Conceal is meant for use on Windows XP, Vista and Windows 7. What sets it apart from other encryption software is just how easy it is to use and how easy it is to choose the type of encryption that you want to use. Let’s take a look at the software, shall we?

There it is. That’s about as simple and intuitive an interface as one can have for an encrypting/decrypting program. If you have it open and just want to drag files over the lock to encrypt the files, you can do that! The same goes for dragging encrypted files to the key to decrypt them.

If it appears that there is text in the picture above, that shouldn’t be there – you are correct. The application interface is slightly transparent so you can see what is underneath it. I guess that’s an attempt to look cool like a Vista program. Anyway, that’s a minor drawback. For some, I suppose it might be considered a good feature.

Once you drag a file to the lock to be encrypted, this is what you will see:

Just choose a destination for the encrypted file, and provide your password for that file. For added security, you can delete the original file by checking the Delete Original File box. No sense having an encrypted and an unsecured version of the file on the same computer. That kind of defeats the point.

Clicking on the Options button shows you this:

This is where you can determine what kind of encryption you want to use. The author has done a good job by briefly stating the strengths and weaknesses of each method.  If you don’t specify the method you want to use, the program defaults to TripleDES. Again, good thinking by the author. Given choices, the one that should be default should be the most secure choice.

You are then prompted to save your password. Go ahead and click Yes.

Now,  you’ll be asked where you want to save the outcome. Choose wherever works best for you, and click OK.

Once you get to this window, just click OK. The encryption will begin. On the fast encryption. the progress happens so quick that you won’t see it happen.

As all good programs should do, Conceal notifies you when the encryption is done. Just click the OK button to confirm. File secured!

The process is almost identical for unencrypting a file. Just find the file that was encrypted. It should have a file extension of .xcon. Seems ironic to me that something secured should have a file extension that reads aloud as ex-con.

Drag the file to the key side of the Conceal program. A small window will open asking you for your password.

Go ahead and enter the password that you used to encrypt the file. Then click on the link that reads Save and Close. You can also choose an alternate destination to save the decrypted file. However, that’s not necessary for this article.

The decryption happens pretty quick as well. Once that’s done, Conceal presents you with confirmation that it happened. Once again, click the OK button to clear the notification.

It’s that easy! The program works very well, has the basic options that most people would ever need, and, as all of my favourite software is, it’s free!

To be picky, I would like to see some slight changes to the interface, like the placement of the Save and Close. If that were a button placed near the bottom of the window, the flow would be more logical. But, as I said, that’s being picky!

Overall a good piece of freeware that I would recommend.

Conceal

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It’s simple logic really. Have you ever seen a stock car or drag race of seemingly normal cars? What they do is get rid of useless weight. They don’t need a passenger and back seat – gone! They don’t need carpet and fancy electronics – gone! They don’t need the spare tire in the trunk and all the excess trim – gone! They’ve stripped that car down to the essentials to do one thing really fast and really well. That’s what we’re going to do. Only, when we’re done, we’ll be able to put all the fancy bits back on with – you guessed it – just one double-click!

Identify the Dead Weight

First things first. Download and install a program that allows you to view all the processes currently running on your windows computer. I’m a big fan of Sysinternals Process Explorer. Once you’ve done that, open it up. You’re likely to see something like this:

Look at the Working Set and Peak Working Set columns. That shows how many kilobytes of your RAM are being used by the program right now, and what the peak amount used at one time was. As you can see, my Firefox is using roughly 245 MB of RAM. That’s about one-quarter of the RAM in my computer.

As I look down further, I see that RoxMediaDB12, iTunesHelper and SnagIt32 are taking up another approximately 43 MB of RAM. Let’s say that I want to use a program that is a real memory hog, like my DivXConnected. It has to compete with all of these other programs that I won’t be using, while I’m using DivXConnected. That’s the program that works with my D-Link Media Device I was raving about lately.

Now order your running services and applications by process, by clicking on the Process column header until you get everything shown to you in a tree, like this:

What this shows us is which excess things are Processes and which are Services. This is important, because what we do next requires us to know the difference. Those things that are under the Services branch are services. Typically the processes will be shown further down.

Let’s write down all the proper names for the services and processes as we’ll need those later. To find the proper names, right-click on a service and then select Properties. Once you are in the Properties window, click on the tab Services. This will give you the correct name of the service you wish to stop. I’ve used the CinemaNowSvc.exe as an example.

To find the Image Name for a process, it should be what you see in the Description Column. For example, the iTunes Helper Process has the description iTunesHelper. If you aren’t sure what the Image Name is, you can right-click on the process, open the Properties window and find it on the Image File tab.

Do that for all the services and processes that you know aren’t necessary for your computer, or the single program you want to go faster, to run. That may take some research, but it’s worth it.

I can do one of two things here. I can shut down all the high-memory usage applications and services that run in the background one by one OR I can write a batch file to do all of that. Batch files are the old-school way to do lots of really cool stuff. Once you learn how to craft them, there are an infinite number of cool, and powerful, things you can do.

Trim the Dead Weight

Let’s use Notepad to write this batch file. Open it up and type:

@ECHO OFF
echo *** Stopping Services ***

NET STOP “Name of the Service You Want to Stop”

echo *** Services Stopped ***

Now I know the proper name I’ll need to use is CinemaNow Service. So the command that I will write looks like:

NET STOP “CinemaNow Service”

You’ll need to write this command for every service that you wish to stop. This could be a dozen lines or so. The line that reads echo *** Services Stopped *** just lets us know when all the services are stopped. Yep, I’m Captain Obvious.

To stop the process, you’ll type a block like:

echo *** Stopping Processes ***

TSKILL  “iTunesHelper”

echo *** Processes Stopped ***

PAUSE

TSKILL kills the task of course.  You don’t need to use the Image Name, you can also use the Process ID as it is shown in Process Manager. As usual, the echo lines let us know when the stopping of the processes begins and ends. The PAUSE command results in a line asking us to hit any key to continue. It’s just a more concrete way of letting you know the batch file is done.

To save this as a batch file that you can run by just double-clicking on it, we need to do a few things. Click on File > Save As in Notepad. Then when the Save As… window opens, name the file whatever you want. I chose StopServicesProcesses.bat. You need the .bat on the end. Now change the Save as type: box to All Files. Click Save.

Now you have a batch file! Double-click on it and enjoy your speed! You should see a command window open that will look something like this:

Feel the speed!

