Computer Tip of the Week

As you may have gathered from past posts I don't like ads. Not for what they are but how they are presented. The fact of the matter is that companies have to advertise there is no way around it and I don't blame them for doing it. More particular I am referring to web based ads.

Just about every website you go to these days is going to have some form of advertising, again this is fine for the most part. These ads will help pay for the site that your visiting. The way these ads usually work is that the person running the site will get a very small amount of money (like under 10cents) for each person who clicks on the ad. There are some sites that will plaster ads everywhere to the point it becomes difficult to click anywhere with out inadvertently clicking on an ad. The site will load with a splash screen with an ad you have to close before getting to the site and the top, bottom both edges, as well as a few in the middle will have banner ads. some of them will expand if you move your mouse over them. Then every time you click anywhere it will throw up ads and pop ups any chance they get.

This kind of behavior is unacceptable in my mind and I tend to avoid sites like this as much as possible. But there are times when you need information or what ever is on the site your accessing. Don't worry there is still hope there is a few programs out there that can help to block those pesky ads.

My recommendation is using an add-on for Google Chrome called AdBlock. Not only do I find that Chrome is a faster browser than IE or Firefox but also AdBlock is built in the browser so you don't have to have any extra configuration or separate programs running. You just need to follow the link above and click the install button and that's it. It is a free and legal program it also comes from the Chrome Web Store that checks it for viruses.

Once installed it will remove most ads that load on websites. So far I haven't seen any negative effects of using this. most ads don't show up at all but other times you'll see boxes where ads should be but are left blank.

Some people will argue that blocking ads will have a negative effect on the "Free Web" meaning sites that generate income by ads alone will be unable to maintain their site if too many people block the ads. I say that income generating ads have already been tainted and destroyed by those greedy people out there that over populate sites with ads as well as tricking and or in some cases forcing people to open ads that they don't want to click on.

On top of that ads are getting to the point where it is becoming a security risk. Some ads don't have the honest motive of selling a product or service. Some ads (not most) have malicious intent of infecting your computer with spyware, malware or viruses. The most common ads like this that come to mind are the ones that try to convince you that you have won something or that your computer has some kind of errors.

Last thing I want to mention on this post is that, First: you haven't won anything nor will you win anything just visiting a website. Second: There is no way a website can determine if your computer is infected or has errors or software problems or anything like that. (only exception to that is there is some sites that can setup scans and such but it requires that you download stuff before hand and I would recommend that you avoid it unless you know 100% it's a trust able site)

And They Wan't More Money!

So I play a lot of games and try not do pour too much money into it but lately it seems that the game companies are doing everything possible to suck the most money out of each game. Above is a screen shot from Portal 2 where you can deck out your character with fun little decals. Many games come with customization especially when it comes to online play, it's a way to distinguish your individuality in a sea of other players who look exactly like yours does. Well in Portal 2 they opened up online play that allows you to run though mind bending puzzles with a partner. With this new multi-player mode like many other companies Valve added the option to customize your self but for a price. Prices listed are British Pounds and seriously hope that the price isn't a direct conversion to Dollars because it would be putting it at around $7 just to make it so you have a little color. To top it all off your already paying $60 (console) or $50 (PC) just to play the game in the first place.

I point out Portal 2 because it just recently came out and was the most outrageous. Many other games have done similar things like Dragon Age 2 looking to sell DLC (downloadable content) before the game was even released. As well, many MMO (massively multi-player online-game) games selling in game items for money. The major problem with all of these is that it's something that really should have been included in the price of the game.

Improving a game that has been released and expecting some monetary compensation for theses improvements isn't that big of a deal and has been happening for many years. Usually this is done though an expansion pack for a game. Expansions usually cost a little less than the original game but much more than the cost of DLC but for the most part the amount of content included in an expansion is near the amount of content included in the original game and well worth the cost. MMOs will often charge a monthly fee and if I like the game enough I am willing to spend the money due to the fact that MMOs are frequently updated and new content added with no extra cost beyond the subscription fees.

Free-to-Play games have been starting to become more popular recently. They offer the game for free but support the game though micro-transactions that range from game items that effect game play or cosmetic changes that doesn't effect the game. Those are reasonable to a point just because the game is free in the first place. I feel like blabbing more about the free to play games but feel that should be saved for another post.

