Microsoft today announced that their aging operating system, Windows XP, has officially moved away from Mainstream Support and has transitioned into what they term as the Extended Support level. What this means to you is that Microsoft will no longer offer free support for Windows XP. Any problem you may have with the OS that requires a phone call to Microsoft will also require that you pull out your credit card.
Windows XP has served us well , so don’t free too much over it. The venerable OS has been on the market for over seven years. Microsoft usually only offers five years of mainstream support. They will still provide free security patches via Windows Update, but no new features will be added nor old ones fixed. More information can be found in this article over at Computerworld.
My advice: don’t buy a new computer until Windows 7 (the successor to Vista) comes out. Windows 7 is what Vista should have been. It will be worth the wait and you won’t need to suffer through Vista’s many annoyances.
I came across a very useful program that allows me to quickly access the contents of my hard drive from the System Tray in Windows or Menu Bar in Mac OS X. It is called Hawkscope and it performs exactly as advertised.
This program saves multiple clicks by adding a button to the System Tray that takes you right to your files. It is a small program and uses very little resources to run. It is available for Windows, Mac, and Linux.
I saw this story over at Gizmodo and though it was worth talking about here. It seems a guy purchased what he thought was a brand new Western Digital 1TB hard drive. When he got it home and opened the package, he instead found a 9-year-old 30GB drive. When he took it back to get what he paid for, Best Buy refused to replace it or give him his money back. Once again, Best Buy shows its true colors.
This is not the first time that something like this has happened at Best Buy (as well as many other stores). Clearly, someone else bought the hard drive, replaced it with an old one, and returned it to the store for a refund. My guess would be the store clerk took the return without paying any attention and just re-shrink wrapped the box and put it back on the shelf for sale.
It is a shame that Best Buy treats its customers this way, but there is a way that you can avoid such problems. After you purchase an item that comes in a box you can’t easily open or is shrink-wrapped, open the item right there in the store next to a sales clerk. They can’t deny what they see with their own eyes.
I have been using Apple’s MobileMe service since the day it launched. The main reason I signed up for the $99 a year service is because it offered push email, contacts, and calendar without needing a Blackberry or Microsoft Exchange account. For those who don’t know about push technology, it allows me to make a change on my iPhone or computer and that change will instantly show up on both devices without me having to enter it in twice. It is a big time saver and I never have to worry about not having information when and where I need it. With all that said, I am in the process of leaving MobileMe behind and switching to Google services.
Why make the switch? The first reason is that Google offers most of the features that MobileMe provides. The second reason is that Google does not charge for this service. Gmail, Gmail Contacts, and Google Calendar can now sync with cell phones and computers. Amazingly, Google calls this service Google Sync.
The process you have to go through to switch email providers is never super simple, but Google does a good job of making the transition as painless as possible. They may not do things as slick as Apple does, but I am finding it fairly easy to do. They provide ways to send your contact list and all your email to them, so you don’t have to go through hoops to get that done. You then need to setup Gmail on your computer and/or phone so that you can retrive all your info. Again, Google provides easy to follow instructions on how to do this. The last step is to let everyone know what your new email address is. I would give plenty of time before shutting off your old email services so that the stragglers get used to sending you mail to the correct address.
I will go more in-depth with this process once I have used it for awhile so that I may give it a proper review. Stay tuned for further updates.
The Conficker Worm has made lots of headlines lately about how it has the potential of causing a great deal of mischief because so many computers are infected with this virus. Many people are worried that they can’t tell if their computers are infected with it or if they are safe.
Luckily, there is an easy way to tell if your computer has the Conficker worm. Simply go to the Conficker Worm Eyechart page and you will instantly know the answer. The website is safe and simple.
The Conficker worm blocks computers from going to certain sites, so the Conficker Eyechart page attempts to load images from those sites. You are Conficker free if you see all six images at the top of the page. If some of the images are missing, then you need to take action immediately. Taking action means making sure your anti-virus software is up to date. Once upated, have your anti-virus software run a full system scan on your computer. If it does not find anything, then you’ll need to consider other Conficker removal options. The Microsoft Windows Malicious Software Removal Tool would be your best option.
If you own a Mac (like yours truly!) then you do not need to concern yourself with this virus.
There are many ways to protect your computer. You can use anti-virus, anti-spyware, and firewall software, but have you ever considered power protection? It is one of the most over looked areas of a computer setup. The video below will talk about power protection for your computer and what you can do about it. As with all upcoming content on this site, it will be explained in an easy to understand way that bypasses all the geeky terms and specifications and gets to the point as to why you should or should not use something.