Oh, I did say something about restarting those services and process when you are done using your one intensive program, didn’t I? Well, that’s a story for another time.

Got better tips on how to speed up a computer? Let us know in comments!

Image credit: Davichi

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Why am I telling you this? To let you know where I got this topic from. There have to be a few dozen old wives’ tales about how to get rid of hiccups. Cream soda, sipping water from the other side of the glass, a good scare, holding your breath for 13 seconds, 60 seconds or, my favourite, a year. That one works, however the outcome isn’t desirable.

So what other lists of Old Wives’ Tales are there out there? Fret not, I’ve done the research for you!

Old Wives’ Tales at Birthmarks

These tales are as interesting as the birthmarks they supposedly caused. Personally, I find birthmarks fascinating, but some people that have them are distressed by them. I think once you add the tales they’ve been told, you’ll understand the stress. Check a few of these out:

In Croatia, when a child has a birthmark, it is his/her mother’s fault: during pregnancy she wished something red to eat or drink (usually strawberries or wine) and she foolishly touched or scratched a part of her face or body damaging in that way her baby. The baby will have a mark (which is called “a wish”) on the exactly same place where his/her mother touched herself.

When a pregnant woman watches something burn (i.e. house, car, building, etc) the baby will be born with a birthmark.

And the dumbest, most ignorant one yet…

Your mom must have had sex with two men in the same day that she got pregnant.

There are quite a few more at the site. Some are quite sentimental and sweet, some are very personal, and a few are just downright foolish. Either way, they’re all interesting. They have some superstitions on birthmarks as well.

Corsinet

Here’s a small trove of more general Old Wives’ Tales. I think sometimes these tales have a root in truth, or at least in coincidence. Some just make me think that old wives had access to some great herbal remedies. Corsinet breaks them down into 2 separate pages – A to L and M to Z. Maybe you’ve heard a few of these:

A cricket in the house brings good luck.

Really? For who – the cricket? He’ll be lucky if I don’t crush him with the heel of my shoe, when I can’t sleep at 2 a.m.

Pictures of an elephant bring luck, but only if they face a door.

I need some clarity on this. Does the elephant have to face the door, or just the picture?

It’s bad luck to let milk boil over.

That’s one that makes perfect sense, especially if you’re the one that has to clean the stove.

By the time you get through this sites Old Wives’ Tales, you’ll probably be thinking those old wives had a lot of time on their hands and that must be all there is. Nay nay, my friend, nay nay.

The Longest List of Old Wives’ Tales

Really, just typing the name of the site would have been an article in itself. Although, you won’t doubt that they have the most Old Wives’ Tales when you get to this site. They don’t even have a list – they have an index.  Cats sneezing, stepping on a nail, ringing in your ears, knuckles cracking – the old wives have something to say about all of those. Most of it isn’t terribly good either and often involves rain. You’d think they’d notice the rain clouds before they notice a cat sneezing.

Here’s a one to try out:

Mirrors have always been fascinating to many people and that brings many superstitious tales and old wives tales into being. However, did you know that you could see the man you are to marry by looking at your own reflection in a mirror?

You will need a mirror that you can sit in front of and be comfortable such as a vanity, an apple and your hairbrush.

Sit down in front of the mirror; watch your reflection while eating the apple. Once you have finished the apple, keep watching your reflection while brushing your hair. The image of the man you are to marry will appear over your shoulder.

You may have to stare at your reflection until you have completely brushed your hair through or longer. The old wives tales does not say how long it will take so be prepared for sitting a very long time.

Pretty sure that doesn’t work for men looking for a wife. But Russian dating sites do!

I hope you got some good entertainment out of these tales and superstitions. Some are kind of fun to keep going, even though we know they aren’t true. If you’ve got a good family superstition or Old Wives’ Tale, let us know in the comments. We’re all ears!

Image credit: Steve Weaver

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There are some amazing deals to be had through this site. For me, the problem is that I often forget to check the site everyday. It only takes a second and you never know when that must-have item is going to come up and you’ll finally be able to afford it! In trying to find some way to track W00t better, like a Google widget or desktop app, I stumbled across Wootalyzer. But beware, it is free, it is incredibly easy to use AND it tracks far more than W00t’s one day sales. There are other sites that do the same sort of thing – every day!

Let’s get started with Wootalyzer before I get into these other sites. Here’s how it’s done. Go on over and download the Wootalyzer installer. Install is a snap with an ordinary one-click type install. Here’s how it gets weird. It’s even easier to use than it is to install.

Once it’s installed you are presented with all the documentation that you will need to use this application effectively. I’m serious – take a look!

That’s all there is to it! Really, how else could I say that?

Next, you are given the option to choose basic user mode or a power-mode that people who have shopped the one-day-sale sites would find more useful perhaps. I wouldn’t know, since I don’t use them that often. That’s the point of getting the program.

I do know what a woot-off is, however I don’t know what a BOC is and I can only guess that they use the word monkey to mean something other than a real monkey. So I went with the regular mode.

Okay, so that’s a pretty sweet deal at W00t!. I don’t really need a recording studio (or do I?) so I’ll pass on that one. However, this shows you how the thing works. Clicking on the View Item button takes you to the page that has all the details about the equipment. The field that reads In Stock tells you whether they have more of the item or not. As you can see there are still some of these in stock. Clicking on the Buy Item button takes you directly to that item’s checkout page so you can seal the deal. The clock looking area is just that – a countdown clock to let you know how long the deal is valid for.

What I think is amazing is the button that reads Woot! When I clicked on it, my shopping universe expanded!

Did you see that? Under the General/Tech category there are all these other sites with timed deals as well! You should recognize at least 3 or 4 of them, such as eBay, Amazon, Buy.com, and Newegg. I went through and each one has a pretty decent deal on it. Maybe not something I need right now, but I’ll keep checking!

Under Other there are two categories that could really get me into trouble. One is DiamondShark and the other is ChronoShark. As you might guess, the former is for jewelry and the latter is for watches. I like to buy my wife jewelry and I have an unhealthy obsession with watches. Check this out:

See that? A Lucien Picard watch that retails elsewhere for around $900. Is it a knock off? I don’t know. But it would be worth checking out.

With Wootalyzer, you can set alarms with sound for different items, so you know when a new item is on, or when it’s about to run out. This is just a shopaholic’s dream.

