GuruNews, Volume 8 Number 34, 9-18-08

Thu Sep 18 21:18:58 EDT 2008

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Vol. 8, No. 34                 

9-18-08

1 Emergency procedure   

2 Who are you again?      

3 Unhappy iPhone users, don't hack the pit bull, amazing survey, small supercomputer  

4 PING

5 Free antivirus

The current situation with massive power outages following hurricane force winds has been called unprecedented, a once in a lifetime event and an anomaly.  Actually this is the third time in the last 18 months that winds in excess of 60 MPH have wreaked havoc on the region.

One last summer hit northern Kentucky and southern Indiana (I suffered some vehicle damage when I was attacked by flying mailboxes in that one), one was last July mostly across the Louisville area and points east and the current one, which decimated the entire region.

Odds are, it will happen again and you need to be prepared.  There are plenty of articles and news stories about non-perishable food and bottled water etc. stored in a cool dry place but what about other things that could prove invaluable?  Cell phones, email and radios are almost as important and fairly easy to deal with.

Lets start out simple:  radios and lights.  When the power goes down it's usually at the height of the storm and radios are a must have to keep apprised of what's going on in the outside world.  You may need to take additional steps to protect yourself and your family and, if you're just sitting with no incoming information you're at risk.

Have two or three radios on hand, with at least one being a weather radio or having the weather band capability.  Pick simple mono radios, not monster jam boxes that play CDs, MP3s and dock with iPods.  Simple equals longer battery life.  Also AM is a necessity.  FM stations are all about music and often don't have access to any real information while AM stations are mostly talk/news outlets and will likely have live coverage.  Don't even think about wasting money on a satellite radio for this sort of situation.

There are also wind-up versions available that can be charged by simply turning a crank.  These can be very valuable if you're without power for an extensive period and run out of batteries.  There are also hand-crank versions of the next devices.

Lights are the second most important item on the list, since severe storms tend to hit late in the day, or more alarmingly of late, in the middle of night.  Every member of the household should have a hand light in their bedrooms, and there should be one stashed in every common room in the house that can be found easily in the dark.

There should also be one hand light per individual as well as a couple of major lights like camping lanterns stored in that same cool dry place you store your food and water.  Needless to say a couple of the radios should be there as well.

Go with LED lights for the entire set.  The "bulbs" last for years and battery usage is very low so you get long life out of a single set of batteries.  LED camping lanterns are much safer than anything that uses a flammable gas and they don't require ventilation, plus they throw off an amazing amount of illumination.

Now for all this power you'll need batteries.  Don't bother with rechargeable for this application, just plain old alkaline batteries are what you want.  Have at least three sets for each radio and a couple of sets for each of the lights.  When you need batteries for everyday usage you can rotate your emergency stash so they stay fresh.

Now for the high tech stuff, but lets start old school.  Have at least one corded telephone in the house, preferably in the same area as your shelter.  It's no big deal to run a phone line into even an unfinished basement and wire it into a jack.  Plug in the old style phone and make sure it works and you're good.  Even with no power the phone system usually stays up and it may be vital in case of medical or other emergency, plus you can check in with local friends or relatives to let them know you're OK.

Next week I'll hit the higher tech stuff; I got a bit carried away this week ;)

Until then stay safe and find a friend to stay with if you don't have power.  

Kevin Mefford, Editor

pcguru at microdome.net

Terry Wise

www.ratland.com

 Tech News of the Week

>From team member Hash: it seems that not all developers are happy with Apple's App Store and its rules for inclusion.  If you own an iPhone or an iPod Touch, Apple's future response to submitted applications is worth watching (this link is to a blog with open commenting---adult language may be present):

http://almerica.blogspot.com/2008/09/podcaster-rejeceted-because-it.html 

On Wednesday, Gawker.com posted personal photos and other tidbits from Governor Sarah Palin's personal e-mail account, which had been hacked earlier in the day.  Are all public figures one password away from having our private lives dug up for public view? Do they have a right to privacy?

http://tinyurl.com/42skxr 

If you have teens at home, you already know what the Pew Internet & American Life Project took a survey to find out---all teenagers play video games:

http://tinyurl.com/3kabcp

Microsoft and Cray on Tuesday unveiled CX1, a compact, competitively priced supercomputer that the companies said they developed jointly for customers who perform tasks such as simulations that require compute-intensive environments.  But how does Crysis look on it?

http://tinyurl.com/3fl85t

>From team member Carmine: a new mobile application from Maverick Mobile Solutions lets you protect the data on a stolen cellphone, track down its location and torture the thief. Think of it as LoJack for cellphones:

http://tinyurl.com/3pacm9

Matthew Dattilo

thepcgurus at gmail.com 

www.mattstodayinhistory.com

Download of the Week

Carlita is having some power problems as well as fighting a nasty summer cold (hot toddies work wonders, my dear!) so I'll be filling in this week.

Reader S. McCrocklin sent along this neat little boot CD/DVD based on Linux that is not just a free replacement for Symantec Ghost (used to clone or backup/restore hard drives) but has a virtual toolbox full of utilities.

PING allows backup/restore of partitions and the BIOS data across a network, create a bootable restore CD for your PC etc.  It's Linux based and can do a lot in a small space.

Yes, it's geeky, but for those of you who are replacing a failing hard drive and would like to save all your data, or perhaps you have a small network at home, it's extremely useful.  Get it for free from:

http://ping.windowsdream.com/ 

Kevin Mefford

pcguru at microdome.net

Email Question of the Week

Q:  Do you still recommend AVG? I am running Vista Home Premium which seems to have a lot of protection in itself. My Dell came downloaded with MaCafee free for 30 days but I intend to get rid of it in favor of AVG which I have had on my old computer.

A:  As a group, we either recommend AVG found at http://free.grisoft.com or Avast at http://www.avast.com.  Both solutions work well from our experiences.

Hope this helps, and feel free to email back with any questions,

Daniel A. Williams
daniel at thepcgurus.com

Contact info and legal stuff

If you have tech support questions or ideas and/or submissions for our newsletter please submit them by visiting www.thepcgurus.com and click on the "Email the Team" icon. 

Copyright 2001-2008 The PC Gurus, all rights reserved.  Publication, rebroadcast or storage is prohibited without prior consent, however you may freely forward this publication to friends as long as A) it is forwarded in its entirety and B) no fee is charged.

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