curated news for friends & family ™ 
ELON MUSK FLOODED WITH REQUESTS TO BUY FACEBOOK, LINKEDIN AND YOUTUBE TO RETURN FREE SPEECH TO THOSE PLATFORMS( culture / humor / internet / social )
If you came here looking for an actual article, you’ll be disappointed. The title has more words than the article, or did until I wrote this sentence. This is a joke, though I wouldn’t be surprised to hear this is actually hap... read more
YOU HAVE A DONATION FROM CLAY TOUSEY( culture / humor / internet / spam )
They try hard on this one to look legitimate, but the fact remains that nobody shares their money with strangers unless it’s a charity.
This notification memo has been sent to you three times without a response ... read more
PORTFOLIO MANAGER FROM STOCKHOLM, SWEDEN( culture / humor / internet / spam )
My name is doesn’t matter, a portfolio manager from Stockholm, Sweden and a custodian of the Late David Holmes certificate of deposit (CD) valued fortune. here we go I sent you an initial emai... read more
CHECK OUT A SUSPICIOUS IP ADDRESS HERE( education / tech / internet / spam )
Check out an IP address here: abuseipdb /check. Just FYI if you’re not sure a visitor or emailer is legitimate. AbuseIPDB is a project dedicated... read more
CHILDREN ARE OUR FUTURE( education / schools / internet )
We have two children in the home schooling setting and I am preparing to purchase materials for them from this website. I mentioned this before after I watched ... read more
A NOVEL LOCATION OF PACK WORKER, ETC.( culture / humor / internet / spam )
Spam number 1
Salute,
A novel location of Pack Worker of our package association was unblocked. Our business offers a vast fee and training bundle to make you as a teammate of our team’s expanding ’n’ favo... read more
A COUPLE MORE HUMOROUS JUNK EMAILS( culture / humor / internet / spam )
Salute,A fresh stance for Wrapping Headmaster for our logistics fellowship has just been commenced. Our partnership offers a very proper remuneration instructional case They’... read more
MY EMAIL SIGNATURE LINE( culture / tech / internet )
This is how I sign my emails these days to gently educate whoever I happen to be emailing. Just thought I’d mention it in case you like the idea. -- BillA mask might be appropriate if you’re actively... read more
POSSIBLY USEFUL 'STRIP TAGS' TOOL( education / tech / computers / internet )
Like, maybe you saved an email as HTML but want to remove most of the code/gobble-de-gook.
Click here: Strip Tags Tool or use the form inserted below (assuming it shows up for you).
... read more
VACANCIES AVAILABLE( culture / humor / internet / spam )
A global leader with a yahoo address? I don't think so. Supposedly from Kayla Smith but address is iran.retailer? And it was not sent to me but to bonabsad@yahoo.com. Starting to look like randomly-generated "AI" names, don't... read more
A GUIDE TO UTF-8 ENCODING IN PHP AND MYSQL( education / tech / computers / internet )
UTF-8 is a variable-width encoding that can represent every character in the Unicode character set. It was designed for backward compatibility with ASCII and to avoid the complications of endianness and byte order... read more
BUSINESS PROPOSAL, FILE NO 180/86( culture / humor / internet / spam )
Ah, yes, the good ol' Nigerian prince (with a Hungarian email address, for some reason) scam, "just looking for somewhere to park my money!" First of all, their numbering system is messed up. File number 180 out of 86? Anyway...... read more
ELECTRIC BICYCLE SUPPLIER FROM CHINA( culture / humor / internet / spam )
How did they know we sell bicycles!? It’s not mentioned anywhere on the site. Sure, we can sell you a bike by creating a link to a local bike shop and let them do the rest, if you want? Anyway, here’s the latest very import... read more
HACKERS HAVE ACCESS TO YOUR DEVICE( culture / humor / internet / spam )
One of our favorite scams! Our comments are interspersed in brackets and look like this.From: aam726 abocol Hello there. Let me introduce myself first - ... read more
THE LATEST CREATIVE SAFETY SHOES( culture / humor / internet / spam )
I’m starting to think this 163 domain is not legit!From: salesshineo 163 Dear Sir,Lucky day to you! We ARE feeling lucky now that we’ve received this email! ... read more
COENZYMEQ10 ELDERBERRY EXTRACT ANTHOCYANIDINS( culture / humor / internet / spam )
Hi Sir ,We have been caring about your esteemed company for a long time. A !!! They’ve been ’caring about us!’ Attached our star products. We sincerely hope can help w... read more
SUMPTUOUS OPPORTUNITY IS PROMPTLY UNCOVERED( culture / humor / internet / spam )
I am so excited! Sounds sumptuous!Received this email the other day from Iris Holets at mrtito88.yahoo . I’m sure that is an actual person and address. People don’t lie about these things, but I’m concerned. T... read more
THIS SORT OF THING IS WHY I QUIT FACEBOOK AND TWITTER( culture / tech / internet / social )
The tech giant continues to police discussions about the coronavirus.