At first I thought Wootalyzer would help me to save money, but if I keep spending on all these other great sites as well, it’s a less-than-zero sum game. I’m sure I would overspend. That doesn’t mean you will. You probably have a stronger will than I do. Or will you succumb to the world of low-priced products as well?

Wootalyzer

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When people feel this way, one of the opportunities that will evenutally knock on their doors is Multi Level Marketing (MLM). There are other names for it – network marketing, social marketing, direct distributing. Legally speaking, most of the legitimate companies that use this form of marketing are not pyramid schemes. At least not legally. However, they do strongly resemble pyramids in their structure.

Some people do make money with these opportunities. A few make really good money! However, often what you are told or shown isn’t the whole picture. The vast majority of people lose money in these businesses. If you’re meeting with someone about an opportunity like this, be forewarned with the information from these sites.

Pyramid Scheme Alert

PSA purports itself to be a non-profit, donation driven organization dedicated to revealing the truth about multi-level marketing and pyramid schemes. Founder Robert FitzPatrick has written a book on the topic and has been consulted as a professional by different media outlets in the U.S. and Canada.

Here you can find information on legal proceedings against MLM companies, news about them, and alerts as well. PSA does have an e-mail list that you can sign up for, to get regular information.

I find the site fairly well organized and easy to use. It appears to have the most in-depth information of the sites listed here.

MLM Survivor

This is a bit of a different site, in that it is a site within a site. What the heck does that mean? Well, MLMSurvivor has had a site since 1999 that featured information about Quixtar/Amway, Equinox/Trek Alliance and other MLM’s.You can get to it by clicking on the Original MLMSurvivor Site link.

The original site has hundreds of pages of personal stories, research, and an MLMSurvivorsClub with over 8,000 members on Yahoo! Groups.That site is somewhat wrapped inside a new blog that functions a bit more like a news site.

It appears to have been only recently resurrected, with just a few posts starting late last October. Looks like Amway is in the courts again.

The Pink Lighthouse

Just in case it seems like all these sites are about Amway, well, they aren’t. The Pink Lighthouse is a blog put together by a former Mary Kay Consultant. It sure seems that the pink isn’t all that you might think!

There are dozens of personal stories to be found here. Perhaps the most common thread between them all is that the products are great! However, the personalities that they had to work with (more like work for) was the biggest problem. Lots of inventory purchasing that seldom gets sold and tons of pressure to keep buying inventory just so the upline can make their monthly goals. Apparently Mary Kay isn’t an MLM, but rather a Dual Marketing system. I’m not sure what that means, but I do know you can put lipstick on a pig and it’s still a pig.

After you’ve read through these sites, I can see how you wouldn’t touch an MLM pyramid scheme with someone else’s ten foot pole. Yet still, the fact remains that there are people that make money with some of these business and there are even a few that have made millions. The question then remains, are you willing to do what it takes? Statistics only would say the odds are against you.

Have you had an MLM pyramid scheme experience, good or bad? Do you know of any other resources you’d recommend to people checking out MLM’s? You’d be doing us all a favour by sharing them in the comments.

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So now, I have to earn 1.65 cents for every penny spent just to break even. Whew! That’s a lot of work. Before you check my math and compare it to tax laws in your jurisdiction, just take it as a fact that a penny saved is MORE than a penny earned. Math comments will be ignored – just ask my grade 12 math teacher.

It seems that convenience has become a way of life for many. What frugality we do practice usually amounts to the odd coupon here and there, maybe recycling one or two things, if it’s fashionable, or buying a few more cans of spaghetti sauce if it happens to be on sale. There is oh-so-much more we can do! I think after you’ve spent a few hours or days on these sites, you might catch the frugal bug and enjoy a much lower cost of living by watching your savings grow while your lifestyle remains relatively unchanged.

Creative Frugality

You won’t find any fancy web design or whizbang gizmos here. What you will find are time-tested ways of living a frugal lifestyle that is still fun and exciting. Nancy Twigg started this site quite some time ago. I recall visiting it around 2001 or so. The ideas and tips are timeless, easy to put in to use, and guarantee that you will save money! Creative Frugality also has a sister site called Counting the Cost. Here, you’ll find a newsletter that you can sign up for to receive regular frugal tips and inspiration.

Nancy Twigg and her husband are inspired by their Christian faith. It may not be the same faith that you share, however it has resulted in this treasure trove that anyone can benefit from. Really, you should go.

Festival of Frugality

Honestly, lowering your cost of living is FAR more colourful than these last two logos would suggest. Would it hurt to add a little pizazz? Wordpress templates are usually free, folks!

Design issues aside, the Festival of Frugality is another great resources for money-saving tips. What they do here is act somewhat as an aggregator of articles from other sites as well as adding their own content. I particularly liked the article, If You Must, Do It Smart. Simple, you and your sweetie order a value meal at your local burger in a bag joint. Just buy an extra burger and share the fries and cola! You’re still eating out, but spending less money and consuming less empty calories. It’s a win-win folks!

The publisher of this site also hosts a few other sites along the same lines, such as Carnival of Personal Finance, Carnival of Debt Reduction, Carnival of Money Hacks, and my personal favourite for use of a big word, Carnival of Pecuniary Delights.

Wise Bread

Alright! Finally some colour other than shades of grey!

Even more excellent is that this site was founded by three high-school students in 2006. What did you do in high-school? I can’t remember and I won’t incriminate myself.

The site is part-blog, part-community, part-economic movement, all fun business. The tips here aren’t all one-size-fits all. They talk about more than just saving on groceries and back-to-school supplies. You’ll find people sharing tips on less expensive ways to get designer clothes, inexpensive passport photo’s, and contrarian tips like buying your halloween costume now for next year.

This site is fast becoming a favourite of mine, because of its extensive frugality tips, and because it has other large sections on Career and Income, Personal Finance, Life Hacks and Deals and Coupons.

There they are, three of the top sites that can help you lower your cost of living. It isn’t too late to do so and it will help you weather out this economic storm. If you have some favourite money saving tips or websites, please share them in the comments. It helps us all!

Photo Credits: HouseOfSims, ozmafan

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The first thing you need to know is basic troubleshooting. Start with the most obvious and work your way backwards. Read and understand the error messages on your screen. They are in plain language – don’t get intimidated. If it says No Video Source Present, check the cord between your computer and monitor. If the power light isn’t on, check the power cable. Many of your problems are likely of this nature. If you have already done all of the troubleshooting steps and are sure what hardware component is causing problems, then we can talk about that now.

