safety
Fix
DIY Hi-Low Beam Bike Headlights From Hardware Store Parts
5:30AM Sarah Rae Trover | Increasing numbers of bicycle enthusiasts on the road have translated into more riders on the road after dark. Try whipping up a pair of these hi-low beam headlights to keep the world around you bright at night. More »
Fix
9:00AM Angus Kidman | Hot water bottles are a cheap, green and effective way of staying warm in bed on a cold winter’s night, but it turns out they can also be a major safety risk. More »
Beware Of Unsafe Hot Water Bottles
9:00AM Angus Kidman | Hot water bottles are a cheap, green and effective way of staying warm in bed on a cold winter’s night, but it turns out they can also be a major safety risk. More »
Fix
Avoid These Automobile-Destroying Foods
10:30PM Jason Fitzpatrick | Who hasn’t partaken of a little dining while on the road? While the best bet is keeping your hands at ten and two with no interstate munching, at minimum avoid these accident-prone foods. More »
Work
LinkExtend Enhances Your Browsing With Security Reports And More
11:30PM Jason Fitzpatrick | Firefox only (Windows/Mac/Linux): LinkExtend consolidates a host of web site info services into a single Firefox extension, giving you quick data on page rank, company ethics, malware checks, and much more. LinkExtend harnesses the data from multiple ranking tools in order to give you relevant information about the web pages you visit. To ensure your safety sites you visit are checked against databases at Web of Trust, McAfee SiteAdvisor, and Google Safe Browsing, among others. The Web of Trust website is also used to check if a site is kid safe, along with the lists at Alexa and ICRA. There is even, where available, information about the corporate ethics of the websites you visit provided by Scryve, Knowmore, and Corporate Critic. Do you like seeing thumbnails of sites you visit before leaping to them? The LinkExtend toolbar employs thumbs from five sources to serve them up. The toolbar and context menus provide page rank and site traffic data, show the last time you visited, and alert on whether or not the site has been flagged for malware, spam, or other unsavory activity. The pictures below show the options you can activate, as seen during the initial installation of the extension, and the toolbar in action: More »
How Do You Handle the Laptop Dilemma?
10:10AM Adam Pash | You just sat down at the internet café, you’ve got your coffee, your scone, and your laptop all plugged in and ready to roll, but—you need to hit the head. What do you do? Wired’s Lore Sjöberg discusses this situation—what he calls the laptop dilemma—in detail, offering five options: Leave your helpless laptop alone, ask a neighbour to watch it, take your laptop with you to the can, take everything with you, or lock it up. Obviously, for safety’s sake, you should either lock it up tight or—ideally—bring it along, but we don’t always do what we should. On that note, we’d love to hear how you hack the laptop dilemma in the comments. Photo by scottfeldstein. Workin’ at the Internet Cafe: Laptop Dilemma [Wired] More »
Avoid Phishing by Going Directly to the Site
7:00AM Adam Pash | We’ve all seen “urgent” emails from exiled princes telling us to act quickly and hand over our bank account or other sensitive information. Since we’re savvy folks, we promptly hit the Delete button and move on with our lives. That said, not all phishing scams are so obvious, and sometimes a phishing email can be very convincing. The Official Google Blog highlights a few simple tips that will greatly diminish your chances of getting hooked by a phishing scam. For example, the post recommends always going directly to the site yourself rather than clicking on links in suspicious emails, which will ensure you’re dealing with your the source and not some nefarious site set up to look like your bank. Some of the tips are old hat, but it’s a good post to send on to friends and family who don’t have that discerning eye for phishing that you do. Let’s hear your tried-and-true anti-phishing methods in the comments. How to avoid getting hooked [Official Google Blog] More »
Set Up and Control Your Anonymous Browsing with Vidalia
7:20AM Kevin Purdy | Windows/Mac/Linux: Vidalia, a free, open-source, cross-platform application, makes setting up and configuring Web proxy tool Tor a snap, allowing you to surf the internet anonymously with a turn on/turn off utility. VIdalia sets up your system and helps you connect to, and monitor, Tor relays around the world, even letting you see the route your browsing is taking at the moment. You can also monitor bandwidth usage and set up your own Tor relay if you want to contribute, but Vidalia’s main appeal is the bundling of software and configuration tools that make Tor easy enough for anyone to use. Vidalia is a free download for Windows, Mac, and Linux systems. Vidalia [via Hackosis] More »Browse the Internet Anonymously with Tor
6:00AM Adam Pash | Video weblog Unwired explains how to browse the internet anonymously with The Onion Router network (commonly known as Tor). We’ve covered anonymous browsing with Tor in the past, but this Unwired explanation features a nice introduction to how Tor works and how to get started with Tor using the TorButton Firefox extension. Concerned about privacy at work? Check out more ways to bolster your browsing privacy on the job. Using the Onion Router network [Unwired] More »
Avoid Overloading Your Electrical Outlets
10:00AM Adam Pash | Web site Howstuffworks answers the age-old household safety question on everyone’s mind as they prepare to string lights up around every square inch of their home: How many things can you plug into an electrical outlet before it catches fire? Say you’re using 2,000 watts of power with your holiday lights and other decorations. You divide that number by the volts in your house (usually 120) and you come up with 16.6 amps of current that you’re using. With a 20 amp electrical outlet, you’re using around 80 percent of the available current, which is the most you should be using per circuit. According to the article, out of the 5,300 annual household electrical fires, about 2,000 of those occur over the holiday season. By getting a better idea of how household electricity works, you can avoid the danger and blown fuses caused by overloaded outlets. How many things can you plug into an electrical outlet before it catches fire? [Howstuffworks] More »