One last thing to point out that really drives me nut. XBOX Live, yes Microsoft can't keep it's hand out of the video game cookie jar. Imagine you just your hands on an XBOX 360 pop in one of your favorite multi-player games like Call of Duty: Black Ops (my favorite) just to findout that before you start tearing it up with thousands to players around the world you need to pay for your game... again $10 per month or $60 per year. I play on the PlayStation 3 for a few reasons mainly because of XBOX Live I have different complaints with Sony but at least the PlayStation Network doesn't require a monthly fee. I really despise having to pay for a game that I already payed for. Then you throw in the the online markets similar to Ipod store and the Android Market and your throwing in even more fuel on the multi-billion dollar market. Better stop there or I'll just keep raging.

*Just wanted to point out that I actually like Dragon age 2 and Portal 2 just get ticket at the extent of the greed

Update: I'm still alive

Sorry fell behind there was a new release of IE and Firefox so I've kind of held off to see if Chrome is coming out with anything new. So no promises it will come when it's ready.

On a side note I threw up a link on the right to download TeamViewer. This is to download just the quick one time access to you can easily share your computer screen with another person mostly so if I need to help out some one they can click there. If your interested more you should check out http://teamviewer.com, it's free for personal use.

BING!!

Sorry wasn't in the mood to post anything this week, I'll try to pick up next week. Battle Browser should be on the way soon.

Right now I just want to talk about something that just ticks me off. Though I do complain about it I really don't mind advertising, unless it's in some way intrusive. Let me give you some examples of good advertising and bad advertising.

Good: Banner ads on a website.

Bad: Excessive banners or ads that just have a picture that says download, play now, or in anyway try to tick people to click on them with out them knowing what they are doing. (this is partly controlled by the person who manages the site so shame on them)

Good: Junk mail (ya no one likes it but I wouldn't call it bad... well unless it is)

Bad: Getting 4+ letters from the same company everyday for several weeks in a row (this happened to me, I won't name names but it was a bank and they seemed to be Chaseing something)

Good: Funny or informative ads.

Bad: Ads that just sit and say why their competitors are so bad with out saying why they are good.

Anyway to get to my point there was an update to Windows on my work computer the other day and they had the nerve to change my homepage in internet explorer to Bing. They changed it because it's Microsoft and Bing is Microsoft's new search engine and they want to make sure everyone knows about it. Pretty much if they try to change or force advertising in any way is a bad way to advertise. Junk mail can be tossed, banners can be ignored in the end that's your choice, remove the choice and it's a big no no.

So ya I'll never use Bing because of the way they try to present it. By all means set it to that by default but don't change it once it's already been set to something else you big jerk!

K all done.

Battle Browser

Battle Browser update!

I'll probably start my first contestant with IE starting next week, just had to sort out my arbitrary rating system. It will be divided into several categories rated on a scale from 1-10. 1 is bad and 10 is good. Keep in mind that 5 isn't bad but it's also not good it's just average. The ratings are based off of my opinion and how I would rate them so based off my experience of rating things I would expect that we won't see a 10 very often and as a result I doubt any of the browsers will get a 10 overall. Also I wouldn't expect to see a 1 at least not on the top 3 browsers. If i can't decide on a number you might also see a half (.5) in the score I won't get down to anything more or less than that. (so no 6.0034 scores sorry if you were hoping to see a browser that is better by some inconsequential fraction) Along with the ratings I'll go over a few brief details of the browser that will hopefully be a little interesting as well as general pros and cons of the browser.

Heres how the ratings will go, each with come with a description on why I think it get's the score it does.

Performance: Make note that this is the performance of the browser not your internet connection. If you have a slow connection a browser will have little impact on how fast you can load pages. (I'll make a tip of the week on how to work with slower connection speeds)

Looks: This how good the default look is as well as the ability to change the looks.

Customization: This would be things like add remove buttons, add bars, other settings and such.

Stability: How often it crashes, also be doing a spam check by opening as many windows as quickly as possible to see if it crashes.

Security: This is how helpful it is in protecting you from viruses and other bad things and how much of a risk it is at being targeted by bad things.

Compatibility: There are some web sites that are not compatible with all browsers and require that you use a different one when accessing it. Compatibility is controlled by the website and not the browser but I still wanted to put this category in because it's reflected by the popularity of the browser and I'll cover that in another section that isn't rated.

Functionality: Does the browser have some special function that others don't? Also the way downloads are handled will be covered here.

Ease of use: This will be based on how easy it is used by the general public, as well if there is any thing special you need to do to set it up.

At the end I'll give it an overall score and maybe some more information if I feel like it. Also make note that this information may change as I continue onward if it does I'll be changing it for each of the past ones and put an update so you can check back. You can use the link on the right side of the blog to list all the posts for Battle Browser if you want to read or compare them.