Replacing or Re-seating RAM

There was a time when this was a major operation, requiring a soldering iron and steady hands. Now, RAM comes in easy to install and remove sticks and is a very simple DIY computer repair. Keep in mind for this, that static electricity is your enemy and grounding out is your friend. You can get a grounding wrist strap, or you can touch the metal chassis of your computer frequently. I’d recommend the wrist-strap just to be safe.

Open up the case of your computer. Many cases today don’t even require removing screws so that’s easy. Look inside for a few seconds at your computer. Seems really confusing and high-tech, doesn’t it? Don’t be intimidated. Look for rows of long computer chips that stick out of the board, perpendicular. They’re about an inch high.

If you suspect that they just need to be reseated, gently push on the center-edge of the RAM, then the top and bottom. If there was any movement, then that was probably the problem. Once you are sure all of the RAM is seated, you can try to restart your computer.

If the RAM is still causing a problem, you can remove it very easily. At either end of the RAM, there are little levers – or retaining tabs. Gently push these levers down, both at the same time. The levers should pop back and the RAM will be raised up. Using only the edges of the RAM, take it out and put it on a non-static surface. If you’re lucky you’ll have an anti-static bag around. They’re usually pink, silver or clear with thick black lines on them. You can usually get these from a computer repair place, just by asking for them. Tell them you want to bring in your bad RAM for a replacement. Hey, it’s an easy sell for them.

Take the RAM to your local computer store and they’ll help you select the appropriate RAM for your computer.  Make sure you know what model of motherboard you have, since this is an ideal time to upgrade your RAM for a faster computer.

Replacing the Power Supply

If you’re certain the issue is your power supply, that’s easy to remove and install too! WARNING: Unplug your computer completely. Let it sit for a few minutes. This ensures that there is no power to the computer so you don’t get shocked. Letting it sit for a few minutes allows any capacitors to discharge so they don’t shock you either.

Once you feel safe to proceed with this DIY computer repair, take some masking tape and a pen and mark all the connections that your power supply makes to your components. Do that on the component side of the connection. This helps you to know what cables need to plug back in when you get the new power supply. Sometimes a ribbon cable can have a few connectors on it that aren’t used. No sense connecting to those. Disconnect the power supply cables from the components.

Now, on the back of your computer you will see a number of screws around the power supply. Unscrew those and save the screws. Hey, little screws can come in handy someday. The power supply should now slide right out of the back of the computer or inwards into the computer. Don’t force it. If anything is blocking it, carefully remove those things.

Voila! The power supply is in your hands. Take it, and your motherboard information, to your computer store. Now you can get an appropriately sized power supply. They may recommend a more powerful supply and if your motherboard is meant for it, it can be worth a few extra bucks to upsize. This can help the components run closer to their maximum capacity, meaning a faster computer for you. To install the power supply, read the manual that came with it and make all the connections accordingly. Often, these connections are now unique to each component, making it harder to mess up.

Replacing or Reseating a Video/Sound/Network Interface Card

If you are certain that the video or sound or NIC card is causing your problems, those are probably the easiest things to replace. When you open your computer, you’ll see a column of cards inserted horizontally. These are the cards we’re talking about. If you think they might just need to be reseated, do the same technique you used for the RAM. Gently push on the center edge of the card, then the left and right. Again, if there is any movement, this may likely be the problem.

If you are certain the card needs to be replaced, it is usually a matter of removing one screw from the mounting flange of the card and gently pulling the card out by its edges. Pop it into a static-free bag and take it into the computer shop. Once again, this may be the time to upgrade as well. Usually by the time you’ve had a computer long enough for a component to fail, a better component comes along and costs about the same as the original one. Sometimes it costs even less.

Take the card and gently insert it into the proper slot. Put the retaining screw in and proceed with the User Manual for the card to make sure it has the right drivers installed and the right configuration.

Yes, these instructions sound too easy to be true, and you’re right! These are the basics that apply to almost any make and model of the components we’ve talked about. There will be specific little variations for each new part, however those should all be covered in the user manual that comes with them. Keep all of your original packaging for the new parts as well, just in case they too are faulty. Then you can return them easier.

I hope this article has helped you to overcome any fear of the computer that you might have. Or at least saved you a few bucks in labour costs for repair. All this information comes with no warranty. If you try to repair your own computer and it doesn’t work, or gets worse, I can not accept any responsibility for that.  Always research until your are completely comfortable with the work you will do.

If you’re familiar with any other tip that can be added to above list of DIY computer repairs, please share them in comments below.

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The problem is that our wireless connection would keep dropping for no apparent reason. I would reset the router, reset the wireless adapter on the laptop and reset the DivX device. That would work for awhile and then it would happen again. So I fired up the Xirrus Wireless Wi-Fi Inspector that I wrote about awhile back, and went through troubleshooting my weak wireless connection through that. Turns out I forgot that a lot of my neighbours have the same crappy modem/router combination my ISP assigned me and they all like to talk on the same channel at the same time. Now, I would change the channel on my router manually to one that wasn’t being used.

But the weak wireless connection problem still continues. Sometime I forget that I am a college-trained computer technician. Once I recalled that little tidbit, I started digging into how I could manipulate my wireless adapter to work better, hopefully.

Keep in mind that my wireless adapter is a an Intel device. Yours may differ, however the principles should be the same.

I opened up my Intel wireless adapter by clicking on the Start button, then the Connect To link and then the Wireless Network Connection link. Up pops the Wireless Connection Status window.

Then I clicked on the Properties button. Voila! Here’s the Wireless Network Connections Properties window. Now we’re getting to the meat and potatoes, or tofurkey and potatoes for our vegetarian friends.

Clicking on the Configure button took me to the Intel Pro Wireless 2915ABG Network Connection Properties window. Try to say that 3 times fast!

Notice that I highlighted the Intel Throughput Enhancement option in the Property select box. The default value of this is Disabled. When it’s disabled, the adapter uses a packet burst mode known as Wi-Fi Multimedia mode (WMM). This mode is ideal when you use your computer in a wireless network with other computers doing ordinary uploading or downloading of music, video, text and any other type of file. Hence the name – multimedia.

When the Intel Throughput Enhancement is enabled, this packet burst method is meant more for streaming video and audio. Hmmm, I’m trying to stream audio and video to my DivX Connected device! So, I enabled it. Now, if you enable it, and there are other computers using the same router as yours, you will be hogging the bandwidth! Make sure that’s okay with your other users. If you’re the Dad, like me, you just go ahead and do it. After you get Mom’s permission, of course.

