I am slowly learning more and more about the world of computers, I have managed to learn quite a bit more than I ever thought I would, that is for sure. It took me a long time even to get used to the simplest email function at the beginning. The thing is I don’t have any friends that are into computers, most of my friends are from the generation that is still very uneasy and intimidated by the whole computer business and they have a tendency to just pooh pooh the computer issue away. If they need something that entails the computer they know where they can go and have someone do it for them when needed. Like my mother, she will not have anything to do with the computer no matter what anyone says and my Dad stumbles around the Internet once and a while, only because one of my brothers is living with them and he has all of the best computer system and all the neat gadgets that go along with it all. He has sunk a lot of time and money into his home/bedroom office. This is the only relative that I have that I can talk with about computers, and he really does know a heck of a lot more than I will ever have the opportunity to learn and use.

The last visit back home with folks I had the chance to go into his room, there we spent several hours while he showed me all of the things that he is in to and what he has got going on. He impressed me, the old fart, he is several years older than I am.

I remember him talking about and showing me a web-site www.ibackup.com/online-backup-downloads which is a company that claims that it has the solution for having highly customizable online storage, online backup, access and data sharing for private and business, with several possible interfaces and options to backup, retrieve and manage your data. Your files/folders would be transmitted using 128-bit SSL encryption.  They offer an easy-to-use web and desktop based applications and IBackup has both browser based and down loadable applications for Windows, Linux/Unix and Mac platforms.

IBackup Online Backup is a great solution indeed that gives you reliable scheduled online backup for any future date/time and as stated earlier, it is available in Windows or Mac (I miss me Mac, back in the day when things were so much more simple).

The reading of these kind of stories one has to wonder even more about our government:

Officials say 1,500 rebate checks have been direct deposited into the wrong bank accounts. A computer programming glitch is to blame. An IRS spokesperson says anyone who received a misdirected deposit is required to report the mistake to their bank.

In addition, the IRS says up to 350,000 households did not get the child credit payment in their economic stimulus checks.

Here is a schedule that is supposed to assist with figuring out when they say they you will be receiving your check, but from all of the talk that I have been hearing and reading I don’t believe that anyone should place a bet on this information be accounted for by the IRS.

If you are eligible for a check, when you can expect it will depend on the last two digits of your SSN.

Direct deposit, then you follow this schedule:

• 00 - 20: May 2
• 21 - 75: May 9
• 76 - 99: May 16

Do not have yours direct deposited, then this is your schedule:

• 00 - 09: May 16
• 10 - 18: May 23
• 19 - 25: May 30
• 26 - 38: June 6
• 39 - 51: June 13
• 52 - 63: June 20
• 64 - 75: June 27
• 76 - 87: July 4
• 88 - 99: July 11

So if your social security number is 000-00-0034 then you will receive the stimulus package amount on May 9th if you have direct deposit and you will receive President Bush’s stimulus check on June 6th. As you can see, you get the money one month earlier if they have your direct deposit information.

They way that they are constantly changing the names of countries it would be hard to keep up with the job of being a mapmaker these days. But I guess that it would be good job security though. I am pretty familiar with the globe and what is where, and who belongs to who, but sometimes I’m really thrown for a loop about some places. This time stemming from a conversation at work with a buddy who is planning a unique vacation for his family this summer vacation season. He has had enough of Disney World and the typical family style get-a-ways that they have fallen into the routine of, so he has gone on-line and has spent a good amount of time researching to come up with The Great British Holiday at Butlins Minehead.

I had to have him repeat that a few times and still had to have him write it down to make sure I was hearing correctly and I had to tell him that he had stumped me and wanted an explanation. That is when he took the piece of paper back and wrote the web-site address of www.ecomparison.co.uk/butlins, he had it memorized from spending so much time exploring it recently, so that I could look it up on the Internet at home and see what it was all about, so of course I did eventually. I had to cut and paste one of the pictures that I was so ogling at for some time!

So I have to tell you that I was surprised at what I saw, it really looks like a great place to take the family, just a tad difference in the language, but not a major issue, the money exchange isn’t all that difficult for the family to understand and adjust to and still feel safe and be able to have a grand old time with everything that this place has to offer.

Who knows, one day we may win the Lottery and I will have kept this in mind for a place to vacation when that day comes. And I don’t think we have an rich relatives that are going to be kicking off any time soon. And too bad that President Bush’s stimulus checks aren’t several amount times the amount that we are still waiting to receive in the mail.

The wife has wanted to go to the new hot trend, that is sweeping the country, that has now come to our neck of the woods, a place to fix food and then bring home. You can walk in off the street or call for an appointment to go alone or with how ever many other people you care to come along with, and use their commercial meal assembly kitchen to prepare meals. This eliminates the need of the of the shopping and all of the prep work that goes along with the making of a meal.
The tells me that you go for 2 hours and can walk out with six to twelve meals to bring home and eat, or refrigerate or put in the freezer. I think that it is a grand idea, something that the whole family would be able to participate in and have some fun at something that we will turn around and enjoy the eating of.

I have served in the military in my younger years, and believe me when I tell you that I appreciate all of the freedoms that have and enjoy here in the good ol’ U.S. of A. and I’d like to think that here at my house we all appreciate it and keep up as all well as we can on the activities that are taking place every day over in the Middle East. Our eldest daughter has numerous friends that have over the past several years, that have joined the military and are now awaiting their papers, or at boot camp and many are over in the Middle East right now and some have even done their time and have returned home. Politics are something that are discussed openly and passionately in our house by even the youngest of the clan, you could at any time walk into a room full of debates, some even quite heated, by folks discussing the up and coming elections for the Presidency, gas prices, and of course the war.

The other evening after watching a television show concerning the war, we were discussing how they have to deal with restricted access to the Internet in the Middle East, and of course there are numerous other countries with such policies in place.  Something that we just sit down and sign-on to and start surfing around on here back home with out a second thought. With the PC right beside us and all ready signed on, the wife quickly found a web-site www.blacklogic.com that offers a solution to that problem and lots more.

It explains that a VPN is a virtual private network you can think of it as a tunnel that goes over the Internet. Each VPN connection is totally anonymous on the Internet and it helps to keep activities anonymous and safe. VPN Internet access is Vidal option for people worried about their security and privacy.
This service is used a lot over in Kuwait and Qatar which are places that we hear in the news almost daily.

Anonymous Surfing is attractive for lots of usages also including keeping you anonymous at work, school or at home, even behind firewalls, it prevents you ISP from spying on you. Plus you no longer need to use a proxy site, you can bypass blocked sites like blog sites, poker and adult sites, even allows you to view YouTube and Flickr, and others.

So watching a t.v. show about the war ended up in a lesson of how to gain access to the Internet and remain behind a virtual mask to keep your identity a secret for what ever reasons you may have, and their seems to be numerous reasons why someone would want or need to.