(you also might have noticed I fixed the battle browser logo)

Computer Tip of the Week

This week's tip it brought to you by the letters: ********

I am going to talk about passwords today. There is many people who have insecure passwords and even some who think that they have a secure one but don't. I am going to give you tips on how to create a difficult and secure password that is also easy to remember. (all the passwords in my examples will have "quotes" around them and should always be ignored)

Take a moment to look at the picture of the keyboard Rubik's cube I put at the top of the post. I've taken the time to learn the secrets of the regular Rubik's cube and by those standards the cube in the picture is several times more difficult to solve. There's a few key point's that I am going to cover to help you create your own secure password that will be just as difficult for people to break as that cube is to solve.

What to Avoid:

The most common mistakes in creating a password is to use either the word: "password" or your username as your password, both of those are bad and shouldn't be done. Some places won't let you even use those as your password. Repetition, adding multiple or sequential letters or numbers, is bad try not to use more than 2 in a row. (example: aaaaa, gggggg, 11111, 12345, abcde... ect) Using the words: "root" "admin" or "administrator" is also a bad thing as they are common default passwords. having all the same type of characters. Using information that you used when registering such as your email address, or your name first and or last birthday. (it's alright to include this information in your password as long as you add other stuff to it. I'll give more details on this later.)

Complexity:

The more complex the password is the more secure it becomes. Just as the cube in my metaphor becomes more complex the harder it is to solve. The keyboard is full of characters that you can use for your password. There is 4 types of characters that can be used for a password they are: letters lowercase and capital, numbers, and then special characters. (!@#$%^&* are some examples of special characters) Most passwords will allow all of the letters and numbers to be used but some of the special characters can't be used, for example the space bar is technically a special character. Most places will require a password length of at least 6 characters but I would recommend longer at least 8-10. Having a complex password using all 4 types of characters with a good length will help to keep the bad people out.

Multiple Passwords:

Most people have multiple logins to multiple places. Email, Banks, Facebook, and other places. Having the same password for everything can be a big risk because some places might not have the same security protection as say your bank does. So "the bad guys" can crack your password in a less secure place and then get access to your bank account. Having a different password for each place is best but can cause issues with remembering your passwords. I would recommend that you come up with 2 or 3 different passwords with different security levels. (I'll cover creating passwords later)

Remembering your password:

So I made up a very secure password: "DFoef22134DSjl3*^&%*342t9dfs\njf" but the second I typed it in I forgot it. Writing it down on paper or typing it in a document on your computer is not a good idea. If some one got access to your list of passwords they would now have access to everything. Pick out 2 things that are memorable to you and turn that into your password. Things like a birth date, pets name, hobbies or other things that are eventful or personal to you. (for exaple: I'll take blog and todays date and make it a password: "blog22811" again I'll be getting to creating a password soon)

Character replacement can help you remember your password. This is where you take a word and replace 1 character with another. Replacing a lower case letter with an upper case letter is very easy to remember especially when it's the first letter of a word. Replacing a number with a special character is also easy to do. Take a look at the number 5 you should see % above it, as you know holding shift while pressing the number 5 will give you a %. So if your creating a password with a date in that has the number 5 some where you could hold shift while pressing the 5 to add more complexity to your password while it's still more memorable than just random characters. Replacing letters with numbers or characters, this can be a little tricky but can help. the characters @ and a, o and 0 (zero), i and !, l and 1, 8 and & all look the same and could be replaced with each other while still making the password memorable.

I mentioned before about creating multiple passwords to help remember multiple passwords I would recommend you create some kind of theme to help you remember them. I'm not a sports fan but if you are you could do something like picking out your favorite teams, players, and combining it with dates they won big games or the players number, using this example you could create an endless number of passwords with a similar theme that will help you remember.

Adding complexity will always make the password a little harder to remember. Make sure that after you pick a password that you practice it a few times to help you remember it.

You can also use a password layout to help remember your passwords. This would be something like always have a name followed by date for all your passwords or holding shift in the same places in all your passwords. (I'll give more examples of this when talking about creating your password)

Chang your password:

Depending on how secure you want your password to be should determine how often you should change it. Things like bank passwords and other financial sites should have the most secure password as well as frequent password changes, every 3 months or so. Other places like facebook or twitter would probably be fine to never change it. Maybe change it once a year if you would really care if some one got in and started posing things that you didn't want them to. Changing your password frequently will increase security but also make it harder to remember. Again keeping a theme and/or layout will help you remember them.

Creating multiple memorable and complex passwords: (yes it's finally here)

I'm going to walk though the steps on creating multiple complex passwords that are easy to remember. First I'm going to pick a theme I like Star Wars so lets go with that. I'll create a low medium and high security password using this theme then I'll create a few High security passwords using a layout with this same theme.

