Some say that a 2 hour round trip drive each day can give you the equivalent of a semester of college in less than a year.

This may be literally true, if you listen to the podcasts now offered by most major universities. Princeton, Harvard, UC Berkeley and others offer podcasts of their professors' lectures.

Podcasts are often geared towards students who need help studying for exams or want tips on campus life. Some require that you work or enroll in the university.

But most of the universities recognize that learning continues for the rest of us, and they offer free lectures that are useful for everyone.

Not surprisingly, digital and technology-related topics make up the lion's share of available podcasts. But there's an eclectic mix of other subjects for the lifelong learner in you, as well as a lot of business lectures that could prove immediately useful.

Duke University has a special iTunes page with music, lectures and tips on Duke life. You'll need iTunes to gain access. Some podcasts are only available if you're associated with Duke University, but many are free to the public.

University of California at Berkeley. These recordings are primarily used by students to study before exams, but they're great if you want to brush up on your organic chemistry. You'll also find audio and video of some campus lectures and events. Podcasts come as downloadable MP3 audio, streaming audio and some streaming video.

Stanford University. While access to some of these materials is restricted, Stanford has a public site which includes Stanford faculty lectures, learning materials, music, sports, and more.

UCLA saves you from driving through Westside traffic with "BruinCast." Streaming audio and video, and downloadable MP3s bring you course lectures and some events on the UCLA campus. The UCLA Office of Instructional Development sponsors these podcasts.

Purdue University has a wealth of classroom audio recordings for students. RSS feeds are available for all courses, but some courses require a Purdue login.

Listing of all educational sites:

Open Culture has a list and links to the most popular podcasts from big name schools like MIT, Brown, Georgetown, and Johns Hopkins.

Some of the more challenging coursed include:

Ancient Texts: Haverford College has podcast many classical texts in the original Greek or Latin. If you're into this, you can select a natural speed or a slow "study speed" that emphasizes word groups. Study guides and modern news (in Latin!) are also available.

Aircraft Systems Engineering: If you ever get the urge to build your own private jet, this comprehensive course, designed by several top MIT professors, will get you started.

The secret to a quick and effective search is to narrow it down as much as possible. Here are a few little- known tricks that let you boost your searching power with Google:

Wildcards. When you don't know the word you're looking for, but it's on the tip of your tongue, substitute it with an asterisk (*). Google will try to fill in the blanks. For example, "holistic * for pets" returns holistic medicine for pets, holistic aroma therapy for pets, holistic care for pets and holistic veterinary medicine for pets.

Numbers. You can put 2 periods between numbers to get Google search for a range. Let's say you want a pair of dress shoes in the $100 to $200 range. Search "dress shoes mens 100..200" This also works for "Yosemite hiking trail 3..10 miles."

Definitions. Simply type in "define:word for definitions of your chosen word. You'll also see related phrases and translations.

Over time, updates and new software add to the list of programs and services that automatically load when you start your computer.

Some of these items are essential, such as antivirus and firewall services. But chances are your startup includes a host of programs you rarely use. Luckily, it's easy to clean these out and give your computer a fresh start.

Click Start (for Vista) or Start, Run (for older Windows versions). In the box, type "msconfig" and press "Enter". Click on the Startup tab and you'll see all the programs that start when you turn on your computer. Uncheck the ones you don't want.

Repeat this process with the Services tab, and click "OK."

By the way, if you're not sure whether you need a particular program or service, you can search for it here. Process Library describes thousands of programs and services, telling you what each one does and whether or not it's critical.

You can also enter the program name in your favorite search engine and find a description.

When it comes to backing up data, magnetic tape gets more use than any other media. It saves money, and it has been around longer than practically any other digital media. But it has its drawbacks.

For one thing, restoring data from magnetic tape backups can be a time-consuming chore. Just like a cassette tape, you may have to rewind almost the entire tape to reach the data you need.

Chances are your organization has a lot more data to back up than in the past. As the amount of data grows, magnetic tape backups are becoming less convenient.

Worse still, magnetic tape backups don't always survive long years of storage. Tape can break, or suffer damage from heat and humidity. Dirty tape heads can interfere with backup and restoration. In fact, some sources estimate that tape restorations undergo at least partial failure 25% to 50% of the time. Furthermore, magnetic tapes have a limited usage period and need to be removed from rotation every 12 to 24 months, and replacement tapes need to be purchased and added to the rotation.

In contrast, disks hold up a lot better. Their sealed casing protects them from the environment, and they aren't as vulnerable to mechanical issues such as tension or the condition of tape heads.

The other huge advantage for disk-based backup is that a crashed server can be recreated (virtualized) on the backup server itself. Put another way, in the event of a total server crash, we can immediately restore a working copy of the old server to the backup device. In the case of complete hardware failure, this reduces downtime from several days to several hours.

For all these reasons, it makes sense for some clients to go with a disk-based backup system. Our solution, Dependable SafeSTOR Advanced(TM), or DSSA, sends an encrypted copy of the backed up data to our data centers in Phoenix and Baltimore. This dual location prevents the need to "shuttle" tapes or disks off site in case of a fire or other disaster.

Unlike tapes, DSSA uses an "incremental forever" technology. We can recover data as it looked 5 hrs, 5 days, 5 months or a year ago.

Contact us at (818) 541-9195 to find out more about this system. For a quick demo of the solution, click here. (May take up to 15 seconds to load depending on your internet connection speed).

Many business owners, CEOs, and upper-level employees have been bombarded with professionally written email campaigns that are pure scams. Recently we have received some of these ourselves.

For example, we received one that included an attached document named proforma_invoice.doc. The message included a description of the invoice, a request for an evaluation and a reply, and a physical address in Fullerton.

This is the latest phishing technique. It looks legitimate, with correct names and flawless grammar and spelling.

These criminals select their targets carefully, do their homework, and hope to get a good return for their efforts. They target individuals who may offer a big payoff, and put in the extra effort to increase the chances of fooling someone.

These emails will try to trick you into downloading an attachment. Then trojans and other malware can steal sensitive information from your system. In addition to bills and invoices, fake emails have come disguised as complaints from the Better Business Bureau and IRS investigations.

In some cases the attachment itself is a harmless document, but contains an icon which activates spyware when you click on it. Don't bet that your anti- virus software will catch it--these tricks are still new and are likely to foil your security software.

If you receive email scams, report them to the Federal Trade Commission by forwarding the message to uce@ftc.gov.

This may be a new cyber hassle that we'll all have to live with. Be wary of any attachments or links from sources you can't positively identify. Use the best security you can get, but never expect it to replace common sense.