Wolfram Alpha is a search engine – or more accurately - an answer engine (www.wolframalpha.com) that is a "must have" for all hard-core geeks.

The Wolfram Alpha website lets you search in natural language and makes basic assumptions about your search and returns the appropriate information. The information that the website returns can take the form of text, charts, and photos. If it can't understand what you are searching for, it will show the "Wolfram Alpha isn't sure what to do with your input" error message.

I think it is worth noting that Wolfram Alpha does not operate the same as Google or any other spider-based search engine. The search results are not harvested from existing websites but are instead created in real time in response to your query.

For example, a search for "the sun" does not return a list of websites that have relevant information about the Sun, but instead returns detailed facts about our Sun such as today's sunrise and sunset, it's exact position in the sky in terms that only an astronomer would understand, its distance from the Earth, its mass and temperature, a diagram that shows the current Earth-Sun-Moon configuration, and even a list of sources from which that information is culled.

A search for "G chord" shows sheet music notation, the names of the individual notes that make up the G chord, and even charts showing where the G chord is located on both the piano and guitar.

A search for "aspirin" does not give information about usage or safety, but does give scientific information such as the chemical name of aspirin, its density, its drug category, its molecular weight, and its boiling point.

Make no mistake about it, Wolfram Alpha is not for Grandma or the little kids. The information returned when you search is factual and completely bereft of opinion or entertainment value. You may think that this search engine has little use for anyone other than a college or high school students that are working on that report that happens to be due tomorrow, but take a moment to try it for yourself and see if you can find some of it's other uses.

Google has an interactive book that will teach readers about the basics of how the Internet works. The book covers subjects such as: TCP/IP, packets, cloud computing, viruses, web apps, HTML,browsers, and more.

The book is designed to look like a children's book, complete with simple, colorful illustrations, but the text itself is clearly written and informative.

The web address is: http://www.20thingsilearned.com

Do you remember the first time you encountered a computer virus? I remember the first time that I saw one. It was the Stoned virus. It happened in 1992 or 1993 on a computer that had a 80386 processor running at a blistering 16 MHz. That was roughly 18 years ago, and I am sad to report that very little has changed. In fact, the situation is far worse.

Back then, floppy disks transmitted the viruses from one computer to another. Today, the computers are all connected and can easily spread their infections if the owner has not taken the precaution of installing numerous security applications.

I have spent the past 18 years fighting against viruses, trojans, spyware, and other varieties of malware on my own computers and the computers of my friends and relatives - and I am tired of it.

That is why I have decided that I’m done fighting this battle. Starting in 2012, I’m going to start transitioning all my PC’s and laptops to Apple and Linux-based software. I don’t want to hear any more talk about the progress Microsoft is making to patch the vulnerabilities in their operating systems, and I don’t want to hear any more talk about grand notions of open source vs proprietary. From this time forward, I only want to use software that works easily and securely.

The first step is to set up my PC’s so that they are dual-boot between Windows and Ubuntu Linux. I already have a netbook set up like this, and thanks to Wubi (Windows installer) it is now easy to install Ubuntu without the need to repartition your hard drive.

The second step is to buy an iMac or at least a Mac Mini. I have been pricing Macs on eBay, and I have found that they can be bought used for about the price of a new PC. Yes, they are more expensive, but I am starting to think that I am willing to pay more if it means not spending countless hours of my life fighting against computers infected with malware.

I may not be 100% Microsoft-free when I am finished with this transition, but it is certain that Microsoft products will only be used when the need occasionally arises.

Existing Apple fans will cheer me, and Microsoft fans will jeer me. That’s okay. Cover me Chewie. I’m going in.

Microsoft has released a free security tool in addition to Microsoft Security Essentials. This new tool is a stand-alone Malware scanner called Microsoft Safety Scanner. The scanner is a 70 MB download, and it expires ten days after you download it. The scanner is also made to be run on a specific version of Windows. If you download the Windows 7 scanner, you can only use it on Windows 7. If you want to run it on Windows XP, you will have to download it from Microsoft's website using the computer with Windows XP installed. I performed a quick test of Microsoft Security Scanner on three laptops that had been scanned with Malwarebytes, and the scanner found threats on two of the three machines.

Here is the download:

The Allen Telescope Array is a series of 42 radio telescopes (there are plans to build a total of 350) that is named after the person who provided the start up money for it's development (Paul Allen, Microsoft co-founder).

The Associate Press wrote: "In a letter Friday to donors, SETI Institute Chief Executive Tom Pierson said the array last week was put into "hibernation," safe but nonfunctioning, because of inadequate government support."

A fund raising effort is underway, but no estimates have been given about how long it will take to raise the $5 million needed to restart the array.

The Allen Array is a joint project between the SETI Institute and the Radio Astronomy Laboratory at the University of California, Berkeley, and is located 290 miles north of San Francisco, CA.