The Lady Programmer

I was surprised today when I received an email that I got some money from Moneybookers. The amount was worth nearly $400. I really could not believe it because I was not expecting money from somebody or from some online website. I decided to get to Moneybookers website directly instead of clicking the links contained in my email.

When I logged in successfully in Moneybookers, I did not see any link or announcement that lets me confirm the receipt of that cash. There was only nothing in my account. I went back to my email and hovered my cursor over the links: the links showed a site that does not end with moneybookers.com but it showed links that ends with addwebhosting.com.

I think someone reported the site already as a phishing site, but I decided to report this matter to Moneybookers anyway. I posted this one immediately so that we could be aware of this recent scam. I still think Moneybookers is a great site and I don’t think that they will do this mischief. Anybody could be easy to fake the “from” address of the email – anyone could do it with their email settings then send it off to the my email address.

Be aware of emails that lead to phishing sites. Educate the world!

I’ve learned to master the art of flirting. I had a great time “flirting” as a contestant or as the judge. Although I was not able to get through a game after a few tries because people seem to change their minds about joining my team. But I eventually ended up with two guys as the hot flirters while I get to be the judge to get my pick of guys.

All of this is done in a virtual game offered by Extreme Style by VO5 where I get to play with two other people. I had to wait for two more people to play online with me. Once that three people are in the waiting room with me then we could start with the Ultimate Flirting Championship game.

The widget provides a brief way to experience the snapshot of this game. If you like it then you can just use the “embed” tag to put on your own blog.

I think that this is a great way to get to try out avoiding cheesy pickup lines like “Hey girl, what’s up? Guess what? It’s your lucky day. Out of all the girls here, I picked you to talk to.” I would have a rather thoughtful creative guy to think of an attractive line to have and that game seems like a good sandbox to play with those lines that work. If you plan to briefly get away from work and meet somebody new then don’t ever forget your pick up line and put on Victory Hair for that great look.

I’ve been troubleshooting my very slow PC today. I could not really bear the slow response of my computer. I just have a very slow computer and I do not really know what’s causing it: fragmented files, installed antivirus, full hard disk may have caused this slowdown.

photo credit: erwinbacik (SXC)

I had to start with the basics first and I’ve mentioned these simple steps in this blog. But it seemed that my own simple advice was not working. Reformatting the whole machine may be the next step that I may do. Adding new hardware may have solved my woes. But I find it better to do the simpler steps that I can still do. Not all of the things that I did are for the faint hearted.

• Defragment. The built-in Windows defragmenter does a fair job of defragmenting files on the hard disk. But I prefer using Diskeeper 2008 to analyze and defrag my old hard disk. Diskeeper does a great job of showing a map of my hard drive: I could see where my page file, folders, system files and other non-system files in place. I could even choose to have autodefragmentation on and forget about it. I could even do a boot defragmentation to defrag my MFT and page files.
• Change Antivirus (with Firewall). Bitdefender and Kaspersky are two leading antivirus programs that eats a lot of resources. I prefer the ones with the firewall versions because I like the seamless connection between the antivirus and its firewall. I switched to ESET Smart Security, another leading antivirus program, and I kept it since because it does not slow down my PC.
• Uninstall Unnecessary applications. A full hard disk results a fragmented paging file. A fragmented paging file results to a slower response when the RAM tries to read data from the hard disk.I decided to remove all the applications that I do not need anymore to free up much space and make it easier for the paging file and other applications that temporarily use the hard disk as scratch, such as Photoshop. The huge free space also makes it possible to perform hard disk defragmentation.
• Deleting unnecessary and temporary files. The built-in disk cleanup in the accessories section does a good job of removing unnecessary files. But there are other utilities that even clears up all the unnecessary files in place. TuneUp Utilities provides all-in-one computer utilities and can be easily used by basic computer users. This software not only delete unnecessary files but also lets me cleanup the registry and repair errors. It even lets me optimize the use of windows and customize it so that I use my own customized icons for “My Computer” and “Recycle Bin”.
• Reinstall hard disk IDE driver. I’m still using my old IDE hard disk, but I should be shifting to a SATA one soon. The IDE channel transfer mode was down to PIO mode. It should be in DMA so that I get to have a faster access. The easiest way for me to shift back to DMA mode is to reinstall its driver. The change may have been caused by read errors that may be creeping into my old hard disk. I would be needing a new hard disk soon.

I got my PC faster with the steps that I did above. It seemed that my computer seems to be as fast as a newly reformatted one and I’m happy with it.

What are your own tips?

I really wish to be wedded in a manner that it seemed to be impeccable and perfect to the eyes of the guests. I am not expecting an all too perfect wedding though, but I believe that a well-prepared feast is seen in the little details that are put into it. Weddings are one-in-a-lifetime events and good first impressions of an upcoming great wedding are always seen in the letterpress wedding invitation that the couple gives out to their family and friends.

photo credits: andreyutzu (SXC)

I’ve seen some samples that Dauphine Press featured in their website. They are not discriminating in accepting wedding invitations. They are willing to do jobs for even for gay wedding invitations. These are indeed letterpress wedding invitations that are still fitting to any wedding occasion.

I feel like I’m like the younger maidens who fancy perfect weddings and I sometimes find myself thinking about it. I believe that Dauphine Press does a great job of preserving the quaint touch that technology cannot entirely replace. But Dauphine Press does not stick to the older ways of doing these lovely letterpress invitations – it is a marriage of the ease of modern technology and vintage printing to come up with the seemingly old-fashioned wedding invitation that everyone prefers to receive.

Have you heard about the Microsoft Surface that was introduced to the public a few months back?

This is now getting to be a reality as Sheraton hotels agreed to install this Microsoft Surface interactive table on some of their hotels. I’ve seen how it worked in a video that a friend had emailed me months back. Now some customers are finally getting to have a feel of this new technology. Some hotel tables are now converted into these special tables where guests need to use two fingers to do the walking. Not all Sheraton hotels contain these “surfaces” because Microsoft says that the installation is out for the test run.

At first it seemed to me that the table is a lot similar to the touch screen computers that I see around. The remarkable difference of this technology is that it is designed to operate in 3D. It has a bunch of infrared cameras
and a projector that is installed along with this table so that it can respond to three-dimensional hand-gestures. This arrangement also enables the “surface” to respond to different types of objects. The Microsoft Surface can even “make waves” – literally.

For Bill Gates, this is indeed a start of his great vision to see the “surface” everywhere. I don’t hear any competition to this technology and I think he would be dominating this field of technology once more – just like what he had done with the software.

What do you think about Microsoft Surface?