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Help the flood victims in Pakistan!

l33chy — Mon, 16 Aug 2010 12:29:21 +0000

Pakistan’s worst floods in recorded history

More than 2 weeks already passed since the floods, triggered by Monsoon rains, destroyed almost about one fifth of the country. Roughly 20 million people and about 160,000 square kilometers of land have been affected by the enormous amounts of water. People there are suffering badly because of the lack of fresh water supplies and a worrying food shortage.

Humanitarian catastrophe

According to the U.N. 3.5 million children are in severe risk of getting ill which is caused by dirty water. The W.H.O. has estimated that about 36.000 people are already affected by the breakout of fatal cholera and the situation is getting worse with each passing day. Relief workers have a hard time to reach the homeless and very desperate people. The communities urgently need fresh water supplies, latrines and hygiene products.

Donations needed

Due to the picture our western media has drawn of Pakistan which has been often portrayed as a “terror-state”, people are hesitating to donate money. When compared to the earthquake which happened earlier this year in Haiti, the amount of total money donated until now is incredibly small. Western nation’s people often think that the money won’t make it to the humans affected. But not donating money at all is the worst option and aid organizations are doing a great job at using the money effectively and making sure that it arrives where it should.

Where are the billionaires?

Shortly before the floods, various media was reporting about the initiative started by Bill Gates and Warren Buffet to convince billionaires all over the world to donate a part of their vast income for good deeds. I’m wondering why they are so silent about that now. If they aren’t just pulling a PR-gag out of that, they should start already to give money or resources to the aid organizations!

Please donate on one of the following sites to help the people which are desperately needing supplies!

https://www.oxfam.org.uk/donate/pakistan-swat/index.php

http://help-pakistan.com/main/

How to stay informed about the BP oilspill?

l33chy — Thu, 29 Jul 2010 18:20:20 +0000

Worst case scenario

The explosion of the “Deepwater Horizon” drilling rig on April 20, 2010 triggered the worst oil disaster in the history of the United States. 11 workers died and 17 were injured at the explosion. Until BP managed to cap the gushing oil wellhead on July 15, 2010, 90 million to 180 million gallons of crude oil were released into the Gulf of Mexico.

How to stay informed?

Due to the massive amount of information which mainstream news media spread, people all over the world watch and comment this horrible event.

The most important thing for affected people is to keep informed. So I collected a few links which might be interesting.

Oil spill related blogs and websites

Oil spill maps, satellite images and monitoring

Live video streams from ROVs at the capped oil wellhead

Help now!

People to follow on Twitter

If you think there are links missing, please comment on this post and I will add them all!

How to remotely fix computer issues?

l33chy — Tue, 27 Jul 2010 10:28:37 +0000

Average users…

Most of the people nowadays turn on their computers and just start to browse the Internet to read news, update their Facebook status or check their emails. They don’t really care about how things work. But then, someday, they run into a problem. Some application doesn’t start anymore or suddenly something looks different and they start to panic.

Due to the fact that an average computer user doesn’t know and maybe doesn’t want to bother with the basic structures behind applications or even an operating system they often seek help from expensive IT experts who charge a lot of money for a simple task or just a quick change of some rogue setting.

Click on more to read on…

People are not aware that there are nice remote assistant tools available for free. I know that, because I use those tools almost daily to support customers at my daytime job and after I log in on their computers I often hear things like: “Oh my mouse is moving! This is so weird!”. The first few times I seriously had to suppress one or the other giggle, but then I realized that more people should be aware of those tools. So here’s a quick overview of the most common tools.

VNC – the classic remote support tool

Virtual Network Computing (VNC) is one of the oldest remote support tools around. It’s available for a lot of platforms and consists of a server application and a client (or “viewer”). Many companys’ IT people install the VNC server on their clients to be able to quickly check what’s going wrong at a user’s computer without the need of running through the whole building to see that the user just needs to tick a certain check box in some application.

The downside of VNC is that it is relatively slow and it is not using encryption by default. So the main usage field is on a local network.

If you want to read more about VNC take a look at the official homepage.

TeamViewer – free for private use, encrypted and easy to use

TeamViewer is a bit different. Basically you download the software from the TeamViewer website, install or just run it and you’re good to help out your buddy or family member to solve that annoying computer issue they might have.

The person you want to connect to needs to give you a 12-digit ID number and a 4 digit password which his or her TeamViewer application is displaying. Then, after he or she allows you to take over his desktop, you’re good to go.

TeamViewer supports Windows, Linux and OS X operating systems and even works on the iPhone or iPad.

However please note that if you want to use it professionally you will have to get a license.

Find out more about or try TeamViewer on the official website.