Buying Help and Information

When friends are ready to buy a new camera or computer etc., they usually call and ask the question – “Which one should I buy?” As you may know, the answer is that it all depends on your budget, and your techpertise. Also, products  change so quickly, that you need to get the latest news. A new site I just discovered www.bestcovery.com has list of all sorts of  “Best Of.” It’s like a Consumer Reports, but Free. Unfortunately, that makes the results a bit less reliable, but still a good source when you’re doing basic research. Give it a try.

Watch Computer Videos on Your TV

If you’ve got a Tivo, for $20 you can invest in their Desktop Plus option. This allows you to move movies from your computer to you Tivo and watch then on your TV. It also allows you to play music and look at pictures.

Supported formats include:
* Windows Media Video (.wmv)
* QuickTime Movie (.mov)
* MPEG-4/H.264 (.mp4, .m4v, .mp4v)
* MPEG-2 (.mpg, .mpeg, .mpe, .mp2, .mp2v, .mpv2)
* DivX or Xvid (.avi, .divx)

Note – I’ve found that you need to know your computer’s IP address and then on your Tivo – under Music and Photo’s “Manually Add a Server” and type in that IP Address. You can find your IP address by following these commands on your Windows screen. “Start – Run – Cmd – Ipconfig.”

Start Button – Right Click Options

By right clicking on the Start button, then choose Start Menu then Properties and then Customize, you get all sorts of options as to what displays when you click on the Start Menu. You can also follow the same procedure to change some of your Taskbar settings. It’s amazing how many options you have.

Bandwidth Caps

The future is clear – bandwidth caps and charges for internet usage are coming to your neighborhood in the future.  While no one seems to be happy about this, other than the internet providers, there’s not much you can do either. You can however keep track of your bandwidth usage via various programs. Here are a few:

NetMeter – Bandwidth Monitor 2 – (Note – I have not personally tried these out – let me know your experience.)

Teach A Man To Google

Quote from Patrick Norton – Tekzilla.com

“Give a man a link – he’ll have information for a day.

Teach a man to Google and he’ll never bug you again.”

OpenDNS – Protect Yourself and Your Family

If you want to be a bit more secure when you surf the internet and also keep your kids from going places they shouldn’t go, give OpenDNS a try. Here’s the link to try:
https://www.opendns.com/smb/start
It’s free and relatively easy to setup.

View As Slideshow

There are times when I want to use the Slideshow feature of Windows Explorer, but it seems to have gotten lost. Here’s how to get it again.

View – Customize this Folder -
From “Use this folder type as a template – Choose “Pictures”
Apply – OK

Then just click on the folders button and the slideshow option should show.

Sandboxie

I’m trying out a new program which “Sandboxes” your applications.
www.sandboxie.com

Note that there is a FREE version of the program without all the bells and whistles. The free version is OK if all you want to do is surf the web securely.

One example is that whenever I run Firefox it runs in a protected area so that even if I do visit an infected site, the changes are not permanent and in fact anything which might be changed is lost when I close Sandboxie. You can listen to a great podcast about the program at this link.

http://media.GRC.com/sn/SN-172.mp3

Firefox – Zoom In-Out

By holding down your Ctrl key and moving the scroll button on your mouse you can easily zoom in and out. This is a nice feature for those sites which have tiny fonts.