GuruNews, Volume 9 Number 45, 12-10-09

Thu Dec 10 18:02:36 PST 2009

Welcome to GuruNews

Brought to you each week by the PC Gurus, a loose collection of volunteers from around the Kentuckiana region.

You can interact with the PC Guru team via our Web site, located at http://www.thepcgurus.com.  On our site you can post your computer questions, comments and rants on the forums, e-mail the PC Guru

team members and chat one on one in our nightly IRC chat beginning around 8:00 PM EDT.  You can also subscribe to our RSS feeds so you can get the latest news and forum updates from the PC Guru Web site directly on your computer.

If you're new to the Newsletter you can read back issues at Team member JP Durbin's website at http://www.jpdurbin.net.  There are links to all the old 84 Online issues as well as the new GuruNews missives.

The WHAS Crusade for Children provides year round support for needy children throughout the Kentuckiana region.  Visit http://www.whascrusade.org to make donations online.

USS Rover’s list of streaming computer shows is now available for download in Excel, Open Office and Linux ready formats from http://sheet.zoho.com/public/ussrover/shows. 

To subscribe to this newsletter just drop by www.thepcgurus.com and sign up!

Vol. 9, No. 45                           

12-10-09

1 Week 2 of gadget tips: The not-so expensive stuff  

2 Where does this go?

3 AT&T reneges, Facebook privacy, Lite Brite?, Internet stats

4 Share those photos

5 Wireless security

Last week I mentioned netbooks as popular gifts but mentioned some drawbacks, including the lack of an optical drive.

If you’re shopping for someone who already has a netbook or perhaps you’re looking for additional gifts to go along with one, consider getting a USB DVD-RW.

Go for the slim-line models, which only require USB connections and can be carried in the same bag with the netbook.  The full size units require a separate AC adapter and are much too large to pack around.

Another great gift idea for netbook/laptop owners is a new roomy case.

People who travel a lot would likely make great use of a semi-rigid case with an expandable handle and wheels, while students and road warriors could make great use of a backpack.

Personally I use a backpack and carry a laptop, netbook, couple hundred software and utility CDs, digital camera, external hard drive, extra USB and ethernet cables, multiple small tools and various other junk.  It weighs a ton but it gets me around with everything I need.

Speaking of cameras, entry-level point-and-shoot cameras are inexpensive and will get extensive use by young teenagers or older folks who don’t already have cameras.

Most are around or under $100 and really make nice gifts, especially for artistic minded folks or people with large families who attend or host a lot of family functions.

Some accessories for cameras, such as tripods and monopods, can also make some inexpensive gifts that are a bit too large for stocking stuffers.

Traveling types with lousy cell-phone plans could likely make use of a Magic Jack, the USB dongle that gives you a portable telephone jack with it’s own number, caller ID, voice mail (sent to your email as Wave files) and unlimited calling.  $40 gets you the device itself and a year of calls.  Additional years can be purchased for $20 per year or less.

I’ve mentioned these VoIP gizmos before and find the call clarity and functionality to be equal to a standard phone line, and since most hotels offer free broadband they could save big bucks by avoiding those expensive calls from the hotel phone.

MP3 players remain popular and, although most iPods remain relatively expensive, some of the lesser-known manufacturers have some high quality and reasonably priced models.

Some Creative Zen and Microsoft Zune models are in the neighborhood of $100 or less and will play MP3s without a hitch.  The SanDisk Sansa does as well, and it’s comparably very inexpensive

And lastly there’s the ever-popular gift card.  If you absolutely positively can’t think of a gift then the cards make easy and versatile alternatives.

One word of advice on these things.  I’ve gotten them for stores that I seldom visit and had them expire or depreciate to uselessness without every being used.  To avoid this go with a general debit card option like a Visa or MasterCard.  These can be used at any store that takes credit cards and are much more likely to get spent.