Low: "lukeskywalker"

enough characters to meet alot of password requirements but is all lowercase letters.

Medium: "D@rthV@der"

It's easy to remember to capitlaize the first letter of each name and replacing a with @ is also easy to remember while making the password much more complicated.

High: "@n!k!nSkyw@1ker?"

Take Anakin Skywalker and relpace the a with @, i with ! and l 1 also throw a random character at the end and now you have a very complicated password but is still memorable.

Multiple High passwords using a theme and layout: (remember to not include the "quotes")

"N3wH0p319&&"

"#mp!r3Str!k3s19*)"

"R3turnJ3d!19*#"

Can you figure it out? The theme is still Star Wars but here is the layout. I took 2 words out of the title of the 3 original Star Wars movies followed by the year they were released. I capitalize the first letter of each word and replace e with 3, i with !, and o with 0 (zero). Also if you notice that on the second one I used # instead of 3 because going with the theme I always capitalize the first letter but because it wasn't a letter I held shift while pressing 3 to get #. Also on the date I held shift for the last 2 numbers.

If I change the theme from Star Wars to movies I could extend the theme to an endless amount of passwords. Once you can remember your layout you can change your passwords many times while still remembering it and keeping it complex and secure.

Final note:

I just wanted to mention a few other things that can make passwords more or less secure, you might use some of these but probably won't use all of them.

Saving passwords in your browser: You should avoid these for your more secure passwords. If some one got access to your computer they could get the passwords out of the browser.

Biometric Devices: Most commonly this is finger print reader, the ones you can buy from the store or come built into a laptop are for connivance not security unless you spend lots of money on it. The cheep ones are often easy to break into and contain all your passwords. Also those high tech things you see on the spy movies like retina scans, facial recognition, DNA or hair follicle matches and anything along the lines of matching your password with some physical aspect of your self would be considered Biometric.

Random Password Generator: A device or program that will create a password or code that randomly changes on a set timer that will require you to use the device or software to find out what the password is before you can login. This isn't common and can often require a static password that you set.

Again as always feel free to contact me if you have any questions or need help creating a password. Also I am looking for more ideas for the tip of the week so if you have any question or ideas on more things I can cover please send me an email: warclark@msn.com

Battle Browser

I promised some more interesting content well here it is. I'm going to do a new segment called "Battle Browser". (I even made the logo my self. Isn't my mad photo shop skills great?) Basically what I am going to do is take a look at the 3 major web browsers as well as a few other less known ones and come up with some arbitrary rating system and determine in my opinion what browser is better than the others. In the end I will announce the overall champion as well as give out some imaginary rewards to the other browsers if they do something cool that the others done. (No actual rewards will be given.)

I'll do a review followed by some kind of chart with my arbitrary ratings on it with an overall arbitrary score of each browser probably once a week until we finish them all. Then at some point I'll do a wrap up post with the announcements of the results. I'll link these all together on the right side so you can read them all together if you want to. Also I'm going to try to use pictures more often because it makes my deadly walls of text less ominous.

Next week I'll start with Internet Explorer, because Microsoft wouldn't have it any other way.

Computer Tip of the Week

This week we will talk about the golden rule: BACKUP, BACKUP, BACKUP, BACKUP, and BACKUP!

No matter who you are if you use a computer there is a good chance (around 99 and 3/4%) that you have data. For the most part we like to keep that data. The time I spent working for Dell Technical support I replaced lots of parts for may people from my experience I have noticed The most common part of your computer to fail is: anything that isn't inside it(mouse, keyboard that sort of stuff) But usually it's minor and easily replaced. The second most common part of your computer is your monitor(yes it's not in your computer but I keep that separate because it costs much more then that other stuff.) It happens less often now that most people are using LCD monitors(my guess is most of the CRT monitors are broken or are horribly distorted by now). Close behind is your hard drive maybe even more so if you use a laptop.

Your hard drive is a little silver box and it holds all your pictures, all your program, and all your documents on it. Now I want you to close your eyes(second thought keep them open so you can read) and picture your computer(it should be easy sense your probably looking at it) and imagine that it explodes into little burning chunks. It's unlikely that this will happen but this would be a scenario that would make your data impossible to recover. Now think of all the data on the computer that you will lose never to get back again. For a few people this may not be much and may not mean much for others it may be a lot and may be a very big deal.

