Here we discuss some general Internet Safety Issues and steps to take to improve security on the internet.
One of the most common ways by which Internet Security is compromised is by using a bug-ridden internet browser. It raises serious security concerns when a malicious hacker targets a known vulnerability in the browser. It is therefore recommended that you use a safer browser that is less prone to attacks. I have used FireFox+Google Toolbar for quite a while, I strongly recommend that you download and try it. You will see that with the help of the google toolbar, it is able to block annoying popups too. FireFox, is and always was free to use and can be uninstalled easily if you arent impressed with it.

Once the browser is secured, you should get the official updates for your operating system. Most users nowdays use Windows XP, So all XP users should get Windows XP Service Pack 2 to better defend you operating system. Get the Windows XPSP2 from any of the following locations:

• http://www.microsoft.com/windowsxp/sp2/default.mspx
• http://www.softwarepatch.com/windows/xpsp2.html

The download can take a while as the files could be above 250 mb and make sure you have a genuine copy of Windows XP installed.

Install a good anti-virus package for protection against viruses. There are a few free Anti-Virus packages that offer decent security, such as

• http://www.grisoft.com/
• http://www.avast.com/eng/avast_4_home.html
• http://www.free-av.com/
• http://www.bitdefender.com/PRODUCT-14-en--BitDefender-8-Free-Edition.html

If you are serious about internet security then you should consider using a commercial anti-virus package. Norton Anti-Virus and McAfee Anti-Virus are well known packages of which the latter is highly recommended if you can afford it.

Finally, As a layer of protection against SpyWares, download and install the following Anti-SpyWare utilities:

• Microsoft Windows Defender - [ Download ]
• Ad-Aware - [ Download ]
• Spybot - Search & Destroy - [ Download ]

Run these utilities on a regular basis to clean out the spyware junk from your system.

The tips above will improve your overall internet security, So how about a nice, friendly kiss for sharing these tips with you, Girls? ;-)

Update: Norton Security Scan is now included with the google pack, See what more is included in the google pack.

Passwords have become something inevitable in our tech savvy world !! We always need to use a strong password or else our security is at risk... If someone else cracks your password, then you could lose anything from your free email account to your $$$ from your bank account !!
So keep strong passwords, something hard to crack by any hacker. Here is a simple online tool from microsoft to check your password strength.
Just type in your password, it will show how strong your password is ?? It might show any of these :::: Weak - Medium - Strong - Best :::: Discard any 'weak' or 'medium' level passwords... Always keep a 'strong' or a 'best' level password. Then, don't worry... It is from Microsoft... They wont save your password somewhere else and misuse it... :)
Enjoy and be secure using a strong password.

HOW TO DERAIL AN ARGUMENTAND MAKE IT A FIGHT

10 Games People Play

As a people watcher I have observed that a lot of good arguments never reach any conclusion. They sometimes end in bad blood, resentment, anger, sullenness, tears, frustration, one-upmanship, and that is because the train of thoughts is derailed before it can reach the station. The accident brings about a lot of causalities and deaths in relationships depending on how much damage the derailment has caused.

Arguments are basically a set of contradictory statements to reach a conclusion. These statements are often called premises. Arguments arise when people have differing points of view and they try to hold up their own views as the truth. It takes place in a discussion of pros and cons of an issue or in a controversy which can end in hostility of varying degrees of violence and reaction.

What is truth? This is not easy to define as there are several factors that need to be considered before reaching the truth. This is why arguments happen and why they are important.

Arguments often generate more heat than light. This is because the rules of arguments are thwarted by one party or the other in order to gain supremacy over the other. Or one breaks the rule and the other is dragged into a confrontation. When we argue we use a number of strategies to help us win over our opponents. This is done so insidiously that sometimes the whole argument becomes misdirected, comes apart or comes to a stand still.

BASE PROBLEM: NOT STICKING TO THE ISSUE UNDER DEBATE

I have put together some of the devices people use to obfuscate or distract from the focus. Look out for these fallacies the next time you argue. It will give a label to put on what you suspect is happening, where earlier, you had no words to define that feeling of exasperation.

1) Arguments are often reduced to a narrow level.

REDUCTIO AD ABSURDUM - reducing the reasoning to a small sample

Eg: Mind altering drug users are dangerous to society. Should we lock up all alcoholics then?