Then I checked on the Power Management mode. Mine was defaulted to the Lowest end of the slider. Well, that’s great if I were using my laptop without it always being plugged in. However, I always have it plugged in, so power management is not an issue. By setting it to maximum, I’ll get higher performance! This should assist in noisy environments as well. I don’t mean kids and dogs, I mean lots of other Wi-Fi signals, like the ones from my neighbours. Darned noisy neighbours!

I scrolled down a bit further and found the property Roaming Aggressiveness. Mine was set to be as aggressive as possible. What that means is that if my router has a weaker wireless connection than another signal in the area, the adapter will try to jump to that. For me, that means it tries to connect to a neighbour with a stronger signal. Well, I don’t want that so I dialed it down to lowest.

The last thing I did was to check the Wireless Mode property. Originally, it was set to 802.11B and 802.11G mode. I don’t think changing this will make that significant a difference, but since my router, adapter and DivX device are all capable of 802.11G mode, I saw no sense in leaving it mixed. So I changed it to that exclusively.

Did it work? So far, so good! Unless the microwave is on, the connection hasn’t been dropped between my laptop and the router. Sometimes it gets dropped between the router and the DivX Connected device… but that’s another article!

How do you usually troubleshoot dropped wireless connections? Do you have a solution of your own? Share them with us in the comments!

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Well, we can be happy that there are serious journalists who desire to bring us the good news, who feel that if they can share someone else’s successes with us, we can see that there is more than just hope. There is, in fact, at least as much good news as there is bad. There are millions of people in the world who care, and strive to do the right thing. It’s just finding these stories is hard.

Well, let’s get a prod in the right direction.

The Optimist

In a clean and light-hearted website, you’ll find seriously good news from around the world. The Optimist is a community based site, bringing you news in the categories of: Charities Doing Things to Inspire, Companies with Conscience, Travel Tips and Global Goodness, Sports with a Positive Spin, Stories from Optimistic People, and if reading the good news isn’t enough – watch it on Optimist TV!

Here’s something interesting. Go to the page where they list the Optimists. Look through all the pictures of the self-proclaimed optimists there. Did you notice that they all look healthy and happy?

Very few of them are overweight and those that are, are so only by a little bit.  Do you think maybe there is a direct correlation between finding the small joys and being healthy and attractive? I think so.

Good News Network

Started in 1997 with a goal of bringing news stories to the Web that might inspire or at least combat the negative news that abounds. Things seem to be going pretty well with that goal. The site is still around over 10 years later. The news comes in many categories as well. In addition to all of these news categories, there are some other very uplifting features.

The On This Day feature is a really nice change from what it usually is in the newspapers. It’s ALL good news that happened on this day in the past! So, not only is now a good time, so was the past.  If that doesn’t get your warm-fuzzies going, there is the wonderful Inspiration Point, that provides a positive quote from some of the world’s greatest minds. I was particularly fond of this quote from Ralph Waldo Emerson:

Finish every day and be done with it. You have done what you could. Some blunders and absurdities crept in. Forget them as soon as you can. Tomorrow is a new day; you should begin it serenely and with too high a spirit to be encumbered with your old nonsense.

That’s pure wisdom people. I don’t know about you, but the present is seldom depressing for me, until it becomes my past and I dwell on it. What could I have done better? What did I do to deserve that? Why did that person hurt me? Forget it, just keep swimming!

Good News Gazette

I take great relief in noticing that this site doesn’t have the same news as the Good News Network, which doesn’t have the same news as The Optimist. That tells me that there is plenty enough good news to go around for everyone. There is no just reason why the good news doesn’t lead the 6 o’clock news.

The categories here are very similar to what you’d expect to find in any newspaper: Arts and Entertainment, Business, Health and so on. The stories are funny, inspiring, thought provoking and some will bring you to tears. Not of sadness, but compassion and maybe some humbleness.

In particular, I am moved by the story of the man that wants to do 1 million deeds of kindness in his lifetime. That’s it. That’s his whole message. No matter how small the deeds may be, maybe they’ll spark someone else to do the same. Maybe 10,000 people will get that spark. Imagine the power that would wield to make our world a place where good news happens everyday.

After a week where so much has happened in my own little town, I’m glad I sought out the good news and shared it with you. The sting of 15 students getting suspended in one day at the middle school and a 13-year-old girl, on her way to school, getting hit by an alleged multiple-conviction drunk-driver made for a tough week. Well, the good news was needed.

Also check out Sara’s article on good news websites.

If this article and the sites listed have helped lift your spirits at all, please share that with us. I’d also love to hear about any other good news sites you can recommend. Head on down to the comments and be heard!

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What you need are Hand Games! Everyone with hands can play them, and we all have hands! OK, most of us have hands. Those that don’t can referee or be enthusiastic spectators! Don’t know what a hand game is? Sure you do. We’ll start with a classic hand game. Rock, Paper, Scissors.

The World RPS Society

The sheer magnitude of the Rock Paper Scissors world is beyond comprehension. I couldn’t believe what I saw at this site. Did you know that there is a $10,000 World Championship sponsored by Yahoo!?

The World RPS site is a lot of fun and little fact. They talk about how using RPS was made a legal way to make a binding decision in London, England in 1842. Not true. Entertaining, but not true. Apparently, RPS had its start in Japan as Jan Ken Pon. That’s from Wikipedia, so that might not be true as well. For some reason, it seems more logical to me though.

Nevertheless, if you are looking for a definitive guide to the Ro Sham Beau hand game, this is the site. Study the Great 8 Gambits, look into the psychology of the game and some of finer details such as ’shadowing’ and ‘broadcasting false tells’.

There are also very detailed rules for the game that you might want to incorporate into your daily play. Does someone doubt the validity of a move? Maybe you can’t decide to throw on 3 or do 3 and then throw. The rules will guide you, my hand-jiving friend, the rules will guide you.

Monochrom’s Massive Multiplayer Thumbwars

Maybe RPS is too hard to get a hand on. Maybe you’re just all thumbs when it comes to hand games. If that’s the case, I’m sure you’d excel at the latest in thumb wars – multiplayer! No more one on one, with your cousin with the freakishly monkey like thumb that reach your thumb even while it’s still in the air. Level the playing field by bringing in the rest of the mutated family and friends.

