supertechsnews.com / PCMech / Published News http://supertechnews.com Technology news and reviews about gadgets, games, digital cameras and everything in between! Fri, 10 Sep 2010 03:23:10 -0500 en <![CDATA[Cool Tech Gadget: The Alarm Clock You Have To Chase]]> http://supertechnews.com/desktops/cool-tech-gadget-the-alarm-clock-you-have-to-chase/ http://supertechnews.com/desktops/cool-tech-gadget-the-alarm-clock-you-have-to-chase/ Fri, 10 Sep 2010 03:23:10 -0500 PCMech Desktops http://supertechnews.com/desktops/cool-tech-gadget-the-alarm-clock-you-have-to-chase/ If you have trouble waking up in the morning and have tried everything from a computer music to cell phone alarm, a gadget you might be interested in is href="http://www.nandahome.com/products/clocky/index.php?color=almond">Clocky.

Clocky runs away and hides if you don’t get ott of bed. When the alarm sounds, Clocky will wait for you to get up. But if you snooze, Clocky will jump off of your nightstand (from 3 feet), and run around your room

Basically, this device forces you to get up and do something which requires you to use your reflexes (which will most likely wake you up).

This is a pretty nifty idea and would make a great gift for the ultra sound/stubborn sleeper.

Post from: href="http://www.pcmech.com">PCMech. Helping Normal People Get Their Geek On And Live The Digital Lifestyle.href="http://www.pcmech.com/article/cool-tech-gadget-the-alarm-clock-you-have-to-chase/">Cool Tech Gadget: The Alarm Clock You Have To Chase





11 Vote(s) ]]> <![CDATA[Google Instant – Google Gets Psychic]]> http://supertechnews.com/desktops/google-instant-/ http://supertechnews.com/desktops/google-instant-/ Thu, 09 Sep 2010 03:23:29 -0500 PCMech Desktops http://supertechnews.com/desktops/google-instant-/ Google made a pretty significant announcement today: href="http://googleblog.blogspot.com/2010/09/search-now-faster-than-speed-of-type.html">Google Instant.

In a nutshell, it is instant search results. As you type into the seach box, it will begin pre-populating search results. It will also predict (as close as it can) what you may be trying to search for and give it to you.

A few bullet points:

  • It is rolling out starting today in the U.S. It will be rolling out to other countries over the coming weeks.
  • It only works if you’re logged into your Google account.
  • There is an option right next to the search box to turn it off if you think it is annoying.
  • It only works on the web at this point. Having it work from browser-started searches is in the making. “in the next few months”, they say. Mobile browsers will be supported soon, too.
  • You’re going to need a modern browser to make it work. Firefox, Chrome, IE and Safari.
  • They’ve built in censors so that Instant doesn’t pop up questionable stuff without consent. You’ll have to hit the Enter key to get that, like usual.

The timing of this announcement is rather ironic for me. Just days ago, Rich and I were having a private chat about this. My prediction at the time was that this wouldn’t see the light of day for some time. I thought that people would find it annoying and I thought the extra load on Google’s systems would be too much. At the least, I told Rich it wouldn’t come out without an option to turn it off. At least I was right about that one. src='http://pcmech.pcmediainc.netdna-cdn.com/wp-includes/images/smilies/icon_smile.gif' alt=':)' class='wp-smiley' />

In terms of load issues, Google actually addressed this in their announcement. They found a lot of ways to minimize the load and make it doable on a widespread basis.

My Take On Google Instant

I checked it out. It is handy, I must say.

In most day-to-say searches, I think it doesn’t add a whole lot to the experience. If you know what you’re searching for, then you’ll end up just typing it. Where Instant comes in handy is when you’re trying to find something that you can’t put into words on your own. It does a pretty handy job at it, too.

For example, start typing something into the box. The results will begin coming. If you don’t know exactly what you’re looking for, you can use the arrow keys to go up and down in the Suggested searches. As you do it, the search results refresh.

In terms of people freaking out that this will change things like search engine optimization, it won’t. It only impacts the speed of results, but the rankings and the way that works remain the same.

All in all, I think Instant is a worthy addition – especially since they’ve provided an easy way to turn it off for people who don’t prefer it. Google claims it will href="http://techcrunch.com/2010/09/08/instant-time/">save about 350 million user hours per year. The number is unprovable, really, but hey – you never know.

Will this work out for Google? The jury is out. It sounds like they put some real testing into it. Since search is their #1 bread-winner, they wouldn’t mess with it just for the sake of giving it a try (think Google Wave). You would think they’d be a lot more careful about it. The feedback I’ve seen on Twitter as the announcement unfolded was almost uniformly positive.

Basically, it comes down to this…

Google did it. I think a lot of people will dig it. But, a site as popular as google.com can’t change something without pissing people off. The typical haters who like to bash anything new will frown upon it, but that’s about as predictive as gravity. In the end, they can just turn it off. Besides, you need to be logged into a Google account to see it anyway. In the end, this will stay (at least I think so). The one thing that may possibly happen is to make it default to NO instead of YES on whether to use instant results. We shall see.

Post from: href="http://www.pcmech.com">PCMech. Helping Normal People Get Their Geek On And Live The Digital Lifestyle.href="http://www.pcmech.com/article/google-instant-google-gets-psychic/">Google Instant – Google Gets Psychic





5 Vote(s) ]]> <![CDATA[How To Give An Old Laptop That Shower-Fresh Feeling]]> http://supertechnews.com/desktops/how-to-give-an-old-laptop-that-shower-fresh-feeling/ http://supertechnews.com/desktops/how-to-give-an-old-laptop-that-shower-fresh-feeling/ Tue, 07 Sep 2010 03:24:01 -0500 PCMech Desktops http://supertechnews.com/desktops/how-to-give-an-old-laptop-that-shower-fresh-feeling/ class="alignright size-full wp-image-12073" title="refurbished-hp-laptop-computers-300x300" src="http://pcmech.pcmediainc.netdna-cdn.com/wp-content/uploads/2010/06/refurbished-hp-laptop-computers-300x300.jpg" alt="" width="300" height="300" />So, my wife was using her laptop one day to look up a word. She Googled the word and was taken to a dictionary site of some kind. Up pops a warning message saying her computer was infected and that she needed to run some scan or something. Not knowing that she was about to be taken by a classic "bait-and-switch" scam, she clicked it.

Laptop = infested with spyware. Held hostage by this thing such that everything I tried to run was intercepted.

NOTE: If a website triggers an ad about an infection on your computer, IT IS A FAKE. It is an ad which they design to look like a Windows application, but it isn't. Do not click on it. Ever.

So, I was faced with fixing this laptop. It was an href="http://www.pcmech.com/article/hp-pavilion-dv6000-notebook-review/">HP DV6000. It was running Windows Vista (I know, I know) and now it was completed screwed up (beyond the "screwiness" that comes with Vista normally). This computer was already junked through 3 years of use with little to no maintenance. My wife never defrags or does much of anything. Lots of "gunk" on this laptop.

So, I decided to start over. Here's what I did:

  1. Boot the laptop into safe mode and back up all the data. Now, if you don't have anything wrong with the computer, safe mode isn't necessary. But, this laptop was pretty messed up with spyware, so I got around that by booting into safe mode. I then plugged an external hard drive into the USB port and copied all of my wife's files to it. To boot into safe mode, just reboot the machine and start smacking the F8 button over and over again. Eventually, it'll give you a menu with the option to boot into safe mode.
  2. Reinstall Windows. This laptop, like many of them on the market today, puts the backup of Windows onto a recovery partition. So, there was a "D" drive on this laptop which held the raw install files to reinstall Windows. To trigger the recovery mode, I again rebooted the laptop and, this time, started smacking the F11 button over and over again until it entered recovery mode. Go through the little wizard and put the machine on its merry way formatting "C" and reinstalling Windows./> NOTE: If your computer came with a recovery CD (or DVD), then you'll just boot your computer with that disc in the drive.
  3. Update Windows. So, I go into the newly installed Windows Vista. At this point, the laptop literally looks like I just bought it - 3 years ago. Microsoft has issued a lot of fixes and updates to Vista to try to make it suck less. So, first thing to do is run Windows Update and install everything. It'll take some time, but you've gotta do it.
  4. Decrapify. New Windows computers often come loaded with crap. Trial versions of Office, stupid bookmarks all over the desktop, AOL software - you name it. Just crap, crap, crap. So, go grab a copy of href="http://www.pcdecrapifier.com/">PC Decrapifier. It is a free utility and it works very well. When you run it, have it create a restore point for you (it'll ask, and you just say yes). Next, it will give you a list of the crap on your computer and you check off the ones you want to get rid of. What it will do is trigger the built-in uninstall routines of all these different programs, so you'll have to run all of them separately. When you're done, however, Windows will look quite nice and crap-free.
  5. Install your core apps. Simply re-install the apps that you use often. Since my wife pretty much does everything online, I installed href="http://www.google.com/chrome">Chrome for her (because Firefox is the new bloatware), href="http://picasa.google.com">Picasa (she loves doing pictures), and the href="http://explore.live.com/windows-live-essentials">Windows Live Essentials suite.
  6. Reinstall your backed up data. Time to put your backed up data back onto the newly fresh laptop. In my case, since I had backed up all that data from a rather fudged up system, I went ahead and installed href="http://free.avg.com/us-en/homepage">AVG Free to the laptop and then ran a scan of all the backed up data on the external drive. I wanted to make I wasn't bringing extra payload (i.e. viruses) with the data. It came out free and clear so I simply copied all the data back to the laptop.
  7. Drive Image Backup. This whole procedure took me a LOT of time. Mostly waiting for the laptop to do it's thing, but still, a lot of time. Knowing full well that it could happen again, I want to save me some hassle. So, I used the free href="http://www.runtime.org/driveimage-xml.htm">DriveImage XML utility to create a full backup image of the drive in its current state. If I ever need to re-do the whole thing, I can avoid doing the full re-install and re-update process and instead just restore the image.

My wife now says it is like using a brand new laptop. Score!

Post from: href="http://www.pcmech.com">PCMech. Helping Normal People Get Their Geek On And Live The Digital Lifestyle.href="http://www.pcmech.com/article/laptop-start-over/">How To Give An Old Laptop That Shower-Fresh Feeling





7 Vote(s) ]]> <![CDATA[How To Give An Old Laptop That Shower-Fresh Feeling]]> http://supertechnews.com/desktops/how-to-give-an-old-laptop-that-shower-fresh-feeling/ http://supertechnews.com/desktops/how-to-give-an-old-laptop-that-shower-fresh-feeling/ Tue, 07 Sep 2010 03:24:01 -0500 PCMech Desktops http://supertechnews.com/desktops/how-to-give-an-old-laptop-that-shower-fresh-feeling/ class="alignright size-full wp-image-12073" title="refurbished-hp-laptop-computers-300x300" src="http://pcmech.pcmediainc.netdna-cdn.com/wp-content/uploads/2010/06/refurbished-hp-laptop-computers-300x300.jpg" alt="" width="300" height="300" />So, my wife was using her laptop one day to look up a word. She Googled the word and was taken to a dictionary site of some kind. Up pops a warning message saying her computer was infected and that she needed to run some scan or something. Not knowing that she was about to be taken by a classic "bait-and-switch" scam, she clicked it.

Laptop = infested with spyware. Held hostage by this thing such that everything I tried to run was intercepted.

NOTE: If a website triggers an ad about an infection on your computer, IT IS A FAKE. It is an ad which they design to look like a Windows application, but it isn't. Do not click on it. Ever.

So, I was faced with fixing this laptop. It was an href="http://www.pcmech.com/article/hp-pavilion-dv6000-notebook-review/">HP DV6000. It was running Windows Vista (I know, I know) and now it was completed screwed up (beyond the "screwiness" that comes with Vista normally). This computer was already junked through 3 years of use with little to no maintenance. My wife never defrags or does much of anything. Lots of "gunk" on this laptop.

So, I decided to start over. Here's what I did:

  1. Boot the laptop into safe mode and back up all the data. Now, if you don't have anything wrong with the computer, safe mode isn't necessary. But, this laptop was pretty messed up with spyware, so I got around that by booting into safe mode. I then plugged an external hard drive into the USB port and copied all of my wife's files to it. To boot into safe mode, just reboot the machine and start smacking the F8 button over and over again. Eventually, it'll give you a menu with the option to boot into safe mode.
  2. Reinstall Windows. This laptop, like many of them on the market today, puts the backup of Windows onto a recovery partition. So, there was a "D" drive on this laptop which held the raw install files to reinstall Windows. To trigger the recovery mode, I again rebooted the laptop and, this time, started smacking the F11 button over and over again until it entered recovery mode. Go through the little wizard and put the machine on its merry way formatting "C" and reinstalling Windows./> NOTE: If your computer came with a recovery CD (or DVD), then you'll just boot your computer with that disc in the drive.
  3. Update Windows. So, I go into the newly installed Windows Vista. At this point, the laptop literally looks like I just bought it - 3 years ago. Microsoft has issued a lot of fixes and updates to Vista to try to make it suck less. So, first thing to do is run Windows Update and install everything. It'll take some time, but you've gotta do it.
  4. Decrapify. New Windows computers often come loaded with crap. Trial versions of Office, stupid bookmarks all over the desktop, AOL software - you name it. Just crap, crap, crap. So, go grab a copy of href="http://www.pcdecrapifier.com/">PC Decrapifier. It is a free utility and it works very well. When you run it, have it create a restore point for you (it'll ask, and you just say yes). Next, it will give you a list of the crap on your computer and you check off the ones you want to get rid of. What it will do is trigger the built-in uninstall routines of all these different programs, so you'll have to run all of them separately. When you're done, however, Windows will look quite nice and crap-free.
  5. Install your core apps. Simply re-install the apps that you use often. Since my wife pretty much does everything online, I installed href="http://www.google.com/chrome">Chrome for her (because Firefox is the new bloatware), href="http://picasa.google.com">Picasa (she loves doing pictures), and the href="http://explore.live.com/windows-live-essentials">Windows Live Essentials suite.
  6. Reinstall your backed up data. Time to put your backed up data back onto the newly fresh laptop. In my case, since I had backed up all that data from a rather fudged up system, I went ahead and installed href="http://free.avg.com/us-en/homepage">AVG Free to the laptop and then ran a scan of all the backed up data on the external drive. I wanted to make I wasn't bringing extra payload (i.e. viruses) with the data. It came out free and clear so I simply copied all the data back to the laptop.
  7. Drive Image Backup. This whole procedure took me a LOT of time. Mostly waiting for the laptop to do it's thing, but still, a lot of time. Knowing full well that it could happen again, I want to save me some hassle. So, I used the free href="http://www.runtime.org/driveimage-xml.htm">DriveImage XML utility to create a full backup image of the drive in its current state. If I ever need to re-do the whole thing, I can avoid doing the full re-install and re-update process and instead just restore the image.