Here the person reduces the argument to an absurd part of the whole and makes you look either petty or fanatical. So you either “fall prey” to answering THAT question which like examining a needle in a haystack (to twist around a proverb) or just going grrrrrrr

AD HOC CLAUSES – every argument can be subjected to exceptions

Eg : To kill is evil. Soldiers and governments do it regularly

Here the person uses the exceptions that are valid but which do not adhere to the”spirit” of the main clause. So you are talking of two different issues bound by the word ‘kill’. It is like comparing oranges and apples and saying they are both fruits when you are talking of citrus allergies.

2) Arguments are often reduced to a personal level

AD HOMINEM MOVE – getting personal

Eg: You are a smoker so don’t say smoking is harmful……

you are not a hindu so how can you speak of Ram?… you are not a good Hindu or you would support Ram…… you are a Tamilian Shaivite so please don’t talk of Ram… You should read the scriptures before you speak of Ram….etc

JUMPING TO CONCLUSIONS

You said you are a painter so you can’t know much about rocket science. You should be married before you talk of divorce… you have no idea what it is like to be poor.. You haven’t read Mein Kampf or the Vedas…

Assumptions distract because then you begin defending the personal angle and the issue is forgotten. This takes you away from the angle of the argument being put forth and throws you into a place of judgement and closes your mind.

This can also be used in the reverse, especially when identities are not known as on the net. So the why don’t you do what you preach? What have you done about this problem except talk about it? is constantly asked. It is not an argument. It is a effort to make you look like you don’t know what you are talking about because you don’t work with it. Therefore you have no right to talk about it and therefore your arguments are invalid. If you are not a scientist you dare not talk of science issues. If you talk of politics you better be a politician etc.. which ofcourse is ridiculous and stops the argument to begin an unpleasant fight of sorts… fini.

MAKING PERSONALITY STATEMENTS

You are trying to score on me. You are argumentative. You think no end of yourself. You think you are the greatest and most intelligent etc. I thought you would be a lucid thinker. I am not sure you I am going to come back and read you again. You don’t know when to stop arguing.

This leaves the argument itself cold and dead and maneuvers the argument to a personal level where the person if he/she is not alert will begin defending that accusation. Fini.

3) Comparisons that are false, illogical – classic fallacies

ANALOGY – A is like B. there fore what is true of A is also true of B

Eg: Bombay is a big city like New York. Bombay is polluted so New York is also polluted.

Straight connections without looking at other parameters of the two things compared which will make a world of difference and sometimes deem the two as opposites.

DEDUCTION – fallacies of “Therefore”

Eg: All boys are rough. C is a boy. Therefore C is rough

You chat and blog regularly therefore you can’t be doing any important work/ must be unemployed loser / must be single or ugly/ an attention seeker etc.

4) Selecting evidence and suppressing evidence

ANECDOTAL EVIDENCE – based on one incident make generalizations

Eg: Mumbai is unsafe. Look at the way that man killed that girl at Gateway

You say Hong Kong has great traffic systems. Last month do you know how many died in that accident on the MTR?

These are powerful when used as derailers and people often get embroiled in proving and disproving the efficiency of the railways across the world and forget traffic systems they were originally talking about

DECEPTION – half truth – economy with truth

Eg: Mention that the airline was delayed but not that they gave you hotel accommodation.

Using information selectively and hiding the whole truth is a common human trait.

5) Arguments that rely on people support and numbers

APPEAL TO AUTHORITY – using established names to stop further thought Eg: Psychologists say… Einstein said…

AMBIGUITY – Use of pronouns and unspecific reference

Eg: They say…. I read somewhere…. History says… I haven’t read the book but I think…

As people do not have time to check on references the unscrupulous will quote authority and say whatever they please.

TRUTH BY CONSENSUS – Democratic Fallacy

Eg: Everyone thinks so…

Dependence on number of comments one gets to feel supported. So some bloggers cultivate friends to make sure their consensus charts are overflowing with the “ truth” of many who affirm their statements. There is a general feeling that the more the number of people who agree the better the chances of the person being right. Safety in numbers is a powerful psychological and social support crutch. A large number of fence sitters will never opine for fear of upsetting the dominant or popular apple carts.

THE WEAK ARGUMENT

This one gives no reason. It just states I don’t agree.

It means I am opposing you and it so reasons don’t matter.

6) Cascading to weaken the power of the argument

ASSUMPTIONS – the future will be like the past. Inductive arguments induce flow of thought into various assumptions and possibilities but they are not conclusive

Eg: If you let IBM into the country they will rule India like the Brits someday

SLIPPERY SLOPE ARGUMENT – jumping to conclusions at high speed

Eg: If you legalize euthanasia then there will be mass suicides.

