Unless you’re careful on Facebook, MySpace and many other sites,  you could end up paying for goods and services you never intended to buy. Here’s a good article on how they do it plus a video below.

Web Scam Article

For those of you who rip their DVD’s to a hard drive or just want to do some video conversion to a different form. Handbrake 0.9.3 has worked well in the past. With the new version – Handbrake 0.9.4, they add 64 bit capability which should speed up things for some people with 64 bit systems. Check out the main page for a list of the major changes.

TEST NOTES -

1. When I tried to play my 094 file as an MP4 in QuickTime I get this error message, “An invalid sample description was found in the movie.” When I change the extension to M4V it plays fine.

2. The 094 file is 16% larger than the 093 version.

3. Watching both versions on my TV, the picture seems identical.

4. M4V files still don’t Fast Forward on my WD TV.

Conclusion – I’m going back to version 0.9.3

Since my Dell laptop is seven years old, I’ve been looking for a replacement for the last few months. There are so many options that it was hard to make a choice. Since I bought a Sony Vaio for my wife recently – the VGN-NW270F, I had a good laptop to compare to this HP DV4.

You basically have two choices in laptops: do you want a powerful laptop that can do lots of things, but has a shorter battery life or do you want a lighter, less powerful laptop which has an extended life. I went with the power laptop which the HP is.

In general, I’m very happy and impressed. The HP is a bit smaller – 14″ vs 15.6″, but I actually prefer the smaller form factor. The 15.6 is more a desktop replacement size. They both have the same 320 GB hard drive and plenty of other ports and 4 GB or ram. I wanted an HDMI port and both have this feature. When you connect the HP to my 42″ TV the screen looks sharp and stunning. I can now watch internet video and ripped movies on my big screen. One feature the Sony has is the ability to play Blue Ray disks, but since I don’t own any of those, it’s not a factor.

The HP does have a nice Recovery partition and a few other features, but I don’t use them. The Sony has a better metal body, keyboard and track pad area (I use a real mouse.), but the HP is ok.

Windows 7 is a joy to work with and even though I bought a manual, I haven’t had to crack it open yet. I’ve gone from XP to Windows 7 without a hitch.

Another reason I went with the HP at Costco is the two year warranty – you can’t beat it.

Pros2
Year Warranty
Fast bootup and performance
One click to turn wireless on and off.
Fantastic HDMI video to home TV
Price $649

Cons
Case and keyboard not as nice as Sony Vaio.
Track area doesn’t have the nice feel of a Sony
A little bit of junkware you need to uninstall.

If you’ve got Photoshop or Photoshop Elements, here’s an easy way to trim ten pounds off your photos.

1. Open the file.
2. Ctrl J to create a new layer to work on.
3. 3. In that new layer – Ctrl T to bring up the Transform tool.
4. 4. Alt-Ctrl the right center transform box and you can make yourself as skinny as you want. Probably anything more than 90% will look unnatural.
5. Get rid of the background layer and save your new lower weight self.

Do you ever take pictures of your family or a large group of people? The problem many times is that the more people you have in the shot, the greater are the odds that one of them will be blinking their eyes at the exact time you are snapping that photo. Here’s a solution I learned from a pro. Tell the group to close their eyes and on the count of three, open them. You count out – one – two – three and then take that perfect shot.

If you’ve ever helped a person with computer trouble and you’re trying to do it over the phone, it is VERY challenging.  She’s looking at her computer screen and you’re trying your best to imagine what she’s seeing. It’s a messy and time-consuming situation.While there are solutions which allow you to see the other persons screen, they can be expensive. Go to Assist is a great solution, but it costs $69/month or $10/day.

Here’s an other solution which works, is Free, and is relatively easy to install. LogMeIn.com It has a free version which allows you to create an account, then if you need some help, you just have your computer tech friend use LogMeIn to access your computer. They can see your computer and control it with their mouse and keyboard. Note – this is the same LogMeIn which you can use when you’re on vacation.

If you’ve recently bought a new Windows 7 computer, you’ve probably got a 300+ GB drive with your operating system, programs and all the pictures, text and video you transferred over to the new computer. What I like to do is to divide the  hard drive into two partitions – one for the operating system and one for the data (pictures, video, graphics test)

The advantage to this system is that you can frequently and easily backup your C: Operating System to an external drive so that if your computer ever gets a virus/malware/ it’s easy to restore that partition without affecting your data. I also backup before I install a new program so that if I have a problem or the program doesn’t uninstall properly I can easily restore my latest backup.

While I’ve used Partition Magic in the past, there’s a new free program which has some great reviews.
Partition Wizard Free Home Edition

Here’s a good review of the program.

Patrick Norton gives this tip to clean your camera lens.

1. Clean off your lens with a brush or air.
2. Use 90% Isopropol alchohol and a 5 to 10 mixture with water.
3. Put it onto your microfiber rag and twist it until it stops dripping.
4. Then rub it against the lens lightly to remove any spots.

He also recommends using the LensPen as an alternative.

When you’re on the road,while almost every hotel/motel offers free wifi, but it’s almost always non-secured. In other words, everything you type – all your passwords, bank information, personal email and credit card information is available for the bad guys to capture. Even when it is secured with a password, you never know how long the password has been in effect and if it’s really secure.

Here’s one solution, which has gotten some great reviews. LogMeIn.com is a site which offer FREE VPN connection to your home computer. You first create an account with LogMeIn and then as long as your computer is plugged in and on, you can access it securely over the internet. You install LogMeIn on your home computer and then you can access it via the internet from any other computer when you’re on the road. I did notice that you have to change the “View” settings to see your home screen legibly, but that’s easy to do. You also need to make sure your computer doesn’t turn off after a period of time.(Usually you right click on the desktop and change your settings.) The LogMeIn installation fixed that problem for me automatically. They will also send you an email to activate your account. You will also need to remember your name and password from your home computer to login.

They will try and sell you a PRO version for $70/year, but the Free version may be all you need.

Note – Here’s what Steve Gibson of Security Now says about LogMeIn.Search for “LogMeIn.”

- Shift Click – To open up a second version of any program in the taskbar, just hold down the Shift key and then click the icon on the task bar. I find this useful when I want to open two instances of Windows Explorer and want to drag files/folders from one drive to another.

- Show Desktop – this icon from Win XP has been moved over to the far right end past the date and time. Just click on the button to clear the desktop or again show everything.

- Ctrl Click – Cycles through the pages of a group in the taskbar.