Internet

Swine Flu on Google Maps

/ Apple, Google, Internet

There is now a Swine Flu Google Map at http://swinemap.org. Black indicates confirmed deaths from H1N1. Grey are unconfirmed deaths. Red are confirmed infections. Pink are probable infections. Blue are influenza-like illnesses. As of this writing, North Dakota looks like a good place to set up your post-apocalyptic compound while you develop an anti-swine flu serum.


View 2009 H1N1 Flu Outbreak Map in a larger map

Follow CDC recommendations and thoroughly gargle after kissing any pigs that have not yet been tested. Ok, their real information is at:
http://www.cdc.gov/swineflu/

UPDATE: This post has been updated with a new Google Map that has more information.

Conficker Arrives

/ Internet, Viruses, Windows

ArmageddonIs it time to buy those boxes of ammo and head for the hills? We’ll see.

This Wednesday, April 1st the Conficker worm will do something. No one knows what. But it has security experts up late. It is believed that at one point Conficker was on 6% of the world’s PCs. This has been reduced dramatically by the work of Microsoft in issuing special patches for the worm. But hundreds of thousands of PCs are still estimated to be infected.

Early this month, Symantec’s security researchers began noticing that the worm was changing in order to avoid steps to interrupt the worm’s links with its hacker controllers. The first versions of the worm generated a list of 250 possible domains each day that could be used to route instructions from hackers. The new edition uses a list of 50,000 URLs in order to overwhelm security researchers.

Typically hackers use large botnets of computers to commit distributed denial of service (DDOS) attacks against websites. The hackers will demand that large websites pay them in order to be spared.

If you are worried about your computers or those of people you love, you can read Microsoft’s alert and my earlier post on how to prevent and remove the virus.

Online Price Trends from Gazaro

/ Internet, Shopping

The free site Gazaro allows you to look up products and see pricing trends. You can see if the product’s price has dropped regularly or if you are at a high blip. Gazaro also identifies products that have recently dropped significantly in price.  Sign up is required, but there is no fee.

This is an example trend chart showing that Microsoft Wireless Notebook Presenter Mouse 8000 recently dropped in price at Amazon.

More Online Real Estate Tools

/ Internet, Local DC area

We previously mentioned several online real estate tools. Some other sites include:

HotPads.com

This is one of the few sites that also list foreclosures. The online foreclosure information is a bit of a racket. It should be easily searchable free information as it is provided by local courthouses. But all sites that offer foreclosure information charge regular fees. Even HotPads does so, but if you know a neighborhood, you can often determine the house under foreclosure using their detailed maps.

HotPads is good for market research, as it breaks down household income, population density, age, and rent ratio. You can see in this map that the very north of Arlington has relatively few foreclosures, while everything beyond it in Virginia is near or above a rate of 1 in every 150 houses under foreclosure. D.C. and Maryland have fewer foreclosures, presumably because state laws there have made foreclosures take longer for the banks.

Homesdatabase.com

Homesdatabase is another search site that allows you to search for MLS listed houses without needing a realtor.

Free AntiSpyware

/ Internet, Software, Viruses

SUPERAntiSpyware is very good antispyware that is free for personal use. While Antivirus software is very important, Antispyware can help too in making sure that you aren’t getting hijacked by Spyware, Adware, Malware, Trojans, Dialers, Worms, and Key Loggers.

You can run it whenever you want, not needing to take up resources when you aren’t using it.

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