PC Mechanic, New Article |
- What Would It Take For IE To Become Your Primary Browser?
- Going Lowball: What You Get For The Money Right Now
- Tips For Keeping Junk Mail From Reaching Your Mailbox
- Starting Over: Creating An Online Identity From Scratch
| What Would It Take For IE To Become Your Primary Browser? Posted: 15 Apr 2011 04:00 AM PDT While Internet Explorer is statistically the most popular browser, among tech enthusiasts it is probably one of the least popular. IE6 gave the browser a reputation for being riddled with security holes and while tremendous strides have been made to drastically improve security, IE in its current form is still thought of this way. Over the past several years, IE has evolved to where its most recent release’s (version 9) look, performance, compatibility and speed are comparable to rival browsers. So here is a fun question, if IE is not currently your browser of choice, what would it take in order for you switch to it? Personally, I am a Firefox user and it would take several changes for me to make the switch:
If it came down to it and all things were equal, I would be an IE user. Speed (which seems to be the big knock on it now) doesn’t really matter that much to me. For the most part, the page a speed loads is determined primarily by your connection speed (i.e. how fast the content gets to your computer) as opposed to the blinks of an eye it takes to render it. Yes, Javascript speed matter too, but I don’t really use my browser for anything where I would notice a difference. If IE isn’t your current browser, why not and what do you use instead? Post from: PCMech. Helping Normal People Get Their Geek On And Live The Digital Lifestyle.       |
| Going Lowball: What You Get For The Money Right Now Posted: 15 Apr 2011 03:00 AM PDT Lowballing when it comes to desktop PCs and laptops simply means purposely going with what’s known as "basic" or "entry level" (whatever that means) computers. It’s safe to say that these days there’s really no such thing as a slow computer anymore. Why? Windows 7. That OS will run quite well even on a single-core 1.6GHz CPU with 1GB RAM, and in many instances operates faster than XP. Yes, seriously. If speed/power/etc. is what you’re shooting for, you build the PC and that hasn’t changed. When you want the big guns and are willing to spend a little extra (and you will) to get there, building the box is still the best option. Where cost is a concern, pre-built is the only way to go because there is no way to build a PC for as cheap as OEMs can sell them (remember – don’t forget the Windows license). For the computers listed below, I’m going to list three types. Desktop, netbook (portable with a screen 13 inches or less) and notebook (portable with a screen 14 inches or greater). Remember as you read through this I’m going lowball here, meaning lowest possible price per respective OEM. DellDesktop: Inspiron 560 ($299) Netbook: Mini 1018 ($279) Notebook: Inspiron 15R ($549) HPDesktop: Pavilion p6700z series ($299) Netbook: Mini 110 ($299.99) Notebook: Compaq Presario CQ56Z series ($379.99) GatewayDesktop: SX2803-53 ($479.99) Netbook: LT2514u ($239.99) Notebook: NV55C35u ($449.99) NewEggDesktop: ASUS Eee Box EB1007-B0410 ($229) Netbook: ASUS Eee PC 1001PXD-EU17-WT ($259) Notebook: Acer Aspire AS5253-BZ893 ($349) Who has the best deal?** Desktop ** While NewEgg may have the cheapest price for a desktop, the Eee Box’s CPU is an Intel Atom D410 1.66GHz and the RAM included is only 1GB. In addition, part of the reason it’s so cheap is because the OS is Linux based. Which Linux exactly? The description doesn’t say. Gateway is out because they don’t offer a desktop for under $400. Winner: TIE between HP and Dell. When you look at the specs between the base models for the Dell and HP, they’re both almost identical. Both have 500GB hard drives, both have 2GB base RAM, both have the same service warranty, and so on. Your decision would more or less be based on which company you like better, because in the end both boxes are the same – with the exception the HP box is AMD-powered and the Dell box Intel (which would lead one to believe the HP should be less because of this, but it isn’t). ** Netbook ** The ASUS netbook’s biggest sell is that it has a 250GB HDD standard; the biggest of the base model bunch. HP is out because their netbook is priced a little too close to a full-sized sized notebook, and if you’re going to spend that kind of money, you might as well go for the full-size. Dell’s venerable Mini 10 series has tenure but has serious drawbacks in that the base model has a paltry 160GB HDD. Winner: Gateway LT2514u I pick Gateway as the winner here because the price is what gives it its best value. While true it only has a 160GB HDD, it’s a full $20 less than the ASUS. And the fact the Gateway is one of the few netbooks still available with XP as its bundled OS, that is in fact a good selling point. ** Notebook ** This one’s easy: Winner: Acer Aspire AS5253-BZ893 This notebook wins for the following reasons:
The only real drawback is that the battery life sucks. "Up to 3 hours, 20 minutes", which in practical terms means 1.5 hours of battery life on an average charge – but then again this is a cheap notebook we’re talking about here. Hey! What about other brands?I purposely limited my brand choices to four, otherwise this article would have been way too long. Yes, of course there’s Sony, Lenovo, Toshiba, Samsung and others to take into consideration. If you can find a good bang-for-the-buck on the lowball side that meets or beats the deals listed above, feel free to point a few out by posting a comment below. Just remember however to stick to pre-built boxes. Post from: PCMech. Helping Normal People Get Their Geek On And Live The Digital Lifestyle.     |
| Tips For Keeping Junk Mail From Reaching Your Mailbox Posted: 14 Apr 2011 10:00 AM PDT I am sure I am not alone in hating junk mail. Not only is it a waste of paper (that I drop straight in the recycle bin) but the offers are sometimes borderline insulting. While you cannot totally eliminate junk mail, fortunately there are few things you can do to help limit the amount you get. This article on ArsTechnica titled "How to keep junk mail from arriving in your (snail) mailbox" offers some suggestions on limiting:
