How-To Geek…

One of my favorite websites to read is the How-To Geek blog. He and his assistants give great tips, advice and how-tos. On Fridays, however, they like to kick back and have a little fun. This weeks fun is How To Solve a Rubik’s Cube.

I thought I would let the How-To Geek do the heavy lifting for the night since The Digitante is wrapped up with doing some heavy lifting of his own. My best friend moved to a new apartment tonight and my brother is moving to his new house tomorrow. Somehow I managed to get roped into both.

Part of my best friend’s move is buying a new TV, so I am hoping to document the process, including the shopping, unboxing, and setup of the new TV. Look forward to that next week.

Friday Night Links will be posted tomorrow night as semi-usual!

Anti-virus…

Over to the right side of The Digitante blog you may have seen the link to my new Facebook page. If not, you may be reading this on a feed reader like Google Reader. If so, click through to the blog and check it out.

I got a request over there for information on anti-virus (AV) software for the internet. This is a topic near and dear to my heart because I struggle with how to approach it every day.

On one hand, getting a virus on your computer is very disruptive as it slows your computer down and in extreme cases, can steal your passwords to sites like your bank and your email.

On the other hand, an AV program is just one more program running on your computer, eating up memory, and slowing down on the other things you have going on.

While I’m not going to tell you exactly what to do, I will cover the basics to helping you make an informed decision.

How much should I spend?

Nothing. Plain and simple, there are plenty of free options out there so that paying for McAfee or Norton should not even be an option. Unfortunately, there seems to be a connotation that in order to be good, something must be expensive. In this case, McAfee and Norton are two of the bloatiest (yes, I just made that word up) and costliest pieces of software out there. Not only do you have to buy them, you have to continue to pay year after year. If you search the internet, you will also find stories of people having more trouble removing them than removing the viruses themselves.

Downloadable Software

The AV program I am most familiar with and have used successfully for years is Microsoft Security Essentials. Microsoft Security Essentials is extremely lightweight, running in the background, updating regularly, and providing very solid protection. It certainly won’t bog down you system like a number of other AV programs do.

Running bare

Prior to installing Panda Cloud on the media center, I actually didn’t have any AV running. This is dangerous, but for what I use that computer for, I was very careful about the sites I visited and what email I opened. Common sense will get you a long way, but it takes time and patience to get to the point of being able to go without AV. However, I wouldn’t recommend it in any case.

But I have Linux/Mac! I don’t need AV!

Wrong. Commonly you will hear people who have OS X or Ubuntu (or other Linux variant) state that they don’t need AV protection because they can’t get viruses. While Macs and Linux are fairly protected just by the nature of their programming, that doesn’t mean they can’t pass the virus on to others. If I have a Linux computer, I might get an email with a hilarious video of a cat chasing its tail and then puking, so I then pass that video on to my Windows using friends. If that hilarious video happens to have a virus planted inside of it, I’ve just infected my friend’s computer. To combat this, I recommend Mac and Linux users get ClamAV (Linux) or ClamXAV (Mac). It scans emails coming to you so you don’t pass on a bad virus to your Windows friends.

I have a virus! What do I do?

This is a more difficult question. Most viruses are “quarantined” by the AV program so they stop causing damage. If you find a file you need in the quarantine, you can release it so it will continue to work. Anything in the quarantine can be nuked so it no longer hurts your computer.

Occasionally, you will run across a virus that the scanner can’t get rid of. That is when it is time to call or email The Digitante by heading over to the About page. You can also feel free to contact me if you already scanned for viruses and you computer is still slow to respond. There may be other problems that can be taken care of to speed things up.

Internet on the go…

So being on vacation without internet this past week makes me appreciate having my own stable, working internet connection at my house. I’ve got an awesome Linksys WRT54GL wireless router loaded up with Tomato firmware and broadband internet by Brighthouse. My appreciation is accentuated by the fact that my parents are currently suffering through an outage of their internet.

Its not to say I didn’t have the opportunity to use the internet while vacationing, it is more that I didn’t feel that I wanted to pay $14.95 a day for the privilege. However, there are a number of options for internet while traveling, so I thought I’d highlight a few.

