A bio-research team, led by professor Cedric Feschotte,at the University of Texas, has found traces of virus DNA in the hamn genes associated with schizophrenia and other mental and/or mood disorders.

So; does this mean that there might be a vacine for mood disorders someday? That would be wonderful. (Unless you're the maker of mood-fixing pills, of course. LOL)

Feschotte says, according to news in the research journal Nature, that he examined a class of viruses called bornaviruses that have been ignored by other researchers because it doesn't normally infect primates. His research found far more of this viral DNA in our genome than previous studies. The virus type, called bornaviruses, typically infects hoofed mammals and birds, but, Feschotte's research suggests that it got into primates sometime in the distant past. What he found are fragments that are now permanently part of the human genome.

These bornaviruses have been connected to schizophrenia and othe mental disorders in humans, though the actual nature of the connection isn't fully understood. And so it follows, of course, that there is much to examine and test and argue about Feschotte's new findings, but there's enough known to make imaginations fire up with all sorts of ideas.

Like suppose if depression could be treated like the flu and be subject to vacines? How swell would that be?  A preventative shot for schizophrenia? Wow.

Here's a free idea in the wild; a cable telephone modem that automatically switches to cell phone service whenever the cable phone stops working. 

Let's face it; cable goes out. And when cable TV goes out, the cable phone services goes out with it.

The local cable company, Comcast, has been trying to improve service and reliability; and for the phone service reliability it seems to be succeeding. But the fact is, the cable does go out. And when the cable goes out, the phone goes out.

I've mentioned this before, that in our semi-rural area 60 miles or so north of New York City, there are still plenty of back-country roads where people live year 'round. These are the way-back places where long-time residents live. The older folks who need better services, but also need bargains. Naturally, the less expensive cable telephone service is attractive.

Constantly improving teleconferencing technology plus the general corporate desire to cut travel expense (for one green reason or another) have made teleconferences regular events in the business day.  But, no matter how much this has been written about and forumlated, too often it is still just a big hassle to get a teleconference to work well.

Unsuccessful teleconferences sometimes grow out of iffy technology -- bad connections, and such -- but more often come out of someone not realizing the special manners needed for a teleconference.

Here's some points that may be helpful. Please add your own in the comments below. I'll skip the stuff that's common to any meeting -- like "be prepared."

It used to be that family photos were always nice and safe in albums and shoeboxes and that was that. But that won't do anymore. 

Ditto for all the letters, term papers, Quicken files and iTunes music tracks, not to mention email messages and addresses in your email address book.

Your computer is handy for storing all these things, but it's also very quick to lose them all when something bad happens: like a visitor accidentally erasing files or a hard drive failure, or a virus attack.

These things can happen quite suddenly and once those files are gone, they're pretty much gone for good. So now, we make backups. A sort of digital shoebox.

Simple copies or automatic backups

If you don't store a lot of photos and documents on your computer then making an occasional copy of important files may do for you.

All you need is to make a copy of your files onto some storage gizmo that is external to your computer. A CD-ROM will do just fine if it has enough capacity to hold your backup. For more than around 700MB you'll want to look at a "flash drive" or an "external hard drive." 

You can find flash drives at a drug store or super market that will hold up to 8 or 16GB (gigabytes) but if you need to backup more than 4GB, you'll want to look at external hard drives too. You can find those at a computer or department store.

For small backups on any computer - Mac or Windows - you can drag-and-drop files and folders from your computer's hard disk to the backup device whenever you wish.

Email software often keeps the mail and address books in hidden away places on the computer. If you want backups of your email you should think about an automatic program.

Automatic Backups: Using a Backup Program

External hard drives usually come with an automatic backup program that help handle making backups for you. Both Mac's and Windows also come with programs for making backups. The Mac system, "Time Machine", is especially easy to use and works with many external drives.

Another option gaining popularity for both Windows and Macs is remote backup. For a monthly fee, a service company will back up all of your data at a secure "undisclosed location" someplace on the Internet.

These off-site backups are nice because they are fully automatic, completely safe from local dangers like theft or fire, and the backup service provides the backup software as part of the deal.

Computer disasters can come quickly and right out of nowhere. With so many easy ways to make secure copies, there's almost no point in not being backed-up.

1. The sky is not falling. 

2. The Adobe Reader that just about everybody uses -- Mac and Windows -- to open and read PDF files has a security vulnerability that seems to affect all versions. Adobe has not announced a fix for the problem yet, and the problem seems to be dangerous enough that I thought I should let you know.

This vulnerability allows a multi-level attack on your computer and your personal data. Malware that uses it has been found "in the wild". Fortunately it is easy to avoid.

Just turn off the JavaScript support in your Adobe Reader.

1. Start the Adobe Reader. Find it on your desktop or in your list of Programs (Windows) or Applications (Macs).

2. Go to the "Edit" menu and click "Preferences".

3. Find and click "JavaScript" in the list of categories on the left.

4. Uncheck the box labled "Enable Acrobat Javascript", then click "OK".

5. Close the Adobe Reader. All done.

This is just for the genuine Adobe Reader. If you use an alternate to that, like the "Preview" program that comes with OS-X on Macintosh computers, then you don't need to do this.