What is history and why is it dangerous?

Your computer (well, actually the programs on your computer) track and save many of your actions. For example Windows remembers which programs you have started, Internet Explorer remembers which websites you have visited, Google Toolbar remembers the words that you have searched for, and so on. These traces of your computer activity are commonly known as history.

Contrary to the popular belief that this is done in order to harm you as part of some sort of worldwide conspiracy, history is actually used for the purpose of making your computer experience more convenient. However, as in many other cases, the good things can be used for bad purposes. In this case the information about your computer habits can be used from someone to gather very private information about yourself and to harm you, your work, your business, or your family. The privacy threats include many more things than history. Nevertheless, history is one of the most obvious traces and is very easy to abuse.

What kinds of history are there?

There are generally two types of history: the first one is created by Windows, Internet Explorer or other parts of the operating system; and the second one is created by other applications (such as Media Player, Google Toolbar, Google Desktop, etc.). The second type is covered in the next chapter of this article.

The most important type of history is the Internet history that is created by Internet Explorer (from now on we will call it IE), which records every page that you have visited on the Internet. In order to see this history start Internet Explorer and select View -> Explorer Bar -> History. This will open a narrow window in the left side of the main IE window, which shows the pages that you have opened in the past.

The second type of history is Windows search history. It can be seen if you open the Search results window. To do that you need to click Start menu -> Search.

The next types of history are the Start menu Run history and Start menu most frequently used programs.

There are other types of history but all of them are associated with specific applications.

Applications history:

The first type of application history is called Common file dialog history. Almost every application has some sort of open/save features and most of the applications use the Windows-provided dialogs for these operations. This ensures that open/save dialogs of most programs are very similar to each other. However here comes the bad news – Windows records the names of the files that you open or save. Even if these names do not show in the file open/save dialog of particular application, they are still recorded and can be viewed from someone who knows where to look for them.

Now, let’s take a look at the Media Player history items. First, there is a list of most recently opened files in the File menu of Media Player. Second, each played file is remembered in the default playlist.

Google Toolbar, Google Deskbar, Yahoo toolbar and ICQ toobar all have a special type of search history that records the words that you have searched for.

How to delete history?

Deleting of all history traces is very hard task that can not be done manually because most of them are stored in system areas that are not directly accessible from the user. Also the history traces are so many and they are scattered at so many places that their manual deletion would be very long and tedious work with high probability of mistakes that could lead to privacy holes or even render your computer unusable.

Mil Shield is a powerful privacy protection program that was designed specifically to delete all types history that are described in this article; to clean and shred the index.dat files; and to clean all other privacy-related traces as cookies, Temporary Internet Files, AutoComplete forms and passwords, UserData records, and many others.

More information about the article:

http://www.milincorporated.com/a-delete-history.html

Copyright (c) 2010 Tatiana Bandurina

As we continue our conversation on the advantages of music education for children, I want to make sure you understand that music schools and private teachers do not have it in their agendas to make a great musician out of every student!

Have you ever talked to people who have completed only half of their music education? If not, then I recommend you do. Certainly, they had some difficulties in training, because studying is hard work! But I bet you’ll hear them say that they regret quitting. Later in life, people understand that the kind of push they received in their emotional and intellectual development was due to musical training in their childhood.

I talked to many adults who had taken music lessons as children. Some told me amazing stories about how the music helped them improve their memory (and not only musical). Others noticed that their spoken language became richer, and their voice more expressive. I’ve also met people who use their once-musically trained hands and fingers to do dainty, nimble work in skillful projects. For example, among these are many who work as secretaries or at jobs that are closely connected with a computer.

Children who study music can better and more expressively recite poems than other children. Many “musical” children grow up to be fine actors.

Also, very few people know that the most successful among those who are multilingual used to play musical instruments in childhood! And, the longer their training was as a child, the better their grip on foreign language speaking and comprehension as an adult! Ninety-five percent of polyglots used to or still play musical instruments.

Also, it is obvious that playing music makes the hands – and especially the fingers – of painters or artists quite skillful and capable. Having listed the advantages of music education, I’d like to add that former “musical” children, even if they did not become professional musicians, having grown up, regard their work with more responsibility and professionalism. They are pleasant to talk with because they love people. Due to their specially developed ear for music, “musical” people understand their relatives and children better. The majority of them are happily married, and they choose jobs that have to do with communicating and working with people. There are many teachers, doctors, personnel managers, lawyers, bank clerks, counselors, as well as translators, journalists, etc., among them.

Now, dear parents, hopefully I have dispelled all your doubts about choosing music lessons for your child and answered the question as to “Why I want my child to get music education.”

Yet having made such a serious and responsible decision, I am sure that many of you still have some doubts and questions. And those of you whose children have already begun training will come across certain issues and require assistance and guidance in resolving them from time to time.

Drawing from my own experience, I have noticed that while preparing children for music lessons, parents do not always use the recommended literature, which, unfortunately, is really hard to come by. Sometimes such books are written in “dry” and complex language not intended for easy reading and understanding.

No country is against the development of science and scientific research.

It has been recognized by everyone that without science there is no development.

Therefore, promotion of scientific research in all area is taken up seriously.

Research both in basic and applied sciences is essential to achieve national and international developments.

In fact, basic science is costly as compared to the applied science.

In a recent article on science for sustainable development published in Current Science (Curr. Sci.) Dr. I. P. Abrol mentioned that low level of funding is frequently cited as one of the major factors for the declining state of science in India.

Not only Dr. Abrol, many other Indian scientists used to tell the same ‘low level funding’ for the poor science in India.

