That you can use chrome as a text editor?   Very handy.   Launch chrome, paste in, instead of a URL:

data:text/html,

and you can type in the window, there is even a spell checker. Great for keeping notes, etc. and you can save it to disk if you wish.

The dearth of women in Computer Science

There has been a considerable decline in the number of women in Computer Science or Information and Communications Technology since my career began.   The same decline has not been seen in other STEM fields.   There are several ideas as to why though a lot of uncertainty remains.  The focus recently seems to be how do we get women back into the field?  A lot of efforts are being made to introduce computer science in grade schools and to engage girls in high school.  I had an interesting discussion today with a young woman who has a PhD in Physics who is working as a software developer.  For some time she has been an advocate and volunteer in these efforts to "recruit" girls.  She expressed some worry that she is setting these girls up to hit a wall when they do get into the field as the culture and ideals are decidedly male-techie oriented.   It saddens me that this culture is still discouraging to young women in the field.  I will leave you with a couple of articles she sent me and hopefully I will reflect on this further in my next post.

• NPR When Women Stopped Coding
• https://modelviewculture.com/pieces/diversity-for-sale

Refresher: STEM is an acronym referring to the academic disciplines of Science, Technology, Engineering and Mathematics.

p.s.  With thanks to Marianne !

I am at heart a C programmer, this is sad.  One of the fathers of C hence Unix and so the grandfather of Linux has died.

DMR Denis M. Ritchie 1949-2011



Google+ post by Rob Pike
techcrunch.com

Money Mules & Fraud & Urban legends

Some of those make $1000 a day from your home adds are tempting when money is tight.  Unfortunately 99% of them are designed either to steal your money or to use you to launder and steal other peoples money.   If you  aren't morally opposed to this just note that the consequences to you may be having your own assets frozen..

To verify the "authenticity" of an offer check here http://bobbear.co.uk/

The other side of that coin is the minor irritation of pass this on it's true emails that are more irritating than they are harmful, they can be verified here before you pass them on & perpetuate them http://snopes.com/

Quick & Easy Software Install

So anybody who knows a little about computers becomes their friend's and family's  de facto sys admin.  Or at least the goto gal/guy when they have a computer panic.  Here is  a very useful site for one page selection of all of those open source / free software packages that everyone uses.

You go to this website select the software you want to install, click get installer & you're off.  You can even tell people to do this over the phone fairly easily.  It seems to clean out most irritating toolbar addons and it automates the installs so yer granny can do it too!
ninite.com

What puts them higher on my list of great sites is the fact that they also have a linux version
ninite.com/linux

Thanks to Brian @ Central Microsystems for pointing this out to me.

 http://humaneinfo.com/

Humane Reader

Wikipedia for Everyone
The Humane Reader is a low-cost device which can bring a five thousand book library into a home or school which has no other access to internet content. The Reader can be produced in quantity for approximately $20 per unit, and uses any existing television set as a display device for Wikipedia or other content. It is available to NGOs, educators, non-profits or other aid agencies.

created by Braddock Gaskill 

" For those of us who believe in open source and open standards as a vehicle for having a postivie impct on our world, this is  great project."

Backup, backup, backup

The three most important activities when it comes to computers are backup, backup and backup.  Ask any ICT professional who has been working for a few years how many modes of backup they use and most will tell you it is better to have two copies of your data and best to have more than that...

Ok several copies may be overkill for most people but most people also do not want to loose their family photos, tax and other official receipts which now live on computers.

Organization
For software that you buy on CD/DVD or free software that you download to install it is not necessary to back this up as you can reinstall from the original and/or re-download. It is a pain but often easier than a full restore.   You are, of course,  keeping all of your original software CDs and DVDs in a folder marked Computer in your file drawer.  For data it is easier to backup if you keep it all in the same place.   On Windows XP it is best to keep data in My Documents folder and its sub folders.  On Windows 7 in Documents folder and its sub folders.   If you have multiple different userids to logon to the computer you will need to backup each one.

Local Backup
So everyone should have an external hard drive or thumb drive to periodically copy their "I would hate to loose this" data.   The simplest method is, whenever you think ooo that's a great shot of ...  drag your My Documents or Documents folder to the usb drive.   Not the most secure and safe method but at least you have a copy. 

Offsite Backup
Professionals keep some backup offsite, in case something happens to the "computer room".  This used to be expensive or at least awkward to implement but now we have online (almost cloud) storage services.  For most of these you have to sign up but you don't have to pay until you get into large quantities of data or large files... In no particular order:

• Mozy 
• 2GB free
• unlimited $5/month
• annual and biennial subs available
• ADrive
• 50GB free personal use only
• 50GB @ $7/month
• 100GB @ $14/month
• etc
• Dropbox  install software
• 2GB free
• 50GB @ $10/month
• 100GB @ $20/month 
• 4shared   
• 10GB free
• 100GB $80/year
• skydrive  (Microsoft)
• 25GB free

Some of these are simple storage like the external hard drive (ADrive, Dropbox) but instead it is out there in the "cloud".  Some offer backup services that will take care of backing up data that changes on your hard drive (Mozy). Some you have to install software others have a browser interface.   For all of them somebody else takes care of ensuring that that disk does not get damaged and all that stuff associated with keeping data and hardware safe.
BUT remember you are putting your data in someone else's hands, read the privacy and service agreements before you decide to use any of them.

Another option for offsite backup is to take the external or thumb drive & bring it to your granny's house for safe keeping.

If you know of any other online storage services or have good or bad experience with any of the ones mentioned please email me.