There is many ways to backup your data and all of them are good ways to protect your data from nasty bad things happening to them. The best way to determine what backup method is best for you is to find out how much data you want to backup and how often that data changes. I'll list the methods of backing up data followed by an explanation of each method. The listed by amount of data needed to be backed up:

Under 1GB: CD

8GB: DVD

20GB or less: Flash drive(sometimes called thumb drive)

25-50GB: Blu-Ray Disks

250GB to 1TB(1000GB): Internal/External Hard drive.

With the reduced cost of flash drives compounded with the increased capacity CD's and DVD's aren't the best way to go they are better for sharing data with others. If you have a smaller amount of data to back up just stick with a flash drive for $20 you can get a good quality 8 GB drive and if you need a little more around $50 you can get 16-20GB. Blu-ray isn't gonna be the best idea unless you already have a Blu-ray burner. If you need to backup more than what a flash drive can handle your your wanting to backup your whole computer then an external (or internal) hard drive is the best way to do it. Right now 1TB external hard drive is going for about $100 and for peace of mind knowing your data is save it's not a bad deal. One of these drives should be more than enough to back up everything on your computer unless you have more data than the average user.

How should you back up data? There are a few programs that can help you backup data, some hard drives will even come with these types of programs. I was going to recommend some programs but I really can't because I haven't used many. The only one that I have used and like and would recommend is Symantec Backup Exec but that's more for Businesses and can cost over $1000. For my personal backups I use an external hard drive and a flash drive for other things. To manually backup your data all you need to do is open the location of your data and drag it to the hard drive. Once you see the data on the hard drive it's backed up and to restore it just do it the other way.

How do I make sure I backup everything I need? A great tip is to save everything you need in your "My Documents" folder (Just "Documents" in Windows 7). If you do that then all you need to do is open your documents folder and copy everything in there to your external drive. In XP and Vista it will contain your pictures and music as well, if you use 7 then just click on the start button (aka the Pearl) and in the text bar near the bottom type in "Libraries" and press enter. This will bring up 4 folders: "Documents" "Music" "Pictures" and "Movies" all of these folders should contain everything you need to back up. Don't get into a bad habit of saving things to your desktop, it's a bad idea and just makes it look messy. (it's also a pet peeve of mine) If you do just make sure to grab those files too, you can just drag and drop from the desktop to your backup location. Backing up programs that are installed on your computer isn't needed and even if you back it up it might not work if you copy it back, it's better to just reinstall programs if you lose them. If it's a program you downloaded off the internet and you want to keep it handy so you don't have to download it again just save the install file to your backup that way you have a way to reinstall it if needed.

Does email need to be backup up? If you use an internet email like Gmail, Live Mail, Yahoo, or anything that you can get to from a web browser then no you don't need to back it up unless you save it to your computer in some way. If you do save your emails just make sure to save them to your documents folder and your all set. Probably your work email will use an Exchange or POP email server this does require some more steps to make sure that it's backed up but I don't want to go so deep into that right now or this post will never end.

What about fires, thieves, or things that can physically damage data? If you keep data that would in some way be detrimental to you or others in any way financially or personally then taking extra steps to insure it's protection may be a good idea. There is a few companies out there that will help you backup your data over the internet like Mozy for a monthly fee. I would only recommend that you keep the data you backup over the internet to more critical data because backing up and recovering data over the internet can take much more time depending on your internet connection. But this will be able to access your data anywhere you can access the internet. Backing up data over the internet does also create new risks such as hackers trying to steal your data. It's a small risk and I'm sure the backup companies do everything to make sure that does stay at a minimum. Just make sure to keep a strong password. (I'll do passwords for another computer tip sometime.)

What do I do if something bad happens and I didn't backup my data? First let me say this: BACKUP, BACKUP, BACKUP!!! But really if your hard drive crashes or your computer breaks, your you accentually delete your important files followed by emptying the recycle bin not all is lost there is methods of recovering data but this can become very expensive depending on how bad it is and isn't something that I would want anyone to experience. (I'll cover data recovery on another tip)

I want to end this post with an experience I had working for Dell technical support. I had a collage student call in who had purchased a laptop from dell. She was calling because there was a problem with her computer not being able to start. She was very concerned because finals was in a few weeks and she had been working on a big project or something. (can't remember exactly what it was but it was vital to her graduation) She continually reminded me of this every few minutes as I walked her though some steps to run the diagnostics on the computer. Once the diagnostics came back with the results confirming what I thought was the problem. I had to break the bad news to her that the drive had gone bad to the point where it will need to be replaced. She realized the severity of the problem while trying to hold back the tears she asked about her data. While Dell will replace the bad hard drive with a new one they don't cover any data so she will have to find a method of recovering the data from some other place. While trying to calm her down from her sobbing I tried to reassure her that it's still possible to recover the data and recommended a few places that might be able to help her and encouraged her to make sure she keeps a backup of her data from now on. I don't know what happened after that other then that she got a new hard drive but I could speculate that she would probably wind up spending around $400 or more just to try recovering the data and even then it's not 100%. All of her anguish could have been prevented by a simple little flash drive that you keep on a key chain.