There are oh-so-many ways to thumb wrestle, I’m surpised there isn’t a world championship for this as well. Check out the basic four-player situation:

Got a few more people to play with? Maybe your at a family reunion and all the moonshine is already gone. Uncle Bob is looking for a fight and Great Aunt Marcie is willing to give him one, so all the cousins jump in. Why have that same old fist fight again? Settle with a thumb war a la the ‘Down Under’ configuration. Everyone has their hands together so they can’t start swinging AND they are in a prime position to aspirate without starting another fight.

Seriously though, I think wearing shoes like those demands fisticuffs.

Mercy

I would rather be in a fist fight with a multi-armed Indian god than play mercy again. Certainly this hand game is responsible for more broken and/or dislocated fingers than all the car-doors and nose-picking accidents combined. If you’ve never played – ignore what I just said. Read up on the rules and play with a friend. It’s jolly good clean fun!

The point of the game is to interlock fingers as though you were intimately holding hands, and then try to crush your opponents knuckles and inflict carpal tunnel syndrome until they bellow with their last breath, “Mercy!” Apparently there are some regional differences in what is said to signify your submission: “Peanuts!” or “Danny Stavros Buck”, “Pinochle” or “Uncle”. All of which make no sense to me except “Uncle”. Who the heck is Danny Stavros Buck? By the time I spit that chestnut out, I would have lost several fingers indeed!

For your entertainment, I present one of the most unique games of Mercy that I have ever seen.

So now that you and your gameless buddy’s have used your hands to the limit for fun and pleasure, you might want to consider some Aspercream or Voltaren Emulgel. The Voltaren seems to work especially quick. Honestly.

Once you’ve got your fingers working again, drop us a line and let us know about your favourite hand games. Maybe you had a particularly epic one. Give a shout in the comments!

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You should know, however, that Microsoft isn’t just about money. They do provide an awful lot of free software that is really cool! So I went digging on their site and sniffing around for some free Microsoft software and here are 3 cool programs I didn’t know Microsoft had.

Scalable Fabric

Don’t let the name fool you. It’s not a fabric of the cloth variety. What they’re talking about is a window management application. Essentially, it replaces the function of the minimize button on the top right of your window.

With Scalable Fabric installed, if you click on the minimize window, the window merely shrinks and moves to one side of your desktop. If you drag that window towards the center of the screen, the window gets bigger until it becomes full size. Vice-versa as well.

The program does make some annoying noises, but those can be shut off.  Really, it’s something you have to try to really understand. However, as always, here are some pictures!

What this shows is how the large window scales down when moved to the periphery and scales up when moved to the center of the screen. You can also set the boundaries for where this scaling begins and ends. That’s what the blue square represents.

The usefulness of this is limited. However it meets a specific need by keeping your window’s content visible on your desktop. Yes, this feature is available in operating systems newer than XP, yet this is a nice add on for XP and earlier versions of Windows.

Microsoft Producer for PowerPoint

If this free Microsoft software was used on all PowerPoint presentations, we might not have the saying Death-By-PowerPoint. People would find it much easier to add audio and video to their PowerPoint through the time-line editing feature.

It works much like any basic movie editing software would, like Microsoft MovieMaker. So you can have music spanning several slides, and have a richer visual experience. This product is also ideal for creating stand-alone presentations that don’t require you to be there talking.

A person could create a kiosk-style presentation and leave it running on a computer or monitor for the public to see. That’s a good thing, because to get someone to develop a presentation in Flash or other methods is terribly expensive compared to doing it yourself in this freeware.

I could see this being ideal for a small-business owner or village, or any other organization with a limited budget. A presentation with this could really raise your profile.

Microsoft Office Accounting Express 2009

This free Microsoft software application is like a mini-version of Microsoft Money or Intuit’s Quicken for free! If you have XP or Vista, you can download this great free app to help you with your small business. It can integrate and share data with Microsoft Outlook, Access and Excel.

What I find really exciting is that I can use this with eBay and PayPal to list items I want to sell as well as create the invoices for the customers. Apparently you can process credit card payments too, but I didn’t venture into that feature. If you need to share your books frequently with your accountant, you can also do that through Office Live with this package. Incredible really, for free software.

Now, think about this. Microsoft, the world’s most successful IT company and creator of dozens of filthy rich people made and distributes this software for free. These programs can increase your productivity, market presence and profitability. Maybe they couldn’t make money off of Scalable Fabric, but certainly the other two could be sold for at least $40. No, Microsoft does give back. So, maybe I’ll back off on the trashing of Redmond’s finest – at least for a little while.

Do you use any other freeware from Microsoft? If you do, I’d love to hear which ones and what your opinions are on them. Drop me a line in the comments below!

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Now think back to when you were a kid and how many pickup games of road hockey, baseball or even cricket that you had. (Do European and Australian kids have pick-up games of cricket? I’m just trying to be more inclusive.) At least once or twice a week? Nothing organized, just a bunch of kids getting together and having fun.

So, where did the kids go? I know there are kids out there or we wouldn’t have Hannah Montana or toy stores. The kids are inside, surfing the Internets, IM’ing their BFF’s, Facebooking and YouTubing. If you’re like me, you know life is to be lived – not watched. So what to do?

How about free software to limit your kids’ online time on the computer?

Here’s a free one to check out:

Romaco Timeout

This is a fine piece of freeware from fellow Canuck, Mark Furneaux (a.k.a. TheUbuntuGuy – no relation). It simply does what it says it will. Perhaps the only caveat is to make sure that when you install it, that you select the Install for Everyone option. That way you can apply it to whichever users are on the computer.

Take a look at the settings window and I’m sure you’ll be able to figure out exactly how to use this software. The beauty is the simplicity.

When the Romaco Control Panel opens, you must enter a password before you can even change any settings. Of course, choose a password that your kids won’t guess. Once you’ve done that, the rest of the Control Panel is accessible.

In order to make the program start counting down, you must check the Enable Timeout checkbox. From there, you can choose the method you want to put healthy limits on the computer usage.

Do you want them to be on the computer for no more than an hour or two a day? Choose the Daily Quota option.

Did you say they could only go on for half-an-hour before supper? Choose the Per-Session Timeout.

With the Per-Session Timeout, you do have to set it for a minimum of  15 minutes. Now, if you set the Warn n minutes before action option in either scenario, there is NO WAY the little goobers can say, “I didn’t know it was going to shut off.” Or the ever-popular, “It’s not fair! I didn’t have time to save my game. I need to get back on and get to a save point!”

