Pat McGee Band- Rebecca at Joe's Pub, NYC 09-19-2009

Pat McGee Band- Come Back Home at Joe's Pub, NYC 09-19-2009

Pat McGee Band- Elizabeth at Joe's Pub, NYC 09-19-2009

Third Eye Blind- Semi-Charmed Life

Third Eye Blind- Semi-Charmed Life @ Val Air Ballroom, Des Moines, Iowa on 06/02/2009.

Third Eye Blind- Campfire

Third Eye Blind- Campfire @ Val Air Ballroom, Des Moines, Iowa on 06/02/2009.

Conficker Worm: Take Action!

So I’m sure you’ve heard people talking about this latest computer bug scheduled to go into effect on 4/1/2009:
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Conficker

If you are concerned that this worm may affect one of your computers, I'd recommend taking the following actions: (note: no warranty is expressed or implied)

Make a full backup of your computer and/or important files to removable media
(ie, CD's, DVD's, USB Thumb or Hard Drives)

Make sure all of your Windows updates are current:
http://update.microsoft.com

Specifically: http://www.microsoft.com/technet/security/Bulletin/MS08-067.mspx)

Make sure your Windows firewall is turned on:
http://support.microsoft.com/kb/283673

Make sure your Anti-Virus software is functioning and fully updated. If you need some (or are unsure), AVG is free:
http://free.avg.com/download-avg-anti-virus-free-edition
Once installed and updated, perform a full scan of your computer.

Good Luck! And contact me if you need further assistance.

UPDATE: Here's a link to the Microsoft resource page for Conficker.

Twitter the Misinformation Service?

Don't get me wrong I generally sing Twitter's praises, but there doesn't seem to be a lot of discussion on the ramifications of latent message delivery.

Recently while stuck in traffic I posted a message to twitter via text message with details about the location and exits affected so as to help others in my network avoid the same headache. Only later that night when I started getting replies thanking me for the info did I realize that the message had gone out 7 hours after the fact!

Whether this delay was caused by the cellular service carrier or Twitter it's self, who's to say? Most of the time if I get my friend's coffee break update belatedly I'm no worse for the lag- but this event underscored how delayed information can have real world ramifications; thankfully in this case that was limited to people taking alternate routes. But this does leave the mind to wonder what other events could occur... missed flights?, meetings?, worse?

Perhaps Twitter's TOS needs updated to make clear that it should not be depended on for real time delivery... before it's too late.