Worker's Edge

Best Web sites for older job seekers

The pundits can't decide whether the real unemployment problem is older people taking jobs from younger people or younger people taking jobs from older people.

Unemployed and underemployed folks in their 40s, 50s, or older just want a job that will keep the bill-collectors at bay, and maybe even provide a little fulfillment.

The recent slow decline in the U.S. unemployment rate may be misleading. Forbes.com's Peter Ferrara writes that the labor force participation rate has dropped from 65.7 percent in 2009 to 63.5 percent at the end of 2011. Ferrara claims the true more

Five ways to depersonalize Google search results

A friend asked me to recommend a browser add-on that would allow her to see generic results when she did a Google search. I convinced her to eschew extensions in favor of the manual approach to search depersonalization.

Google's support site explains how the company uses what it knows about you to personalize your search results. The site also describes how to restrict who sees your personal results, limit whose personal results you see, and customize the feature in other ways.

The most-obvious way to depersonalize searches --at least partially -- is to use your browser's anonymous mode. more

Limit your participation in Facebook social ads

What makes Facebook worth $100 billion? (Likely somewhat less, as Suzanne Vranica and Shayndi Raice explain in The Wall Street Journal.)

Topping the list is the revenue-generating potential of the company's upcoming Premium ads and other new advertising programs.

Facebook, Google, and just about every other big-name Web service make their money by selling ads that get targeted based on what they know about you. The companies say they don't sell personally identifiable information to third parties, but one way or another, information about their users is the services' bread and butter.

The Facebook Data Use Policy explains more

How to spot dangerous links before you click them

You probably got to this page by clicking a link. Links are the ties that bind the Web. But each click is also a leap of faith. How do you know you're going to the page you think you're going to?

Google search results let you preview pages before you follow the link, but elsewhere the best you can do is hover over the link to see at the bottom of the browser the URL of the page the link will open. (See below for more on free browser add-ons that rate the security of links in search more

Two free Mac antivirus apps compared

Recent malware attacks targeting Macs haven't tarnished the machine's reputation as the safer alternative to a Windows PC. But for many Mac users, the Flashback Trojan has dispelled the myth of Mac invulnerability.

The most recent Java-based iteration of Flashback appears to be easy to catch: just visit the wrong Web page and your machine's infected, as Josh Lowensohn describes in his Flashback FAQ.

The more

How to teenager-proof a Windows 7 PC

Families share: meals, money, space, telephones, computers, you name it. Depending on the circumstances, the sharing can be a source of joy or of conflict -- frequently it's a little of both.

If there's a computer in your household that more than one person uses, you can minimize the chances that the machine will breach the family peace by configuring the system to meet the unique needs of each user. If one or more of those users is a teenager, you owe it to all of us to help prevent malware from spreading by implementing some basic safety more

Facebook's profile-download tool comes up short

Even casual Facebook users can quickly accumulate a library of photos, videos, and posts reflecting the noteworthy and mundane moments in the lives of family and friends.

Facebook lets you download much of this information and recently enhanced its download archive to include IP addresses used by the account, relationship information, and other categories of personal data.

The download-tool update is being rolled out gradually. (When I downloaded a Facebook profile this weekend the added categories of information weren't included.) To use the profile downloader, sign into your Facebook account and click the down arrow next to the Home more

NetTalk makes it easy to dump your landline but keep your phone number

How many phones does a person need, anyway?

Chances are you're paying more for telephone service than you need to. If you've been tempted to drop your landline but hesitated because you didn't want to lose your old phone number, get ready to save some dough.

NetTalk is one of a handful of VoIP services that port your existing number to an inexpensive Internet-phone account. Visit the NetTalk porting page to determine whether your current number is portable. If it is, you can submit a Number Porting Authorization when you complete your order or afterward by signing more

Three ways to research your family tree

The April 2, 2012, release by the U.S. National Archives and Records Administration of the 1940 U.S. census data has genealogists all aquiver. If you were hoping to plumb the records for details on your family, keep in mind that the initial release of the data will be a challenge to search.

Detect and prevent today's sophisticated malware threats

Today's malware purveyor bears little resemblance to the outcast-teenage-loner caricature popular in days past.

Last November the FBI's Operation Ghost Click led to the arrest of six Estonians charged with promulgating the DNSChanger malware, which the FBI claims allowed the gang to steal $14 million by manipulating the servers of online advertisers. Unfortunately, DNSChanger is estimated to have infected 100 million computers worldwide and 500,000 in the U.S., many of which haven't yet been disinfected.