At the airport!

Indianapolis’s brand new airport has bucked the trend of most airports by offering free WiFi (wireless internet) in its terminals. San Francisco on the other hand, is more traditional and offers T-mobile HotSpots which are $10 a month for T-mo cell phone users and will cost the rest of us $8 for 24 hours of access.

On the plane!

A blogger named Paul Stamatiou wrote about his use of WiFi on Airtran’s new GoGo Inflight Internet equipped planes. Fortunately, Southwest Airlines, which we were flying, has WiFi equipped planes. Unfortunately, our flight was not one of them (there are about a dozen per day). Opinions on WiFi equipped planes are split pretty evenly between those who feel that a flight is a nice time to disconnect and relax and those who want to catch up on email, Twitter, and Facebook during their couple of hours in the sky.

At the hotel!

People always find this one bizarre until you think about it: a cheap hotel with no amenities offers free WiFi while a luxury hotel that has spas, sparkling water, and a gym charges exorbitant rates to use theirs. Seems backward until you think about it. A Days Inn is going to mostly have families on a budget staying there. These families can make due without internet until they make it to Grandma’s house. On the other hand, guests at the Hilton are mostly going to be business travelers on the company dime who are required to stay in contact with the home office. See doesn’t that make sense?

Anywhere, Anytime!

This is something that many people don’t even consider, but did you know that most cell phones can be used in a mode called Phone-as-a-Modem (PAM)? The idea is that you can use a cable that came with your phone, hook it to your computer, and use the data connection to access the internet. This may depend if your phone is capable, but most phones released more recently and all smart phones are capable of use in PAM mode. The “Anywhere” above is, of course, assuming you have cell phone service at your destination, but assuming you can make a call, you can use your phone to access the internet on your computer. Most cell phone carriers will allow you to add this option to your phone for $15 a month. You can activate it the day before you leave and remove it when you get home. If you went on a two week vacation, you would expect to be charged about $7.50 which is much more affordable than $14.95 a day at your hotel.

So why didn’t The Digitante use PAM?

There are some snags with this situation. I use Sprint for my cell phone provider. For some reason which is unknown to me, they cannot add PAM to their Simply Everything (SE) plans. I called and asked. I looked online and asked. I scoured the internet and no one can tell me why they can’t add it, but by the time I found this out, it was too late and I was headed to California. Hopefully they can figure this out in short order because PAM is one of the big money savers when traveling.

A couple of other phones that cannot be used as a modem are the new Palm Pre (it requires a SE plan) and the iPhone which is on AT&T.

Pack your bags…

And don’t forget to pack your laptop and cell phone. If you aren’t sure how to get your phone to work as a modem, contact The Digitante by heading to the About page and call or send an email. If you have other traveling internet tips, leave them in the comments!

Friday Night Links (7/24/2009)…

Welcome to the Saturday version of the Friday Night Links! This will be quick and painless, don’t worry.

• Computer Ports – This poster has every port or connector that could ever possibly be found on the back (or front) of your computer. Why is this poster good? You might ask why is a tree good? Why is a sunset good? It just is. But mostly it is just interesting. This is why I made the Friday Night Links.
• Solar Power Projects – Some of these projects are simple fun projects and some are major undertakings. Either way, get to it while the sun is still high in the sky. Before you know it, it will be December and you’ll forget that the sun even exists.
• Ice Cream – With that hot sun blazing over head and powering your solar project, you need to cool off. Some ice cream is just the answer. Learn to make your own!

Friday Night Links delay

Due to difficulty finding a non-flaky internet connection, Friday Night Links will be postponed until later in the weekend. Being on vacation really makes you appreciate a reliable router and broadband internet.

Soon folks, I promise!

Quick BlackBerry tips…

Since The Digitante is on vacation for the weekend, I’m composing my blog post at 30,000 feet on an airplane. Since I have to type on my phone, this is going to be a short one for those of you out there with BlackBerry devices.

BlackBerry? More like CrackBerry…

Those that have used a BlackBerry know just how addictive it can be. Typing emails, checking Twitter, chatting on BlackBerry Messenger (BBM).

