What Ven Thinks!

I don’t know about you, but I’m a master procrastinator. I’m also a list-maker.

Former co-workers branded me as the “Queen of the Post-it®” because I always had dozens and dozens of Post-it® notes all over my desk. Appointment reminders. Mini To-do lists. A grocery list of things to pick up on the way home. Stuff like that. Unfortunately, it was a disorganized mess and, in spite of my best efforts, I had a terrible time keeping up with all those lists.

I still use Post-it® notes an awful lot but I’m no longer the Queen. I’ve found a better way to manage my lists and get things done. It’s a software program called Efficient To-Do List and I can’t get through a day without it. Literally can’t! Everything I need to do

Have you ever read something or been told something that sucked the life right out of your dreams?

I seem to get that a lot, especially from well-meaning friends and family members who think they’re sparing me a lot of wasted time and hard work. Or maybe they think a little disappointment up front will hurt a lot less than a big failure down the line. Whatever the reason, I get sick of hearing it.

Something else I get sick of hearing about is niches, especially from bloggers who encourage you to pick a niche, just not their niche.

I recently came across this post, Blogging About Blogging: Fair Warning, where the author linked to and commented on another post, Stop Blogging About Blogging Already. The point of both posts was to discourage new bloggers from blogging about blogging, a niche

The #1 rule of secure social networking is this… The primary responsibility for protecting your personal and private data falls to YOU!

While sites like Twitter, Facebook, and MySpace have a responsibility to provide options for you to protect your data, it is you and only you who is responsible for understanding all the risks and options available and then learning how to use them to protect yourself, even if that means NOT using a service if it’s not secure enough for you. It’s also up to you to ensure that the options you end up choosing are actually working for you.

One of the complaints I often hear, especially with Facebook recently, is that people will set their privacy options once and then assume they’re going to stay set. They

K2 KII EMF Meter
This is the EMF meter frequently used on the Ghost Hunters show. I own one and I used it on my last ghost hunt at Waverly Hills Sanatorium in Louisville, Kentucky and loved it. It worked great and seems to have great battery life. I will be using it again on my next ghost hunting trip to Eastern State Penitentiary in Philadelphia coming up next week.

Fluke 62 Mini Infrared Thermometer
I don’t currently own this infrared thermometer but I’ve met several people who do and they highly recommend it. I’m planning to purchase one soon and promise to do a more in

Everybody has passwords; at home, at work, everywhere you look. If you’re active on the internet, you probably have more passwords than you can count. The question is… Are your passwords secure?

If you’re like a majority of the people mentioned in this article, you’re passwords are probably not as secure as you think. The article mentions that “even though hacking techniques have become better, users of today are no wiser than those 20 years ago.” I don’t agree with that statement. I don’t think the problem is lack of knowledge about the risks of insecure passwords. I think the problem is people not understanding how to create truly secure passwords that are also easy to remember.

Most recommendations tell you not to use names of family members or pets, birth dates, phone numbers, etc., but people use them anyway. Why? Because THOSE are the passwords that