Here is a great article from Microsoft on passwords, specifically “strong passwords”: what they are, how to make and use them, and so forth.

The idea of a “strong password” is one to pay attention to. Passwords really matter, and with identity theft getting more prevalent every day, strong passwords can really help.

Basically, strong passwords mean using more than just lower case letters in a password, and making the password longer. For example, instead of a password being “spike” (such as a dog’s name), you would use sp1K3$D0g!. You are still using Spike the Dog as your password, to make it easy to remember, but adding upper case letters, numbers, symbols, and making the password 10 characters instead of 5. And even if I know you have a dog named Spike, that sp1K3$D0g! password is a touch one to crack, as there are many different combinations that could make up that password.

Microsoft has a lengthy article on strong passwords that is filled with excellent information.

Find it here.

Our own Craig O’Connor created this baby: a quick reference to the main Windows keyboard shortcuts.

With Windows (XP or Vista), many things you normally do with a mouse you can do faster with a keyboard. Check out this reference for a handy list. Print out as many as you need!

A personal favorite: in an Internet browser (Internet Explorer, Firefox, etc), when putting in an address, skip the “www.” and the “.com”. Just put in the main part of the address (for example, “weather”) and do a ctrl-enter. The browser will fill in the ends, taking you directly to (in this case) The Weather Channel web site (www.weather.com). It’s a great time saver — and there are many more on on the list. Check it out!

Find the Windows shortcut reference here

Click Here to go to PC Magazine’s catch-all page on the new MS Vista operating system.

Bill and I have been running it for about a week now and we are…getting used to it. It is different, and a *real* resource hog, but there are lots of tips and tricks you can do to help it along. This page from PC Magazine gathers lots of good info together.

I’ll report more on Vista as I get more info and experience.

This tech site had some worthwhile tips on getting the most out of Microsoft Outlook. The color coding of messages is a very helpful one.

Check it out here

This came up last week on the WCTM NewsTalk 580 radio show with Ron Jolly — we were discussing Google Apps. Microsoft-Office-like applications you can run from a web browser, without loading any software on your PC or workstation. Free for personal use, $50 per user per year for business use (which has increased storage limits).

The biggest negatives are that you have to be on the web to use your software, and the documents you create are kept on the Google servers, not your PC. (That part makes the whole idea a non-starter for many businesses.)

But it is an intriguing concept, and something that has bounced around the IT world for a long time: “SaaS” (or “Software as a Service”). You don’t buy software, you buy a subscription to use it. It is basically the idea behind the Microsoft “Live” offering, which is still in the beginning phases.

And the entire idea is a great one for students, especially college students.

Click here for the Google site to sign up or get more info on Google Apps

Other thoughts from Wired magazine and ZDNet

Check out this different PDF reader / creator. It’s called “Foxit”.

We all know and use Adobe Acrobat Reader for reading PDF documents, and many of us have Adobe Acrobat for creating PDF documents. While the PDF reader is free, the full Acrobat is expensive. Add to that, Adobe has gotten worse and worse through the years with their obnoxious “updater” that hogs resources, makes your computer run slower, and wants to update all the time.

So Foxit is a real alternative.

There are others, too. Keep in mind that “PDF” stands for “Portable Data Format”. The idea is that a PDF is “portable”: that means you don’t need Microsoft Word to read a Word-created document that was saved as a PDF. All you need is a free PDF reader. You can read it in a Palm device, a BlackBerry smart phone, a web browser, and so forth.

The nice thing about Foxit is that it is very “lightweight”. That means tightly written code that doesn’t take a lot of juice to run in your computer.

Check it out!

The web smiley is 25 years old. What a day!

Check out this report from CNet.com

We didn’t see too many issues relating to the new DST start. Most issues were on the single-app variety as opposed to network-wide, and the ones that were there were mostly minor. Outlook and various calendar issues were the biggest hassles.

CNet.com has a good report. See it here

eWeek’s report was much more negative. Here is there report

Terrapin Networks announces its selection as the sole provider of IT Support Services for the City of Cadillac, Michigan. The agreement runs until January 2011.

Terrapin Networks provides the City of Cadillac with a fully staffed IT Department, including on-site help desk and desktop support staff, network engineer services, and IT consulting.

The City has named Timothy Gillen, President of Terrapin Networks, to the post of Chief Technology Officer.

“This relationship”, Gillen said, “continues to improve our ability to provide our unique flavor of IT Department Services and Management to our customers throughout northern Michigan.”