Personally, I would only respond to that last statement with my patented, “Did I promise you fair?” accompanied by the arched eyebrow. See that warning below? It scales to whatever size your screen is. They can click the OK button to continue their Twittering.

There are two possible outcomes from setting the timer – Log Off or Shut Down. How you choose is up to you. Log off is good enough for our kids since they know that they’ve had enough time and respect us. Ha! I almost typed that last line with a straight-face.

I’d also recommend checking the Startup Automatically For This User. That way it will startup automatically for that user. That was redundant.

Once you have it set as you want, simply click on the Run Immediately button. The countdown will begin. Then click on the Apply and Close button. That will minimize the Romaco Timeout to the system tray – out of the way.

The only easy way to stop the program now, is to open the Timeout Control Panel from the system tray icon and enter the password. If you’ve done your job right, the kids won’t be able to cirvumvent this. Unless they are more into computers than just surfing. In that case, you may want to look at registry tweaks to disable the Task Manager.

I can’t promise you that your neighbourhood will fill up with kids playing and laughing by using Timeout. What you do with your kids when they step away from the flickering-blue babysitter is up to you.

What other methods do you use to help keep their computer usage healthy? How do you encourage them to get outside and just play? I’m all ears and willing to learn. Just leave me a note in the comments below.

Image Credit : krisandapril

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Except me. I have to know how things work. No good reason for that. Sometimes I have to read a bunch of technical jargon, ask a lot of questions and then relate the information to something else I understand, before I can truly understand what’s going on. That makes me a slow, but tenacious, learner. And really annoying when Jeopardy! is on.

The underlying technology of the digital camera is a light sensor and  a program. The light sensor is most often a Charge Coupled Device  (CCD) and the program is firmware that is embedded right into the circuit board of the camera. Kind of like the programs that help make your microwave oven or iPod work.

I’ll focus on the CCD first. Yes, there is another kind of light sensor that can be used and that’s the Complimentary Metal Oxide Semiconductor (CMOS) type. The mechanics of how they do what they do differ, but the principles are the same.

Think of the CCD as being a grid of millions of little squares, each one kind of like a solar cell. You know that a solar cell takes light energy and converts it to electrical energy right? And you probably figured that the more light there is the more energy it makes and vice versa right? So you can see where we’re going with this whole CCD thing.

Each of those little squares on the CCD takes light energy and converts it to electrical energy. Each condition of the light – like brightness and intensity – generates a very specific electrical charge. Those charges for each little square are then transported through an array of electronics to where it can be interpreted by the firmware. The firmware knows what each specific charge means and translates it to information that includes the colour and other qualities of the light that the CCD picked up.

This process is done for each of the squares in the grid of the CCD – so now you can see the miracle that it really is! Now picture (pun intended) a million little squares, each one different as though they were puzzle pieces. The firmware puts those puzzle pieces together to form an image that is recognizable to the human eye.

The process of putting it together is very much akin to what happens with your television or monitor. It does this using pixels. Each pixel is comprised of three basic colours – red, green and blue. By varying the intensity of each colour within a pixel, the variety of colours that can be produced is amazing indeed. This is known as a Bayer filter.

Get up close with your monitor – to the point where you can see the pixels individually. Don’t worry, that whole thing about going blind from sitting too close to the TV is an old wives’ tale. Except when it comes to my kids.  You might need a magnifying glass. Neat, huh? Did you see how there were more green pixels than red or blue? That’s because somebody figured out that the eye is not as sensitive to green as it is to red or blue.

I digressed. The next step is for the firmware to record the information it saw into digital code. That code can be used to accurately reproduce the picture time and time again. Call it a recipe for that specific moment in time that you captured. Now, that code can be passed to the view screen on the camera, or to a monitor or printer to be reproduced.

And now you know how that all works. Hopefully taking the mystery away hasn’t ruined the experience for you. I hope you enjoyed this high level overview of how these things work.

Are you a digital photo enthusiast? Did this article help you to understand the process better? Share your questions with us in the comments, and I’ll try to answer them.

Photo Credit: ralphbijker

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But, let’s say it’s not your thing. Where can you find travel recommendations from people like you? Sure you could ask your friends, yet their travel experiences will be somewhat limited. What about having a site that matches your travel tastes with other people with similar interests?

That’s the niche the Finland-based TripSay is going after. I’d say they’re doing a pretty darn good job of it. I found this site using StumbleUpon, since I seldom travel or look at travel sites. The design intrigued me. It’s clean, kind of Web 2.0 with nice controls and a super intuitive interface. So, I started to play with it.

On the left-hand side of the screen, you’ll see the icons above. Pretty self-explanatory aren’t they? Although I don’t know why an orange heart is better than a pink one. Wouldn’t red be more obvious? At first I didn’t know what the Dislike button was supposed to be. Was it a blue boob or a blue bum? A blue bum made more sense, since one of the places I put the symbol on smells like bum. Yes, I just put that in an article. Journalism at its finest, folks.

In case you were wondering, it was Toronto. Let the flames begin! The cloud with the snore Z’ds are for the places you dream of going to.

TripSay wants you to tag at least 5 places before continuing. Now, keep in mind, you do this even before you sign up. That’s smart. It gets you to use the site completely risk free – you don’t even need to give them your e-mail address. That earned a degree of trust from me right away.

After that, you just click on the Proceed button to see your results:

I found what it returned to me to be a bit surprising! These weren’t places that I normally would have considered going, or even looked up. However, once I read the travel recommendations and reviews and the travel profiles of the people that TripSay said were similar to me, I started to really get into it all! Here’s the number one travel recommendation that it had for me:

I don’t know how to pronounce it, but it sounded cool. At first, when I saw a graveyard, I thought this must be some sort of morose joke.  But the more I looked into Oaxaca, the more I realized how rich in culture and history it is. It’s not the super-resort of other Mexican places like Puerto Vallarta or the overcrowded metropolises that I despise like Mexico City.

At this point, I signed up for the free membership to the site. For the next few hours I played with it more and added more places I’ve liked, disliked or dreamed of going to. I found that there is a Groups section to the site. Within these groups, you’ll find people with similar life interests to you. From there, you can view their travel recommendations and get an idea of even more places to visit. I like the fact that there is a group for people that travel with children. That often makes things a bit more…interesting when travelling.

