Internet tips

What makes someone choose one browser over another? Often people use whichever browser is closest at hand: Internet Explorer in Windows and Safari on Macs.

Lots of folks choose Firefox because of the browser's many useful add-ons. But the best reason to go with one browser over another is speed. In my experience, no browser is faster than Google Chrome.

There's no easier way to start an argument among geeks than to claim one browser is the speed champ. If you look hard enough you can find a reliable study naming each of the most popular browsers the … Read more

The first time I heard someone say "Everybody has a book in them," I recommended that they see a doctor right away.

At least that explains all those books I've read that appear to have traveled through the author's colon. Writing can be painful, but there are limits.

Lots of people have unpublished novels and other book-length documents sitting forlornly on their hard drive, waiting and waiting for an audience. If your magnum opus (or even half-pint opus) is a Word document that's ready for the world to fall in love with, give the free … Read more

Tough economic times are a boon to the crooks who prowl the Internet looking for their next victims. They know how eager (desperate?) so many of us have become in our quest to remain solvent.

It seems not a day passes without the appearance of some new Internet scam. Unfortunately, many of the ruses people fall victim to are older than the Internet itself.

Wiring money and Internet purchases don't mix Take, for example, the bogus cashier's check. In last week's Santa Rosa Press-Democrat, Cathy Bussewitz wrote about Bart Edson's disastrous attempt to sell an antique … Read more

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 … Read more

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 … Read more

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 … Read more

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 … Read more

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 … Read more

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.

As the National Archives' 1940 census FAQ indicates, until professional and amateur genealogists have indexed the names and other data collected by that census, the only way to find specific entries will be by the "enumeration district" where a given person lived at the … Read more