There is always the idea that you take the prepaid envelope included in most of these offers and either send it back to them empty or stuff other offers in it. Yes, this will cost the company a slight bit but I don’t think it detours anything. What is most likely is when the company gets these types of replies, they will trash it as opposed to recycle it (which is why I don’t just do this when I see the offers). No, I don’t want a credit card with a $50,000 credit limit at 19.99% APR and I bet most of you don’t either. Do you have any suggestions for limiting the amount of junk mail you get? If so, please share in the comments. Post from: PCMech. Helping Normal People Get Their Geek On And Live The Digital Lifestyle.     |
| Starting Over: Creating An Online Identity From Scratch Posted: 14 Apr 2011 07:00 AM PDT I’m going to note up front that this has nothing to do with privacy and everything to do with convenience. Creating an online identity from scratch is not easy, nor is it for everyone, but for some it helps out a great deal. Why start over?There are three main reasons to create a new identity: 1. To make it easier for people to find you. 2. To make it easier for you to tell people how to find you. 3. To prevent mistaken identity. Concerning #1 and #2, the ultimate goal is to say to someone, "Just search for [username] and you’ll find me." You should be able to say this without mentioning any particular service or search engine. No matter what someone uses, if they search for your username, they’ll find you – by your design. Concerning #3, you obviously don’t want to be confused with someone else when someone searches for you as this can end up being disastrous. Your new nameThe screen name you pick should be something at least 6 characters long and no longer than 8; you do this so it can be remembered easily. Don’t even bother trying to use a a single real word or combination of real words. The name you pick will have to include letters and numbers, but no dashes (-), underscores (_) or periods (.). Here is an example screen name: zig434 But hang on, before you go signing up a bunch of accounts, you’ll have to check to see if the username you picked is in use anywhere on the internet. Checking screen name use with Spokeo and GoogleGo here: http://www.spokeo.com/username-search …and search for the username you intend to use. On a search for the example username zig434, nothing was found. Next on the list is searching for the username using Google. On a Google search for zig434, amazingly some results were found even though I made up the name out of thin air. Some background images and and a Russian-language calendar was found. However given the data found was blank, the username was still OK to use. This should give you some indication that it’s not the easiest thing in the world to come up with a username that isn’t in use somewhere. For whatever name you pick, you may have to try several before you come up with something that isn’t used – and don’t be surprised if no matter what you pick that something always shows up on a Google search. Creating accounts the right way the first timeSo you’ve found a screen name that checks out, you like, and it isn’t in use anywhere. Where do you start? This is my recommended way of going about it: Step 1. Primary email address You’ll want to create an email address using your new screen name. The best choices for this are either Gmail, Hotmail or AOL Mail. Each allows for easy import of mail from your old email account (unless it’s a Yahoo! account). This is not a light decision to make because every single account you sign up for will use this email account. Be sure to use a mail system you like because you’re going to have to commit to it. Tip: Do not use an email address that is assigned by your ISP, because if you ever switch ISPs, you lose that email address. Your primary account should be something that will work no matter what ISP you’re using. Step 2. Facebook community page You most likely already have a Facebook account and don’t want to change it, and that’s fine – but you do need to protect your new username. The easiest way to do this is to create a Facebook community page with that name – even if you never intend to use it. What this does is that once the name is registered to you, it cannot be used by anyone else. Step 3. Everything else Go back to Spokeo and search for your new username again, then take note of all the different places on the internet where you can establish a presence: The best way to go about this for "total name protection", so to speak, is to sign up for every single account type you see from the Spokeo search whether you intend to use them or not. Were you to sign up for everything listed, this will take around 45 minutes to an hour to complete. There are also a few sites not listed in a Spokeo search, such as Yahoo! Pulse, Windows Live, Google profiles and about.me pages. You may want to sign up for those as well. Tying it all togetherYou’re going to have a lot of profiles that are registered to you but are blank and don’t contain any information. For any profile you have, purposely post a little note pointing people where you want them to go. The easiest thing to do is to have your note contain something like, "Hi! Thanks for visiting. If you’d like to contact me, please go to [insert link here]." The link you post should be something simple like a Google profile or about.me page. How long will it take before the presence is established?Your new presence will establish itself on the internet fairly quickly – but not instantly. It will take at least 48 hours to a week before you start seeing it in Spokeo and Google. Once the presence starts to show up, use it regularly, and for any new services that sprout up, sign up for them to keep your name protected. Post from: PCMech. Helping Normal People Get Their Geek On And Live The Digital Lifestyle.     |
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