Facebook remov... read more
INTERNET SEARCHING 101( education / tech / computers / internet )
Editor’s note: I believe Bing has caught up with Google on all of these features, if you prefer Microsoft over Google...
There are two pages every one of you might consider bookmarking:Google Advanced Search: ... read more
STAND AGAINST TYRANNY( education / tech / internet / politics )
It worked against apartheid South Africa. Let’s hope it works against other tyrants, in this case tech tyrants. Take a Stand Against Big Tech: Facebook, Google, Twitter. These tech titans seek to silen... read more
TIME TO SWITCH FROM FIREFOX TO ANOTHER BROWSER( education / tech / computers / internet )
If this is true, it looks like a good time to get rid of that pesky control freak of a browser, Mo... read more
YOU CANNOT SIMPLY BUILD YOUR OWN FREE-SPEECH VERSION OF TWITTER( culture / tech / internet / social )
To build an alternate social media website with a dissenting moderation policy, you must first invent the universe. Good luck. ... read more
USEFUL MYSQL QUERIES( education / tech / computers / internet )
Common MySQL Queries. Extending Chapter 9 of Get it Done with MySQL 5 Up
Here’s an example: Compute date from year, week number and weekday:
SET yr 2012, wk 26, day 0;SELECT StrToDate(... read more
FIX THOSE FACEBOOK-MANGLED LINKS TO YOUR SITE( education / tech / computers / internet )
I was unaware that Facebook recently had started to add a unique click identifier to all outbound links on facebook . Coincidentally, one of the security measures of this server is to disallow query strings as part of t... read more
DESLIDE THAT WEBSITE( education / tech / computers / internet )
To remove that annoying slideshow so popular on click-bait sites, try one of the following:cluster fakedesli.de... read more
THE QUEST FOR A FACEBOOK REPLACEMENT CONTINUES( culture / tech / internet / social )
I keep joining these other social networking sites, only to be disappointed. The main problem is that they insist that I upload my contact list, which I refuse to do. Maybe this one -- ... read more
ALTCENSORED VIDEO STREAMING( education / tech / computers / internet )
Here’s an article about them. AltCensored is at ... read more
CLUTTERED WEB PAGES( education / tech / computers / internet )
This, below, is what happens when you let greed (or desperation) rule over your sense of aesthetics. All I wanted to do was click the link and read the article. smh Good luck finding the actual article! :)... read more
THIS MONETIZATION SERVICE LOOKS PROMISING( education / tech / computers / internet )
This looks promising: SubscribeStar . Their tagline is Create. Monetize. Prosper. I created a page for myself there... UPDATE: Denied! Never min... read more
MY YOUTUBE CHANNEL( education / tech / computers / internet )
You will need the password for most of these.Cracking up over Lottery President (Jun 28, 2013). No password required.... read more
BUILDING YOUR OWN WEBSITE( education / tech / computers / internet )
Question: I need my own domain name and monetization, plus things like ability to pay and schedule and stuff.Answer: Any Wordpress installation should allow plug-ins for polling, scheduling and other types of forms, in ad... read more
BRAND SUICIDE OR SAVVY PR MOVE? CEO OF FOOD GIANT GOYA PRAISES TRUMP( culture / tech / internet / social )
After the CEO of Hispanic food megabrand Goya spoke at the White House, demands to cancel the popular brand on social media have arisen met by equally furious pushback from the corporations defenders....
... read more
CONVERTING COLORS( education / tech / computers / internet )
Here you see your color converted to 17 different color formats like RGB, CMYK, HSV, HSL, CIELab, Android, Decimal, and YUV.
