First, they diversified into every online area possible. Then they slapped down anyone who dared monetize their sites or blogs with something other than their own Adsense program. Recently, they began their maneuver to knock Wikipedia from the top of their search results by rolling out Knols, which is an attempt to get US to provide content so they can make more money by keeping all of us within Google’s safe little play yard.

And now? Following right along in Microsoft’s footprints, Google’s very own Adsense has been compromised by a Trojan. BitDefender is calling this Trojan.Qhost.WU and explains that it redirects calls meant for Google to a different server which then displays ads from someone other than Google. For webmasters, this means we can lose money. For visitors to our sites, this means that clicking on one of these ads can very likely infect your computer or otherwise compromise your security, which is likely since this is all being done with malicious code.

I realize that some think I’m crazy for making a connection between Google’s evil and Microsoft’s evil. This latest breaking news is just one more similarity. Google is now being targeted, just as Microsoft has been in the past. I wonder if this will be enough to open the eyes of Matt Cutts and his Googly crew.

Probably not.

I know that I don’t fit the stereotype of a girl in so many ways. Yes, I love makeup and shoes and clothes and anything that shines and sparkles. But I also love to assemble furniture with my own tools, tear apart computers and “remodel” their innards and generally build things or make things that are cool and unusual. And guess what? Someone has come up with a site for people like me!

Actually, Instructables has ideas and directions to make everything from a duct tape wallet to a JavaLog. Most of the items you’ll need are readily available and some can even be non-working parts from other things. Those projects are my favorite - recycling broken stuff into new usable stuff!

For example, if you’ve got a few old network cards around, how about transforming them into a cool notebook? I have every intention of making one of those for myself. If you keep looking around the site, you’ll find ways to reuse everything from old light bulbs, HDMI switches, dryer lint and who knows what else. (Okay, I’m exaggerating. But you get the idea.)

Whether you just like to tinker with stuff, the kids have a science project or you’re homeschooling, you’ll surely find some really great projects here suitable for just about every level of ability and knowledge. All of the projects come with detailed instructions and excellent pictures of the steps. Sign up for free and you’ll have the option of seeing all the instructions and pictures on one page.

Oh, and if you give one of the projects a try, why not come back here and share your experience with everyone? I’d love to see the finished product!

In exactly one week, I will be another year older. That’s right, my birthday is next Monday. And being the kind and considerate person that I am, I’m going to help you choose a gift to buy for me. (I’m just really nice like that.)

While I love girly things and traveling, those are things that I get for myself. I also buy geek stuff for myself but this is one of those items that I really want really bad so I’m going to tell you about it just in case you want to make give me something special.

It’s a USB Digital Microscope. You hook it up to your computer and then you can see anything at all - like the surface of your desk or your keyboard - magnified up to 200X, right on your monitor. I don’t know about you but I think that’s just really really cool.

The only thing I want more than the microscope right now is for someone to persuade Verizon to run fiber optic cables through my neighborhood so we can do something about this awful DSL I’m paying to not use every month.

I have a better chance of someone reading this buying that microscope. That’s sad.

I like the old stuff. Old cars, old fashions. And yes, I even like old computers. (I still regret not keeping my Commodore64 or my first machine with a hard drive - a 286 hand me down from my sister.)

If you like to take a peek at the past via the pages of a good book, you’ll want to head on over to the Atari Archives for the best collection of classic computer books, articles and software on the internet. From books on BASIC, to the 6502 Assembly Language, you’ll find the full text, available with permission from the copyright holders.

I know that time moves on and we’ve come quite a way since these books were published. I just love, though, that the internet puts this great material at our fingertips. Websites like Atari Archives are some of the best parts of this world wide web and I’m glad Kevin Savetz has taken the time to make it all available to us.

Now get on over there and read up on your computing history!