As always if you need more help with backup or recovery talk with me I can at least point you in the right direction, if not help you more.

Facebook and the Like button

Sorry it's been a while, I started a post for the Tip of the week but just didn't like the way it was going but hopefully I'll get it out next week.

This will probably be short because there isn't much to say but I'm sure I'll go off on something. Recently I've noticed that companies out there have been taking advantage of the free advertising that Facebook has to offer. I'm sure you'll find a Facebook page out there for just about every product you could think of or at least for the company that sells the product. But why? Are you a personal friend of Ronald McDonald? Do you hang out with the Pepsi guys? Are you even an acquittance of the Verizon company or even know of some one who is? Then why would you "friend" them in Facebook? They would certainly encourage you to, in fact they would love it if everyone added them as friends on Facebook or "Liked" anything related to their product.

Why do they do this, well once your their your "friend" they are open to spam you and in turn everyone else that your "friends" with. It's free advertising they get their product out there by miss using a free social service. This is one of the reasons I hate Facebook, bad enough it's full of useless junk but to make it even worse to fill it full of ads. I don't know of any legal restrictions that would prohibit this, and if it was me I would probably do the same. Let's not encourage this sort of behavior by going along with their underhanded tactics. Facebook is bad enough with out that sort of rubbish.

(Sorry for that ranting it was kind of a lame post if you ask me. Just a pointing out my dislike of Facebook and the stuff that goes on not a lot of information. Mostly just trying to put up anything because it's been a while. I do have a few ideas that I will be doing in the next few weeks that will be much better, promise. Still have my tip of the week I haven't finished yet so I'll be getting that done first.)

In My Dreams

I was just browsing computer parts for fun (it's fun to me) as I will do every so often. When I noticed that Newegg.com sells a 1TB SSD (as shown above). An SSD(solid state drive) is the next generation of hard drives that are just starting to become common in general users computers. The benifit of an SSD over a regular HDD(hard drive disk) is that it doesn't use physical disks to hold data and this makes it able to access data much quicker. The only down side is that the SSD is much more expensive. The most common use for an SSD is to have a small one (under 100GB) and install Windows and maybe a few of your more often used programs and all other data is stored on a much bigger HDD. Doing this will improve computer performance by a good amount especially when turning the computer on or off.

When looking into more details on this dirve I was shocked in more ways then one. First off if you have ever seen what a hard drive looks like you'll know that that doesn't look like a normal one. The most noticeable part about this one is that instead of using the standard SATA cable that regular hard drives it plugs into a PCI slot that you'll normally find a sound card, video card or any other internal peripheral. The reason why they used PCI rather than SATA is to increase the speed of the already fast drive. The other thing that was shocking was the size I hadn't heard of a SSD being so big they usually come in sizes around 100-250GB. Lastly is the price, you can buy this bad boy for only $3,750(you save over $600) and a standard HDD of this size is under $100.

So maybe when I can afford a computer that costs more than a car I'll get the equivalent of what ever is available to this when that times comes(if ever) but for now I guess I'll just be stuck drooling over it(at least for like the next 5 years or when ever this becomes low tech and is affordable.) Oh and if anyone has like $10,000 they want to spend on building a computer please please please let me build it for you it would be a dream just to touch these kinds of things.

Computer Tip of the Week

I'll try to post some other content between the tips of the week but you'll have to just deal with it for now.

This weeks tip is for general maintenance and making sure your system doesn't get slow. The number 1 cause of computers slowing down is "Virus/Spyware/Malware" all those nasty things you don't want on your computer.

At one point while working at my current place of employment they thought it would be a good idea to dip their feet in to the general consumer support rather than just businesses. They have sense changed their minds "with a big relief to me" but while they were poking their head in places they shouldn't they had purchased a company called iTOK (pronounced: "I Talk") iTOK was a Geeksquad type company but was web based. You could just go to their website and request help with any issue you might have with your computer and one of their techs would jump on your computer and fix it for you. For a while I was one of the techs that would be doing the fixing it was one of the worst few months of my life but that's for another post.

