Welcome to BenWoods.com

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Answers to your darkest, deepest, imaginary questions

I decided to open up the mailbag and answer some of the questions that readers

have asked me recently. Then I realized that I'm not Santa Claus, and people

don't send me letters. This isn't completely true, as I did portray Santa in

a third-grade Christmas play, even though I ripped part of the suit just before

the play began.

So I don't have any letters with questions, just comments about various columns.

But this will not stop me from answering some of those questions that people

Movies filled with computer nonsense

I cannot really say there is a particular genre of movies I like the best. Comedy, suspense, sci-fi, horror, even those touted by some as chick flicks are enjoyable. Regardless of the type, computers seem to be popping up in movies about as often as I receive email viruses with the subjects "Your details" or "Wicked Screensaver." Way gnarly, dude!

Sickness propels more Internet research

There are a lot of things the World Wide Web can do for you, but healing you is not one of them.

Clip art works best with other things

While there is a bounty of useful items on the Internet, there is also that vague area of things that serve some purpose, but by themselves, would be utterly useless.

An obvious example of this is a Web counter. Create a Web page by putting nothing on it other than a counter. Put it on the Web. What does it prove? If people actually go to your site, they are insane? True, but in a sense, we already know that everyone is crazy.

Don't forget to update your machine

I hope you made it to my column today in one piece.

Surely there was no traffic on the trip to work, no wrecks to get in your way and no coffee to spill on that new "Dukes of Hazzard" tie your grandmother gave you for Christmas. Just like any other day, I bet you walked into your office or computer room, started up your computer and immediately accessed the Web, right?

From the Archive

If you're in China, you might not be able to read this

Many people in Western culture are starting to take search engines for granted. I'm not talking about just having a computer and having access to the Internet. I'm speaking of what you can and cannot find in some of the top engines themselves.

Voting and commenting on search results: Good or bad?

Google has created a lot of neat stuff lately. OK, the company has created a lot of neat stuff for the past few years, including, most recently, a new web browser. But please, download Chrome on your own time, because I want to talk about Google's bread and butter: the search.

And ... we're back

Hello again! My blog is back, so I'm sure that's exciting for all 14 of you who noticed that it was missing. You may also notice that the site looks considerably different than previous iterations. It has taken me some time to get this going again because I've again switched CMSs - this time, from modx to Drupal. Both have their positives, but we use Drupal a lot for work, so it was a no-brainer to use that for my personal sites.

Authorities getting faster at catching hackers

More than 10 years ago, if someone unleashed a computer virus, there was close to zero chance at catching the criminal. Five years ago, the cops might catch up with the hacker, eventually, after months or years of searching.

Let's discuss Trump - don't be the enemy

For my Republican friends, you know, of course, that we don't see eye-to-eye on a lot of political perspectives. I'm inclined to believe that I'm right, but I also believe that many disagreements could be talked through enough to compromise. I don't believe I know everything on the political spectrum, so I'm willing to listen and maybe my mind can be changed. I know that despite our differences, you want what's best for the country, as do I.

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