My wife now says it is like using a brand new laptop. Score!

Post from: href="http://www.pcmech.com">PCMech. Helping Normal People Get Their Geek On And Live The Digital Lifestyle.href="http://www.pcmech.com/article/laptop-start-over/">How To Give An Old Laptop That Shower-Fresh Feeling





15 Vote(s) ]]> <![CDATA[How To Properly Coil Your MacBook Pro’s Power Cable]]> http://supertechnews.com/desktops/how-to-properly-coil-your-macbook-pro’s-power-cable/ http://supertechnews.com/desktops/how-to-properly-coil-your-macbook-pro’s-power-cable/ Mon, 06 Sep 2010 03:20:22 -0500 PCMech Desktops http://supertechnews.com/desktops/how-to-properly-coil-your-macbook-pro’s-power-cable/ For all of you MacBook Pro users out there, you may notice after a while of winding/unwinding your power cable that the junction where the cable attaches to the brick becomes flimsy or even starts to strip. My wife has a MacBook Pro and after about 8 months of use you can see the effects of this starting. To help prevent this, href="http://www.tested.com/how-to-properly-coil-a-macbook-power-cord/47-105/">learn to properly coil this cable.

This is very good information to follow because the replacement units are proprietary and not cheap (href="http://store.apple.com/us/product/MC556LL/A?mco=MTY3ODQ5OTY">$79 at the time of this writing). Reading the reviews on the Apple site for these adapters seem to indicate this is a very common problem which may explain why the product has a 2.5/5 rating.

So take care of your MacBook Pro’s power adapter by properly coiling it and you should get a nice long life out of it.

Post from: href="http://www.pcmech.com">PCMech. Helping Normal People Get Their Geek On And Live The Digital Lifestyle.href="http://www.pcmech.com/article/how-to-properly-coil-your-macbook-pros-power-cable/">How To Properly Coil Your MacBook Pro’s Power Cable





11 Vote(s) ]]> <![CDATA[Did You Know? DTV Receivers Built Into Most New TVs]]> http://supertechnews.com/desktops/did-you-know-dtv-receivers-built-into-most-new-tvs/ http://supertechnews.com/desktops/did-you-know-dtv-receivers-built-into-most-new-tvs/ Sun, 05 Sep 2010 03:24:20 -0500 PCMech Desktops http://supertechnews.com/desktops/did-you-know-dtv-receivers-built-into-most-new-tvs/ The standardization (as in when the FCC officially said “no more analog TV as of now”) of DTV happened in June 2009, meaning DTV is just shy of 15 months old at this point in the USA. When the standardization first came into effect, only the higher-priced televisions had built-in DTV receivers, so if you wanted over-the-air television for a lower-priced set, you had to buy a DTV receiver box.

It took television manufacturers a while to catch up with DTV, but the fortunate case is that now most if not all of them have built-in DTV receivers. Actually, it would be better to describe it as a hybrid solution. The DTV receiver is used in concert with RF (analog) channel detection when you run an auto-scan. RF will be scanned first, then digital. It’s good they did it this way because the TV manufacturers could have just as easily made RF and digital over-the-air channels on separate menus, but fortunately didn’t.

“I have cable/satellite. Why should I care about DTV?”

Being that a DTV receiving is being put into just about every new TV now, college kids short on cash (which is very common) will appreciate they can watch free television as an option, and that it’s a built-in feature to the set, provided you get a set of rabbit ears.

If you have a garage or shed that you want to put a television in but you can’t string a cable connection to it, DTV allows you to at least show something besides DVDs. Again, rabbit ears or external antenna is required.

DTV always works when your cable or satellite goes out, so it’s nice to have as a “backup” of sorts for television viewing.

Post from: href="http://www.pcmech.com">PCMech. Helping Normal People Get Their Geek On And Live The Digital Lifestyle.href="http://www.pcmech.com/article/did-you-know-dtv-receivers-built-into-most-new-tvs/">Did You Know? DTV Receivers Built Into Most New TVs





6 Vote(s) ]]> <![CDATA[Measure Your Hard Drive Data Rates With HD Speed]]> http://supertechnews.com/desktops/measure-your-hard-drive-data-rates-with-hd-speed/ http://supertechnews.com/desktops/measure-your-hard-drive-data-rates-with-hd-speed/ Sun, 05 Sep 2010 03:24:19 -0500 PCMech Desktops http://supertechnews.com/desktops/measure-your-hard-drive-data-rates-with-hd-speed/ If you ever read the throughput numbers on your hard drive, you probably know that most SATA drives claim a data rate of (typically) at least 150MB/s. Of course these numbers are simply theoretical maximum transfer rates which you will never realize. So to help analyze your actual data rates your hard drive is giving you, check the free href="http://www.steelbytes.com/?mid=20">HD Speed utility:

Measures both sustained and burst data transfer rates of your hard disks, cd/dvd-roms, flash cards/sticks, floppys, etc. Realtime graphical display.

While the name has HD in it, you can see that this utility will measure the values from just about any removable device. While this really isn’t a benchmark type of utility, if you are looking to compare two different hard drives or flash drives then this utility can be a good way to get some real world data.

Post from: href="http://www.pcmech.com">PCMech. Helping Normal People Get Their Geek On And Live The Digital Lifestyle.href="http://www.pcmech.com/article/measure-your-hard-drive-data-rates-with-hd-speed/">Measure Your Hard Drive Data Rates With HD Speed





15 Vote(s) ]]> <![CDATA[TinEye Makes Reverse Image Search a Reality]]> http://supertechnews.com/desktops/tineye-makes-reverse-image-search-a-reality/ http://supertechnews.com/desktops/tineye-makes-reverse-image-search-a-reality/ Fri, 03 Sep 2010 03:24:18 -0500 PCMech Desktops http://supertechnews.com/desktops/tineye-makes-reverse-image-search-a-reality/ href="http://www.tineye.com/">TinEye is one of those things that gives you a, “Whoa.. this is the future” moment. In movies you’ve seen technology before where someone just takes a photo, scans it into a computer and it magically knows where the photo was taken. This is exactly what TinEye does.

The best example I can give of this is that someone on Reddit href="http://www.reddit.com/r/pics/comments/d7puj/help_me_find_this_place_reddit_id_like_to_make_it/">recently asked, “Hey, this is a cool place – where is it?” Someone responded, found out it was a Scottish castle and said they used TinEye to find it.

Seriously, how cool is that?

What makes TinEye very different from a regular search is that no keywords are used or anything like that in the way TinEye works. Upload a photo, wait a few seconds and see if TinEye comes up with anything. Chances are it will. TinEye has had contributions from major photo web sites such as Getty Images, iStockPhoto and several others, so the search will be extensive.

I can definitely see one of the major web companies (Google, Microsoft, Yahoo!, etc.) acquiring this tech in the future. Although I’m not one to usually make predictions, “Reverse Image Search”, as TinEye calls it, is definitely something that’s going to become a standard image search feature of the future.

Post from: href="http://www.pcmech.com">PCMech. Helping Normal People Get Their Geek On And Live The Digital Lifestyle.href="http://www.pcmech.com/article/tineye-makes-reverse-image-search-a-reality/">TinEye Makes Reverse Image Search a Reality





13 Vote(s) ]]> <![CDATA[How To Extract Individual Images From Installed Windows 7 Themes]]> http://supertechnews.com/desktops/how-to-extract-individual-images-from-installed-windows-7-themes/ http://supertechnews.com/desktops/how-to-extract-individual-images-from-installed-windows-7-themes/ Thu, 02 Sep 2010 03:22:26 -0500 PCMech Desktops http://supertechnews.com/desktops/how-to-extract-individual-images-from-installed-windows-7-themes/ Some of the themes created for Windows 7 are pretty impressive (I am currently sporting the href="http://windows.microsoft.com/en-us/windows/downloads/nasa-spacescapes">NASA spacescapes for those interested). However, if you don’t want a slide-show of images which typically come with a theme, rather just a single image in the theme you can easily “extract” it.

Once a theme is installed on your system, simply open Windows Explorer to: “C:Users[your_user_name]AppDataLocalMicrosoftWindowsThemes[theme_name]” and from here you can navigate to the folder containing the pictures and copy the image(s) you want. From here the process of setting it to your background is simple enough.

For those so inclined, you can open the respective ‘.theme’ file in Notepad and see the full information regarding the theme (cursors and sounds used, etc.) so you if you want to “extract” additional resources, this will point you to where these files are located.

Post from: href="http://www.pcmech.com">PCMech. Helping Normal People Get Their Geek On And Live The Digital Lifestyle.href="http://www.pcmech.com/article/how-to-extract-individual-images-from-installed-windows-7-themes/">How To Extract Individual Images From Installed Windows 7 Themes





11 Vote(s) ]]> <![CDATA[Highlights From Apple’s Live Event – Apple TV, New Ipods, Itunes 10]]> http://supertechnews.com/desktops/highlights-from-apple’s-live-event-/ http://supertechnews.com/desktops/highlights-from-apple’s-live-event-/ Thu, 02 Sep 2010 03:22:20 -0500 PCMech Desktops http://supertechnews.com/desktops/highlights-from-apple’s-live-event-/ Apple held their traditional September “Stevenote” this afternoon.

In the “something different” department, Apple decided to live-stream the event online. In a suprising move, you had to be tuning in using an Apple device to see the live stream. Windows users were SOL unless they found some kind of geeky workaround. The theory was that this was a move to test out Apple’s HUGE new data center in North Carolina.

Being that I am a Mac user, I was able to tune in. And here are the details, noted on the fly as the event was going…

  • It begins with Steve showing some of Apple’s newest stores in areas around the world. He then goes right into iOS.
  • 120 million iOS devices shipped so far. Includes Ipod Touch, Iphones and Ipads. About 230,000 iOS devices activated per day.
  • 6.5 billion apps downloaded from the App Store. 250K apps in the store. 25K of them are Ipad.
  • iOS 4.1 released. Fixes a bunch of bugs.
    • High Dynamic Range photos. Automatic combines photos of different exposure levels to create a composite photo which is much better in terms of exposure. Really impressive stuff, actually.
    • HD video upload over wifi.
    • TV shows rentals.
    • Game Center debut. Basically creating a social network of gamers. Play people remotely. Will auto-match you with other players if you don’t pick people directly.
  • Sneak peak at iOS 4.2. For the Ipad. Brings all the iOS 4.x stuff to Ipad (finally). Coming later this year.
    • Wireless printing.
    • AirPlay. AirTunes changing name. Be able to stream music and video over wifi.
    • Release in November. Free update.
  • They’ve sold 275 million Ipods. Wow.
  • All new Ipod designs for all models.
    • iPod Shuffle. The buttons come back. Smaller, but has voiceover, buttons and playlists. More square looking now. Very small. 15 hours of music. Availability in 5 colors. Sells for $49.
    • iPod Nano. Has multi-touch. Looks kinda like iOS (it probably is iOS). Very small. Pretty much all screen. Steve calls it cute. $149 for 8GB, $179 16GB.
    • iPod Touch. The most popular model of iPod. #1 portable game player in the world. Outsells Nintendo and Sony players combined.
      • Thinner design. Retina display. Apple A4 processor (same as Iphone 4). iOS 4.1. Front-facing camera and Facetime. Rear camera with HD video recording. 40 hours of music playback. 8GB for $229. 32GB for $299. 64GB for $399.
    • All devices shipping next week.
  • He shows some of Apple’s new TV ads. Very well produced as usual. Apple has always excelled when it comes to marketing.
  • He extols the virtues of iTunes. #1 online media store in the world.
  • iTunes 10.
    • Looks better. In his opinion, anyway.
    • New iTunes logo and icon. Most reactions in real-time on Twitter were negative.
    • Ping. A social network about music. Find out what your friends are downloading and listening to. Kinda reminds me of Last.FM. Twitter mixed with music, in a way. If Myspace wasn’t dead already, it is now. Myspace was clinging to life with the musicians. Apple just killed it.
    • Ping also available on the iOS devices.
  • One More Thing… Apple TV.
    • Never been a huge hit. In fact, nothing like it has really taken off in the market.
    • People want Hollywood movies and TV shows… not amateur hour (hello Youtube!)
    • People don’t want another computer. They want entertainment. They don’t want to manage storage. They don’t want to have to sync to a computer. Needs to be silent, cool and small.
    • New one is 25% the size of the old one. Very small. Very impressive.
    • No power brick. One HDMI connector. Ethernet port. Built in wifi.
    • All rentals, no purchase. Interesting. No storage because you’re just renting everything.
    • $4.99 HD movie rental. First run movies.
    • $0.99 HD TV show rental. ABC and Fox shows. I’m assuming more are coming.
    • Netflix streaming. Youtube streaming. Flickr photos. MobileMe stuff. Stream from your computer.
    • AirPlay to stream content from any iOS device to the iTV.
    • $99 for the new Apple TV.

No huge suprises, but a steady progression for the world of Apple.

I’m disappointed that the Apple TV is as stripped down as it is. Apple’s view is simplicity without the hassles of typical computing devices. I can understand that. However, I think there was a lot of room for iOS and the App Store on the Apple TV. In my view, they dropped the ball not to do that. Lots of things they can do with Apple TV. And they didn’t.

Will people want to pay Apple to watch every show on the Apple TV? Speaking from my viewpoint – no. Might as well use Pay Pay View on your cable box.

So, there you have it.

Post from: href="http://www.pcmech.com">PCMech. Helping Normal People Get Their Geek On And Live The Digital Lifestyle.href="http://www.pcmech.com/article/apple-event-wrapup-sep10/">Highlights From Apple’s Live Event – Apple TV, New Ipods, Itunes 10





8 Vote(s) ]]> <![CDATA[Bye Bye ATI]]> http://supertechnews.com/desktops/bye-bye-ati/ http://supertechnews.com/desktops/bye-bye-ati/ Wed, 01 Sep 2010 03:25:25 -0500 PCMech Desktops http://supertechnews.com/desktops/bye-bye-ati/ The ATI brand name href="http://techreport.com/discussions.x/19547">is no more. Gone. See ya. Buh-bye. It’s been replaced with Radeon and FirePro. This is one of those instances where the company who owns the brand (AMD) thinks changing the name is a good idea.

For those of you who build PCs and favor the ATI brand, future purchases will require you to know that the name ATI will soon no longer exist for new stuff. You’ll either have to search by a generic AMD term, or the Radeon or FirePro brand names. Radeon is the one you’ll most likely remember.

It should be noted that although new products from AMD will be introduced under the new brand names, existing products will still be available (such as Radeon HD 5000) – but ATI won’t be anywhere on it. Same product, no ATI branding. In addition you’ll see other instances where instead of “ATI [product]” you’ll see “AMD [product]” during the transition while AMD phases out ATI completely.

The general attitude concerning the name change is that most PC builders don’t care what AMD changes the ATI name to as long as they know what to call it by so they can find it in a store or online.

Remember, only the ATI brand name is going away and not the products themselves; that’s all you need to know for formerly-known-as-ATI products.

Post from: href="http://www.pcmech.com">PCMech. Helping Normal People Get Their Geek On And Live The Digital Lifestyle.href="http://www.pcmech.com/article/bye-bye-ati/">Bye Bye ATI





6 Vote(s) ]]> <![CDATA[How To Sync Your Mac With Google]]> http://supertechnews.com/desktops/how-to-sync-your-mac-with-google/ http://supertechnews.com/desktops/how-to-sync-your-mac-with-google/ Tue, 31 Aug 2010 03:21:06 -0500 PCMech Desktops http://supertechnews.com/desktops/how-to-sync-your-mac-with-google/ This is a guest post from the guys over at TestFreaks.com.

So, you have a shiny new, or somewhat new, href="http://www.testfreaks.com/laptops/apple-macbook-pro-13/">MacBook Pro, and you like to use Google Calendar. But instead of whipping out your browser every time, did you know that you can easily set up your Mac to sync with Google natively? Believe it or not, there are no additional programs or scripts needed to make it happen – everything is already built in to the Mac and Google.

In fact, we have used a Mac to sync with both multiple Google calendars and the Google address book for awhile now, and in our opinion it works better than other combinations, including href="http://www.apple.com/mobileme/">MobileMe. That’s just our opinion, but you can try it for yourself. Let us show you how, if you haven’t done so already.

iCal and Google Calendar

Setting up iCal to sync with one or many Google Calendars is very simple to do.

  • Simply start up iCal.
  • Then go to the Preferences tab.
  • From there, click on the Accounts tab for a listing of the current accounts iCal is being synced with.
  • Click the “+” button at the bottom left of the dialog, and you will be presented with the “Add an Account” dialog (see image below).
  • Click where it says “Account Type” and select “Google”.

class="aligncenter size-full wp-image-12025" title="Click Where It Says "Google"" src="http://pcmech.pcmediainc.netdna-cdn.com/wp-content/uploads/2010/08/MG_iCal1.jpg" alt="Click Where It Says "Google"" width="411" height="352" />

  • Once you have selected “Google”, fill in the email address and password for the desired Google Calendar account you wish to sync with.
  • Then click “Create” and iCal verifies with the Google server, then adds the account with your primary calendar added to iCal.

But what if you are like a lot of people and have multiple Google calendars that you want to sync with? Well, that is simple.

  • Go back to Preferences for iCal, and click on the Accounts tab.
  • Now select “Delegation”, and you will find all of your Google calendars listed for selection, along with a listing of what privileges you have for each (see image below).
  • Select the ones you want, and the additional calendars will appear in iCal under the appropriate heading.

class="aligncenter size-full wp-image-12026" title="Select Additional Calendars" src="http://pcmech.pcmediainc.netdna-cdn.com/wp-content/uploads/2010/08/MG_iCal2.jpg" alt="Select Additional Calendars" width="450" height="406" />

Just be sure that the calendars you want to sync with on a two-way basis are marked “Read & Write” – this is set in Google Calendars itself, and some shared calendars may be read only for your account. Once the accounts are added, you can adjust how they are synced to Google by going back to Preferences/Account. From there you can select a period from the dropdown provided (below, highlighted in red).

class="aligncenter size-full wp-image-12027" title="Select a Period From the Dropdown Provided" src="http://pcmech.pcmediainc.netdna-cdn.com/wp-content/uploads/2010/08/MG_iCal3.jpg" alt="Select a Period from the Dropdown Provided" width="450" height="406" />

After this is done you should find that your Mac and Google Calendar are now synced up, and any changes from either iCal or Google Calendar directly should show up on both. This lets you access your calendar from several locations, such as your MacBook’s iCal, a desktop Mac’s iCal, a Windows machine with Outlook syncing with Google Calendar, a browser on any other machine going to Google Calendar, and your iPhone and/or iPad (if set up to work with Google Calendar). Keeping your calendar up to date was never easier!

Address Book And Google Gmail

If you like using your native Mac iCal app with Google calendar, then you might find that syncing your Mac’s Address Book with the Gmail contacts is really nice as well. You can keep things organized on your Mac, with the contacts handy in your programs, and you can access or modify them directly on the road with Gmail. And, as you may have guessed, doing this is quite simple.

  • First, fire up your Address Book and go to Preferences.
  • Click on the Accounts tab, and you will find a checkbox for syncing with Google.
  • Click the appropriate checkbox, and hit the “Configure” button (highlighted in red below).

class="aligncenter size-full wp-image-12028" title="Hit the "Configure" Button" src="http://pcmech.pcmediainc.netdna-cdn.com/wp-content/uploads/2010/08/MG_AB1.jpg" alt="Hit the "Configure" Button" width="449" height="235" />

  • When you click on the “Configure” button, you will be presented with a dialog to enter your credentials (below).
  • Enter your account and password, and click OK.

class="aligncenter size-full wp-image-12029" title="Enter Your Account Info and Password" src="http://pcmech.pcmediainc.netdna-cdn.com/wp-content/uploads/2010/08/MG_AB2.jpg" alt="Enter Your Account Info and Password" width="449" height="225" />

Close the Preferences dialog, and you should be good to go. But how do you manually force Address Book to sync? After all, there is no “sync” button on the app.

Well, actually there is a button, and by default it is right on your top menu (see image below). When you want to force Address Book to sync with Google, just hit this button and you are good to go.

class="aligncenter size-full wp-image-12030" title="Sync Button" src="http://pcmech.pcmediainc.netdna-cdn.com/wp-content/uploads/2010/08/SyncButton.jpg" alt="Sync Button" width="415" height="140" />

As you can see, setting up a Mac to sync with Google is quite simple, and the components are already built into Snow Leopard. All you have to do is tell iCal and Address Book that you want to sync, give it your account information, and you are practically there. And once you have the syncing in place, you will wonder how you ever made it without it, especially if you use different machines and devices. At least that is what we have discovered.

About the author: href="http://www.testfreaks.com">TestFreaks.com is a website that provides people with quality product reviews.

Post from: href="http://www.pcmech.com">PCMech. Helping Normal People Get Their Geek On And Live The Digital Lifestyle.href="http://www.pcmech.com/article/sync-mac-google/">How To Sync Your Mac With Google





6 Vote(s) ]]> <![CDATA[Favicons Show The Web In An Amazing Image]]> http://supertechnews.com/desktops/favicons-show-the-web-in-an-amazing-image/ http://supertechnews.com/desktops/favicons-show-the-web-in-an-amazing-image/ Mon, 30 Aug 2010 03:24:25 -0500 PCMech Desktops http://supertechnews.com/desktops/favicons-show-the-web-in-an-amazing-image/ style="margin: 0px 0px 16px 16px; float: right;" title="favicon_collage" src="http://pcmech.pcmediainc.netdna-cdn.com/wp-content/uploads/img/12b9d859f1d4_14B46/favicon_collage.png" border="0" alt="favicon_collage" width="258" height="258" />At right is a truly incredible image. What makes it incredible isn’t from a whole swath of favicon.ico files from web sites, but the fact that they are in order.

href="http://nmap.org">NMAP performed a huge scan of the top million web sites, and the image you see to the right was the result. The bigger the icon seen, the more the site was visited out of the million. You can see the entire image with better detail href="http://nmap.org/favicon/">here.

The really crazy part however is the actual size of the image, which is a whopping 37,440 x 37,440. And no, that’s not a typo; it really is that large.

Don’t worry, the link to the image won’t try to load that in your browser as it would crash it. What you’ll see is an interactive image where you can zoom in anywhere you wish. You can also input a direct query to see where a web site would be in the collage.

For the curious, yes, href="http://nmap.org/favicon/?q=pcmech.com">PCMech is in there!

A ”small” 2048×3072 version of the full image is available for download href="http://nmap.org/favicon/alexa-1.2-small.jpg">here for use as wallpaper.

Post from: href="http://www.pcmech.com">PCMech. Helping Normal People Get Their Geek On And Live The Digital Lifestyle.href="http://www.pcmech.com/article/favicons-show-the-web-in-an-amazing-image/">Favicons Show The Web In An Amazing Image





12 Vote(s) ]]> <![CDATA[How To Edit The Windows Live Writer Default Template]]> http://supertechnews.com/desktops/how-to-edit-the-windows-live-writer-default-template/ http://supertechnews.com/desktops/how-to-edit-the-windows-live-writer-default-template/ Sun, 29 Aug 2010 03:30:05 -0500 PCMech Desktops http://supertechnews.com/desktops/how-to-edit-the-windows-live-writer-default-template/ href="http://pcmech.pcmediainc.netdna-cdn.com/wp-content/uploads/2010/08/windows_live_writer.png">style="float: right; margin: 0px 0px 16px 16px;" title="windows_live_writer" src="http://pcmech.pcmediainc.netdna-cdn.com/wp-content/uploads/2010/08/windows_live_writer.png" alt="" width="256" height="256" />An article was written here on this a long time ago. This is the updated version.

Windows Live Writer is arguably the best blogging app on the planet, so much so that even Mac users consider it the best over any similar app available for the OS X platform. Yes, it’s that good.

One of the annoyances with WLW however is that the default template, in a word, sucks. Hyperlinks are an annoying green and the default font used (Trebuchet MS or Calibri) is annoying to many.

The way to change this is to manually edit the CSS file for the default template.

Location of the default template CSS file

Whether on Windows XP, Vista or 7, the location currently is always the same – even if the new 2011 version:

[Host Drive]:Program FilesWindows LiveWriterTemplate

The file defaultstyle.css is the one you want to edit.

Editing the default template

I find the easiest way to go about this is to simply rename the file to defaultstyle.css-old, create a new defaultstyle.css and have it contain the following:

body,blockquote,table,td,tr,ul,li,ol,p {/> font-family: sans-serif;/> font-size: 10pt;/> }

h3 {/> font-size: 12pt;/> }

.title {/> font-family: sans-serif;/> font-size: 14pt;/> }

This will give you a basic editing template using Arial, the default sans-serif font in Windows. You can obviously specify any font you wish, so if you wanted to change to Georgia or Verdana, go ahead.

To switch to the default template at any time, use the keystroke CTRL+F11. You may have to do it twice for it to take effect.

If you want an exact copy of your blog’s template within WLW, copy over your CSS rules from your blog to defaultstyle.css – however be aware you must use full URLs for any image links or linked CSS files.

It’s also important to note that you should backup the defaultstyle.css you make, because upon any upgrade to Windows Live Writer the installer will overwrite with the default ugly default template again.

Post from: href="http://www.pcmech.com">PCMech. Helping Normal People Get Their Geek On And Live The Digital Lifestyle.href="http://www.pcmech.com/article/how-to-edit-the-windows-live-writer-default-template/">How To Edit The Windows Live Writer Default Template





5 Vote(s) ]]> <![CDATA[Send Emails Through Gmail From The Command Line]]> http://supertechnews.com/desktops/send-emails-through-gmail-from-the-command-line/ http://supertechnews.com/desktops/send-emails-through-gmail-from-the-command-line/ Sun, 29 Aug 2010 03:30:00 -0500 PCMech Desktops http://supertechnews.com/desktops/send-emails-through-gmail-from-the-command-line/ A really nice feature of Gmail is that it allows you to send outgoing message through their servers with the sent messages showing up in your Gmail account. To leverage this functionality, one person has written a href="http://cybernetnews.com/vbscript-send-emails-using-gmail/">VB Script file which easily sends mail through Gmail using your account. This VB Script file can be invoked from the command line to accomplish a variety of tasks.

Here are a few uses I can think of off the top of my head:

  • Use a scheduled task to send you (or someone else) an email reminder (as an alternative to signing up for a service to do this).
  • Send email messages from inside of batch scripts.
  • Modify the script to hardcode the to, subject, message and attachment fields so you can send the configured message and attachment with a double-click or via the Run command.

Tools like this are incredibly useful as they do not require you to install anything and can be modified to use however you may need it.

Post from: href="http://www.pcmech.com">PCMech. Helping Normal People Get Their Geek On And Live The Digital Lifestyle.href="http://www.pcmech.com/article/send-emails-through-gmail-from-the-command-line/">Send Emails Through Gmail From The Command Line





15 Vote(s) ]]> <![CDATA[Use The Caret (^) To Escape Characters In The Command Prompt And Batch Files]]> http://supertechnews.com/desktops/use-the-caret-to-escape-characters-in-the-command-prompt-and-batch-files/ http://supertechnews.com/desktops/use-the-caret-to-escape-characters-in-the-command-prompt-and-batch-files/ Fri, 27 Aug 2010 03:22:02 -0500 PCMech Desktops http://supertechnews.com/desktops/use-the-caret-to-escape-characters-in-the-command-prompt-and-batch-files/ The Windows command prompt has several “reserved” characters it uses for special functions. These include the greater than (>) for sending output to a file, less than (<) for receiving input from a file and pipe (|) for sending output to ‘chained’ commands. Because of this, you cannot simply use them in commands without either putting them in quotes or escaping them using carat (^) symbol.

There are occasions when you may need to output these special characters and putting them in quotes is not an option. For example, consider generating HTML using this command:

ECHO The source computer name is <b>%ComputerName%</b>

If you run this from the command line, you will get an error because it processes the first ‘<’ symbol as a “receive input” command. Instead, escape it using the carat symbol:

ECHO The source computer name is ^<b^>%ComputerName%^</b^>

Which will properly generate the text:

The source computer name is <b>JASON</b>

You could then send this to a text file:

ECHOThe source computer name is ^<b^>%ComputerName%^</b^> >> webpage.html

While you may seldom have the need for this, it is a good tidbit to know if you do a lot of work from the command line and/or batch scripts.

Post from: href="http://www.pcmech.com">PCMech. Helping Normal People Get Their Geek On And Live The Digital Lifestyle.href="http://www.pcmech.com/article/use-the-carat-to-escape-characters-in-the-command-prompt-and-batch-files/">Use The Caret (^) To Escape Characters In The Command Prompt And Batch Files





13 Vote(s) ]]> <![CDATA[Google Owns Me, I Admit It]]> http://supertechnews.com/desktops/google-owns-me-i-admit-it/ http://supertechnews.com/desktops/google-owns-me-i-admit-it/ Fri, 27 Aug 2010 03:22:00 -0500 PCMech Desktops http://supertechnews.com/desktops/google-owns-me-i-admit-it/ class="alignright size-full wp-image-11920" title="google" src="http://pcmech.pcmediainc.netdna-cdn.com/wp-content/uploads/2010/08/google.jpg" alt="" width="300" height="300" />I have been a self-proclaimed “Google whore” for awhile now. I use it every day in more ways than one. In fact, if I step back from it and compare my usage of Google to my usage of the computer a few years ago, an argument could be made that Google is my new operating system. A cloud-based OS.

Let’s look at the Google apps that I use all the time:

  • Search (obviously)
  • Gmail
  • Google Calendar
  • Google Docs
  • Google Reader
  • Google Analytics
  • Google Webmaster Central
  • Google Adsense

Up until recently, that was it (said tounge-in-cheek). Then, I got an Android phone. So, now…

  • Google Voice
  • Google Contacts
  • My whole damn phone

Every single day, I have numerous dips into the pool of Google. And strangely, I’m OK with that.

Should I Be?

I know there is a cadre of people out there (one of PCMech’s author’s, Rich, included) who are weary of Google because of the privacy issue.

Those privacy concerns are certainly not without fuel. After all, just days ago, Google CEO Eric Schmidt said..

“The only way to manage this is true transparency and no anonymity. In a world of asynchronous threats, it is too dangerous for there not to be some way to identify you. We need a (verified) name service for people. Governments will demand it.”

This is just one of many quotes from the Google CEO that has led bloggers like John Gruber to call him “href="http://daringfireball.net/2010/08/creep_executive_officer">creepy“.

There is no doubt that Google has a lot of information about me and my life. I’m not one who gets all tin-foiled hat about it, however. Everything you do on the Internet is logged, and Google is no exception. They use the information for analytics and advertising. Welcome to the real world.

Plus, there are gobs of other choices out there, so people who use Google do it by choice. As do I. The fact is that all of Google’s competitors are tracking you, too. People just like to harp on Google because they are the top dog.

At the same time, let’s hypothetically say that Google disabled my account. Let’s say they think I’ve been up to something suspicious and they freeze the account. With it, they would take down my email, my contact list, my website stats, a source of income (Adsense), and my mobile phone. All in one fail swoop.

Makes you wonder about that “don’t put all your eggs in one basket” argument.

At the end of the day, however, I will remain a Google whore. I like their products and it makes my life easier. The company has made all our lives easier. Even if you don’t use much of their value-add products, you do likely use them for search. Google has revolutionized the search engine industry and has driven major innovation in all areas of the Internet (even if only by inspiring stronger competitors). Even the web-mail services like Hotmail and Yahoo are constantly improving because Gmail is helping to drive them to.

Am I the frog in warming water? I don’t know. I tend to think not, but I’m sure others will disagree with me. src='http://pcmech.pcmediainc.netdna-cdn.com/wp-includes/images/smilies/icon_smile.gif' alt=':)' class='wp-smiley' /> And I’m fine with that.

Post from: href="http://www.pcmech.com">PCMech. Helping Normal People Get Their Geek On And Live The Digital Lifestyle.href="http://www.pcmech.com/article/google-owns-me/">Google Owns Me, I Admit It





8 Vote(s) ]]> <![CDATA[Working With a Different Default Browser Font]]> http://supertechnews.com/desktops/working-with-a-different-default-browser-font/ http://supertechnews.com/desktops/working-with-a-different-default-browser-font/ Tue, 24 Aug 2010 03:27:48 -0500 PCMech Desktops http://supertechnews.com/desktops/working-with-a-different-default-browser-font/ /> This is a follow-up to href="http://www.pcmech.com/article/browser-default-font/">Jason’s article on using default fonts, specifically concentrating on Firefox on applying them to all web pages you visit in a friendly way.

One of the most underrated features of a web browser is the ability to view web pages using any font you want while still retaining the site’s style. It’s one thing to change a font, but it’s another to do it in a way that is compatible with the site’s theme.

In Firefox, when you go to Tools, Options and then select Content, you’ll see this:

style="background-image: none; padding-left: 0px; padding-right: 0px; display: inline; padding-top: 0px; border: 0px;" title="image" src="http://pcmech.pcmediainc.netdna-cdn.com/wp-content/uploads/img/WorkingWithaDifferentDefaultBrowserFont_12349/image.png" border="0" alt="image" width="496" height="98" />

Click on the Advanced button.

Here’s an example setup and how awesome Firefox handles it:

style="background-image: none; padding-left: 0px; padding-right: 0px; display: inline; padding-top: 0px; border: 0px;" title="image" src="http://pcmech.pcmediainc.netdna-cdn.com/wp-content/uploads/img/WorkingWithaDifferentDefaultBrowserFont_12349/image_3.png" border="0" alt="image" width="453" height="245" />

These are the items that were modified:

Proportional was changed to Sans Serif so the browser always uses the Sans-serif font I have selected (mentioned in the next point).

Sans-serif font was changed to Verdana. This is a font which is physically wider than Arial and easier to read.

Minimum font size was changed to 13. Bear in mind Firefox sizes fonts using pixels and not points. The general rule of thumb for points-to-pixels in the Windows environment is that 12pt is 16px, 10pt is 13px and 8pt is 11px. The minimum size selected is 13px which is the equivalent of 10pt.

It’s important to note that this setting does not affect fonts over the minimum size. All it means is that the smallest possible font will not go below the minimum size you set. In other words, this setting does not mean “all fonts shown will be X size”. Rather it means, “no font displayed will go below X size”.

You’ll understand what this means more clearly in a moment.

Allow pages to choose their own fonts, instead of my selections above was unchecked. This means that every font shown in the browser (with the exception of Flash and image text) will always use the selected sans-serif font, which in this case is Verdana.

Here’s how PCMech looks using the above settings:

style="background-image: none; padding-left: 0px; padding-right: 0px; display: inline; padding-top: 0px; border: 0px;" title="image" src="http://pcmech.pcmediainc.netdna-cdn.com/wp-content/uploads/img/WorkingWithaDifferentDefaultBrowserFont_12349/image_4.png" border="0" alt="image" width="509" height="606" />

All text shown is using Verdana, does not go below the minimum size set, and that fonts set to be larger stay larger, such as article title text.

If I switched to the Serif font, which I left as Times New Roman, here’s how that looks:

style="background-image: none; padding-left: 0px; padding-right: 0px; display: inline; padding-top: 0px; border: 0px;" title="image" src="http://pcmech.pcmediainc.netdna-cdn.com/wp-content/uploads/img/WorkingWithaDifferentDefaultBrowserFont_12349/image_5.png" border="0" alt="image" width="483" height="231" />

If I changed the Serif font to Georgia, a larger and more readable serif font, this is what that would look like:

style="background-image: none; padding-left: 0px; padding-right: 0px; display: inline; padding-top: 0px; border: 0px;" title="image" src="http://pcmech.pcmediainc.netdna-cdn.com/wp-content/uploads/img/WorkingWithaDifferentDefaultBrowserFont_12349/image_6.png" border="0" alt="image" width="501" height="231" />

This may look similar to Times New Roman, but Georgia has more spacing and thickness to it, making it easier to read. It’s not as readable as the sans-serif font Verdana, but if you like the serif look, Georgia is the way to go.

Final notes

Remember, setting your Firefox this way applies to all HTML fonts on all web pages.

Once you uncheck the Allow pages to choose their own fonts box, what you choose is what will be shown no matter what web page you visit. On PCMech, in your webmail, on Facebook and everywhere else.

Want just a minimum size instead of changing all the fonts?

Maybe what you want is just for fonts not to go below a minimum size (such as 13) but do want web sites to keep their font styling. No problem. Check the Allow pages to choose their own fonts box, and set Minimum font size to 13 or higher. Tiny fonts on web pages will all be gone!

Is there a “Reset” for this in case I screw up the font choices?

Not unless you reset your entire Firefox profile – and just to reset fonts you definitely don’t want to do that.

The default settings in Windows (in the USA) for Firefox (again, in the USA) are as follows just in case you screw up:

style="background-image: none; padding-left: 0px; padding-right: 0px; display: inline; padding-top: 0px; border: 0px;" title="image" src="http://pcmech.pcmediainc.netdna-cdn.com/wp-content/uploads/img/WorkingWithaDifferentDefaultBrowserFont_12349/image_7.png" border="0" alt="image" width="457" height="358" />

On a final note, the other place where the look of a site is adjusted is here:

style="background-image: none; padding-left: 0px; padding-right: 0px; display: inline; padding-top: 0px; border: 0px;" title="image" src="http://pcmech.pcmediainc.netdna-cdn.com/wp-content/uploads/img/WorkingWithaDifferentDefaultBrowserFont_12349/image_8.png" border="0" alt="image" width="358" height="281" />

If you choose View, Page Style, No Style, the look of whatever site you’re viewing will look like something straight out of 1997, like this:

style="background-image: none; padding-left: 0px; padding-right: 0px; display: inline; padding-top: 0px; border: 0px;" title="image" src="http://pcmech.pcmediainc.netdna-cdn.com/wp-content/uploads/img/WorkingWithaDifferentDefaultBrowserFont_12349/image_9.png" border="0" alt="image" width="477" height="267" />

If you hit that option by mistake, it’s fixed easily by click View, Page Style, Basic Page Style.

Post from: href="http://www.pcmech.com">PCMech. Helping Normal People Get Their Geek On And Live The Digital Lifestyle.href="http://www.pcmech.com/article/different-default-browser-font/">Working With a Different Default Browser Font





6 Vote(s) ]]> <![CDATA[Working With a Different Default Browser Font]]> http://supertechnews.com/desktops/working-with-a-different-default-browser-font/ http://supertechnews.com/desktops/working-with-a-different-default-browser-font/ Tue, 24 Aug 2010 03:27:46 -0500 PCMech Desktops http://supertechnews.com/desktops/working-with-a-different-default-browser-font/ /> This is a follow-up to href="http://www.pcmech.com/article/browser-default-font/">Jason’s article on using default fonts, specifically concentrating on Firefox on applying them to all web pages you visit in a friendly way.

One of the most underrated features of a web browser is the ability to view web pages using any font you want while still retaining the site’s style. It’s one thing to change a font, but it’s another to do it in a way that is compatible with the site’s theme.

In Firefox, when you go to Tools, Options and then select Content, you’ll see this:

style="background-image: none; padding-left: 0px; padding-right: 0px; display: inline; padding-top: 0px; border: 0px;" title="image" src="http://pcmech.pcmediainc.netdna-cdn.com/wp-content/uploads/img/WorkingWithaDifferentDefaultBrowserFont_12349/image.png" border="0" alt="image" width="496" height="98" />

Click on the Advanced button.

Here’s an example setup and how awesome Firefox handles it:

style="background-image: none; padding-left: 0px; padding-right: 0px; display: inline; padding-top: 0px; border: 0px;" title="image" src="http://pcmech.pcmediainc.netdna-cdn.com/wp-content/uploads/img/WorkingWithaDifferentDefaultBrowserFont_12349/image_3.png" border="0" alt="image" width="453" height="245" />

These are the items that were modified:

Proportional was changed to Sans Serif so the browser always uses the Sans-serif font I have selected (mentioned in the next point).

Sans-serif font was changed to Verdana. This is a font which is physically wider than Arial and easier to read.

Minimum font size was changed to 13. Bear in mind Firefox sizes fonts using pixels and not points. The general rule of thumb for points-to-pixels in the Windows environment is that 12pt is 16px, 10pt is 13px and 8pt is 11px. The minimum size selected is 13px which is the equivalent of 10pt.

It’s important to note that this setting does not affect fonts over the minimum size. All it means is that the smallest possible font will not go below the minimum size you set. In other words, this setting does not mean “all fonts shown will be X size”. Rather it means, “no font displayed will go below X size”.

You’ll understand what this means more clearly in a moment.

Allow pages to choose their own fonts, instead of my selections above was unchecked. This means that every font shown in the browser (with the exception of Flash and image text) will always use the selected sans-serif font, which in this case is Verdana.

Here’s how PCMech looks using the above settings:

style="background-image: none; padding-left: 0px; padding-right: 0px; display: inline; padding-top: 0px; border: 0px;" title="image" src="http://pcmech.pcmediainc.netdna-cdn.com/wp-content/uploads/img/WorkingWithaDifferentDefaultBrowserFont_12349/image_4.png" border="0" alt="image" width="509" height="606" />

All text shown is using Verdana, does not go below the minimum size set, and that fonts set to be larger stay larger, such as article title text.

If I switched to the Serif font, which I left as Times New Roman, here’s how that looks:

style="background-image: none; padding-left: 0px; padding-right: 0px; display: inline; padding-top: 0px; border: 0px;" title="image" src="http://pcmech.pcmediainc.netdna-cdn.com/wp-content/uploads/img/WorkingWithaDifferentDefaultBrowserFont_12349/image_5.png" border="0" alt="image" width="483" height="231" />

If I changed the Serif font to Georgia, a larger and more readable serif font, this is what that would look like:

style="background-image: none; padding-left: 0px; padding-right: 0px; display: inline; padding-top: 0px; border: 0px;" title="image" src="http://pcmech.pcmediainc.netdna-cdn.com/wp-content/uploads/img/WorkingWithaDifferentDefaultBrowserFont_12349/image_6.png" border="0" alt="image" width="501" height="231" />

This may look similar to Times New Roman, but Georgia has more spacing and thickness to it, making it easier to read. It’s not as readable as the sans-serif font Verdana, but if you like the serif look, Georgia is the way to go.

Final notes

Remember, setting your Firefox this way applies to all HTML fonts on all web pages.

Once you uncheck the Allow pages to choose their own fonts box, what you choose is what will be shown no matter what web page you visit. On PCMech, in your webmail, on Facebook and everywhere else.

Want just a minimum size instead of changing all the fonts?

Maybe what you want is just for fonts not to go below a minimum size (such as 13) but do want web sites to keep their font styling. No problem. Check the Allow pages to choose their own fonts box, and set Minimum font size to 13 or higher. Tiny fonts on web pages will all be gone!

Is there a “Reset” for this in case I screw up the font choices?

Not unless you reset your entire Firefox profile – and just to reset fonts you definitely don’t want to do that.

The default settings in Windows (in the USA) for Firefox (again, in the USA) are as follows just in case you screw up:

style="background-image: none; padding-left: 0px; padding-right: 0px; display: inline; padding-top: 0px; border: 0px;" title="image" src="http://pcmech.pcmediainc.netdna-cdn.com/wp-content/uploads/img/WorkingWithaDifferentDefaultBrowserFont_12349/image_7.png" border="0" alt="image" width="457" height="358" />

On a final note, the other place where the look of a site is adjusted is here:

style="background-image: none; padding-left: 0px; padding-right: 0px; display: inline; padding-top: 0px; border: 0px;" title="image" src="http://pcmech.pcmediainc.netdna-cdn.com/wp-content/uploads/img/WorkingWithaDifferentDefaultBrowserFont_12349/image_8.png" border="0" alt="image" width="358" height="281" />

If you choose View, Page Style, No Style, the look of whatever site you’re viewing will look like something straight out of 1997, like this:

style="background-image: none; padding-left: 0px; padding-right: 0px; display: inline; padding-top: 0px; border: 0px;" title="image" src="http://pcmech.pcmediainc.netdna-cdn.com/wp-content/uploads/img/WorkingWithaDifferentDefaultBrowserFont_12349/image_9.png" border="0" alt="image" width="477" height="267" />

If you hit that option by mistake, it’s fixed easily by click View, Page Style, Basic Page Style.

Post from: href="http://www.pcmech.com">PCMech. Helping Normal People Get Their Geek On And Live The Digital Lifestyle.href="http://www.pcmech.com/article/different-default-browser-font/">Working With a Different Default Browser Font





5 Vote(s) ]]> <![CDATA[Set Up An Online Video Chat Room Instantly With Tinychat]]> http://supertechnews.com/desktops/set-up-an-online-video-chat-room-instantly-with-tinychat/ http://supertechnews.com/desktops/set-up-an-online-video-chat-room-instantly-with-tinychat/ Mon, 23 Aug 2010 03:20:05 -0500 PCMech Desktops http://supertechnews.com/desktops/set-up-an-online-video-chat-room-instantly-with-tinychat/ If you ever have the need to have several people in a chat room at once it can be a pain as you have to make sure everyone is using the same chat/IM program (assuming the program supports the chat function). As a much better alternative, take a look at href="http://tinychat.com/">Tinychat:

Tinychat is a dead simple, free to use video/audio/desktop chat system. It is entirely web based, requires no downloads or plugins (aside from Flash) and works on all browsers and operating systems.

I can see this being useful for situations ranging from study groups to live fantasy sport drafts. The fact that no installation is required and it works on any computer with a browser is incredibly attractive.

Post from: href="http://www.pcmech.com">PCMech. Helping Normal People Get Their Geek On And Live The Digital Lifestyle.href="http://www.pcmech.com/article/set-up-an-online-video-chat-room-instantly-with-tinychat/">Set Up An Online Video Chat Room Instantly With Tinychat





8 Vote(s) ]]> <![CDATA[Set Up An Online Video Chat Room Instantly With Tinychat]]> http://supertechnews.com/desktops/set-up-an-online-video-chat-room-instantly-with-tinychat/ http://supertechnews.com/desktops/set-up-an-online-video-chat-room-instantly-with-tinychat/ Mon, 23 Aug 2010 03:20:04 -0500 PCMech Desktops http://supertechnews.com/desktops/set-up-an-online-video-chat-room-instantly-with-tinychat/ If you ever have the need to have several people in a chat room at once it can be a pain as you have to make sure everyone is using the same chat/IM program (assuming the program supports the chat function). As a much better alternative, take a look at href="http://tinychat.com/">Tinychat:

Tinychat is a dead simple, free to use video/audio/desktop chat system. It is entirely web based, requires no downloads or plugins (aside from Flash) and works on all browsers and operating systems.

I can see this being useful for situations ranging from study groups to live fantasy sport drafts. The fact that no installation is required and it works on any computer with a browser is incredibly attractive.

Post from: href="http://www.pcmech.com">PCMech. Helping Normal People Get Their Geek On And Live The Digital Lifestyle.href="http://www.pcmech.com/article/set-up-an-online-video-chat-room-instantly-with-tinychat/">Set Up An Online Video Chat Room Instantly With Tinychat





9 Vote(s) ]]> <![CDATA[WinPatrol Plus Available For Free For Those Currently Unemployed]]> http://supertechnews.com/desktops/winpatrol-plus-available-for-free-for-those-currently-unemployed/ http://supertechnews.com/desktops/winpatrol-plus-available-for-free-for-those-currently-unemployed/ Sun, 22 Aug 2010 03:25:57 -0500 PCMech Desktops http://supertechnews.com/desktops/winpatrol-plus-available-for-free-for-those-currently-unemployed/ It’s no secret that unemployment has been an issue for for the past 4 or so years in the US. Unfortunately many new online scams have been designed to take advantage of people currently in this vulnerable situation. Since many of these scams can lead to malware infecting your system, it is important that your computer remain protected. A protection tool I am a huge proponent of is href="http://www.winpatrol.com/">WinPatrol and now through the end of August, the author of this fantastic utility is href="http://billpstudios.blogspot.com/2010/08/free-security-for-people-looking-for.html">giving away a copy of the Plus edition to anyone currently receiving unemployment benefits:

In response to the need to protect and help the unemployed I’m giving away our $29.95 single user license with all the benefits of our standard WinPatrol PLUS upgrade.

This offer is not limited to just people in the US. All you have to do is provide proof of unemployment which is detailed in the linked post.

This is an amazing gesture of good will as a computer is one of the most powerful tools for finding a job. Having this utility watch over your system’s activity is a great step in making sure nothing is installed without you knowing.

Post from: href="http://www.pcmech.com">PCMech. Helping Normal People Get Their Geek On And Live The Digital Lifestyle.href="http://www.pcmech.com/article/winpatrol-plus-available-for-free-for-those-currently-unemployed/">WinPatrol Plus Available For Free For Those Currently Unemployed





5 Vote(s) ]]> <![CDATA[WinPatrol Plus Available For Free For Those Currently Unemployed]]> http://supertechnews.com/desktops/winpatrol-plus-available-for-free-for-those-currently-unemployed/ http://supertechnews.com/desktops/winpatrol-plus-available-for-free-for-those-currently-unemployed/ Sun, 22 Aug 2010 03:25:56 -0500 PCMech Desktops http://supertechnews.com/desktops/winpatrol-plus-available-for-free-for-those-currently-unemployed/ It’s no secret that unemployment has been an issue for for the past 4 or so years in the US. Unfortunately many new online scams have been designed to take advantage of people currently in this vulnerable situation. Since many of these scams can lead to malware infecting your system, it is important that your computer remain protected. A protection tool I am a huge proponent of is href="http://www.winpatrol.com/">WinPatrol and now through the end of August, the author of this fantastic utility is href="http://billpstudios.blogspot.com/2010/08/free-security-for-people-looking-for.html">giving away a copy of the Plus edition to anyone currently receiving unemployment benefits:

In response to the need to protect and help the unemployed I’m giving away our $29.95 single user license with all the benefits of our standard WinPatrol PLUS upgrade.

This offer is not limited to just people in the US. All you have to do is provide proof of unemployment which is detailed in the linked post.

This is an amazing gesture of good will as a computer is one of the most powerful tools for finding a job. Having this utility watch over your system’s activity is a great step in making sure nothing is installed without you knowing.

Post from: href="http://www.pcmech.com">PCMech. Helping Normal People Get Their Geek On And Live The Digital Lifestyle.href="http://www.pcmech.com/article/winpatrol-plus-available-for-free-for-those-currently-unemployed/">WinPatrol Plus Available For Free For Those Currently Unemployed





14 Vote(s) ]]> <![CDATA[Be Aware Of The New Facebook Places Function]]> http://supertechnews.com/desktops/be-aware-of-the-new-facebook-places-function/ http://supertechnews.com/desktops/be-aware-of-the-new-facebook-places-function/ Sat, 21 Aug 2010 03:23:47 -0500 PCMech Desktops http://supertechnews.com/desktops/be-aware-of-the-new-facebook-places-function/ The latest Facebook feature, href="http://www.facebook.com/places/">Places, when enabled broadcasts your current location:

Easily share where you are, what you’re doing and the friends you’re with right from your mobile.

  • Check in and your update will appear on the Place page, your friends’ News Feed and your Wall.
  • Tag the friends you’re with so they can be part of your update.
  • Appear in “Here Now” to friends and others nearby who are also checked in.

Of course, if you are Facebook user this is turned on by default which means your friends can now update everyone to where you are (see item #2). Needless to say, this is a feature you may not want turned on, so href="http://lifehacker.com/5616395/how-to-disable-facebook-places">here is how you disable it.

This is potentially yet another privacy fiasco Facebook has brought upon themselves (and further reinforces my decision to stay away from them). The question is do their users even care or is there just an understanding that this type of stuff comes with the territory of using Facebook?

So what do you think of this new feature?

Post from: href="http://www.pcmech.com">PCMech. Helping Normal People Get Their Geek On And Live The Digital Lifestyle.href="http://www.pcmech.com/article/be-aware-of-the-new-facebook-places-function/">Be Aware Of The New Facebook Places Function





11 Vote(s) ]]> <![CDATA[Be Aware Of The New Facebook Places Function]]> http://supertechnews.com/desktops/be-aware-of-the-new-facebook-places-function/ http://supertechnews.com/desktops/be-aware-of-the-new-facebook-places-function/ Sat, 21 Aug 2010 03:23:47 -0500 PCMech Desktops http://supertechnews.com/desktops/be-aware-of-the-new-facebook-places-function/ The latest Facebook feature, href="http://www.facebook.com/places/">Places, when enabled broadcasts your current location:

Easily share where you are, what you’re doing and the friends you’re with right from your mobile.

  • Check in and your update will appear on the Place page, your friends’ News Feed and your Wall.
  • Tag the friends you’re with so they can be part of your update.
  • Appear in “Here Now” to friends and others nearby who are also checked in.

Of course, if you are Facebook user this is turned on by default which means your friends can now update everyone to where you are (see item #2). Needless to say, this is a feature you may not want turned on, so href="http://lifehacker.com/5616395/how-to-disable-facebook-places">here is how you disable it.

This is potentially yet another privacy fiasco Facebook has brought upon themselves (and further reinforces my decision to stay away from them). The question is do their users even care or is there just an understanding that this type of stuff comes with the territory of using Facebook?

So what do you think of this new feature?

Post from: href="http://www.pcmech.com">PCMech. Helping Normal People Get Their Geek On And Live The Digital Lifestyle.href="http://www.pcmech.com/article/be-aware-of-the-new-facebook-places-function/">Be Aware Of The New Facebook Places Function





9 Vote(s) ]]> <![CDATA[10 Awesome (Yet Not So Obvious) Uses For Dropbox]]> http://supertechnews.com/desktops/10-awesome-yet-not-so-obvious-uses-for-dropbox/ http://supertechnews.com/desktops/10-awesome-yet-not-so-obvious-uses-for-dropbox/ Fri, 20 Aug 2010 03:23:30 -0500 PCMech Desktops http://supertechnews.com/desktops/10-awesome-yet-not-so-obvious-uses-for-dropbox/ class="alignright size-full wp-image-11974" title="Dropbox" src="http://pcmech.pcmediainc.netdna-cdn.com/wp-content/uploads/2010/08/Dropbox-Review-2-e1282230288392.jpg" alt="" width="250" height="250" />I am a big fan of href="http://www.dropbox.com/">Dropbox. I use it all the time.

If you’re not familiar with it, it is an online storage service which integrates directly with your computer. Once you set it up, you have a folder on your machine called “Dropbox”. File operations on that folder are done locally so it is super fast. Then Dropbox auto-syncs everything to your online account, and thus to any other machine you have Dropbox set up on. Save a file in the Dropbox folder, and it automatically saves to all other machines.

You get 2 gigs for free, and you can pay for more. Some may be wondering why not use something like href="http://windowslive.com/online/skydrive">Microsoft SkyDrive which gives you 25 gigs for free. The answer is true portability and support. Dropbox is much more popular than SkyDrive and hence it is supported widely in other applications that can take advantage of it. For instance, I just started using Dropbox to store my encrypted password file for 1Password (on the Mac). It is accessible from both of my Macs, my Ipad, and even my Android phone. This kind of cross-platform, universal support is the major selling point for Dropbox.

So, the obvious use for this is simply to put files in there which you want access to from anywhere. Things like documents. However, there are a lot of creative uses for Dropbox that can make your life easier, but may not be so obvious.

Well, PCMech went out to the Internet and found 10 creatives uses for Dropbox which stood out to us.

Many of these resources also talk about yet more uses for Dropbox.

  1. href="http://wiki.dropbox.com/TipsAndTricks/SyncAllYourPasswords">Sync Your Passwords Among Multiple Machines. Works with KeePass, 1Password, RoboForm, SPB Wallet. And, no, you don’t need to worry about storing this information in the cloud because it is fully encrypted. But, get this… you change a password on one machine, it auto-updates on all other machines. Yes, convenient.
  2. href="http://wiki.dropbox.com/TipsAndTricks/HostWebsites">Effortlessly Create A Website.
  3. href="http://archive.robwilkerson.org/2008/11/12/redux-synchronizing-firefox-through-dropbox/index.html">Sync Your Firefox settings between multiple machines.
  4. href="https://www.dropbox.com/help/11">File recovery and version control.
  5. href="http://lifehacker.com/5527055/the-cleverest-ways-to-use-dropbox-that-youre-not-using">Cheap, share network drive.
  6. href="http://lifehacker.com/5527055/the-cleverest-ways-to-use-dropbox-that-youre-not-using">Share your Itunes Library. A big problem since Itunes currently has no way to do this.
  7. href="http://berbs.us/2009/08/two-great-uses-for-dropbox/">Start BitTorrent Downloads remotely.
  8. href="http://storecrowd.com/blog/dropbox-hacks/">Track theives that might steal your equipment.
  9. href="http://www.documentsnap.com/some-great-dropbox-uses-beyond-the-obvious/">Export images from your digital camera so they can be viewed from anywhere.
  10. href="http://www.geek.com/articles/mobile/dropbox-is-going-places-android-and-ipad-apps-mobile-api-2010056/">Access important files on your smartphone or tablet.

If you have any other creative uses for Dropbox, please do share them below in our comment section.

Post from: href="http://www.pcmech.com">PCMech. Helping Normal People Get Their Geek On And Live The Digital Lifestyle.href="http://www.pcmech.com/article/10-awesome-yet-not-so-obvious-uses-for-dropbox/">10 Awesome (Yet Not So Obvious) Uses For Dropbox





11 Vote(s) ]]> <![CDATA[Automate News In Your Bookmarks in IE8]]> http://supertechnews.com/desktops/automate-news-in-your-bookmarks-in-ie8/ http://supertechnews.com/desktops/automate-news-in-your-bookmarks-in-ie8/ Fri, 20 Aug 2010 03:23:06 -0500 PCMech Desktops http://supertechnews.com/desktops/automate-news-in-your-bookmarks-in-ie8/ A feature in the Firefox web browser is the ability to use what’s called href="http://www.mozilla.com/firefox/livebookmarks.html">Live Bookmarks. This is something which has been said is not possible in the Internet Explorer 8 web browser, but in fact is possible and has there and has been all along.

The video above will show you how to enable your IE8 to use self-updating RSS feeds, but here is the written description of how to go about it:

Step 1. Enable the Favorites Bar

If you do not see your Menu bar, tap your ALT key to view it:

style="text-align: center;">class="wlDisabledImage aligncenter" style="display: inline; border-width: 0px;" title="image" src="http://pcmech.pcmediainc.netdna-cdn.com/wp-content/uploads/img/SelfUpdatingRSSFeedsinInternetExplorer8_34C7/image.png" border="0" alt="image" width="308" height="48" />

…then click View, then Toolbars then Favorites Bar.

style="text-align: center;">class="wlDisabledImage aligncenter" style="display: inline; border-width: 0px;" title="image" src="http://pcmech.pcmediainc.netdna-cdn.com/wp-content/uploads/img/SelfUpdatingRSSFeedsinInternetExplorer8_34C7/image_3.png" border="0" alt="image" width="568" height="121" />

Step 2. Enable the RSS button

Right-click on a blank area directly to the right of a tab, then click Customize then Add or Remove Commands…

style="text-align: center;">class="wlDisabledImage aligncenter" style="display: inline; border-width: 0px;" title="image" src="http://pcmech.pcmediainc.netdna-cdn.com/wp-content/uploads/img/SelfUpdatingRSSFeedsinInternetExplorer8_34C7/image_4.png" border="0" alt="image" width="602" height="242" />

A small pop-up window will appear. Find Feeds on the left and click Add to place it on the right:

style="text-align: center;">class="wlDisabledImage aligncenter" style="margin: 0px; display: inline; border-width: 0px;" title="image" src="http://pcmech.pcmediainc.netdna-cdn.com/wp-content/uploads/img/SelfUpdatingRSSFeedsinInternetExplorer8_34C7/image_5.png" border="0" alt="image" width="552" height="241" />

You will know you’re successful if you see an RSS icon in your list on the top right of the browser. When a page has a feed, the icon will turn yellow. When on a page with no feed it will be gray.

style="text-align: center;">class="wlDisabledImage aligncenter" style="display: inline; border-width: 0px;" title="image" src="http://pcmech.pcmediainc.netdna-cdn.com/wp-content/uploads/img/SelfUpdatingRSSFeedsinInternetExplorer8_34C7/image_6.png" border="0" alt="image" width="286" height="65" />

Step 3. Enable feed updating and feed reading view

Click Tools then Options then Internet Options.

From the window that pops up, click the Content tab, then the Settings button under the heading Feeds and Web Slices:

style="text-align: center;">class="wlDisabledImage aligncenter" style="margin: 0px; display: inline; border: 0px;" title="image" src="http://pcmech.pcmediainc.netdna-cdn.com/wp-content/uploads/img/SelfUpdatingRSSFeedsinInternetExplorer8_34C7/image_7.png" border="0" alt="image" width="423" height="541" />

Another pop-up window will appear. Check off Automatically check feeds and Web Slices for updates and set the frequency to every 15 minutes.

Also check the box Turn on feed reading view.

style="text-align: center;">class="wlDisabledImage aligncenter" style="margin: 0px; display: inline; border: 0px;" title="image" src="http://pcmech.pcmediainc.netdna-cdn.com/wp-content/uploads/img/SelfUpdatingRSSFeedsinInternetExplorer8_34C7/image_8.png" border="0" alt="image" width="385" height="409" />

Step 4. Find a web site with a feed and add it to your Favorites bar

A good place to start is PCMech.com itself.

Load up any web page on pcmech.com and click the RSS feed icon, which should now be orange:

style="text-align: center;">class="wlDisabledImage aligncenter" style="display: inline; border: 0px;" title="image" src="http://pcmech.pcmediainc.netdna-cdn.com/wp-content/uploads/img/SelfUpdatingRSSFeedsinInternetExplorer8_34C7/image_9.png" border="0" alt="image" width="265" height="52" />

On the next page you will see a large yellow box with a subscribe option, which you click:

style="text-align: center;">class="wlDisabledImage aligncenter" style="display: inline; border: 0px;" title="image" src="http://pcmech.pcmediainc.netdna-cdn.com/wp-content/uploads/img/SelfUpdatingRSSFeedsinInternetExplorer8_34C7/image_10.png" border="0" alt="image" width="211" height="167" />

A pop-up window will appear on click of the subscribe link. Check off the box to Add to Favorites Bar:

style="text-align: center;">class="wlDisabledImage aligncenter" style="margin: 0px; display: inline; border: 0px;" title="image" src="http://pcmech.pcmediainc.netdna-cdn.com/wp-content/uploads/img/SelfUpdatingRSSFeedsinInternetExplorer8_34C7/image_11.png" border="0" alt="image" width="379" height="225" />

PCMech will now be in your favorites bar!

style="text-align: center;">class="wlDisabledImage aligncenter" style="display: inline; border: 0px;" title="image" src="http://pcmech.pcmediainc.netdna-cdn.com/wp-content/uploads/img/SelfUpdatingRSSFeedsinInternetExplorer8_34C7/image_12.png" border="0" alt="image" width="504" height="313" />

On click of any article, it will load in your web browser.

For further tips on how to organize feeds, watch the instructional video above.

Post from: href="http://www.pcmech.com">PCMech. Helping Normal People Get Their Geek On And Live The Digital Lifestyle.href="http://www.pcmech.com/article/live-bookmarks-ie8/">Automate News In Your Bookmarks in IE8





10 Vote(s) ]]> <![CDATA[Simple Hack To Extend Laser Toner Life]]> http://supertechnews.com/desktops/simple-hack-to-extend-laser-toner-life/ http://supertechnews.com/desktops/simple-hack-to-extend-laser-toner-life/ Thu, 19 Aug 2010 03:22:46 -0500 PCMech Desktops http://supertechnews.com/desktops/simple-hack-to-extend-laser-toner-life/ An href="http://www.amazon.com/review/RONZYGODSDGDS?ie=UTF8&ASIN=B001167XXY&nodeID=172282&ref_=cm_cr_dp_cmt">Amazon customer review of the Brother TN360 High Yield toner cartridge states:

…the Toner Life LED flips on, requiring you to replace the cartridge, even when there’s still toner left in the cartridge. The machine detects end of life by shining a light through from one side to the other.

To circumvent the detection mechanism, remove the cartridge and put a piece of masking tape over the clear opening/circle on the right side of the toner cartridge, and then pop the cartridge back in. Eventually, you’ll start seeing streaks, and then you’ll know that the cartridge is truly empty.

Yes, you read correctly, masking tape covering the right spot will extend the life of the TN360 high yield toner.

How safe this is I can’t say (the Toner Life sensor is there not only to tell you when replacement but also to prevent internal damage from occurring), but as long as you don’t run your toner super-low, this should be an OK thing to do.

Post from: href="http://www.pcmech.com">PCMech. Helping Normal People Get Their Geek On And Live The Digital Lifestyle.href="http://www.pcmech.com/article/simple-hack-to-extend-laser-toner-life/">Simple Hack To Extend Laser Toner Life





10 Vote(s) ]]> <![CDATA[Use Google to Plan Your Next Move]]> http://supertechnews.com/desktops/use-google-to-plan-your-next-move/ http://supertechnews.com/desktops/use-google-to-plan-your-next-move/ Thu, 19 Aug 2010 03:22:44 -0500 PCMech Desktops http://supertechnews.com/desktops/use-google-to-plan-your-next-move/ As the economy slowly but surely begins to bounce back in the US, many people have put their plans of moving to another state back on the table. You may be one of them.

Something which is of great value in planning for a move (or even thinking about it) is getting the answer to three questions:

  1. What’s the average price of homes in X area?
  2. How many people have moved to or from X area?
  3. Can I get a job in X area?

These questions can be answered by Google easily – and you can get very specific with it.

Google Maps Real Estate

How to view real estate for anywhere on the map is to first load up a town or city, then click “More…” and check off the box for “Real Estate”, like this:

class="wlDisabledImage" style="display: inline; border: 0px;" title="image" src="http://pcmech.pcmediainc.netdna-cdn.com/wp-content/uploads/img/b6c7ba57735e_27BB/image.png" border="0" alt="image" width="394" height="338" />

On the left sidebar is where you can fine tune what you’re looking for:

class="wlDisabledImage" style="display: inline; border: 0px;" title="image" src="http://pcmech.pcmediainc.netdna-cdn.com/wp-content/uploads/img/b6c7ba57735e_27BB/image_3.png" border="0" alt="image" width="357" height="390" />

I really like the fact the ability to search foreclosed homes is there, because you can find some truly good property bargains that way.

Google Public Data Explorer – Population

You’ve found a city you’re thinking of moving to and have a very good idea of what the home prices are, but that’s not enough. Having some population statistics would be nice.

Using Google’s href="http://www.google.com/publicdata/home">Public Data Explorer, this information is super-easy to get.

  1. Go to the href="http://www.google.com/publicdata/directory">Datasets list, scroll down and click Population in the US.
  2. On the next page, click Population.
  3. On the next page, expand the state you’re thinking of moving to on the left.
  4. After expanding, choose whether you want an overview of a “place” (i.e. a town) or a county.
  5. Check off as many as you like to have them instantly show up on the chart to the right.

As an example, I chose Florida and all the counties in what’s known as the Central West region of the state. This was my result:

class="wlDisabledImage" style="display: inline; border: 0px;" title="image" src="http://pcmech.pcmediainc.netdna-cdn.com/wp-content/uploads/img/b6c7ba57735e_27BB/image_4.png" border="0" alt="image" width="602" height="318" />

Hovering your mouse over any line will give you population statistics for that year:

class="wlDisabledImage" style="display: inline; border: 0px;" title="image" src="http://pcmech.pcmediainc.netdna-cdn.com/wp-content/uploads/img/b6c7ba57735e_27BB/image_5.png" border="0" alt="image" width="426" height="177" />

You can also easily filter by age and/or gender:

class="wlDisabledImage" style="display: inline; border: 0px;" title="image" src="http://pcmech.pcmediainc.netdna-cdn.com/wp-content/uploads/img/b6c7ba57735e_27BB/image_6.png" border="0" alt="image" width="513" height="338" />

For a different view on-map, click the globe icon at top left:

class="wlDisabledImage" style="display: inline; border: 0px;" title="image" src="http://pcmech.pcmediainc.netdna-cdn.com/wp-content/uploads/img/b6c7ba57735e_27BB/image_7.png" border="0" alt="image" width="271" height="119" />

…and you’ll see something like this:

class="wlDisabledImage" style="display: inline; border: 0px;" title="image" src="http://pcmech.pcmediainc.netdna-cdn.com/wp-content/uploads/img/b6c7ba57735e_27BB/image_8.png" border="0" alt="image" width="407" height="436" />

Bear in mind I’m using counties. You can use towns/cities, counties or even entire states.

Google Public Data Explorer – Unemployment

Okay, so you’ve picked out a spot and are satisfied with the real estate choice and population trends.

But can you find a job there?

One strong indicator if you will or not is by looking at the unemployment statistics.

  1. Go to the href="http://www.google.com/publicdata/directory">Dataset directory.
  2. Scroll down and click Unemployment in the U.S.
  3. From there you have four choices (including Employment), but the more important choice is Unemployment, because it’s one thing for a place to have jobs but more important to know who’s keeping their jobs.

The unemployment charts work the same way at the population charts do. Pick a state and filter it down to county or town and go from there.

It’s very important to note the fact that these stats – and this is in very big letters on these web pages – are not seasonally adjusted. Obviously there will be parts of the year where employment is higher than others, such as the Christmas (or to be politically correct, “Holiday”) season where many take on temporary work during that time.

It’s also important to note the labor statistics do not state anything about job type. It does not discern between blue collar or white collar, how much people make or don’t make, and so on. All you’re looking at here are raw figures, which you can filter by location, age and/or gender, but that’s it.

All of this is valuable information, because states, counties and cities have drastically different unemployment rates. For example, one particular state overall may show it to be absolutely awful in the unemployment department, but then when you filter that down to county then to state, you’ll immediately see some areas are showing growth in employment.

This is the starting information you need if you intend to move

If you’re intending on moving, it will be worth your while to sit down and spend time getting the data you need using the above resources. Obviously this doesn’t cover everything like education, crime rates and so on (that data is publicly listed on state-run web sites), but it’s a darn good start.

