If Go to Meeting is too expensive, try Meetings.io

While far from the only Web-based video meeting system, Meetings.io has one of the easiest interfaces to get you talking amongst yourselves. Up to five users can meet at once. Screen sharing is a given, and you can share videos from sites like YouTube and Vimeo. You don't have to sign up to use Meetings.io, but if you do, you can personalize a spot for all future live chats and hangouts

Sometimes the customer is NOT right

I did not add this link from personal experience in servicing computers (because I love you all!)  However, I did find this quirky website, Notalwaysright.com that follows the trials and suffering of those who serve the public in retail and similar jobs.  They list there stories of the unbelievable customers they encounter and how they are, yes, NOT always right.  Call if FML of retail.

Clean up your Inbox from Spam with The Swizzle Sweeper

Formerly called Unsubscribr (which, let's face it, was a better name), the Swizzle Sweeper is there to help you unsubscribe from all your spam. Of course, it also helps you "enjoy deals" from vendors you do like, but the selling point is getting off as many bulk-mailing lists as possible with one fell swoop.  All you need to do is enter your email address, then your password and it will give you a listing of your unwanted, solicited emails and give you the option of unsubscribing to it or having them bulk delivered at a designated time each day to your inbox.  Oh, it is safe for those who are worried about the email password portion of the process, it just needs it to sweep the inbox.  For the truly paranoid, simply change your password, run swizzle and change it again when it is done. 

Yes, a Wikipedia for Rap songs....and it's so damn funny

When I came across this site, I thought it was....a joke, but no, it is not.  Head over to RapGenius.com.  It really is simple.  It has a database of rap music and it has one purpose, to explain the particular song you are looking up to you.  Don't know what the hell DMX just said or what it means the song "Made you Look"? Go to rap genius and it will explain the lyrics, line by line to you.  I typed in "Summertime" from Will Smith.  It was a bit comical as the explanation at times can be....clinical, but it is so much fun. 

Let me google that for you!

I often get asked how I acquire the random information for fixing various computer problems that come up.  Most of the time I simply say, "Tech guys are good, but our best attribute is that we are better at Google then most people".  People laugh, but I am dead serious.  Yes, we do know a lot, but when we do not know the answer (which is a lot more than you realize), we simply google.  After 10 minutes or so of scraping through tech forums, we come up with several solutions.  Well, now you can too.  The next time you have a question that needs an answer, simply google it.  Now I realize that this usually requires a separate lesson on how to google it (which I do not understand, since most people go to facebook by googling it, instead of simply entering Facebook.com, but I'm getting off topic) 

Go to http://lmgtfy.com/.  Simply type in your question into the box and hit enter and the site will google it for you.  Or, you can just go to Google and do the same thing, but nevertheless, either way will have you on the path that techguys, like myself, travel every day!

Just in case you need to break a password...on your system of course!

There’s a sort of cruel irony to passwords. The legitimate passwords people need to use to access crucial applications or data are often forgotten, and yet the bad guys seem to be able to crack passwords without breaking a sweat. Thankfully, there’s a free tool available that can help you in either of these cases—Cain & Abel.

What is Cain & Abel? It’s described as a Windows-based password recovery tool, but it does much, much more than just password recovery. The software can capture and monitor network traffic for passwords, crack encrypted passwords using various methods, record Voice over IP (VoIP) conversations, recover wireless network keys, and more.

Passwords are the keys to almost everything.

If you’ve forgotten a crucial password, and don’t have any password reset capability in place, you can use Cain & Abel to try and crack the password for you. Cain & Abel can perform a dictionary attack—essentially trying every word in the dictionary—to guess the password. It can also do a brute force attack, which attempts every possible combination of uppercase and lowercase letters, numbers, and symbols until it finds the right one, or cryptanalysis attacks that attempt to circumvent password encryption techniques. It could take hours, or possibly days, but given enough time Cain & Abel should be able to recover the password for you.