I’ve been the go to girl for many a family and friend in computer need, but these days there are so many more variable when it comes to getting a computer running at optimal speed with so many different viruses, spyware, hardware types, operating systems, and the list goes on and on. Even a geek gal like me has to call on an expert to help with a computer issue now and again.
Recently a good friend called me about setting up a wireless network with their windows vista machine, I had never set up a wireless network, but thought I could probably breeze through the directions and make it work within a few minutes, so I went over and got started on plugging everything in and setting things up according to the instructions. Wow. Vista is a whole ‘nother animal, and networking wireless with the Acer system and vista turned out to be much more than I bargained for. I couldn’t get it to connect, and I was so frustrated that I had spent so much time trying to get it work. This is when we called for some professional assistance.
We called PcAskMe and got a tech on the phone, they logged into her machine (I had the wired ethernet working fine), he made a few adjustments and viola’, it was connected to the wireless and we were surfing without the wired cable minutes later. So my advice to family and friends, if you’ve got a newer system and don’t want to waste a lot of time, don’t call me, call an expert. The people as PcAskMe can do most computer repairs online without you having to leave the house. They will save us both a ton of time and frustration, and I look forward to services like these making my life much easier.
In today’s category of bad news, I see a story that says yahoo is merging it’s music service into real network’s rhapsody. Why oh why? I love yahoo music, launchcast, the videos, I have tons of songs and artists rated through the service and it’s something I use everyday. I am not a big fan of the real player from real networks, much preferring musicmatch jukebox, which yahoo did screw with badly, but I still like it better than the real player.
First off, what is going to happen to all of my song ratings? I have a pretty cool customized radio station now that I have given the thumbs up and thumbs down to so many artist and songs, will that just disappear with this merger (sell out!).
I have also been considering some network audio players, and some of them work with rhapsody and some work with yahoo music (one of the factors that has me leaning towards getting this wireless network audio player) – will that functionality cease to sexist with this transition?
Well in protest of this news I am listening to DI.fm today – which has way fewer commercials anyway.
On the plus side with yahoo today – there was an announcement about them buying FoxyTunes, a company that developed a toolbar plug-in application that enables users to control more than 30 desktop and Web-based music players. – But why get that? Just so you can brand it with real networks? Or maybe this was something separate, with the way yahoo has been handling music and music players it may of been best for them to leave foxy tunes alone. There is hope that miscrosoft will not acquire yahoo for many reasons, and for many of the same reasons I hope that foxytunes is not ruined by yahoo like yahoo music will be when it is taken over by real.
Just my humble opinion – an upset rant that may be edited later, updated, or proven wrong at some point. But I doubt it.
There have been stories in the news lately of computers being stolen with lots of sensitive information including social security numbers. I have seen at least three stories in the past couple of weeks where thousands of people’s personal information was accessed or stolen, and there has been a lot of buzz about identity theft. During these times of increased personal information security breaches, lifelock is one company that has been on TV and in the news as well.
When Aron was looking into adding identity theft protection with his insurance company online, a commercial for lifelock came on TV that showed the founder of this company putting his social security number on a large bus and running it around a big city. Advertising your social security number in front of thousands of people would seem quite absurd to those of us who are familiar with the various ways it can be used to steal identity, get false credit, and otherwise use someone else’s information to do bad things.
The lifelock company has several experts in from various working working to keep people from becoming a victim of identity theft. They keep up with the major credit bureaus and keep on eye on your credit and have a million dollar guarantee. This is a pretty amazing guarantee, so you know they are working hard with lots of technology to make sure that people do not have ill effects from a personal information breach. After researching the lifelock company more I was impressed to find out they go the extra mile with a wallet lock service that will replace your important documents contained in your wallet should it become lost or stolen.
Lifelock is doing big things, and as a very new company that just started in 2005 they are already gaining the attention big investment firms, as Goldman Sachs Group recently funded them with 25 million dollars. It seems that this s a company that will be around for a while and should keep the trust of everyone who uses them.
My other LED grow light arrived today The Procyon 100 and I am so excited because I just put a couple of tomato seeds in some new containers and need the extra light. This LED grow light has lots of great features one of them being no need for a ballast or reflector, it is just ready to plug in and go right out of the box. The slick looking black case looks very cool in my opinion and the on board fan is very quite, the lights are very powerful, after looking at the lights turn on I saw red spots for about 5 minutes. I will post some pictures as my vegetables grow over time to let everyone see which light did the best out of my 2 new LEDs. Some of the features on this LED grow light are.
• 56 CREE* Xlamp high power LEDs (40 635nm, 16 470nm)
• 100W nominal LED power delivery
• 125W total power consumption
• Integrated power supply; requires no “ballast”
• Replaces 400W HID light, giving 75% power savings
• Covers approximately 10 square feet
• 50,000+ hour LED life
I like to grow my own vegetables at home and in the past I have had to buy expensive lights that require changing the bulbs just about every 3 to 6 months. Also they take a lot of power to operate and require a reflector and a ballast and a little bit of electrical know how in order to set up. And that is just the light. My friends told me about these new LED grow lights coming out that use 1/8 the power and last ten times longer than my current vegetable lights. After taking a look at the new LED grow lights I decided to purchase two to see which works better for my indoor vegetable garden. I am still waiting on one of my lights to arrive because it is on back order but the LED UFO showed up and seems to be working better than my current light system. Some of the benefits of the UFO LED are
- Greatly reduced power consumption
- Less Heat Generated
- Ideal for all phases of plant growth
- No setup required
- Less Pollution
- Extremely long life – 80,000+ hour
Misc Tech | Alice Pretchet | 
February 6, 2008 12:46 am | 
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