It was the state of affair once, but now the situation is considerable improved.

All branches of science, agriculture, engineering, medicine, veterinary, biotechnology, nanotechnology, information technology do not suffer from ‘low level of funding’ nowadays.

In fact, most of the research institutions are not able to spend the allocated fund for scientific research in time.

Anyway much of the fund goes for salaries, some for the upkeep of the building and other infrastructures and the rest only is used for scientific research.

In the name of research projects funded by various foreign agencies and also the Government of India itself, amounts to over funding sometimes.

I still remember some of the World Bank funded projects in Agricultural Sciences.

Crores of rupees allotted to Agricultural Universities and National Agricultural Research Institutes.

In addition to it large number of projects in the name of National Fellows and Professor of Eminence are also in place.

Plenty of money for science, but no one appears to appreciate these good days of science.

We are certainly well off as far as the funding position for science is concerned.

We all know that the project fund is mostly spent for buying costly equipments which are invariably imported from foreign countries.

These instruments cost lakhs of rupees.

So, there are series of procedures to be followed for buying these equipments.

Tenders are called, opened, compared, placed orders, credited the amount in a bank and finally received the instruments.

Sometimes the scientist who placed order forgets to include a small piece of accessory for operating or maintaining the instrument.

While the instrument is installed, such mistakes are found out and intimated to the scientist by the installing engineers of the Sales Company.

They start thinking about the mistake so late and make a representation to the funding agency to sanction additional amount required for the missed accessory.

It take awful lot of time to get a positive reply, till then the instrument remains as a dead elephant in a corner of the laboratory which are not generally rat-proof and not even air- conditioned.

By that time the sanction for the additional amount reaches, and the accessory bought, the main instrument is damaged by rats which are fond of the pleasant smell of the plastic wires and chips attached within the instrument.

What I describe here may look like a story, but it is really not a fiction, but a fact which is always untold, kept secret and hidden.

Generally, no one question our scientists because they are in a higher scale of pay and position enjoying the perquisites offered by the government.

By that time, the senior scientist either retires or gets transferred to another institute.

The poor equipment becomes an orphan and no one takes care of it in that non-working condition.

Thus the fund for science is wasted once for all.

These dreams are known to the administrative officers and the comptrollers.

They try to underestimate the credibility of the scientists.

But that is generally taken as professional jealousy.

Anyway this is one side of the whole affair.

In the other side, the allotted fund is not properly released to the scientist to spend for his project unless and until he meets the administrative rules for buying the equipment.

If the Director or the administrative officer does not like a particular scientist, then the story becomes very serious.

Thus the fund is not spent within the stipulated time of the famous March end.

Knowing such difficulties scientists try to spend the allotted fund urgently by placing orders for easily available items such as steel almyrahs, fans, air-conditioners, refrigerators, plastic chairs, hot plates, room heaters, computers etc., etc.,

When I was a student and later a staff I could see truck loads of steel almyrahs, book cases, and refrigerators unloaded in science departments towards the end of March every year.

It looked very strange to me, but later on I could understand the circumstances under which they are bought.

Funding science is done by every government every year.

Who looks into the spending aspects of the funds?

Also who looks into the scientific research results due to such levels of funding?

The spending aspect is always looked into by the auditors checking the bills, dates and the correctness of spending according to the government audit rules.

The scientific research based on the funding and the equipments are not strictly monitored, although it is said that there are many committees established for this sake.

The outcome of scientific findings should have a direct bearing on the fund spent and the scientific instruments used.

But invariably most of the scientific research ends up in reports and publications either in Indian journals or in few so called international journals which are very rarely read by other scientists.

Sustainable science activity is desired by retired scientists, but I doubt that is possible to achieve.

Most of the scientific researchers are fed up over time and their thinking is outmoded.

They started with a sharp thinking in handling problems basic or applied, but over time their thinking lose the sharpness.

If you talk to any senior or junior scientists today, they spend more time in discussing their administrative difficulties rather than their scientific output.

Even if they talk about their outputs which will be a repetitive work or some one’s results confirmed.

These are facts every one of us – scientists – fully know.

Some of these facts are fashionably written in Curr. Sci. published by Indian Academy of Sciences.

When I read those comments, I feel very sad because this journal is found in libraries of almost all Universities of the world and also in the net free of cost.

The publishers of Curr. Sci. escapes cleverly saying that all articles published in Curr. Sci. especially editorials, opinions and commentaries, letters and book reviews are deemed to reflect the individual views of the authors and not the official points of view, either of the Current Science Association or of the Indian Academy Sciences.

Those who read Curr. Sci. journal knows very well the views of various scientists expressed in the ‘Correspondence’ section.

Exposing the setbacks in scientific world of India is a welcome step, but I do not know by doing so how many are rectified so far?

All the setbacks expressed make good reading, sometimes they are funny too.

The contents of the Correspondence section continue to be the same setbacks for the past decades and I hope it may be for the future decades too.

In a country like India, science and scientific research are not treated the way they have to be treated.

They are in the hands of the auditors who are not scientists but they count the money not the outcome of science.

In their eyes, whether one is scientist, business man or anybody – all are thieves.

Their job is only to find out the mistakes committed in spending the fund.

They do not know some of those mistakes are to be committed to carry out scientific research.

But who has to change the Government Secretariat administration which is still the same inherited from the British?

A new administration is absolutely needed for scientific institutions for better utilization of fund.

Indian science will remain with the same setbacks of the past decades forever if we follow the same set of account rules.

I feel it is an urgent matter the science administrators of Government of India have to look into seriously for the benefit of science in India.