Hiya all and hope today goes well for each of you and that the weather wherever you are is kind to you!! Hope it is a bit warmer here than it has been for the past few days.

Life explained...

On the first day, God created the dog and said: "Sit all day by the door of your house and bark at anyone
who comes in or walks past. For this, I will give you a life span of twenty years."
The dog said: "That's a long time to be barking. How about only ten years and I'll give you back the other ten?"

So God agreed.

On the second day, God created the monkey and said: "Entertain people, do tricks, and make them laugh. For this, I'll give you a twenty-year life span."
The monkey said: "Monkey tricks for twenty years? That's a pretty long time to perform. How about I give you back ten like the Dog did?"

And God agreed.

On the third day, God created the cow and said: "You must go into the field with the farmer all day
long and suffer under the sun, have calves and give milk to support the farmer's family. For this, I will give you a life span of sixty years."
The cow said: "That's kind of a tough life you want me to live for sixty years. How about twenty and I'll give back the other forty?"

And God agreed again.

On the fourth day, God created man and said: "Eat, sleep, play, marry and enjoy your life. For this, I'll give you twenty years."
But man said: "Only twenty years? Could you possibly give me my twenty, the forty the cow gave back, the ten the monkey gave back, and the ten the dog gave back; that makes eighty, okay?"

"Okay," said God, "You asked for it."

So that is why the first twenty years we eat, sleep, play and enjoy ourselves. For the next forty years
we slave in the sun to support our family. For the next ten years we do monkey tricks to entertain the grandchildren. And for the last ten years we sit on the front porch and bark at everyone.

Life has now been explained to you.

Wishing you a very Happy Birthday


:bday:

Trojans, Viruses, Hoaxes, Worms, Vulnerabilities and Exploits, we've all heard of them, and if you are connected to the internet are a potential target.
Symptoms can be no effect on you at all, through to losing important information and even being unable to boot up your computer.

So what are they?

Trojans - files carrying hidden malicious payloads
A Trojan refers to a program that appears as something that looks innocent and safe, but hidden inside is usually something harmful, usually a worm or a virus. Trojans often come in the guise of a game, a link or a picture via email, appearing quite harmless. Once you execute the file (run or open it), the worm or virus gets to work. It may just do things to annoy you, or more usually a worm or virus will cause damage to your system.

Viruses - computer programs designed to cause trouble to your computer
Viruses are computer programs with the sole purpose of manipulating or destroying data on our computers. The virus may affect your documents or the files needed to run the system. A virus can cause an infected computer to do strange things on specific dates, and may even damage your registry file rendering the machine unbootable.
Viruses are transferred through executable files you may have got from a friend, downloaded from the net, or installed through a floppy disk or CD. A virus may often come buried inside a Trojan, which is the carrier for the virus.

Anti-virus programs will search the files on your disk and by email to detect known viruses. Because there are new viruses regularly being developed it is impossible to be 100% safe, but any defence is better than none at all.
There are lots of free anti-virus programs available and a quick search of the internet will reveal most of them.
Having installed an anti-virus program you must keep the definition file up to date, otherwise you will become open to any new viruses that may come around. The antivirus program should have an option to update automatically, switch this on. New definition files are usually issued about once a week.

Worms - actively replicate themselves
Worms operate differently. Do you remember how living cells split and double, split and double...Worms act much the same way.
Worms often come through on email, but people can also get infected if they accept a Trojan which has as the worm buried inside it. If you receive a worm through your email, and open (execute) it, then it will probably send itself out to everyone in your address book. The speed of spread of a worm of this type is incredible, infecting up to thousands of people in a singe hour.
Some worms will send an email to everyone listed in your email address book and then delete itself leaving you with no idea that anything untoward has even happened!

Vulnerabilities and Exploits
The operating system (O/S) (usually Windows or Linux), provides a means for running programs on a computer. The O/S's are not perfect and can have vulnerable areas which can be exploited by the unscrupulous hacker. Keep an eye on your O/S support site for security patches to improve your security.

