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I found a good article about how to keep youself safe while using public wireless Internet access (or WiFi). Here's some of the key points:

1. Don't use Internet Explorer - Use Firefox or some of the other more secure web browsers.
2. Don't visit web sites that require you to log in or enter sensitive information. It's very likely that your data is traveling in plain text and can easily be picked up by other WiFi users.
3. Only enter sensitive information on web sites that have https at the beginning of the URLs in the address bar. The "s" means your data is encrypted on those sites.
4. Gmail is currently the safest web based email, but you have to make sure to use the https version of the URL, https://mail.google.com/. But the article is a few months old, so most likely the other webmail services have implemented this too, but I haven't tried it. Last time I used Hotmail or Yahoo Mail they only encrypted login information, not actual messages. Gmail always encrypts login information, but I think it only encrypts messages when you request the https version of the site.
5. Using email from a program, such as Outlook, is a little trickier to do safely, but it's covered in the article. Most likely your email login information and messages are sent in plain text.
6. There are a few ways to do secure instant messenging. One way is to use Skype, but the other person must have Skype too. Another way is to use GAIM and an encryption plugin for GAIM. Both solutions are covered in the article.

The last two points involve installing programs and messing with settings, so at least stick with the first four, and just don't send any IMs with anything important. Although using Firefox means you have to install it, it's not so bad and it'll go a long way towards safer web browsing.

Here's the article. It includes a few more options and a lot more details.

Just tell your boss about this quote, and change the $50,000 to whatever you're making.

Big monitors are the easiest way to increase white-collar productivity, and anyone who makes at least $50,000 per year ought to have at least 1600x1200 screen resolution. A flat-panel display with this resolution currently costs less than $500. So, as long as the bigger display increases productivity by at least 0.5%, you'll recover the investment in less than a year. (The typical corporate overhead doubles the company's per-employee cost; always remember to use loaded cost, not take-home salary, in any productivity calculation.)

From Jakob Nielsen's Alertbox, July 31, 2006: Screen Resolution and Page Layout

Is it just me or is "unmountable boot volume" a relatively common problem on Dell computers? I have now had to fix this on two seperate computers. It seems like they don't handle bad shutdowns very well. Also, do Dell computers not come with Windows XP CDs? I needed to start into the Recovery Console but there's no way to get there with any of the Dell CDs. So I had to use my own XP CD. The first computer I tried to fix didn't get corrected through chkdsk /p or chkdsk /r, so I had to transfer all the files and then reinstall everything. This second computer that I just fixed for the same problem luckily worked after just chkdsk /p. I think it's weird that both computers had this same problem, and I mean other computers have had bad shutdowns but they never broke like that. I'm starting to wonder...

These are kinda creepy looking, but also very cool. Kanja Chen made a Chewbacca puppet and a Darth Maul puppet. You can go to Project Puppet to get the puppet materials, but you probably need some talent too. Someboday make me an octopus puppet.

I always heard that joke that Al Gore invented the Internet, but I never knew the story behind it. It turns out he didn't invent the Internet (obviously) and never claimed that he did. He just got misquoted and everyone blew it out of proportion to make him seem like a liar. He was just saying that when he was in Congress he knew that the Internet was going to be big. Here's the full story.