Personal Computer Tutor
Personal Computer TutorMay 2011

Weather and Tornadoes

Wow, what a spring this has been for tornado activity in this country.  April 2011 may go down as the most tornadoes ever for the month of April with 625 confirmed and over 300 people died.  Yikes, May and June on average see more tornadoes!  I certainly hope that all your relatives and friends are alright.  The news has been relentless.  Here is a Fast Flip of the top articles: http://goo.gl/GLkYW
  
If you would like to monitor the weather yourself the Internet is a great place to do research.  NOAA or National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration at www.noaa.gov is a great place to start.  NOAA's Storm Prediction Center www.spc.noaa.gov can help avoid a personal disaster.  To learn more about tornadoes visit www.spc.noaa.gov/faq/tornado/ and to learn about tornado safely please read http://www.spc.noaa.gov/faq/tornado/#Safety.  NBC Nightly News with Brian Williams had a video of the April activity that is worth seeing.  Click on this picture below to see the short video.  
  
NBC Nightly News on April 2011 Tornadoes
NBC Nightly News on April 2011 Tornadoes
  
The Bigger Picture and Climate Change
With all that we have just witnessed we have to ask ourselves if all this tornado activity is somehow tied to the larger debate about climate change?  Climate scientists always point out that the evidence of climate change is not the variations in our day to day weather changes.  Scientists who study climate change look at indicators that are much more fundamental than daily changes in our weather.  They are looking at things like changes in the timing of spring activities, how fast is the permafrost is receding and of course what is happening to the polar ice caps
  
Monarch Butterfly
  
At the very least we can all stop and think about our daily activities and think about what we could do differently to help preserve our planet for future generations.  Time Magazine's Going Green is a great place to start. 
  
Backups 
I've said it before and I will say it over and over, we all need backups.  The earthquake and tsunami in Japan, tornadoes and forest fires here in the United States are reminders to all of us that we all need to do backups of our computers.  I recommend two kinds of backups: 1.) backup your entire hard drive to an external hard drive in case of hard drive failure or other disaster and 2.) use an online backup service like Carbonite or Mozy for those really important documents and pictures, email messages and email addresses, etc.  With an online service if your computer and backup drive were both destroyed or stolen you would still be able to get back everything that is saved online.
  
Stay safe!
   
Newsletter Archives

Click here to read my past newsletters on:

 
Protesters, Facebook and Technology (March 2011)
Speed Up Older Computers (January 2011)
Phone, Radio and TV through the Internet (November 2010)
POP, IMAP and SMTP (August 2010)
"Scareware" (June 2010)
What is an iPad and do you need/want one? (May 2010)
Broadband Speed Test (April 2010)
Top Ten Things Every Computer User Should Know (February 2010)
Vacation Message Setup and Webmail (December 2009)
Upgrades and Updates (November 2009)
Encyclopedia of Life (October 2009)
Windows 7 coming soon (September 2009)
Picasa Video Lessons (August 2009)
YouTube, FaceBook, Twitter (May 2009)
Disaster Protection (March 2009)
Share Your Holiday Photos (January 2009)
Electronic Voting Machines (November 2008)
Why do printer cartridges cost so much? (September 2008)
February 2009 Over-the-air TV change (July 2008)
Wireless explained (June 2008)
Updates Galore (March 2008)
What is RSS all about? (January 2008)
One Laptop Per Child (November 2007)
Backups 2007 Style (October 2007)
Going Green with Technology (August 2007)
Credit Card Safety, Personalized Email (April 2007)
Should you upgrade to Windows Vista? (January 2007)

Personal Computer Tutor

Claude Kerno

202.630.5016 or 719.650.9916

[email protected] - www.pctutor.com