Death of Charles Thomas Mercer

Thanks to the classmate who found this obituary and noted that this young man is the son of classmate Nancy Key Mercer.

Services for Charles Thomas Mercer, 38, will begin at 11 am Saturday, August 8, 2009, in the Chapel of Osborn Funeral Home. Interment will follow at Forest Park Cemetery West. Visitation will be held from 5 until 7 pm Friday, August 7th at Osborn Funeral Home.

Charles died suddenly Monday, August 3, 2009, in Birmingham, AL and is now at peace. Charles was preceded in death by his maternal grandparents, Thomas and Muriel Key; and his paternal grandparents, Thomas and Esma Mercer.

Left to cherish his memory are his children, Jacob and Kate Mercer; and their mother, Amy Bickers of Birmingham, AL; his parents, George Ronald Mercer Sr. and Nancy Key Mercer of Shreveport, LA; his brother, George Ronald Mercer Jr. of Raleigh, North Carolina; his extended family and a multitude of dear friends. Pallbearers will be Stephen Thigpen, Christopher Talley, Scott Bucy, Brad Bates, Matthew Faust, Michael Moloney, Brent Durham, and Rex Durham.

We have Nancy's home address in the alumni records if anyone needs that. The online Guest Book will be available through about 9/7/2009. Click on the title to this article to sign the Guest Book.

Please keep Nancy and her family in your prayers.

Security Software Performance

I found a chart showing how various Internet security software programs performed in a test from February - August 2009. The higher on the chart a security program is shown the better it performed in catching security threats. Click on the title of this article to see the chart. Hope its helpful to you.

A Word To The Wise

Today, Facebook, LiveJournal, and most visibly Twitter were sabotaged by a distributed denial of service (DDOS) attack. What’s not clear is exactly why these sites were targeted. Current speculation is that the Koobface worm, whose name is a Facebook anagram, may be responsible for the attacks. A fresh wave of infections from a new variant of the worm supports this possibility. Let this serve as a warning that we can never remind our users too often about safe surfing practices.

First, trust your instincts. If you get an email message or a Facebook wall posting from a friend that contains a file or link, and their language seems uncharacteristic, it’s likely to be a virus. Koobface lures you in by appearing to be a video posted by a friend. When the link is clicked, it takes you to a page which then tells you to update to the latest version of Adobe Flash. When you consent to the update, you install the worm. The worm then propagates by posting the link on your friends’ Facebook walls. The worm can also propagate using Twitter, tweeting “My Home Video J” followed by a random exclamation and a link that installs the worm on its victims computers.

Be aware of fake antivirus/antispyware software. If you get a pop-up message that appears to be a program claiming to scan your computer for viruses, be wary. Unless you recognize it as the behavior of your installed anti-malware, it’s almost certainly malware trying to infect your computer. The safest way to back out of this situation is to hit CTRL+ALT+DEL and open the Task Manager to end the offending task.

Trust no one. Don’t install applications from untrusted sources. Be wary of opening unanticipated attachments even from people you know. Never assume that an email that appears to be from a trusted source is genuine. Your bank will never email you a link to confirm your account information.

Update your system! Keeping Windows, your browser, and your anti-malware software up-to-date is critical to keeping your system free from malware.

--Michael Scalisi, PC World | Thursday, August 06, 2009 8:30 PM PDT

July 2009 Address Updates

Two email address updates were received during July 2009. One was from Johnny Grubbs and the other from Mark Carter. Mark also provided his new home address. The new email addresses have been added to the Class Email Directory on the class web site.