M is for...

Hi All,

I'm pretty amazed - we're up to the letter 'M' in our ongoing march toward the letter 'Z' when discussing popular websites. (We're half way there to the letter Z!)

So, without any further ado... M is for...

Mapquest - a great resource for users to map out directions or to find a specific location

Macy's - National retailer of upscale goods and merchandise. Lots of men's, women's and children's clothing. They also have a large housewares and jewelry department...can buy online as well as in the stores.

MTA - find information about various branches of the MTA. Other info that can be found includes schedules, fares/tolls, maps, planned service changes and much more. Oh, and the site is super easy to use and easy to read. The site has info on subways, NYC bus lines, the LIRR, Staten Island Railway, Bridges and Tunnels and the Metr0-North Railroad. Finally -and the coolest feature of the site is the Service Status indicates on the left side of the site. It tells the reader about the service status on each subway, rail, bus or bridge/tunnel - very helpful! Note that you'll need to click on a little butteon to get to the various options (subway, rail, bus...)

Miniclip - want to play a game? Click on this link from Miniclip and you can find games in categories like 'Latest Games', 'Hot Games', 'Sports Games', 'Action Games', 'Winter Games', 'Puzzle Games', 'Stunt Games' and 'Multiplayer Games'. That should keep you busy for a long, long time! Enjoy!

Moviephone - a very useful website that gives you movie times and movie news in real time. Shows you what movies are currently playing in theatres and hs movie reviews and Oscar award information. Nice interface also - and easy to use.

Mortgage calculator - just enter a few pieces of information (home value, credit profile, loan amount, purpose of loan, interest rate, loan term, property tax and PMI) and you'll get an amortization table that lists mortgage details like monthly payments, total interest paid and pay off date. Very helpful and easy to use.

Regards,
Stu

Election Headquarters

Hi All,

The 2012 election season is upon us - actually it began a few weeks ago with the New Hampshire Primary back about 2 weeks ago - actually January 12th...click here to get the results and the inside track on that primary.

So, if you guessed that this post is about politics, you are spot on. The difference with this post than with other posts is that I'm not going to be a spokesperson for either party or for any candidate. I'm completely agnostic - except to say that voting is a good thing. Everyone should vote - that is what democracy is all about. Click here for a little vignette about voting and democracy - you might find it interesting.

Click here for a link to the Democratic party's homepage.
Click here for a link to the Republican party's homepage.

Click on the links below for various candidates' homepages.

Mitt Romney - http://www.mittromney.com/s/mitt-romney-2012

Newt Gingrich-http://www.newt.org/

Click on this link for more information on the rest of the major Republican candidates

Click on this link for the Huffington Post - a leading internet 'newspaper' that covers politics and all its inner workings. Articles are definitely not mainstream and offer alternate viewpoints on politics and 'things political'.

On this link, you'll find the link to CNN's 2012 Election Headquarters - lots of interesting links and articles and 'insider dope' on the elections.

Finally, click on this link to the Nassau County Board of Elections. You might want to see if you are registered to vote!

Hope the sites are helpful to you!

Stu

It's All About the Big Blue - the NY Giants

Hi All,

Well it looks like my post of a few days ago was pretty interesting. No, I'm not going to tell you who is going to win SuperBowl 46 (well, okay - hint - the team name begins with the letter 'G'), but I will give you a whole host of websites and resources that you can use to learn more about the game, the teams and the players.

Go Giants!

First some warm up tosses about last nights' game:
From the NYTimes - click here for their review of the game. For the New England Patriots defeat of the Baltimore Ravens - click here for the game review from the New York Times.

Click the following links from the various sources below for more info about the teams:
ESPN.com SuperBowl Central
CBS Sports - SuperBowl Storylines
Yahoo! Sports - news, stats, stories and behind the scenes info about the SuperBowl

Teams
Well, you've got the New England Patriots - click on this link for their website - and you've got the New York Giants - click on this link for their website.

Click on this link from the NFL to go to a site with 'everything SuperBowl 46 related'. You'll find stats, player biography's, articles about how the two teams got to SB46`.

I'll do another post a few days before the big game that'll discuss the intracies of holding a SuperBowl party (think food, sturdy chairs, send the kids to Grandma, and lots of beverages, pizza, chicken wings and more!)

Enjoy - the next 2 weeks are going to be all about football in the New York metro area!
Stu

A Giant Football Game!

Hi All,

This is the perfect day to post a blog entry about the New York Giants! If you haven't been living under a rock, you know that the Giants have beaten the highly regarded Green Bay Packers last weekend, 37-20.

Well, now the New York Giants are playing the San Francisco 49ers this Sunday at 6:30pm.

So, for more information about the big game, read on!

Click on this link from the NFL.com to see home pre-game reviews and get some statistics on the player and the teams.