When I got my BlackBerry, the hardest thing to deal with was phone numbers that are spelled out. 1-800-NETGEAR? Good luck dialing them to figure out your router. 1-900-HOTBABE? Not for you! However, I just found the solution the other day. When typing the number hold down the ALT key (bottom left key on the Pearl) when you want to type a letter. Once you have spelled out the number, hit the green dial button and the phone converts the letters to their appropriate number.

Next tip is for the Pearl owners out there: To lock your keyboard, briefly hold down the * key. I’ve also heard this works on some other BlackBerries with qwerty keyboards but not very often.

This one isn’t as much of a tip as a “good to know” type of tidbit. Up in the upper right corner of your screen, below the signal bars is a string of numbers and letters. When the letters are lowercase (1xev), it means you are NOT connected to BlackBerry Internet Service (BIS) and therefore cannot send or receive email, chat on BBM, or browse the internet. You can, however, make phone calls and send text messages if you have a phone signal. When the letters are in uppercase (1XEV), you are connected to BIS and all services should work properly.

I know, I know! Pick me!

If you have your own tips and tricks, feel free to share them in the comments!

If you have a BlackBerry and are struggling with the basics or don’t have a BlackBerry but think you might want one, give The Digitante a call or an email by heading over to the About page. Rest assured that your emails will be sent right along to my BlackBerry almost instantly and I attempt to respond to all emails in a timely manner. Just like a true concierge!

Taking your DVDs with you…

Tomorrow The Digitante is going on a trip. For this reason, I would like to take some movies with me for the plane ride. The problems I run into when toting along DVDs are as follows:

• The Discs – They can get scratched and broken. Not to mention you have to remember which compartment of your bag you put them in.
• Battery Life – I watch movies using the DVD drive on my laptop. Unfortunately, keeping the DVD drive running for 2 hours straight puts a strain on my battery life. I need to know what happens at the end! Don’t spoil it for me!

In the past, my prime way to combat this problem was to use a  couple of pieces of software to convert my movies to files on my laptop that could be played back off of the hard disk drive which is more battery efficient than the DVD drive. Unfortunately, you had to (as I mentioned) use multiple pieces of software, set up quality and file type, and select which chapters you wanted to include. That is complicated!

Show me the better way

The better way involves a single piece of software called VLC media player. The thing that makes VLC stand out above everyone else out there is that it plays pretty much any format of video or audio you can possibly throw at it. Additionally, the most recent version added the ability to convert your DVDs (or any video file) to a type that will playback on most computers.

The first thing you need to do is download VLC version 1.0 or newer and install it.

Next, you need to pop the DVD in your DVD drive. You can check that it plays by going to the Media menu and clicking Open Disc. In the next screen, make sure your DVD drive is selected and click play. Before clicking play, you might also want to check the box to disable the DVD menu, since we only care about the movie itself.

Now that you’ve verified that you can see your DVD, go back to the Media menu, go further down the list and click Convert/Save. You will see the same screen from before where your DVD drive should still be selected and the DVD menu disabled. Now click the Save/Convert button. The next screen will ask you where you want to save the file, so pick something memorable like a folder called Movies on your Desktop. You also need to select a format. You may want to try a couple different formats to see what one works best with your computer and looks the best on your screen. However, typical formats are the .mov and the .mp4 filetypes. Next you can click Start and the conversion will begin.

How long this process takes will depend on what other things you are doing (the less the faster) and how powerful your computer is. This may be the type of thing you let run over night or while you are at work during the day.

Now for the movies!

You can use VLC to playback the file you just created. Just remember that this is going to create a fairly large file, so unless you have a bunch of hard drive space, consider this a temporary file that you will use when you are on the road and delete later if you need more hard disk drive space. Additionally, the quality of the movie is not going to be quite as good as the DVD would look, but should still work fine.

If you need help getting started on converting some movies, or would like a walk-through of how to do each of these steps, feel free to contact The Digitante by heading to the About page and sending me an email or giving me a call.