I mean I’m not exactly a Bed, Bath and Beyond kinda guy ;)

Kevin Mefford, Editor

microdome at thepcgurus.com

Terry Wise

www.ratland.com

Tech News of the Week

AT&T is looking at doing usage-based data plans for their smartphone customers, stating that 3% of their smartphone users are using 40% of the data bandwidth over AT&T's mobile data network 

http://tinyurl.com/ylpts3n 

Those of you that use Facebook and have questions over the privacy settings for your online information, Facebook is working on simplifying the controls for your privacy, and allowing you better control.  Read up more on the upcoming changes here:

http://blog.facebook.com/blog.php?post=196629387130

http://blog.facebook.com/blog.php?post=197943902130

The headline almost writes itself, but if you wire a wireless router up in a conspicuous place, and end up securing that router with tape to the wall or ceiling, make sure it doesn't look like a bomb:

http://tinyurl.com/yey3ydy 

Ever wonder how big the Internet really is?  How much information gets consumed on the Internet?  Take a gander at some comparatives on the following sites.  Some interesting stats:

http://www.onlineeducation.net/internet/

http://hmi.ucsd.edu/howmuchinfo_research_report_consum.php

It's the best of the Internet, but you can make it better.  Keep us in the loop on the best you find on the web!

Daniel Williams

daniel at thepcgurus.com

Download of the Week

With the holidays approaching, we all will be taking digital photos.  Besides storing and sorting those pictures on your PC, you might want to use one of the online photo galleries to share your photos with friends and family.

Check out the services offered at the following sites:

www.shutterfly.com 

www.flickr.com 

http://download.live.com/photogallery 

Each of these sites allows you to create albums, add borders and other enhancements, and do some simple editing.  When you’ve finished with those chores you can easily share your pics via email.  

Carlita Lupino

Cards57 at gmail.com

Email Question of the Week

Q:  I have ATT DSL. I also have a wireless router which I use with 4 other computers. Is there a way to password this router so no other "neighbors" can steal off of my internet service?

A:  There are actually two ways to secure your router.  You'll need the manufacturer's instructions for logging into it but once in you can go into the wireless security section and set a WEP or WPA passphrase.  WPA is more secure but either should be fine for home use.

Once you set the passphrase I strongly suggest you copy it and paste it into a text file.  You can save that text file to a flash drive and easily get friends or relatives online if they drop by with laptops or netbooks.  This is much more likely if you have kids.

You can also set up MAC filtering in the same section.  MAC addresses are unique identifiers 12 characters in length.  You can use a program like SIW (http://www.gtopala.com/siw-download.html) to get the MAC address for each device on your network, then add those to the filter.  Any devices not listed will be blocked.

You can use the two in tandem but the filtering is much harder to manage if you need to add devices on the fly.

Regardless, you'll have to check the manual online for your device to get instructions on getting into it.

Hope that helps and keep us posted...

Kevin Mefford

microdome at thepcgurus.com

Contact info and legal stuff

If you have tech support questions or ideas and/or submissions for our newsletter please submit them by visiting www.thepcgurus.com and click on the “Email the Team” icon. 

Copyright 2001-2009 The PC Gurus, all rights reserved.  Publication, rebroadcast or storage is prohibited without prior consent, however you may freely forward this publication to friends as long as A) it is forwarded in its entirety and B) no fee is charged.

Information provided in this publication is provided "as is" without warranty of any kind, either expressed or implied.  Although the information provided is known to work on most systems, it may not work on ALL systems.  Make use of any information supplied at your own risk.

The PC Gurus are a group of volunteers who provide support for the PC, Mac and Linux users in the Kentuckiana region.

To unsubscribe from this newsletter visit http://thepcgurus.com/mailman/listinfo/newsletter_thepcgurus.com or send an email to microdome at seidata.com with the words “unsubscribe newsletter” (without the quotes) at the top of the body of the message
-------------- next part --------------
An HTML attachment was scrubbed...
URL: <http://mail.thepcgurus.com/pipermail/newsletter_thepcgurus.com/attachments/20091210/ccb83f9d/attachment.html>
-------------- next part --------------
A non-text attachment was scrubbed...
Name: not available
Type: image/jpeg
Size: 43145 bytes
Desc: not available
URL: <http://mail.thepcgurus.com/pipermail/newsletter_thepcgurus.com/attachments/20091210/ccb83f9d/attachment.jpe>