CBS Sports has a really good article talking about the rivalry between the Giants and the 49ers. Click here to read the article.

You might want to take a look at this other article at CBSSports.com discussing Kevin Gilbride - the NYGiants offensive coordinator - and how he has helped the offense play a lot, lot better in recent weeks. Also, click on this link for matchup information, player evaluations and more from ESPN. Whoa....too much info!

Want statistics - click on this link from ESPN and you'll get your fair share of player and team statistics. Want an obsessive level of detail and statistics? Mosey on hover to Pro-Football-Reference.com and you'll get stats for every single football player that ever played the game. Neat features include team records, sortable stats, leaders, SuperBowl information, boxscores and much, much more. Incredible site.

Now that you've got the stats click on a few of these blogs to get some 'less mainstream' views on the playoffs. Note that I'm not recommending any of these sites - I'm just listing a few of them in no particular order...

Fifth Down - from the New York Times - NYTimes NFL blog

Pro Football Weekly.com - Analysis and handicapping and evaluation of the upcoming games.

National Football Post - 'All Angles. All Access' of football. Nicely organized site of football articles and commentary.

Finally, click on this link for the Top 100 Blogs for NFL Fans. Links are for each NFL team - so all teams are included!

Enjoy the big game!
Stu

Technology News - Again

Hi All,

Get ready for websites to be loaded faster - much faster.

To get the scoop on the news, click on this article from Newsday entitled 'UN Sets Stage For Blazing Fast New Mobile Devices'. Essentially the 'bottleneck' that is preventing websites from appearing on mobile devices faster is that the UN needs to approve the international standards that are to be used. Well, those standards have been accepted. On to a faster mobile internet!

In a similar vein, I'd like to discuss some alternate ways to speed up your internet viewing. Forthwith, a few ways to surf the web faster!

From a website called Digital Inspiration - click here for the link - comes an article entitled 'Browse the Web Faster on a Slow Internet Connection'. Some ideas that they discuss about how to increase web browsing include:

1. turn off web images

2. switch to OpenDNS so the DNS server of your ISP can resolve website URL's into IP addresses more quickly (got that...)

3. increase the size of your browser cache

4. use Finch - it is a 'light weight version websites

5. monitor your internet speed to determine when you can get faster download speed from your internet service provider (ISP)

6. Use a text browser like Lynx or Elinks for fast browsing

Finally, click on this link which will tell you what your internet download and upload rates are. Link is from Speedtest.net! FYI, there are lots of other internet sites that can tell you what your internet connection speed is! Just do a Google search using the phrase 'internet search speed speedometer' - or just click this link to find alternate speed tests.

Hope this makes your internet viewing more pleasant, faster and more efficient!

Regards,
Stu

Spotlight On Websites That Offer Free Downloadable E-books

Hi All,

I'm sure that many of you know that the library has e-books. Users can download e-books onto their Ipod, Ipad, Sony Reader, Android device, Nook's, Kindle's and other e-readers.
Just visit the library website by clicking on this link and scrolling down to the section of the page that says 'Download an E-book or Audiobook'. Click here to go directly to the link though.

Farmingdale PL patrons can download books on a wide variety of topics - both fiction and non-fiction in a wide variety of formats from Overdrive. Just remember that you'll need your Farmingdale library card to download e-books and audiobooks.

Now - onto to the main part of this post. Did you ever hear about Project Gutenberg? Well, if not, Project Gutenberg is an online archive of books and e-books that users can take out and read - for free! Click here to go to the Project Gutenberg site. (http://www.gutenberg.org) FYI, Project Gutenberg has over 33,000 free e-books to read on virtually all devices.

Another website where readers can get their fill of e-books is on Free-ebooks.net. Click on this link to go to the site. The site also has e-book resources and information on ebook authors.

http://www.free-ebooks.net

Finally, users can click on this link from Manybooks.net to get yet more e-books. Click here to go to the Manybooks site. http://manybooks.net Manybooks has over 29,000 e-books available for Kindle, Nook, Ipad and most other eReaders. And of course, they are free!

Other free e-book sites include:

UPenn Digital Library at http://digital.library.upenn.edu/books

Kokobooks.com at http://www.kokobooks.com

Archive.org at http://www.archive.org/details/texts

Google Books at http://books.google.com/ebooks

Enjoy the books!

Stu

Computer Security and Passwords

Hi All,

Check out this article from the New York Times (title is: Even Big Companies Cannot Protect Their data) concerning computer/internet security:

It is very interesting article. Internet users should just ignore this issue - it seems like every week another company comes out and discusses a breach in their data. Click on this link from the Identity Theft Resource Center (ITRC) for lists of companies that have had data breaches over the past few years. Wow - this is scary stuff!

So, what can users do to protect their data online?