To get to the point of my babbling one of the big services that iTOK provided was computer maintenance. For just a mere $80ish per month a computer tech will jump on your computer and run maintenance to make sure your computer is running at peak performance. Before you all go running to get singed up for this service let me save you all lots of money, in fact all your money. The secret to iTOK is that everything they do can be done by anyone for free with little effort and/or computer knowledge. Every single program used by this company to keep your computer clean is available to the public for free. Aside from the legal issues with them doing this it's practically theft providing a service that you can do your self for free. It would be a different story if they used a program they had developed or if this was something difficult to do but it's not. Sorry if I go off on rants.

What I am going to do is provide everyone a list of tools you can install on your computer that will help keep your computer free of nasty things and everything in the list is free and legal to use. (what isn't legal is using these programs for commercial use.) This list will be up on the right side listed as recommended Anti-spyware/virus/malware tools. You can install all of these on your computer and they won't conflict with any other software that is already installed. There is one exception, you should only have 1 anti-virus software installed on your computer at one time. They have a tendency to compete with your system and cause lots of performance/stability issues.

The only Anti-virus software I recommend is AVG, it is free software and works just as well as if not better than other Anti-virus software. If you already have software like Trendmicro, McAfee, or Norton you shouldn't install AVG. If your not sure if you have any anti-virus it would be a good thing to check. Most store bought computer will come with a free trial of either Norton or McAfee and if your computer is more than 6 months old these have probably expired by now. You can check by opening your Anti-virus software it will probably tell you in big red letters if you have expired and will probably encourage you to purchase a subscription. Between Norton and McAfee I would go with Norton and would avoid McAfee at all costs (I prefer the AVG over the other 2). I may do another post going into more details on anti-virus preferences another time.

Here is the list of computer skills required to use the programs that are listed: web-browsing, program-installing, launching programs, and clicking the scan now button. So if you feel comfortable doing these things you can run these on your computer your self (even if you feel like you can't I bet you could if you tried). Once installed all you need to do is open the program and click the scan now button. This may take some time so it's a good idea to start them before going to sleep or while doing other stuff (unless you find real joy out of watching progress bars fill, I know I sure do!). Once completed the program will tell you the results, if it finds something it may ask you what you want to do and the answer is almost always "Delete", "Quarantine", or "Remove". Some of the programs like AVG will scan automatically and it will usually ask you to choose the time it scans when you install the program.

For the rest of the program you'll need to run the scans manually, the frequency is determined by what type of web browser you are. If you check a few of the same websites once a week or less and rarely download anything, then scanning once ever other month or even every 4-6 months would be fine. If your a moderate web browser who tends to stick to the sites that your familiar with and only download things from people or places that you trust, then running a scan once a month would be recommended. If your the kind of browser that love to type random words in Google and open up every page you find and loved to play whack-a-mole with pop ups and can't help but download anything and everything, I would recommend you run scans on a daily basis also I would recommend you give me a call and I can give you more tips on safe web browsing habits. (This may be a computer tip of the week soon)

Thanks for reading I know I can blab a bit and I'm not the best writer but hopefully this can help a little. Also you can feel free to give me a call anytime and I can help you out with any of your computer issues I love to do it. (if you don't know or can't find out what my phone number is, IE your not a friend or family member send me an email: warclark@msn.com and I'll see what I can do.)

Computer Tip of the Week

Been sick lately but I'll get these on a set time of the week at some point.

Tip this week is a list of 3 easy steps you can do to try to fix your computer problems before trying to get help from others.

#1 - This is the most important thing you can do it may seem simple and I don't mean this in an insulting way but it's a common mistake and you would be surprised by the number of people I talk with that don't even do this. Read the error message if there is one. Some times these messages won't make any sense to some people and that's fine but some times it gives clues to even the most un-computer savvy people out there. So if the message says something like "You must reboot the computer before running." you'll know that rebooting might fix the issue.

#2 - This brings us to the second simple thing you can do to try to fix your computer problems. Reboot the computer! This actually works with most electronic devices. Rule of thumb is to make sure the computer says off for 10 seconds before starting it again. This will give it time to allow the electricity to dissipate before turning it back on. Also if your internet connection stops working rebooting your router will almost always fix it and anytime you call your internet provider they will almost always have you do this first.

#3 - This one is and can be a bit more tricky then the reset of them but some times it can be super quick and easy is is always worth a shot. This step is your new slogan: Just Google it. Nike was close but didn't quite get it right. Be sure to be as exact as possible for searching for the error. For example if your getting an error message when trying to run a program type the exact message your getting and what program something like: "Critical Fault running Office Word 2007" also including what version of Windows your running may help if your using Vista or Windows 7. Before you say "Oh I'm using a Mac" don't bother that's a problem of it's own.

