It’s a cat’s life…

This morning was one of those mornings I came out to find the Windows “welcome screen” waiting for me, instead of my work-in-progress (and open websites), which meant that Windows Update had reboot-ed my machine; which is a pretty good indicator that yesterday was Patch Tuesday.

No, I didn’t lose any work.
Because now we have cool built-in “save my bacon” things like “autodraft”; and modern browsers will remember my “tabs”, and offer to “restore” my “session” – etc..

It wasn’t always like this.
Long ago, now, back in what I call the Jurassic Period, whenever I was working on a computer I would end each sentence I typed with a period and a Ctrl + S (the “keyboard shortcut” for the Save command).
That was because Windows 95 might freeze, “lockup”, spontaneously reboot, or just BSOD at any given – totally random – time, for no (apparent) rhyme and no (apparent) reason. And seemed to like doing it.

By the time Windows 98 Second Edition came along, things weren’t quite so bad, and my habit softened and mollified itself to typing Ctrl + S at the end of every paragraph.
I maintained this habit right up through the second “service pack” for Windows XP.
With that release, “Windows” and the word “stable” (in Geekspeak, “stable” means “doesn’t crash too ofen”), could actually be used in the same sentence..

Where am I going with this..? Oh. Yes. I remember: some time ago now I wrote two articles I would like to put in front of you again.. in case you missed them.

Finding my computer reboot-ed this morning didn’t bother me because I know a rather important fact – updates are our friends, and we want them. Please see Learn to love the pop up.

And I realized just how long ago it was I dropped my Ctrl + S habit.. and I marveled at the fact that my (main) Windows 7 computer has not had a single BSOD. (And I’ve been running Win7 since the RC.)
Not a one! Please see, It is time to face facts and finally dump Windows XP

Today’s free download (reader submitted): MAGIX Xara Xtreme Photo & Graphic Designer 5 Silver Heads up! The free download is only available until November 24, 2011. (retail $90)

“Do you enjoy photography and love photos? Do you want your photos to look flawless and give them a versatile, creative design? Then Photo & Graphic Designer 5 is the optimum solution for you.“

Note: Just make sure you UNCHECK the Magix Ask Toolbar if you don’t want it (you probably don’t want it :) And you have to register to get the code so use an email you don’t care about. (I will go further: you do not want the Ask toolbar.)
Thank you, Dear Reader (you know who you are).

More reco’s:
* Six Ways to Protect Yourself from Duqu

“Security blog Dark Reading features a post today by Kelly Jackson Higgins called “Five Things To Do To Defend Against Duqu.” Some of the suggestions make more sense than others. PCMag.com Lead Security Analyst Neil Rubenking adds a sixth rather important suggestion.” Read more..

* Jason Hiner’s 10 best tablets of 2011 [Updated]

“New tablets have hit the market week after week throughout 2011, but here are the 10 best that are worth your attention, and your money.” Read more..

Today’s quote: “It isn’t so much that hard times are coming; the change observed is mostly soft times going.” ~ Groucho Marx

Copyright 2007-2011 © “Tech Paul” (Paul Eckstrom). All Rights Reserved.

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