Once you set up a profile of yourself, you can add specific interests to your profile to get even more accurate results. For me it was things like relaxing, history, culture, arts, reading, etc. The auto-suggest feature does come up with some funny results as you start typing though. I started putting history in but I misspelled it as histr. Here’s what it suggested:

I really should have chosen histrionic personality disorder to see what would be recommended. Probably Bellevue Hospital. On second thought, it does look pretty cool.

The Me as a traveller control is a great idea too. Just a simple slider control to find where your balance is on some aspects of travelling. Even as someone who loves history and would love to travel Europe for 6 months or so, I do have a fairly tight budget. I’m also not multilingual. I’m more sesquilingual – one and half languages. French being the half. Oddly enough, I can pick out conversational themes in most Romantic languages as well as German. As long as they are speaking slow enough. Travel sports like waterskiing and such aren’t my thing either. I’m more of a museum guy.

You can always continue on adding places that you’ve been to and liked, or disliked.  Since TripSay utilizes Google Maps, you can zoom right down to pretty much street level. At this point, you can even recommend a particular restaurant or attraction.

Here’s the zoom-in on Vancouver B.C., Canada with my favourited places. We weren’t there for more than a day, but I’d highly recommend it as a destination for anyone, not just museumnistas like me.

Add to this whole mix the fact that there is no advertising, or trying to get you to book trips through them, the experience is an excellent one. I guarantee that this site will go into heavy rotation on my bookmarks.

Do you have any expereinces with TripSay that you’d like to share? Just got some great travel recommendations? We’d love to read them in the comments below!

Image Credit: Kerry Vaughan

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I’m not the only one who dreams of such a person coming along and righting wrongs. Millions flock to a long list of top sites for superheroes, perhaps dreaming of having that courage, or power to make a change in the world. Of course, we all can, however it’s nice to think of being able to do it with a cape on. Up, up and….ah, you get the picture.

5. Kade: The Gothic Demon Hunter

Yeah, I haven’t heard of Kade either. Yet, according to Alexa, this is the most popular superhero website. Seriously. Kade apparently can’t feel – not the edge of a sword or his mother’s caress.  Awww… poor Kade. Wouldn’t that make doing anything kind of hard? Try holding a sword, or urinating. Would he feel that he has to go to the bathroom? I’m sorry, but this character makes about as much sense as the Twilight movies. Oh wait – same audience – brooding teenagers who think they are the first generation to ever go through their teens. That being said, I’ll probably give into suspension of disbelief and read a few anyway. As a bonus, it is kind of cool that this is a Canadian website.

4. Silver-Surfer Homepage

This is one superhero I never really understood. He’s silver and surfs through space. Did you ever get the feeling that Stan Lee and the crew at Marvel maybe did some pharmaceutical experimentation. Can you imagine the meeting that spawned this guy?

The website itself appears to be influenced by mind-altering substances. Sometimes there is red text on a star-field background. Sometimes the text is yellow. Either way, the content is interesting and a testament to this persons obsession with a boogie-boarding metalloid.

3. Incredible Hulk Online

Weighing in at number 3 and some 900 to 1040 pounds, the original green machine! At Incredible Hulk Online, you’ll find that there are at least 7 incarnations of the Hulk. Beats me. When I stopped buying comics, there was still just one Hulk. The site is a bit light on content, but is pretty interesting nonetheless.  It’s a pretty decent fan site, especially if you’re into collecting Hulk toys.

2. SpiderFan

I am so not a fan of spiders, however if I could become Spiderman by letting a radioactive one bite me, I’d be all over that like a web that catches flies. Look out! Here comes the Spider Guy!

The first real anti-hero, or at least unwilling hero, is arguably the second most popular superhero of all time. From humble beginnings at an upstart comic book company to cheesy Saturday morning cartoons with recycled cels to blockbuster action extravaganzas. Spiderfan tracks it all! Even the promo items given by fast food joints.  Did you know there was a villain called Chicken Cow? Somehow it all fits together….

1. Superman Homepage

Was there any doubt that Kal El would top the list of superheroes? Of course not. The first, and the greatest superhero of all time has had this site dedicated to him since 1994. As the logo says, they have everything you ever wanted to know about superman. Seriously. I started to get seriously sidetracked as I wandered through the decades of information, artwork and trivia about Clark Kent, Superman and all of his enemies and acquaintances.  Remember Krypto? The super dog? How about Comet the super horse? It’s all there.

Weird huh? No X-Men. Oddly enough, based on my research into web statistics on superhero sites these are your top 5. I would have thought for sure there would be Wolverine or Batman (although technically not a superhero) or Wonder Woman (I still have a puppy crush on Lynda Carter). Nope, not there. If you know of a great website dedicated to a superhero, we’d all be glad if you shared it in the comments. Especially if it features Lynda Carter.

Image Credit: DuckBrown

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In order for a computer to connect to more than one other computer, you need a router or a hub. Two very different pieces of equipment that perform somewhat similar jobs. We’ll focus on the router since you very well may have one in your house.

Let me take a moment to explain to the more technically inclined that I understand that there are such things as token ring networks that don’t require a router or a hub. Yet, our average Internet user isn’t going to employ a token ring, so leave that alone, please.

Many of you will have wireless routers, a few of you may have wired routers. How the information gets to and from the router isn’t that important to this discussion. What is important is how does a router work – what happens inside the router with all that data coursing through it. To keep it simple, I’m going to use a 3 computer network to explain the routing principles.

So, let’s say you have three computers in your home and a connection to the Internet. This will give us a network that looks like such:

In the middle of that, is the wireless router. I know you knew that, but it had to be said. Wirelessly attached to it are a laptop, a PC, and a Mac (just for you Jackson!). Actually, the Mac is in there to show that the computers don’t necessarily need to be the same kind or platform. One might be sending up a file to work, one might be downloading something from YouTube and one is reading MakeUseOf.com – of course. All this information is coming down from, and up to, the Internet.

Believe it or not, the router can only talk to one of these things at a time! The process I’m about to talk about just happens so fast that it seems to happen all at once.

Let’s say that the Mac is uploading a file to work, the laptop is watching YouTube and the PC is surfing MakeUseOf.com.

Each communication happens in small packets of data. You might recall this from the How the Internet Works article I did awhile back. The IP address in that article was the important thing that allowed packets to find their way to your computer. Here’s a packet:

The important parts, for this article, are the Source Address and the Destination Address. These will be Internet Protocol (IP) addresses.