My first “new” computer (ie., not a hand-me-down) was from Gateway2000 in 1996. That was back when Ted Waitt still ran the company. It was back when Gateway2000 computers were top-notch. It was when Gateway still included the “2000″ because we hadn’t yet reached the new millennium.

Right after I got my computer, Gateway2000 introduced their Destination system. It was a computer coupled with a 36″ CRT monitor/TV. Yes, you could watch TV or surf the ‘Net, all from the comfort of your recliner. Of course, in my dreams surrounding this kickass setup, the whole family was gathered around in a kind of discount home theater seating arrangement. Why we would all be thrilled to sit around and watch each other surf, patiently waiting for a turn at the mouse, is beyond me. With a family of eight, we seldom agree on what TV show to watch, let alone wanting to surf the same sites. But I was taken in by the great marketing and hoped that someday we’d have a system like that.

Today, everyone in the family who wants a computer, has one. Some have more than one. The Destination was an interesting idea but in retrospect, I can see why it never really took off. A media center is fine but for surfing the internet, I’d rather sit at my desk or curled up with my laptop. Still, I have to wonder if Ted Waitt still has a Destination system set up at his house.

The other day I told you about TweakHound and how useful the site is. There’s so much more there than I mentioned but I’m sure you found that out when you looked around. You may have noticed that Eric makes a reference to another site, I believe on his Windows XP page. In fact, It was Eric’s TweakHound site that led me to BlackViper.com and the excellent XP resource there.

Just scroll on down a little to get to the table. There, you’ll see every Windows XP service, what they do, what the default setting is and which flavor of XP has it. Click on the Display Name and get the nitty gritty details of that service. The site has even been updated with Vista information. Very helpful.

I know there are a lot of people who simply want to turn on the computer and use it. I know most people don’t want to tweak and certainly don’t want to dig into the dark recesses of a Microsoft OS. But there are people who do. I admit, I’m one of them. And if you are, too, give the BlackViper.com site a try. Lots of good stuff, all in one place.

It seems we buy at least one new computer every year. Just when I upgrade our most sluggish machine, and I think we’ll be okay for a while, another computer begins to whine for attention. Of course, I love buying new computers. I used to love it even more when the handful of useless software titles installed on the machine was easy to uninstall. Since the dawn of XP, though, cleaning up and paring down any pre-built computer has been quite a task. Besides the software that I didn’t request there are now “services” that serve no purpose other than to slow down boot up or the machine itself. And those services are listed in such a cryptic way that only the very courageous or utterly foolish would even consider shutting them down without doing extensive research.

That is, unless you’ve happened to find a site that does all the research for you. That’s exactly what TweakHound does. I first used the site when I was trying to streamline my XP laptop. I did all the usual stuff, stopping the startup load of known problem programs like RealPlayer and putting an end to System Restore. And yet there was something just not right. That’s when I discovered the Services that were running and set about to learn which of those I needed and which I didn’t.

I found many sites that offered advice on WindowsXP services but the fact is, no one spelled it out as well as TweakHound.com. The very comprehensive list of default WindowsXP services is probably the best laid out reference I’ve seen. In fact, the entire WindowsXP Tweaking section is just jam-packed with information that every PC user ought to have.

When I first set up my Vista machine, I returned to TweakHound and sure enough, there was a great rundown of Vista Tweaks just waiting for me. Naturally, there isn’t as much info there as in the XP section but I just went back today since my daughter has a new Vista laptop that needs tweaked, and it seems there’s a few more articles than the last time I dropped by. If you want to get right to the meat of the Vista goodies, the Vista Tweak Guide is the place to be.

Oh, but wait! It gets better. TweakHound has a very informative Linux area as well. That’s right, this is a one-stop reference site for PC enthusiasts. I’m still trying to teach myself the ins and outs of Linux so this is the kind of site that appeals to me, like a swiss army knife of operating system references.

Now before you leave TweakHound, be sure to head over to the new blog for the most recent updates. You’ll find some terrific freeware tools, newly discovered OS tweaks and just generally interesting tech stuff that you may not find elsewhere. This is definitely one of the better tech blogs out there.

