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Mon
03
Jun
John Lister's picture

Nearly 1-in-10 Webpages Disappear in a Year

More than a third of webpages have disappeared in the past 10 years according to a new study. Eight percent of pages that existed last year have already gone. The figures come from the Pew Research Center, exploring what it calls "digital decay" and ... other sources have called "link rot". (Source: pewresearch.org ) Pew's researchers looked at a random selection of URLs which were active at various points over the past 10 years. On average, a quarter have now gone. Naturally there's a downward trend, with 38 percent of pages active in 2013 now unavailable. Even with pages active as recently as ... (view more)

Wed
02
Feb
John Lister's picture

Google: Defamation Law Suits will bring Censorship

Google says defamation laws could mean it has to "censor" search results. It's appealing a case in Australia where it was told to pay damages for a link to a newspaper article. The case involves a man arrested in 2004 on charges of conspiracy to ... murder. The charges were later dropped. Google's search results database included a link to an Australian newspaper article from the time of the arrest. In 2016 the man asked Google to remove the link but it refused to do so. The man then sued Google for defamation, arguing that linking to the article had the same effect as the article itself. He ... (view more)

Wed
19
May
John Lister's picture

Bloggers Accused of Hacking for Opening Dropbox Link

A Californian city will pay $350,000 to two men it falsely accused of hacking its Dropbox account. Officials in Fullerton, California had actually sent a link that granted the access. The case involves two bloggers, Joshua Ferguson and David Curlee, ... who wrote about local government and regularly requested documents under public record laws. As some of these files were very large, officials would often upload them to a Dropbox folder and provide a link granting access. However, one such response in 2019 also mistakenly included a link giving access to a separate folder that included documents ... (view more)

Tue
20
Apr
John Lister's picture

Chrome Gets New Features

The Chrome browser is getting a couple of new features that some may find useful. Sharing links and finding previous pages could both get easier. The first feature is already available in Chrome 90, the latest version of the browser for the general ... public. It works on computers, though won't appear on the iOS and Android apps till later. The feature simply lets users create a link that points to a specific location on a page, rather than just containing the URL. The idea is to make is easier to share a link to something specific in a lengthy page. This isn't the same as internal text links ( ... (view more)

Wed
28
Aug
John Lister's picture

How to Fix: Delete, Stop Google Calendar Spam

Google Calendar users have been hit by a spate of spam "events" that are nothing more than dubious web links. Users have several ways to stop the problem, but with some drawbacks. The problem involves mysterious entries appearing in Google Calendar, ... sometimes seeming to have been added by friends. Speaking from experience, I had several entries appear for an "event" which was supposedly a time-limited offer to pick up a free iPhone, along with a link to confirm I wanted to take advantage. Although I did not click on the link, it's a safe bet it would not have taken me to the Apple store. ... (view more)

Fri
12
May
Dennis Faas's picture

How to Fix: Can't Click Links in Outlook: 'Operation cancelled due to restrictions' Error

Infopackets Reader 'Roger' writes: " Dear Dennis, I am using Windows 10 and my email client is Outlook 2010. Last week my computer updated itself using Windows Updates, and ever since then I can't click links in my emails in Outlook. Every time I ... try to click a link, I get an error message that says 'This operation has been cancelled due to restrictions in effect on this computer.' I have searched Google on how to fix this error but I can't seem to figure it out. Can you help? " My response: I don't use Outlook so I asked Roger if he would like me to connect to his system using my remote ... (view more)

Wed
13
Apr
John Lister's picture

Windows Blue Screen of Death to Get Revamp

Microsoft is to make the dreaded "Blue Screen of Death" (BSOD) a little less likely to leave people feeling helpless. Users may be able to hold a smartphone up to the screen and get a link to an explanation of the problem. The screen appears when ... Windows encounters a serious problem that causes it to completely crash. When this happens, a blue screen with a cryptic error message is displayed, and sometimes the system will reboot automatically. For the most part, a blue screen involves an incompatibility or fault between Windows and software or a hardware device. At the moment, the ... (view more)

Tue
26
Jan
John Lister's picture

Malicious Website Crashes Smartphones, Slows PCs

Computer and mobile device owners have been warned to carefully review links before clicking on them, after the creation of a website that can either slow down or crash smart phones completely. The site in question uses a simple but effective ... technique to cause the problem. The site's web address is simply the words "crash" and "safari" next to one another (with no space in between), and is a "dot com" domain name. Trouble-makers online have been spreading links to the problematic site through email and social media. It's worth checking links carefully as ... (view more)

Fri
22
May
Dennis Faas's picture

How to Fix: 'Operation Canceled Due to Restrictions' Error

Infopackets Reader Terry W. writes: " Dear Dennis, Whenever I click on a link via email, I get an error stating that 'This operation has been canceled due to restrictions in effect on this computer.' I don't understand why I receive this error ... message, as my user account has administrator access and I am the only one that uses this computer. Any ideas why this is happening? " My response: Admittedly, I have never heard of this error message before. The next day Terry emailed me with a follow-up, stating that he found a solution and provided me with a link. The page he directed me to, however ... (view more)

Fri
13
Mar
Dennis Faas's picture

Windows 8.1 'Change PC Settings' link won't work?

Infopackets Reader Barry P. writes: " Dear Dennis, I'm running Windows 8.1. When I go to the Settings menu and then click on the 'Change PC Settings' link, nothing happens. It shows for a quick glimpse, but then disappears almost immediately after. ... I simply can't get into the PC Settings to make changes to my computer. Any ideas how to fix this problem? " My response: This is a very common problem that plagues Windows 8.1 users, especially those that upgraded from Windows 8 previously. Based on various posts I've read online, the same issue can result in a blank screen when the PC Settings ... (view more)

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