These makes it complex to refute as it involves disproving many steps.

7) Arguments that provoke and revoke responses

EMOTIVE LANGUAGE – words that provoke anger revolt pity etc

Eg: victims, terrorists, freedom fighters, activists, idiocy, shame etc

CULTURE SPECIFIC STANDS – race specific stands

Eg: In our community that is how we do it

KNOCK DOWN ARGUMENT – which completely refutes all argument

Eg: Mere paas maa hai

This is a highly charged emotional one that stops the other dead in tracks. A lot of arguments on religion use this kind of weapon and the political correctness of not offending stops the other from continuing the argument

RESORTING TO ABUSE

You are a stupid housewife. You are an unemployed guy who throws his weight around. I am not interested in your moronic views.

Most people when they think they are losing an argument and are not in control, resort to childish abuse. It is the easiest way to derail into indulging anger that is personal and naturally has no bearing on the issue.

8) Endless argument and disagreement opportunity

HARDLINE ARGUMENT – extreme expectations

Eg: Judges should never ever have broken the law. Children should never be born into Poverty

This is often done to provoke people to argue aimlessly or vociferously and endlessly as they are so wide in application that the arguments can go on forever.

CIRCULAR ARGUMENT – going in circles

Eg: I think therefore I am. I am therefore I think. This is saying the same thing but arguing.

On wide issues like the bhakti and gyana forms of worship it is possible to do this without being caught in the act.

BLACK AND WHITE THINKING – oversimplification, extreme alternatives with no grey areas

Eg: Teetotaler or Alcoholic?

DEVILS ADVOCATE – arguing for its own sake -finding loopholes

Eg: India should be ruled by foreign powers

This is done on blogs when the writer throws an obviously weak or controversial argument to attract a lot of contenders to leave their comments and thereby earn a ‘great topic motivator’ status with the scenario.

9) Arguments are often obfuscated to cause distraction & confusion.

SHIFTING GOALPOSTS – in mid argument taking a different strand and moving it along to a different level

Eg: All murderers should be hanged to death. Some murderers are mentally ill. There is a specific gene for pugnacious tendencies. Governments do not take adequate of the mentally ill. Psychiatry is not a much sought after discipline in colleges. There is heavy rush for MBA. Reservation of MBA seats is going to be detrimental for the country. The brain drain is going to tell on all of us.

Here the discussion is on one strand another one is picked up and the whole debate derailed from the original track. So a debate on environment can turn into one on Ayn Rand or about right to make profits and capitalism by alluding to these with a tenuous connection and therefore swinging the talk away from the main subject

OBFUSCATION BY DISTRACTION – red herrings, smoke screen, politicians answers

Eg: Talk of speed limits to avoid talking of road repairs

Talk of foreign hand to avoid talking of domestic strife

10) Arguing or not arguing to establish dominance.

JARGON – power of language to convince, impress, obfuscate and overwhelm: Technical terms. Newspeak . goobledygook

This is intended to make a section feel dumb and the inner circle to feel powerful.

IGNORING SPEAKERS AS UNWORTHY TO TALK TO – intellectual emasculation.

This is a common gender practice where men discussing a topic will exclude women with body language, neglect, cordoning off, stonewalling etc in order to keep out their participation. It is all very civil and mild. The unspoken message is you are not smart enough to talk on this so I cannot engage in a discussion with you. This includes being amused at the other’s words and either laughing openly or sniggering or smirking quietly, making meaningful eye contact in a group and nonverbal cues etc. Conversely the only talk they indulge in with women is the soft kind which is flirtatious, courteous, kind and polite, chivalrous and other mild forms of acknowledgement.

CONDESCENDING NON ARGUMENT – when people do not argue because the opposition is from a woman or child and the assumption is that they are too strong to argue with the weak.

Lots of repeated silent visits without comment or a word is left to assert this condescension directly by stating.. I just happened to come here by mistake.. I am not interested in your blogs but since I am here I will deign to say a few words Or what do you expect me to say to this?

All of which is ofcourse unnecessary and aimed to brow beat without putting forth a counter argument to the issue. This is a personal response, often petty, where a serious one is solicited

SEXUAL INNUENDO

Use of direct or indirect sexual talk on body parts and carnal acts to demean and embarrass

A favourite among some men who begin using sexual innunedos or slurs to run away from an issue by using a joke or distraction. A lot of men who are on the verge of a thinning battle will resort to sexual innuendo to embarrass a woman and inflict what is a blow below the belt and thereby abort the main argument.

