immediately upgrading to iOS 5. Older gadgets often feel slower when upgraded to new operating systems, and the fearsome specter of annoying bugs lurks around every corner. You could be tempted to wait until iOS 5.1 hits the street, hoping the later release might clear up any troublesome features and smooth out your experience.

Here's why you should overcome those worries and upgrade to iOS 5.