The guy running this show is Eric Vaughan. He seems to be really good at collecting information and organizing it perfectly so that the rest of us don’t have to run around in circles gathering what we need while sifting through fluff. Eric doesn’t do email tech support but I’ll bet he’d love some interesting discussion at his blog. If you appreciate his work and enjoy his blog, why not take a minute to comment to him and thank him? I know that’s what I plan to do!

If you give me a choice, I’d rather grab my tool box and open the computer case than dig into the OS and try to figure out what the heck Windows is doing this time. I’ve done my share of software/OS tweaking and fixing; I’d just rather not. Keep the software; I’ll take the hardware.

And yet, I find myself faced with digging into file systems and registries far more often than swapping hard drives or cables. And let’s face it, there’s a lot more to learn with XP and Vista than there ever was with with W95 or W98. When I’m trying to figure out what is running on an XP machine, I have to google just about everything listed. I just can’t remember it all.

Another list that’s too long to commit to memory is the list of all the file extensions. File extensions, for those who don’t know, are the part of a file name that comes after the dot. For example, in myfile.txt, the txt is the file extension that means the file is a text file.

We all know the common ones like .txt, .exe, .doc, .html. But what happens when you’re faced with an extension you’ve never seen before? You may have sort of an idea of what it is but it sure would be nice to find exactly the type of file it is quickly, wouldn’t it? Well you can. I found a cheat sheet!

Every File Extension In The World is an exhaustive list of, well, just that. I haven’t read through the entire list but I’ve never searched for an extension that wasn’t there. Whether the extension is commonly used or is practically forgotten, from an old DOS program or the latest MPEG Audio file, you’ll find it here.

Added bonus: If you want more information on any extension, head on over to FILExt, The File Extension Source for more information than you probably wanted to know. They also have a very active forum where you can get advice if you’re really stuck.

Neither of these sites are places you’ll be visiting daily but each is worth a bookmark. You never know when you’ll need these references and these two sites, when combined, are all you’ll need to solve any file extension dilemma.

The Verizon technician was at my house again today for another 4+ hours. He replaced more wires. He said it was fixed. Again. We’ll see.

He was gone for just 30 minutes when my connection went back down and I had to reboot the modem and wireless router. That’s right, just 30 minutes. Verizon keeps saying the problem is in my wires but that doesn’t explain why several of my neighbors have the very same problem.

I just keep hoping that Comcast comes to this neighborhood soon. If it wasn’t for the DSL, I wouldn’t even have regular land lines. My cell phone would be more than good enough.

I can write a static HTML page or CSS. I can even manipulate some javascript and php a little bit. But a Firefox extension or WordPress plugin? Uh, no. Not me.

So, when I went looking for a specific WP plugin and came up empty, I turned my friend Owen. That was several weeks ago but today, Owen delivered. And he did it perfectly!

When someone would comment to one of my blog posts, I’d typically answer them on my blog. I like the feeling of a conversation on my blog. It was a pain, though, to copy my response from my blog and then paste it into and email to send it off to the commenter. And yet, if I don’t email my response to the comment, how do I know the commenter will see my response. Quite a dilemma, wouldn’t you say?

And that’s where Owen stepped in. Owen has created The Comment Email Responder v2 Plugin for WordPress. He based it on the work of Andrew Flusche.

The Comment Email Responder makes it easy to respond to comments on your blog. Not only will my response show up in the comments but the person to whom I respond will receive an email with my response as well. That’s one less step for any WP blogger trying to keep in touch with both new and regular visitors.

I’ve spent about 3 months or so searching for a plugin like this. I know one doesn’t exist. Or at least it didn’t before Owen came up with this one. So get on over to Owen’s site, download the plugin and tell him THANK YOU for this. Oh, and if you love this plugin as much as I do, please spread the word. Send Owen some linky love. He deserves it.