This is why you should have a password on your wireless router..

A homeowner from Buffalo, New York found himself staring at the multiple assault weapons in his home after a police raid looking for child pornography that he allegedly downloaded from the Internet.  Further investigation revealed that the culprit was his neighbor, using his wireless router to connect and do the dirty deed.  Apparently, the homeowner got frustrated trying to set up the password on his new wireless router, gave up and left it without one.  I get many people ask me about why they need a password, here is the best answer.  Pedophiles and criminals will cruise neighborhoods looking for unprotected networks to connect to specifically to do these types of things.  Check out my Wireless and WiFi pages for information on how to protect your network.

100,000 are paying so far

A couple of weeks ago, I had a story about the New York Times instituting a paywall on their website.  To access all of the content, you had to pay a minimum of $35 a month.  The first 20 articles were free to everyone, after that, open your wallet.  Well, after 3 weeks, the first numbers are in.  100,000 people are paying.  Although those numbers seem encouraging, they are not.  Revenue at the Times company, the New York Times parent company, fell 3.6%.  The Times is hoping to get at least 300,000 subscribers by the end of the year.  Odds are that they will fall short.  If you want to access all the content for free, try this link to a toolbar add-on that will get you around the limit.

Blackberry Playbook is unofficially dead now..

I had an earlier post about the Blackberry Playbook, an alternative to the iPad.  It was just released and initially seemed promising, until RIM made the mistake of not integrating a way to add your email, social contacts and calendar into the device.  A big strike against it.  Now a couple of more that might sink it completely before it gets started.  Verizon has not decided whether or not it wants to distribute the Playbook at all in it's stores.  The final strike is that for some unknown reason, Hulu has decided against allowing video streaming to the device.  With no email support, 4G network availability and no high quality video streaming capabilities, what's the point in this tablet.  Everything potentially good about it is missing.

Do not ever, ever listen to an infomercial!

In general, all infomercials are not helpful to your wallet.  They are fun to watch, but please do not fall for them, especially those that are computer related.  I just saw another one called cleanmypc dot com (I am not listing the official website because I do not want to encourage you going there or the search engines scrubbing my site and giving them Google juice).  Another one is finallyfast dot com.  All of these infomercials claim to clean up and speed up your machine.  Not true, they just collect your money.  Save your time and money.  If you want to speed or clean up your system, follow some of the advice in the maintenance section of this website.  If you want to learn more about the slimy side of infomercials, check out www.informercial-hell.com or www.infomercialscams.info. 

Another saved laptop!

Just got done replacing another motherboard, this time on a Dell Inspiron 4150.  It was the same problem as most laptop repairs, a broken power adapter.  Reminder, take care when plugging and unplugging your laptop cord.  They seem to break so easily when disconnected carelessly.  Most repairs entail replacing the whole motherboard.  In many cases you can replace the adapter by soldering a new one in, but since I am no soldering expert, the only other recourse is to replace the board.  The only headache is that I always keeping track of all the screws when disassembling and reassembling.  Nevertheless, it is always an......interesting repair.

Finally, Kindle e-book borrowing..

Amazon has finally relented and will allow the Kindle to download e-books from your local library.  Sony and Barnes & Noble have allowed this feature on their E-Readers for some time now.  Amazon has not explained why they have held out for so long, but they have finally come around.  The American Library Association has noted that 72% of American libraries offer e-books for loan (including Carnegie Library of Pittsburgh).  While only 5% of the public own an ereader, that number is expected to climb.  The advantage of the ebook borrowing is that you do not have to go to the library anymore to get a book, you can download it over the Internet.  I must admit I was slow on this one.  My wife owns a Nook, so I guess I should investigate what books are available to borrow.