Convert multiple colors at once or get Conversions and Harmonies via the REST API.... read more
SPELLING AND GRAMMAR ONLINE( education / language / grammar / internet )
When is that spelling- and grammar-checking feature coming to Facebook, Instagram, etc.? Oh right, they probably don’t want to insult 90% of their users. Never mind. It’s not that my own (or anyone’s) grammar and ... read more
USEFUL WEBSITES( education / tech / computers / internet )
Just thought I would start a running list of internet/web technologies websites I have found useful, below...
i... read more
FREE VECTOR GRAPHICS EDITOR( education / tech / computers / internet )
Could be useful. Go to inkscape . Or, click on the following direct link to the Windows 64-bit download: ... read more
OPEN DNS( education / tech / computers / internet )
Just thought we’d mention OpenDNS (or ) which we use here at FriendsNews . It’s a good parental control as well as an easy way to filter your Internet traffic.... read more
PRIVATE SCHOOL COMPARISON SITE( education / schools / internet )
I’ve used this and liked it, FYI: privateschoolreview . This link shows an actual comparison.We have had good r... read more
URL EXPANDER( education / tech / computers / internet )
You might find this as useful as I just did: expandurl ... read more
OPTING OUT OF ADS( education / tech / computers / internet )
Useful site here to opt out of various online ads: yourchoices . Some of the biggest name brands always seem to be conveniently unavailable.... read more
IS IT DOWN RIGHT NOW?( education / tech / computers / internet )
Useful site to see if it’s your connection (or firewall) or the site itself that’s having a problem: ... read more
BEING HUMAN( education / tech / computers / internet )
Makes me laugh when Facebook asks why I think something is funny or amazing. I’m thinking Bite me. I don’t have the time or inclination to teach your artificial ’intelligence’ algorithms what it means to be hu... read more
FACEBOOK CREEPS ME OUT( culture / tech / internet / social )
Note: I am no longer on Twitter or Facebook, but here’s what I’ve managed to salvage from back then.
Every time Facebook shows me one of those notices saying something like Hey there, we’ve been going through ... read more
COOL WEBSITE( education / tech / computers / internet )
Here’s a cool website I just learned of:atlasobscura In an age where everything seems to have been explored and there is nothing new to be f... read more
ALTERNATIVES TO AMAZON AND ETSY( education / tech / internet / shopping )
If you’re looking for an alternative to ... read more
KEYWORD, COOKIE, BROWSER ANALYTICS FAILURE( education / tech / computers / internet )
Some headlines Google News mistakenly thought I’d be interested in ...Is Jeb Bush Right About Barack Obama and Donald Trump? - The mainstream (pro-Bush/Clinton) media keep pretending Jeb is relevant. Ka... read more
MY TWITTER FEED( culture / tech / internet / social )
Note: I am no longer on Twitter or Facebook, but here’s what I’ve managed to salvage from back then.... read more
THIS IS DEEP( culture / humor / internet )
I just had to share this comment someone left here on FriendsNews . Read it, absorb it, digest it, lather, rinse and repeat it. Then let me know what the %$ it means! Here it is: I comprehend that ... read more
LOST A FRIEND( culture / humor / internet / social )
No, not that kind of "lost" (knock on wood). But, don't you hate it when you're walking along talking to someone, it's crowded, you hear a muffled scream but think nothing of it, only to realize several blocks dow... read more
COURT TO FEDS: EXPLAIN MARINE'S FACEBOOK POSTINGS ARREST( culture / tech / internet / social )
"Brandon Raub's case exposes the seedy underbelly of a governmental system that continues to target military veterans for expressing their discontent over America's rapid transition to a police state," said John W. ... read more
COOL, NOT COOL( education / tech / internet )
Cool! But bad news for locksmiths? "keyme" stores a copy of your house key in the cloud Not cool... read more
BLOG CONTENT( culture / writing / blog / internet )
I'm as guilty as anyone about trying to add content to my blog just for the sake of content (because search engines look for and rate highly based on how "fresh" your blog's content is). But someone whose blog-newsletter I subscr... read more
NAME GENERATOR( education / tech / computers / internet )
Name Generator - Cool Name ideas at the click of a button!I thought this, above, was kinda cool for generating a pseudonym. You can also generate a Medieval name, a Twitter... read more
WHICH WEBSITE WOULD YOU CHOOSE( culture / people / internet )
If you were on a deserted island with an Internet connection and a pug, but could only access ONE website, which site would it be?(BTW, the pug is irrelevant, I just like pugs!)Facebook - 3 votesGoogle - 2 votesKi... read more
CARE2 LARGEST ONLINE COMMUNITY FOR HEALTHY AND GREEN LIVING( life / help / charity / internet )
Care2 - largest online community for healthy and green living, human rights and animal welfare. You Care. We Care2. Be a part of the world’s largest comm... read more
THINGS THAT MAKE YOU SAY, YOU'VE GOT TO BE KIDDING( education / tech / computers / internet )
Just the other day I had bought a second wi-fi router from a seller on Craigslist to daisy-chain the two together (somehow) to improve the wireless signal throughout my house. No, it’s not a big house. Anyway, last night ou... read more
HOW SIMPLY UPPER-CASING YOUR PASSWORD CAN FRUSTRATE A HACKER( education / tech / computers / internet )
Simply upper-casing your password can frustrate a hacker’s attempts ... read more
PLLEEAASSEE REEAADD IT WAS ON GOODMORNING AMERICA( education / tech / computers / internet )
It's a very old hoax. Anything with a headline like "Plleeaassee reeaadd! It was on Good Morning America!" and mentioning Microsoft, AOL and Good Morning America in the same email almost HAS to be a hoax these days, and this one is. ... read more
POSSIBLY USEFUL SITE( education / tech / computers / internet )
For those old gadgets you’d just as soon get rid of:gazelle My old ... read more
FREE EDUCATION( education / schools / internet )
For every student, every classroom. Real results. We’re a nonprofit with the mission to provide a free, world-class education for anyone, anywhere.