What about Firewalls?
Before computers, a firewall was an area of open land between, for example, forests and houses, and even a strip between the middle of the forest. The purpose is that if a fire were to break out, it's spread would limited as it would not be able to cross the firewall.
In simple terms, in the same way a computer firewall is there to stop certain traffic crossing from outside your computer to inside it.
There are people out there who love to be clever and gain access to you computer, and the internet provides a perfect opportunity for them to do so (esp. if you are on Broadband).
Every computer connected to the internet has an address (called the IP Address) and once a hacker finds a valid IP address he can then use the tools at his disposal to try and gain entry to the computer at that address. Without a firewall, anybody testing your IP address will get a response that you are there. With a firewall no such response will be given, the tester (hacker!) will then move on and search for another address and so on.
(A bit like a burglar walking past houses with burglar alarms until he finds one that hasn't got one. Although in our case the houses with burglar alarms will not even appear to exist!)
There are internet sites that will test your firewall for you, a couple are listed here: HackerWatch, Symantec or Grc.com (Shields UP)

What To Do About It:
The following guidelines should help keep you safe.

• Never accept files from anyone you don't know
  
• When downloading files off the Internet, be sure it's from a reputable site.
  
• Never run or open files you receive via email from people you don't know. If you have any doubts at all, email the sender for clarification.
  
• Install a Virus Detection program.
  
• Keep your anti-virus definition file up to date
  
• Install a firewall. Again there are many free products available on the internet.
  
• BACKUP YOUR IMPORTANT FILES REGULARLY
  
• Better safe than sorry!
  

Monitor - Keeping an eye on the braai
Download - Get the firewood off the bakkie
Hard drive - Trip back home without any cold beer
Keyboard - Where you hang the bakkie and bike keys
Window - What you shut when it's cold
Screen - What you shut in the mosquito season
Byte - What mosquitoes do
Bit - What mosquitoes did
Mega Byte - What mosquitoes at the lake do
Chip - A bar snack
Micro Chip - What's left in the bag after you have eaten the chips
Modem - What you did to the lawns
Dot Matrix - Oom Jan Matrix's wife
Laptop - Where the cat sleeps
Software - Plastic knives and forks you get at KFC
Hardware - Real stainless steel knives and forks from Checkers
Mouse - What eats the grain in the shed
Mainframe - What holds the shed up
Web - What spiders make
Web Site - The shed (or under the verandah)
Cursor - The old bloke what swears a lot
Search Engine - What you do when the bakkie won't go
Yahoo - What you say when the bakkie does go
Upgrade - A steep hill
Server - The person at the pub what brings out the lunch
Mail Server - The bloke at the pub what brings out the lunch
User - The neighbour what keeps borrowing things
Network - When you have to repair your fishing net
Internet - Complicated fish net repair method
Netscape - When fish maneuvers out of reach of net
Online - When you get the laundry hung out
Off Line - When the pegs don't hold the washing up

affer:

The children had all been photographed, and the teacher was trying to persuade them each to buy a copy of the group picture.

"Just think how nice it will be to look at it when you are all grown up and say, 'There's Jennifer, she's a lawyer,' or 'That's Michael, he's a doctor.'

A small voice at the back of the room rang out, "And there's the teacher, she's dead."

http://www.constantiauitsig.co.za/restaurants.htm 'La Colombe' and
http://www.franschhoek.org.za/Le_Quartier_Francais.htm

Both restaurants made it into the World's Top 50 Restaurants :thumbs: Their exact positions are still to be announced in the press... but if you look here and see the stellar company they're in - it's excellent!
http://observer.guardian.co.uk/uk_news/s...54,00.html

Great to see Cape Town doing well on the foodie front and having eaten in both restaurants before - my favourite being La Colombe (granted it's on a superb wine estate ) - it's well overdue.

I'm surprised that Bosman's @ the Grande Roche didn't make it too.

Having said that, neither did The Waterside Inn (here in the UK).

:am:

My suitcase is packed......

I am leaving the land of braais and sunshine....

to arrive in the land of fish and chips tomorrow!

Will be able to around a bit more then.

Have a great day everyone!

:jive:

Morning All

Still a bit of snow left on the ground and lot's of trees down. Feeling wonderful afer 10 hours of sleep last night :cloud9: I do so love my sleep.
Short week this week ...... very excited!
Have a good day everyone. :daisy:

:bday3:

:celeb: Hope you have a very good day and fantastic year :thumbs: