Kevins Tips

Searching for News on Balloon Boy, which we now know is a hoax, can result in a Virus or Malware to be placed on your computer.  I was scanning the Internet today for stories, and almost half of the pages I went to were malicious sites.  Stick with the major sites like CNN.com, ABC.com, NBC.com, etc. and you’ll be fine, but if you are doing searches on this or any major news story BEWARE!

Balloon Boy Falcon Heene Father Richard on CNN who also appeared on Wife Swap with wife Mayumi

How did I know about the Virus and Malware problems?  Because I have blocks in place to protect me.

Here are two things I have installed that are picking up problems — both are FREE.

– McAfee Site Advisor
– AVG Anti-Virus

I also have Symantec (and McAfee) Anti Virus Installed, but AVG always seems to pick up things it doesn’t.

ALSO - Generally speaking, Firefox tends to be the Safer Browser.

Here is info from one page AVG protected me from….

These days, it’s not only viruses that can harm your computer. Online criminals can potentially take control of any webpage and infiltrate your computer.

Web-based threats like exploits, phishing, and social engineering can corrupt your computer, steal your identity or make your computer part of a “bot” network. AVG is committed to protecting you while online, and is constantly analyzing web sites on the Internet for these and other online threats.

Basic Concept Overview of MP3 Players

Personally I’m not an Apple (iPod) fan.  I think they are waaaaaayyyyy overpriced.  They were not the first to come up with the concept of the MP3 Player and I don’t think they are the best either.

Apple limits you in memory.  They ONLY have devices (including the iPhone) that have built in memory and you can not expand it.  A lot of other brands (not all of them), allow you to expand the memory using something like an SD memory card, which can be purchased separately in various memory sizes.

From my personal experience, I would recommend a Sansa Brand (they come in MANY memory sizes and options).

Here are some examples…

Some Sansa Models do not have expandable memory, but many do.

Some Sansa models also include an FM radio (that works pretty well), a Photo Viewer, it plays videos, and is a voice recorder.  iPods in this price range often only play MP3s

Something no one tells you, is that when you load up an iPod from your computer, you can’t unload the music to another computer.  There is a lot of protection crap (like DRM-Digital Rights Management) out there that keep the average law abiding person from doing simple things - and iPods are particularly restrictive.  Almost all other brands of MP3 players, will allow you to copy your files to another computer.  It simply looks like another Hard Drive on your Computer - If you can click and drag files on your computer now, you can do it to an MP3 player.  There is also a lot of protection crap that prevents you from making multiple copies, like when you have more then one iPod - it’s quite frustrating.

A lot of people use software called “iTunes” made by Apple - another product I’m not crazy about.  Check out Media Monkey the version you’ll need is FREE and does a LOT.  You can play around with it now, before you get a MP3 player.  I also use it to listen to Music from the Internet - there are a few hundred stations you can play.

Now I’ve touched on this protection thing, let me elaborate a bit.  If you take a CD and “rip” it (aka copy it) - the files are in a format called WAV - it’s a HUGE (about 30-40MB) file size (but high quality), so the format MP3 was created.  It’s MUCH smaller (about 3-4MB).  MP3s are reduced quality, but the average person can’t tell.  Now the music industry came out with some other formats like WMA.  These have hidden information in them and they can put a lot of restrictions on you, like you can’t play it on some devices, or you can’t make copies, or you can only make 2 copies, etc. etc.

MP3’s play on EVERY device, they are the most “universal”.  You’ll see some other formats like OGG, AAC, etc (there are a LOT of formats).  I’d stick with MP3s.  If you have a CD collection, then rip them to the MP3 format (you can use Media Monkey or something similar) to do it.

OK - Back to Players…

MP3 Players come in a variety of sizes and options from very simple and basic with a small amount of memory (like 1GB) to a massive collection like 80GB that will also play movies/videos.

1GB=250 songs (approx) ~ 25 Full CDs (if you wanted EVERY song on the CD).

The smaller ones may simply play songs randomly (so you can’t pick the song you want next), may not have a screen, etc.  The larger ones will have a screen, possibly show photos or even play videos.

Track what your kids are doing on their cell phone.  You can watch who they call as well as who and what they text.  This is not spyware, because they know it’s on the phone, My Mobile Watchdog notifies the user that they are being monitored, making it impossible to track their usage secretly.

“With the rapid growth of mobile technology, children today are exposed to many of the same dangers using a cell phone or mobile device that they face on the web; dangers such as cyber bullying, child predators and exposure to adult themes. RADAR, Your Kids’ Mobile Watchdog, is a parental control service for cell phones and mobile devices that uses patent-pending technology to help parents monitor and protect their children from harm while on their cell phone.”

If your like me, you occassionally go to your local rental store and rent a movie for the night. You make the trip to the store, spend time figuring out what you want, drive home, get settled, and start the movie.

As you are become involved in the movie it freezes - UGHHH!!!

You take it out, flip it over to discover it’s all scratched up. So what are your options? Well you can get back in the car, drive to the store, and get a replacement - Good Luck if it’s a new release.

Here is a better thing to try.

First wash it with warm running water and then dry it with a paper towel. If it’s just gunky, this will fix it right up. If it’s scratched, go and get some toothpaste, put some on a paper towel, and polish the DVD. Make sure to dry off all excess toothpaste when you are done.

Unless the scratch is very deep, this will fix it right up, at least good enough to find out who the murdered was.

Seems like when cell phones came out, they were an expensive commodity very few could afford. Now even 8 year olds are carrying cell phones. Cell phones have become as disposable as diapers. So what do you do with your old cell phone?

Here are a few options….

• Sell it on eBay
• Sell it on Craigs List
• Sell it at Cell For Cash
• Donate it to Cell Phones for Soldiers

.

.

What is RSS?

You’ve probably seen this on lot’s of websites and wondered what it means.

RSS (Really Simple Syndication) in brief is an easy way to stay up to date about a website. In the old days, if you wanted to see the latest about a website, you would have to open up your browser and go to that website. If you had a lot of websites you liked, you would have to go to each website individually.

Well then came RSS. This allows you to keep track of the latest contest of many websites. There are two ways to do this, you can use an RSS feed reader (like Google Reader), or use your email client (like Thunderbird). Personally I prefer using Thunderbird because it keeps both my email and my RSS feeds in one place. However it doesn’t come across as email, it’s a separate folder on your Thunderbird Screen.

For example, let’s get an RSS feed from KevinsTips.com.

If you already use Google Reader, or iGoogle, just click on the RSS button (top right).

To add an RSS feed in Thunderbird do the following…

- First setup the RSS Account in Thunderbird
- Tools>Account Settings>Add Account…>RSS News & Blogs
- Click Next>Next>Finish
Now you’ve got an account setup - you only need to do this once for the very first RSS feed you setup.

- Now get the link from the website.

…click on the RSS button, like this one… (top right)

-some sights might say XML, like this one…

Cut/Paste this link.

Back to Thunderbird…
- Tools>Account Settings
- Click on “News & Blogs” (we created above)
- To the right click on the Manage Subscriptions Button
- Click the “Add” Button
- Place the above link into the “Feed URL” text box
- Close that window, and then click the “OK” button

For more details, go to the Mozilla Site