Courtesy of ... read more
GOOD SEARCH( life / help / charity / internet )
Use them as your search engine, and they give to charity: goodsearch /... read more
COOL FEATURE JUST DISCOVERED ON GOOGLE TRANSLATE( education / tech / computers / internet )
I got an error in a program that was in some foreign language I didn't even recognize, let alone understand. I went to translate.Google.com and typed in one of the words and chose "Detect language" in the "Translate from..." box. I... read more
MCDONALDS WI-FI( education / tech / computers / internet )
In Nashville, anyway, it seems you can get around their proxy system (those outlets that use it), simply by using Google Chrome and maybe Firefox. It might be as simple as using any browser other than Internet Explorer. ... read more
COOL SITE TO HELP PETS( life / help / pets / internet )
NoPawsLeftBehind The No Paws Left Behind web site is here to help you through some tough times. ... read more
WATCHING THE WATCHERS( education / tech / computers / internet )
WE MAKE PRIVACY EASY. Browse the web safer, faster with less annoying ads.
Keep an eye on who’s keeping an eye on you at ghostery ... read more
HACKERS LEAK 6.5 MLN LINKEDIN PASSWORDS( education / tech / computers / internet )
Hackers leak 6.5 mln LinkedIn passwords Time to change your LinkedIn password. eHarmony, too, apparently.... read more
FAKE ANTIVIRUS MAKES UP 15 PERCENT OF ALL MALWARE( education / tech / computers / internet )
Google: Fake antivirus makes up 15 percent of all malware Tech News on ZDNet... read more
FIX FOR "YTIMG" BROWSER HANG( education / tech / computers / internet )
Got a tip, thought I'd share it here. Add the following to your HOSTS file ("C:WindowsSystem32driversetchosts"): #fix for ytimg.exe browser hang problem74.125.162.39 static.cache.l.google... read more
GMAIL'S UNSUBSCRIBE FEATURE( education / tech / computers / internet )
I hate to promote Google since they already rule the online world, but they do some things very well, e.g., their "unsubscribe" feature in Gmail. In a message, click on Show Details and you should see the option to "... read more
HACK ATTACK?( education / tech / computers / internet )
Question There was a couple parked on the curb on Wed from 8am to 12pm on Wed. The girl was like a look-out, it seemed. When I was going to work she gave me a suspicious look, so I drove around in a circle and drove b... read more
DO NOT VISIT THESE SITES (UNPROTECTED, ANYWAY)( education / tech / computers / internet )
Just visited these sites, and my antivirus popped-up saying it had blocked a Trojan Horse coming from there (or one of their links): //thefrist ... read more
WEBSITE VISIBILITY TOOL( education / tech / computers / internet )
Thanks to GoDaddy phone support, I discovered this very useful site: megaproxy. One of my domain names was not resolving correctly from home. I went to the website a... read more
SET EMAIL TO FORWARD TO SOMEONE ELSE( education / tech / computers / internet )
QUESTION: How do I set email (Outlook 2003) to forward to someone else while I'm out?ANSWER: In Outlook, click on Tools, Out of Office AssistantClick "I am currently out of the office…" and type your outgoing message, ... read more
A NEW SEARCH ENGINE( life / help / charity / internet )
Cuil.com (pronounced "cool"). And here's a good reason to use it (or StartPage) instead of Google... read more
A HEADS-UP ON RANSOMWARE( education / tech / computers / internet )
Still a huge problem
Beware of this scam. Don’t bother trying to get them to help you unlock your pc: hackers-gang-russian-bust. Th... read more
ONLINE BACKUP( education / tech / computers / internet )
I’m trying out this online backup system called Nordic Backup. So far, so good. Click ... read more
MORE ALTERNATIVE NEWS SITES( education / news / internet )
Here's a long list of alternative news sites, rather than the mostly-fake "mainstream" media from which you might get your news:"... read more