Post from: href="http://www.pcmech.com">PCMech. Helping Normal People Get Their Geek On And Live The Digital Lifestyle.href="http://www.pcmech.com/article/use-google-to-plan-your-next-move/">Use Google to Plan Your Next Move





7 Vote(s) ]]> <![CDATA[How To Set Firefox To Spell Check All Text Fields]]> http://supertechnews.com/desktops/how-to-set-firefox-to-spell-check-all-text-fields/ http://supertechnews.com/desktops/how-to-set-firefox-to-spell-check-all-text-fields/ Wed, 18 Aug 2010 03:23:08 -0500 PCMech Desktops http://supertechnews.com/desktops/how-to-set-firefox-to-spell-check-all-text-fields/ By default, the Firefox spell checker only scans large textarea fields on web forms and does not scan normal text fields. While you can manually tell Firefox to check the spelling on these fields on a case-by-case basis, if you want to enable spell checking on text fields by default, then you need to change the browser’s configuration.

  1. Go to “about:config”. Simply type that into your location bar and you’ll get the config screen.
  2. In the filter field, type in “lstyle="font-weight: normal;">style="font-style: normal;">ayout.spellcheckDefault“.
  3. It will jump you down to that variable. You’ll see that the default value is 1. Change it to 2.
  4. You’re done. No need to restart your browser.

Because normal text fields are used for many important items such as subjects on emails and forum posts, this might be something you want to consider turning on.

Post from: href="http://www.pcmech.com">PCMech. Helping Normal People Get Their Geek On And Live The Digital Lifestyle.href="http://www.pcmech.com/article/set-firefox-to-spell-check-all-text-fields/">How To Set Firefox To Spell Check All Text Fields





10 Vote(s) ]]> <![CDATA[File Sharing Made Simple With Google Docs]]> http://supertechnews.com/desktops/file-sharing-made-simple-with-google-docs/ http://supertechnews.com/desktops/file-sharing-made-simple-with-google-docs/ Tue, 17 Aug 2010 03:19:41 -0500 PCMech Desktops http://supertechnews.com/desktops/file-sharing-made-simple-with-google-docs/ I have been a Gmail user pretty much since the beginning. I was lucky enough to get an invite early on from a very generous person. I haven’t really started using Google Docs until the last year or so though. However, in the past few months I have come to truly enjoy using Google Docs.

There are two basic ways to use Google Docs. If you have a Gmail account, you pretty much already have a Google Docs account. You can also setup your domain, if you are the owner of your domain, to use Google Docs. I set up href="http://bradleydurham.com">my own domain to use the href="http://www.google.com/apps/intl/en/group/index.html">Standard version of Google Docs, and I use Google Docs on my personal Gmail account as well. It works pretty much the same either way. You can learn more about the specifics of using Google Docs on your domain href="http://www.google.com/apps/intl/en/group/index.html">here.

In this post, I am concentrating on using the non-domain version of Google Docs. Most of these things will be true if you are using Google Docs on your domain, but consult the previous link for more specifics.

Why I Like Google Docs

  1. It is free!
  2. You can access your docs anywhere there is an internet connection.
  3. It’s a great way to share files.

Free!

Just like free beer (I don’t think that is a myth?!), Google Docs is free. Well, maybe not as good as free beer, but pretty damn sweet! Like most things Google, Google Docs is free to use, and has a pretty large href="http://docs.google.com/support/bin/answer.py?hl=en&answer=37603">storage capacity.

For years, I have been tied to using MS Office. Which, as I am sure you know, can be quite pricey. There are other free alternatives out there too (like href="http://www.openoffice.org">OpenOffice.org), but Google Docs doesn’t even take up any hard drive space. So it is free free, as far as I am concerned.

Always Available

If you are like me, you have used a flash drive to carry documents or relied on emailing them to yourself. With Google Docs, your files are available anywhere you have a computer with an internet connection. I can’t tell you the number of times I have gotten somewhere and realized I either left my flash drive at home, or forgot to email myself the document I needed.

Always having access is a huge advantage to me. I work on lots of things at home and work. So no more loosing productivity. The files are just always there and available.

File Sharing

No, not the kind of file sharing you might get arrested for!

Any file type can be uploaded to Google Docs as long as the file size is under 1GB (pretty frickin’ huge file!). When uploading, make sure you uncheck the box that converts the file to Google Docs. Otherwise, your nice PDF/doc/PPT/etc, will be converted to a Google Document. This isn’t necessarily bad, but some of the formatting may be lost in the conversion.

Additionally, just about any kind of document you receive in an email can be saved into Google Docs straight from the email. The files will then be listed in your list of files, and you can share them as you would any other Google Doc.

OK, so those are all great reasons to use Google Docs, but you might be asking, “How do I use it??”

Read on my friend, read on…

Uploading Files

This couldn’t be more easy.

  1. In the upper lefthand corner of your Gmail screen, click on the Documents link. This will take you to the default screen for Google Docs./> class="aligncenter size-full wp-image-11732" title="Google Docs Link" src="http://pcmech.pcmediainc.netdna-cdn.com/wp-content/uploads/2010/07/documents.png" alt="Google Docs Link" width="191" height="121" />
  2. Now click on the Upload button, just under the Google Docs logo./> class="aligncenter size-full wp-image-11733" title="Upload to Google Docs" src="http://pcmech.pcmediainc.netdna-cdn.com/wp-content/uploads/2010/07/upload.png" alt="Upload to Google Docs" width="186" height="85" />
  3. Select the file or files you want to upload by clicking the “Select Files to Upload” link. You can choose to convert your files to a corresponding Google Docs format or not. As mentioned above, I typically don’t choose this option. Depends on what suits you and your file best. Whichever you choose, the original file on your hard drive will still be intact, and you can re-upload, if you don’t like the results of the first upload. From here, you can choose the Privacy level and folder for the upload too. Of course these can be changed later on if needed./> class="aligncenter size-full wp-image-11734" title="Upload Options" src="http://pcmech.pcmediainc.netdna-cdn.com/wp-content/uploads/2010/07/upload-files.png" alt="Upload Options" width="442" height="305" />
  4. Click the “Start Upload” button and that is that.

Straight From Your Email

This is even simpler than the upload. Let’s say you have a document emailed to you, and you would like to have that document available in your Google Docs. Well here is how that works…

  1. When you open the email you should see a link at the bottom of the message for the attached file. There will be two or three options depending on the file type. Typically you will either want to click on “View” or “Open as Google ____”./> class="aligncenter size-full wp-image-11735" title="Gmail to Google Docs" src="http://pcmech.pcmediainc.netdna-cdn.com/wp-content/uploads/2010/07/email.png" alt="Gmail to Google Docs" width="430" height="204" />
  2. If you clicked on “View”, you will then want to click the link that says “Save in Google Docs”. Voila! The emailed file is now available as a Google Doc. You can share, edit, or whatever, just like any other file in Google Docs./> class="aligncenter size-full wp-image-11736" title="Save in Google Docs" src="http://pcmech.pcmediainc.netdna-cdn.com/wp-content/uploads/2010/07/save.png" alt="Save in Google Docs" width="310" height="60" />
  3. If “View” wasn’t an option and you click on “Open as Google ____”, that is all you have to do to have the file available in Google Docs. Simple.

Note: This will definitely convert these files to a Google Docs format no matter how you open them with Google Docs. This is kind of the nature of the beast when you are going straight from your Gmail to Google Docs.

Sharing

The sharing ability of Google Docs is one of the biggest selling points to me. There are many times you might want to let others view certain files on Google Docs.

Currently, my fiance and I are planning our wedding. We used Google Docs to create and edit our list of people who are getting invitations. We both could edit and view the file at anytime. We were also able to share the list with our parents so they could view and/or add people to the list. This made things a lot less stressful for all of us.

I also use Google Docs to share the free ebook I have on my blog. It has been great because I never have to worry about bandwidth limits or a third party site hosting the file being down. My ebook was even created in Google Docs. href="http://bradleydurham.com/blog">Feel free to subscribe to my newsletter to see this in action.

Never fear though, any documents you want kept private will be.

To share a file:

  1. Open your Google Docs list of files by clicking the Documents link in the upper lefthand corner of your Gmail inbox (see image above).
  2. On your list of files, put a check in the box beside the file you want to share.
  3. Click on the Share button to see your list of sharing option.
  4. Choose “Share Settings”./> class="aligncenter size-full wp-image-11737" title="Share Settings" src="http://pcmech.pcmediainc.netdna-cdn.com/wp-content/uploads/2010/07/share-settings.png" alt="Share Settings" width="185" height="115" />
  5. Under “Permissions”, click on the “Change” link./> class="aligncenter size-full wp-image-11738" title="Change" src="http://pcmech.pcmediainc.netdna-cdn.com/wp-content/uploads/2010/07/change.png" alt="Change" width="514" height="160" />
  6. I typically choose the option, “Anyone with a link”, and check the box for “Allow anyone to edit”. This will allow you to share the link with anyone even if they don’t have a Gmail account. Otherwise, they have to already have Gmail to view and edit or sign up for Gmail./> class="aligncenter size-full wp-image-11739" title="Settings" src="http://pcmech.pcmediainc.netdna-cdn.com/wp-content/uploads/2010/07/settings.png" alt="Settings" width="499" height="412" />
  7. Click “Save”.
  8. The next page will give you the link and lots of sharing options./> class="aligncenter size-full wp-image-11740" title="Link" src="http://pcmech.pcmediainc.netdna-cdn.com/wp-content/uploads/2010/07/link.png" alt="Link" width="515" height="475" />

That is it. You have now shared one of your Google Docs.

Compatibility

As with anytime you transfer documents between different office suites, there are likely to be some formatting issues. I work with both Open Office and MS Office in addition to Google Docs. When I convert to or from Google Docs, I sometimes get some text formatting problems. Sometimes the fonts don’t transfer 100% (sometimes they do). I think this is especially true when you create a document with a non-standard font.

In one presentation I created in Google Docs, the images moved around a bit when I converted the file to a .ppt file.

Have a better method for sharing files? Tells us in the comments below…

??Bradley Durham is a web design professional and owner of href="http://bradleydurham.com" target="_blank">Bradley Durham Design Studio. He specializes in WordPress theme design and customization. To find out more about his unique take on web design, check out his href="http://bradleydurham.com/blog" target="_blank">blog.

Post from: href="http://www.pcmech.com">PCMech. Helping Normal People Get Their Geek On And Live The Digital Lifestyle.href="http://www.pcmech.com/article/simple-file-sharing/">File Sharing Made Simple With Google Docs





9 Vote(s) ]]> <![CDATA[$35 Tablet Might Be The Real Deal]]> http://supertechnews.com/desktops/35-tablet-might-be-the-real-deal/ http://supertechnews.com/desktops/35-tablet-might-be-the-real-deal/ Tue, 17 Aug 2010 03:19:36 -0500 PCMech Desktops http://supertechnews.com/desktops/35-tablet-might-be-the-real-deal/ You may have heard rumors of India being able to product an ultra-cheap tablet computer for $35. Everyone dismissed this as nothing but fantasy, but it may actually turn out to be real. Per the video in this article, you actually get to see it in use.

The tablet does use the Android OS, and gets along with basic functions with what can best be described as OK at best. Bear in mind the selling point of this device is the price and not necessarily what it can do, or more importantly not do. For a basic overview of what it’s capable of, watch the video.

What I find one of the best features is that you can actually use it with a stylus. I personally believe all slab-style tablet computers should be able to do this because it just makes sense.

Yeah, it looks kinda cheap. But it is cheap to begin with, so you really can’t complain.

With tax and shipping, this $35 device would most likely be just under 50 bucks. But still, c’mon.. 50 bucks for a fully operational touchscreen tablet computer?

I’d buy two!

Post from: href="http://www.pcmech.com">PCMech. Helping Normal People Get Their Geek On And Live The Digital Lifestyle.href="http://www.pcmech.com/article/35-tablet-might-be-the-real-deal/">$35 Tablet Might Be The Real Deal





9 Vote(s) ]]> <![CDATA[Should You Purchase The Optional Recovery Disk When Buying A System?]]> http://supertechnews.com/desktops/should-you-purchase-the-optional-recovery-disk-when-buying-a-system/ http://supertechnews.com/desktops/should-you-purchase-the-optional-recovery-disk-when-buying-a-system/ Sun, 15 Aug 2010 03:21:10 -0500 PCMech Desktops http://supertechnews.com/desktops/should-you-purchase-the-optional-recovery-disk-when-buying-a-system/ When you purchase a new/refurbished system from some manufacturers, the recovery disk media is an optional component. Optional because the recovery data is typically stored on a partition on the hard drive which you can access via the BIOS boot menu. So should you purchase this optional media? Absolutely.

What if your hard drive crashes and the system is off warranty? You cannot simply go purchase a new hard drive and restore your system if you don’t have the recovery disk media (remember the OS is on this disk). Trying to purchase this after the fact can prove to be an expensive and time consuming process.

On the other hand if you do not have your recovery media, you can image your system as a way to recover in the event of a disaster. The only way you may get burned in this case is if the system looks for a “special” partition on the hard drive at boot up. Fortunately, this is a process (scam) I believe died out several years ago.

The bottom line is simply to opt for the the recovery disk. Considering the price is usually $10-20 it is worth having even if it only collects dust. After all, it is better to have it and not need it as opposed to need it and not have it.

Post from: href="http://www.pcmech.com">PCMech. Helping Normal People Get Their Geek On And Live The Digital Lifestyle.href="http://www.pcmech.com/article/should-you-purchase-the-optional-recovery-disk-when-buying-a-system/">Should You Purchase The Optional Recovery Disk When Buying A System?





14 Vote(s) ]]> <![CDATA[Better Privacy Add-On Makes Private Browsing More… Private]]> http://supertechnews.com/desktops/better-privacy-add-on-makes-private-browsing-more…-private/ http://supertechnews.com/desktops/better-privacy-add-on-makes-private-browsing-more…-private/ Sat, 14 Aug 2010 03:22:10 -0500 PCMech Desktops http://supertechnews.com/desktops/better-privacy-add-on-makes-private-browsing-more…-private/ Despite it’s name, “private browsing” mode href="http://arstechnica.com/security/news/2010/08/private-browsing-not-so-private.ars">does not necessarily live up to its intended function. The problem comes when add-ons are running while the browser is in private mode:

Internet Explorer and Chrome both disable browser extensions by default in their private mode; Firefox, however, does not, and this provides yet another avenue by which private information can be leaked.