Some where out there Google probably has an answer to all your computer problems but finding them can some times be a challenge and then once you find the answer it may be too difficult or you might not feel comfortable with digging in places you've never been before in the computer and that's fine but your one step closer. Best thing to do is to avoid the pit falls of searching Google. Always try to stick to the web sites of companies you know of. Under each site listed in Google it will give you the address like www.microsoft.com/****** or dell.com/*** or what ever always look at those before even clicking on them. Never go to sites like computerfixit.com or fastcomputerfix.com or anything like that that includes fix or fast repair or what ever in the address. They might be legit but not worth the risk. I wouldn't recommend checking any forums sites unless your ready to roll up your sleeves and really get into it. Most of them will result in being something like first post is the person saying what their problem is and asking for help followed by 20 more posts of other people saying they have the same problems or it may be a similar problem but not the same that your having. It's best to just stick with sites from the company of the program or hardware that's having the issue or from Microsoft anything else might have the answer but can be hard to find. Also if you don't find it in the first few pages of your Google search it's probably best to give up or change the wording of your search.

If your still having the problem then you can confidently ask others for help knowing you have done what you can. I just want to leave you with one last word of advice. Never take your computer to geeksquad or other similar places they will over charge you for things that are not needed. Just give me a call I'll love to help you with your computer problems for free or even point you to the right people to help with your problems who will in many cases help you for free.

Tip of the Week

Going to start a new thing. You'll notice a section to the right called Tip of the week. I'll try to keep up on this. Every Sunday night I'll update it to a new tip and some where keep a log of all the old tips. This will just be some kind of random computer tip to help keep it running good, fix common issues, or in some way help to better your computer. I'll also try to keep things simple.

Edit: Decided that I didn't like the side bar format so I'll just add the tip of the week as a post that way it will archive it for me and I think I can organize them some how. So here is this weeks tip:

There is very little programs out there that you can download to fix your computer. Even if it is legitimate you should still be able to fix the issue without downloading a program. The only place that I would say you can 100% safely download tools to fix your computer is at support.microsoft.com most of their articles now have an option to just download a tool that will fix the issue your having but even still they do provide manual instructions on how to fix it. For the most part the tools for fixing computers that are found randomly while searching the web are just viruses. The same goes for websites or banner ads that say your computer is broken or infected.

As Seen On YouTube

I was in Walmart the other day and noticed a sign that said: "As Seen on YouTube" it reminded me of the slogan "As seen on TV" and it was probably done with that intention. This was promoting a tool for cleaning your tongue call Orabrush and as advertised you can find it on youtube. I can like or dislike ads, slogans, commercials, and jingles not based on what they are advertising but more on the way it's presented, if I think that they put in a well placed joke or pun that went well with the product I will like it or if they try to play off of the ignorance of the listener I may not like it.

It's clever to take a well known slogan and tie it in with the product your selling but I just don't buy this whole idea. The slogan "As seen on TV" started with Samuel Popeil and his son Ron Popeil in the 1960's. During this time TV was a very new and exciting thing and even now having an infomercial isn't a small or cheep thing to do. Youtube on the other hand is very cheep and easy to use and just about anyone who can make any type of digital recording and has access to a computer with internet access can post just about anything on it. So saying "it's on youtube" means nothing and because it means nothing I think even less of the product your trying to sell then I did before I even knew it existed.

One other commercial that's been bugging me is the one from The Truth Anti-tobacco. I don't have anything against what they are promoting and hope they keep it up but they have I think 2 variations of the same commercial they play every now and then on the radio that I hear. The main point they are trying to make is that the tobacco industry will target anyone regardless of what their interests or hobbies are. This fact may be true but it's true about any other marketing company out there. Businesses sell things with the intent of people buying it and they want as many people to buy it as possible. This doesn't make them a bad company for doing it. They really need to spend less time picking at the company selling tobacco and more time on the harmful effects of tobacco.

One of the largest tobacco companies in the US is Philip Morris. This company started in 1847 in London. I'm sure they had no clue about the harmful effects of tobacco at that time and you couldn't blame them for it. Sure now they know but it's not like they can just say: "oh ya your right they are bad for you so we're just gonna close shop." this would cost hundreds of jobs and be a huge blow to the economy. Yes they need to start taking steps to wean people off tobacco but any negative comments to the companies that sell them is unproductive and in my mind doesn't help their case. All I see is a commercial trying to play off the ignorance of the listener and I don't buy into what ever they are promoting when they do these kinds of things.