From the University of Texas Information Technology Services comes this article that suggests that strong passwords are an essential way to keep computer, data and accounts safe. Some tips for creating and using safe passwords are included: use both upper/lower case letters, use special characters like !@#$%^&*()_+ and others and don't use sample passwords that are give on different web sites...

The Microsoft website has an interesting feature called 'Password Checker' - basically the site grades how strong - or, weak - a particular password is. It is very interesting to see what they consider a strong password has...let's just say that the password has to have a LOT of letters and numbers and unique characters included.

Also, this site comes from Microsoft as well. It explains how users can create strong passwords online. Useful, interesting and it cuts to the chase - no extraneous material included.

Symantec is one of the world's largest computer security firms. As a result, I went to their website and dug up this webpage titled, 'The Simplest Security: A Guide to Better Password Practices'.

Many computer users have wireless networks at home now that they are easier to install. This means there is a whole new way for hackers to compromise your computer security. Click on this link from About.com which discusses Wireless Network Security. Note that on the About.com there are many links on the left side of the page for readers to get more information about wireless networking...

Finally, this link from OnGuardOnline.gov discusses multiple issues about computer security. Topics like encrypted websites, password protection, treating personal information like cash and using security software that updates automatically are discusses. And it is from a reputable source - the US government.

Enjoy the links I've included - hopefully they'll save you a lot of grief and repair time from fixing a compromised computer or computer network.

Regards,
Stu

#5!!!!

Hi All,

Lots of interesting and useful links are associated with the number 5!

5 Line - MTA Home - this is the link to the MTA site that has lots of information (stops, transfers, prices and more) for the Lexington Avenue Express line in NYC. Goofy, but fun.

Goal 5 From the United Nations: End Poverty 2015 - Millennium Development Goals. Information about the UN's goal of improving maternal health by reducing by three quarters the maternal mortality ratio. Very powerful information and quite admirable material.

HTML 5 - brought to you by the W3C this is the editors draft of the document that discusses 'A vocabulary and associated API's for HTML ad XHTML. Interesting reading for the inner techie in all of us. Sort of....

Wikipedia Entry For the Number 5 - in particular the section under sports is interesting. Many players who wore uniform number 5 have had their number retired. Specifically...Brooks Robinson (Baltimore Orioles), Johnny Bench (Cincinnati Reds), Lou Boudreau (Cleveland Indians), Hank Greenberg (Detroit Tigers), George Brett (Kansas City Royals), Joe DiMaggio (New York Yankees) and others...Click on this link for more information on the number 5 from Wikipedia. Specifically the section on sports is interesting. http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/5_(number)

Coco Chanel - perfumer - designer of the perfume named Chanel No. 5. Click on this link for more information on this world renowned fragrance:

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Coco_Chanel

Keating Five - were five United States Senators accused of corruption in 1989 which ignited a major political scandal as part of the larger Savings and Loan crisis of the late 1980's and early 1990's. Click on this link for the entry: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Keating_Five

Symbol of the Olympic Rings - simply put the rings represent the five parts of the world which are now (in 1914 when the charter was written) are won over to Olympism and willing to accept healthy competition. Click on this link for more information about the five intertwined rings that have come to be a symbol of the modern Olympics.

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Olympic_symbols#Olympic_rings

So there you go; 7 interesting links that represent the number 5 pretty well.

Enjoy,

Stu

It's All Fun and Games Until...

Hi All,

Well, well, well...here we are for the first post of 2012! Amazing difference that a year makes :)

I wanted to start this year off on the right foot! Fun, fun, fun!

So, without further ado - a list (with some descriptions) of fun websites (games, entertainment and more) for your viewing/surfing/playing pleasure.

There are lots of 'questionable' websites out there when you look for games to play. Lots of them try to install spyware or malware or viruses. That can be a problem so I found some games from a reputable website: AARP.

Click here for the link to the AARP games site. When you visit the site you can play games as varied as solitaire, backgammon, sodoku, crossword puzzles, hangman, pool (really, very cool), chess and more!

One of the bigger 'game sites' on the web is Games.com. You can find card games, puzzles, casino games, word games, board games, arcade games, sports, free games and more on the site. The site is easily navigated, crisp and a lot of fun to use. In addition, if you scroll down about halfway down on the homepage, you'll see a section with 'Totally New ' games. Interesting link and it could be a great way to try a new game after the same game starts to get boring. Check it out!

Possibly one of the largest gaming sites on the web is the one from Yahoo! Click on this link to go to Yahoo! Games Besides for having links to game categories like social games, arcade games, board games, card games, puzzles, word games, multiplayer games, games of skill and playing games on your mobile device; users can enter the name of a game in a search box. Great stuff and more than likely, if the game exists, Yahoo has a link to play the game. Finally, there is a link on the site for users to directly download various games.

Enjoy the games - now you know how to spend your spare time when you are on the internet!

Regards,
Stu