One common add-on is the Flash player which has its own cookies system independent of the browser cookies. As such, private mode may or may not clean these up for you. To have your Flash cookies automatically cleared for you, check out the Firefox add-on, href="https://addons.mozilla.org/en-US/firefox/addon/6623/">Better Privacy.

Flash-cookies (Local Shared Objects, LSO) are pieces of information placed on your computer by a Flash plugin. Those Super-Cookies are placed in central system folders and so protected from deletion. They are frequently used like standard browser cookies. Although their thread potential is much higher as of conventional cookies, only few users began to take notice of them. It is of frequent occurrence that -after a time- hundreds of those Flash-cookies reside in special folders. And they won’t be deleted – never.

Better Privacy can be set to prompt or automatically delete these cookies on exiting your browser which is one more layer of protection against being tracked online.

Post from: href="http://www.pcmech.com">PCMech. Helping Normal People Get Their Geek On And Live The Digital Lifestyle.href="http://www.pcmech.com/article/better-privacy-add-on-makes-private-browsing-more-private/">Better Privacy Add-On Makes Private Browsing More… Private





13 Vote(s) ]]> <![CDATA[PC vs. Mac – Round 2]]> http://supertechnews.com/desktops/pc-vs-mac-/ http://supertechnews.com/desktops/pc-vs-mac-/ Fri, 13 Aug 2010 03:21:59 -0500 PCMech Desktops http://supertechnews.com/desktops/pc-vs-mac-/ You know how the story goes so far:

  1. Mac released an ad campaign: I’m a Mac and I’m a PC
  2. Microsoft countered with their I’m a PC / Windows 7 ad campaign

As href="http://www.ithinkdiff.com/microsoft-keeps-the-pc-vs-mac-fire-burning-with-a-huge-comparison-on-the-windows-7-website-61823/">this post from iThinkDiff points out, the two have taken round 2 to the web with both href="http://www.microsoft.com/windows/windows-7/compare/pc-vs-mac.aspx">Microsoft and href="http://www.apple.com/why-mac/">Apple launching their own “why pick us” sites.

While both sites point out their strengths, they also focus quite a bit on pointing out the others weakness with a sort of “Ha! You can’t do that on Mac/Windows!” undertone. Whether it is Coke vs. Pepsi, AT&T vs. Verizon, Ford vs. Chevy, (the list goes on); does this type of advertising really make an impact on your purchasing decision or does it just fuel the “fanboy” debates?

I hope we have all learned by now that everything boils down to personal preference. One is not better than the other when it comes to Windows or Mac. One is a hammer and the other a screwdriver, both tools to get things done but with different strengths.

Post from: href="http://www.pcmech.com">PCMech. Helping Normal People Get Their Geek On And Live The Digital Lifestyle.href="http://www.pcmech.com/article/pc-vs-mac-round-2/">PC vs. Mac – Round 2





10 Vote(s) ]]> <![CDATA[Online Anonymity Will Always Be Possible And Here’s Why]]> http://supertechnews.com/desktops/online-anonymity-will-always-be-possible-and-here’s-why/ http://supertechnews.com/desktops/online-anonymity-will-always-be-possible-and-here’s-why/ Fri, 13 Aug 2010 03:21:55 -0500 PCMech Desktops http://supertechnews.com/desktops/online-anonymity-will-always-be-possible-and-here’s-why/ By now you’ve most likely seen several articles href="http://www.networkworld.com/community/blog/google-ceo-schmidt-no-anonymity-future-web">like this one where the CEO of Google infers that anonymity on the web isn’t necessary and that the Internet’s future will contain none of it whatsoever.

People freak out when they read stuff like that.

Every time I read an article of that ilk I get a chuckle because the bitter truth is that the Internet will never be 100% anonymity-free. As big as Google is, it is not bigger than the Internet itself, nor will it ever be.

It’s very easy to read those type of articles and think that, in the future, none of us will be able to surf anywhere or do anything without our real name being attached to it. To be blunt, getting that to work in practical application would be next to impossible.

Two Big Things About Google

There’s two things you have to remember about Google.

First, their primary means of revenue is advertising, and if they tick off the public who uses their system too much by asking too much of them, the public will simply stop using said system. When that happens, money is lost by the truckload, the customer’s trust is unlikely to be regained and the company will ultimately fold.

“Google? Fold? OH, COME ON.. that will never happen… right?”

It could. No business has a magic cloak that shields them forever.

Second, all the information you give them is voluntary. Nobody is forcing you to give them anything. You don’t have to use Google search (href="http://www.scroogle.org">Scroogle, anyone?) You don’t have to use Gmail, Google Maps or any of their products. It is not required.

Aside from those two things to remember about Google, absolutely none of the articles like the one above touch upon the fact that things like other web sites (like this one), IRC and forums will still be around and most likely always will be as long as the Internet exists. It’s not like they’re going to vanish into thin air.

Google Isn’t The Internet

The great thing about the Internet is that there is no one entity that owns it. Some people are under the foolish belief that Internet = Google. Um.. no. I can get my way around the Internet quite easily without any Goog involvement whatsoever, search and all.

Let’s say for the moment Goog does institute a no-anonymity policy for use of their services. So what? Does that stop you from being anonymous elsewhere? No. Does that stop you from concealing your identity when you want to broadcast sensitive whistleblower-style material? Maybe before social media it would stop you – but not anymore.

And who’s to say that if Goog did decide to go anon-free that it wouldn’t backfire on them in such a huge way that it would tear the company to shreds?

The future is not as bleak concerning anonymity as some would think. Have faith in your Internet and anonymous folk. Both are people-powered and not business-powered; it’s the people who ultimately decide what’s acceptable on the Internet and what isn’t – not Google. Don’t believe otherwise.

Post from: href="http://www.pcmech.com">PCMech. Helping Normal People Get Their Geek On And Live The Digital Lifestyle.href="http://www.pcmech.com/article/anonymity-online/">Online Anonymity Will Always Be Possible And Here’s Why





14 Vote(s) ]]> <![CDATA[Beware of Privacy Risks From Your Browser Cache]]> http://supertechnews.com/desktops/beware-of-privacy-risks-from-your-browser-cache/ http://supertechnews.com/desktops/beware-of-privacy-risks-from-your-browser-cache/ Thu, 12 Aug 2010 03:20:15 -0500 PCMech Desktops http://supertechnews.com/desktops/beware-of-privacy-risks-from-your-browser-cache/ As you probably know, when you are browsing the Internet your browser of choice keeps a local cache of items you view in a temporary internet files folder. It is important to remember that most everything you view and open is saved here which can include sensitive information.

For example, if you use online banking with paperless statements and then view your statement as a PDF, unless you manually specify the location to save this PDF it is dropped into your temporary internet files folder. Obviously, this document contains sensitive information such as your account number and address which would make it an ideal target for malware to try and grab.

There are a few things you can do to curb this:

  • Use the “private mode” browsing when going to sites such as this. Private mode deletes all your temp files and cookies from that session upon exiting.
  • Keep your browser cache small (25-50 MB). This will keep temp files constantly rolling over.
  • Delete your temporary internet files often.
  • Keep your computer patched… after all if malware can’t get in then it can’t do any damage.

Post from: href="http://www.pcmech.com">PCMech. Helping Normal People Get Their Geek On And Live The Digital Lifestyle.href="http://www.pcmech.com/article/browser-cache-privacy/">Beware of Privacy Risks From Your Browser Cache





15 Vote(s) ]]> <![CDATA[How To Enable Google Multiple Account Sign-On]]> http://supertechnews.com/desktops/how-to-enable-google-multiple-account-sign-on/ http://supertechnews.com/desktops/how-to-enable-google-multiple-account-sign-on/ Thu, 12 Aug 2010 03:20:09 -0500 PCMech Desktops http://supertechnews.com/desktops/how-to-enable-google-multiple-account-sign-on/ A few weeks ago, Google began rolling out a feature which allows you to be logged into more than one Google account at the same time without using any incognito browser hanky-panky.

As a person who has more than one Google account, this is pretty handy. I used to, instead, just use different browsers when I wanted to check another account. For example, I’d use Chrome for my main account and Safari for another. Different sets of cookies means no conflict.

Turning on the multiple sign-on can be done via your href="https://www.google.com/accounts/b/0/ManageAccount">Google Accounts page. You should see an option under Personal Settings for “Multiple Sign-In”. You’ll hit the “Edit” link, turn it on, check off the acknowledgements that you understand how it works, then save. You’re done.

From there, you’ll need to refresh your Gmail page and you’ll see that your account name has a little arrow next to it which drops down, allowing you to sign into other accounts.

This option is not yet available for Google Apps. Also, it will only work in certain apps, and apparently it has not yet carried over to mobile versions of these apps. So, if you’re on the Android OS, you’ll still use your default account. And if you use Gmail in-browser on a mobile device (such as an Ipad), you won’t see the multiple signon capability. Yet.

Post from: href="http://www.pcmech.com">PCMech. Helping Normal People Get Their Geek On And Live The Digital Lifestyle.href="http://www.pcmech.com/article/google-multiple-account-sign-on/">How To Enable Google Multiple Account Sign-On





9 Vote(s) ]]> <![CDATA[Android + Google Voice = Awesome]]> http://supertechnews.com/desktops/android-google-voice--awesome/ http://supertechnews.com/desktops/android-google-voice--awesome/ Wed, 11 Aug 2010 03:20:49 -0500 PCMech Desktops http://supertechnews.com/desktops/android-google-voice--awesome/ You want free text messaging? Free visual voice mail? The ability to screen your calls and have custom voice mail greetings?

style="float: right;" title="android-voice.jpg" src="http://pcmech.pcmediainc.netdna-cdn.com/wp-content/uploads/2010/08/android-voice.jpg" border="0" alt="android-voice.jpg" width="250" height="376" />

Then you really need to check out href="http://www.google.com/mobile/voice/">Google Voice. It is now completely wide open (and free) to sign up for anybody in the U.S.

I’ve had a Google Voice number for awhile. In fact, my main business line is now a Google Voice line. But, it was a voice-mail only line up until I got an Android phone. The Android OS keeps you inside the Google-verse which means that everything integrates with Google.

Using an Android phone, you can download the Google Voice app from the Marketplace (free). When you set it up, you’ll be able to do things like:

  • Make out-going calls from your Google Voice line from your Android phone.
  • Send/receive text messages using Voice and not have to pay for SMS from your carrier.
  • Get visual voice mail via the Voice app, a feature that some carriers actually charge an additional monthly fee for.

Now, I’m not going to go through a whole tutorial on how to set up Voice on your phone. It is actually brain-dead easy. However, here are a few tips I picked up while setting it up:

  1. Set up your mobile number in Google Voice via the web rather than from the phone. Otherwise, it will require you to get a text message on the phone to confirm. And, if you intend to use Voice for SMS, you don’t want to have to add SMS to your carrier (and pay for it) just for confirming your phone with Google. If you set it up via the web, then you can take care of it via a phone call.
  2. My personal preference is to turn call screening OFF. It forces people to say their name before it rings your phone, which is annoying.
  3. Set up Voice in the settings (on the web) to NOT forward SMS messages to your phone. It might seem counter-inuitive, but you will actually get all your SMS messages via the Voice app. If you set it to forward SMS, then it is actually forwarding to your actual carrier number and therefore charging you for text messages. And that defeats the point.
  4. Put a shortcut to the Voice app on your phone’s home screen and remove the shortcut to the phone’s built-in messaging. You want to get into a habit of using Voice for these things. If you accidentally send an SMS from the phone’s built-in app, it will use your carrier rather than Voice.
  5. Be sure to set up your contacts with href="http://www.google.com/contacts/">Google Contacts and assign them to appropriate groups. It is by using the groups that you can define custom rules for their incoming calls. For example, are you getting pesky calls from a particular number that you don’t want? Well, with Voice, you can easily block that number. Or, by assigning it to a group, you can set that group to always forward to voice mail and never ring your actual phone. Very handy.

This was my primary reason for switching away from the Iphone and getting an Android phone. I don’t even give out my direct Verizon number. Everybody gets the Google Voice number and, from their point of view (and mine), I can manage those calls just like it was my main number. With the Voice app on the Android, it literally integrates this system into the phone so deeply that it doesn’t feel as if you’re not using your carrier directly.

Post from: href="http://www.pcmech.com">PCMech. Helping Normal People Get Their Geek On And Live The Digital Lifestyle.href="http://www.pcmech.com/article/android-google-voice-awesome/">Android + Google Voice = Awesome





5 Vote(s) ]]> <![CDATA[Breaking Down An Advertising Malware Scam]]> http://supertechnews.com/desktops/breaking-down-an-advertising-malware-scam/ http://supertechnews.com/desktops/breaking-down-an-advertising-malware-scam/ Tue, 10 Aug 2010 03:23:16 -0500 PCMech Desktops http://supertechnews.com/desktops/breaking-down-an-advertising-malware-scam/ I have written before about href="http://www.pcmech.com/article/online-security-dissecting-an-ebay-scam/">how a typical scam works (both surface level and technically) using an eBay auction. While victims of these scams are obviously affected, the damage is not widespread (save future victims the scammers are motivated to go after). On the other hand, malware which spreads via infected advertising networks have the ability to infect anyone who visits the effected site. But how do infected ad networks make it onto a host site? The short answer is scammers (surprise, surprise).

For an in-depth look at how one such advertising scam works, take a look at href="http://www.mediapost.com/publications/?fa=Articles.showArticle&art_aid=133004">this article which is the case study for one targeted site. After reading it, you can see how sophisticated some scams are at surface level (fake references, etc.), but ultimately there are always going to be things that don’t add up. The author breaks down exactly how they flagged the scam and determined this was indeed an attempted attack on their site. Overall, I thought this was a very informative read and educated me a lot on how some of these scams reach the light of day.

The bottom line when dealing with any situation you think may be a scam is to just use your head. As always, if something seems to good to be true, it probably is.

Post from: href="http://www.pcmech.com">PCMech. Helping Normal People Get Their Geek On And Live The Digital Lifestyle.href="http://www.pcmech.com/article/breaking-down-an-advertising-malware-scam/">Breaking Down An Advertising Malware Scam





8 Vote(s) ]]>