SPONSERSHIP AND GODFATHERS

Sometimes dominance is established by simply sponsoring the other, giving unwanted advice, support, heavy praise for which gratitude is expected, taking credit for the other’s achievements obliquely, excessive back patting, appearing to be kind when one is really being superior. The whole demeanour is that of a Godfather doling out favours to his flock.

The presence of the hangers on like the Mafioso henchmen and sycophants make sure this image is sustained.

SELF DEPRECATORY. SELF CONGRATULATORY

This is where the argument is abandoned midway (often when thinning is certain) in some apparently self deprecatory statements that are loaded with sarcasm. Example: I am not your league. You are great, I am an idiot. You are way above me… This kind of combat takes the emotional turn and leaves the main argument begging for continuance. Apologies are tended with this kind of self congratulation that actually says I am so noble…. Look at me… I am sooo good. The ‘not like you’ is implied subtly.

CONCEDING CONDESCENDINGLY

Playing the noble soul. I don’t agree but I will go along with you for peace because I am such a big soul. That is my answer to your meanness.. I will turn the other cheek.

AFTERMATH

What follows (if the bait is caught) is ofcourse furious arguments that get personal and angry and frustrated, teary, and more nasty.. Masks of geniality and patience and generosity slip revealing real faces that are often violent, sexist and irrational. There is a snowballing effect in the loss of control. On the net this takes the form of words on the streets, fisticuffs.

Then there are hecklers, fence sitters who weigh options, audience of silent spectators, judges et al and shadow people who have an opinion in hushed whispers to add to the general drama.

The issue lies unattended. Two opponents are left grappling and the real topic where it all began, languishes and is forgotten.

I am not saying I am immune to these games or don’t play them myself. But I am aware that it is happening. Thought you might find it useful too. So watch out for these argument spoilers next time you argue and wonder why you didn’t reach the end.

I have listed the best and top ten word processing tools available for free!
Pathetic Writer (PW)
http://siag.nu/pw/
An X-based word processor for UNIX. It supports various formats like M$ word, PW (it's native format), rtf, etc...

Maxwell
Motif-based word processor. Maxwell is a good WYSIWYG word processor available at zero cost. It requires the Motif library to run. (now, this is also available at no charge)

TeX
http://www.latex-project.org/
http://www.tug.org/
Basically a typesetting system based on LaTeX, considered by many to be the best tool to typeset complex mathematical formulae. It is very popular in the mathematics and physics communities.

Jarte

http://www.jarte.com/

Jarte is basically a free and powerful text editor based on the Microsoft WordPad word processing engine. It is a superset of WordPad with much more features like tabs, spell check, export to PDF, etc... But main problem is that it will run only on windows!

IBM Lotus Symphony (Documents)
http://symphony.lotus.com/software/lotus/symphony/home.jspa
Its website claims it as a "Versatile text editor or word processor" It claims that it supports .doc/.odt/.sxw/.lwp/.rtf/.txt formats. It can run on both windows and linux. Since it is from a big name company, it is definitely worth a try!!
ThinkFree
http://www.thinkfree.com/
Basically an office suite written in Java that runs on Windows, Linux, and Macintosh platforms. ThinkFree Online is a web-based version of it's office suite.
The major pros about it are:

• has a look and feel similar to Microsoft Word allowing users to switch over easily.
• has both desktop and web version of its office suites.
• can read and write to M$ word file formats.
  

Zoho (Writer)
http://writer.zoho.com/
A web office suite. Since it is web-based, Zoho writer is OS independent.
It can work platform which supports Mozilla firefox browser.
Abiword
http://www.abisource.com/
An open source word processing program which can run on almost any platform. You can quickly open any M$ word documents and edit it, though it is some what reluctant to crash anytime (when editing some complex M$ word files)
Google Docs (Standard Edition)
http://docs.google.com/
I think it another free web based word processor. Though you can hardly compare it to any of the desktop word processors, its main strength is that it is a web application. You just need a good and free browser like firefox to run this! It allows you to open/edit/save the documents online. No installation/upgrades/etc...
Open Office (Writer)
http://www.openoffice.org/
It has everything you would expect from a modern, fully equipped word processor! Above all, it is multi-platform and very easy to use! Supports various formats and comes with a full office suite. It has all the required strength to rip off M$ word's monopoly. Now this gets our first prize!!!!!!!!

So can you see that there are so many options available for M$ word and its office suite. Small business should seriously evaluate these, before spending thousands of dollars on any of the commercial word processor!

Enjoy!! the free world ;)

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