Computer purchasing: Operating system…

Let’s do a little analogy and compare the make up of a computer to the make up of a person. Thus far, we’ve covered the form factor (aka body type), the hardware, hardware, and hardware (aka body parts), so now we need to talk about the operating system (aka the personality).

Some people have hard-working personalities, but they know how to cut loose and have a good time. Others would prefer to be secluded and do their own thing. Still others just want to be social, share ideas, and have a good time. Just as these barely scratch the surface of the variety of personalities in the world, we are going to cover a very limited scope of the types of operating systems available.

What won’t we cover?

Well, at its very basic core, an operating system issues commands to the hardware. You could write some programming for a little robotic arm with wheels to go fetch you a soda from the fridge when you push a button. It’s programming is the operating system. A large, multi-national corporation might hire a software firm to create a package tracking system for its international shipments. That software is the shipping system’s operating system. However, these are very limited in scope and not nearly flexible enough for day to day use. We need something more practical.

Open source

You might remember me talking about open source software a couple of weeks ago. In that post, I alluded to Ubuntu. Ubuntu, is a custom version of a more generic operating system called Linux. Linux is based on an even more generic operating system called Unix. Unix is extremely stable and safe, but unfortunately it is not very user friendly. All commands are typed in to a prompt and there is no mouse to found. Linux added some window-type elements, but was still pretty raw in its basic form. Ubuntu is based on Linux, but it is refined and “prettied up”. It has most of the functions that we expect out of a computer: listening to music, editing photos, playing games, and browsing the internet.

A couple of great things about Ubuntu:

• It is free! Anyone can download it and put it on their computer and begin using it. It is very robust and will work on almost any computer out there.
• Try it out! If you download the Ubuntu file, you can burn it to a CD and load it up on your computer without installing it. This means you can play around with it, see if you like it, and THEN install it if you feel like it is something you want to use.
• Virus free! Virus free might be an exaggeration, but because of the way it’s security is set up, it is very difficult to get a virus that will slow down your computer or destroy your files. This is especially helpful when visiting new sites or searching for information on various websites. No matter where you go, you are protected.

A couple of not so great things about Ubuntu:

• Compatibility is sometimes an issue since you can’t use programs that were made for Windows. Fortunately, many programs that you use on Windows have an alternative version that is made for Ubuntu.
• Program installation on Ubuntu is not the same as on Windows. You can’t simply double click an installation file. Fortunately, Ubuntu maintains a software repository so you can simply check a box to install a program assuming it is in the repository.

Neither of these are a show stopper really, but can be a turn off, especially for those who have used Windows for their entire computing lives.

Open a Window

Windows is ubiquitous in our society, so I’m not going to spend much time going through it.

Windows’ biggest strength is the fact that it is everywhere. Everyone makes programs for Windows, Windows experts are a dime a dozen, and it changed the game of personal computers. Unfortunately, Microsoft has gotten so large and entrenched in what it does that some say it is too slow to react and can’t keep up with current trends.

This has caused many business and home users to maintain Microsoft’s older offering – Windows XP, instead of moving on to it’s more recent offering – Windows Vista, which was plagued by hardware incompatibility, high system requirements, and an annoying level of pseudo-security features.

However, for most of my readers, Windows is going to come preloaded on the computer you purchase and will work just fine.

The Apple of your eye

Apple’s Mac OS X is going to be a nice blend between the security of Ubuntu and the usability of Windows. You are going to be virtually virus free as you surf the web and Apple loves to tout that it’s software “just works”.

The downside? While Ubuntu is open source and runs on almost any hardware, Apple’s Mac computers ONLY run on Mac hardware. You can’t buy a Dell computer and load OS X on it. You can only buy an Apple computer if you want the OS X software. And while that hardware is high quality and very aesthetically pleasing, it is generally quite expensive which can turn out to be an insurmountable barrier for some people. However, if you can surmount it, you will most likely go on to be one of the raving fans that Apple is constantly recruiting, with good cause.

<Insert funny cliched phrase here>

Out of all the subjects we’ve covered in this series, the operating system is probably the most important part, but often the most overlooked.

It is easy to try out Ubuntu. You have probably used Windows a thousand of times before. A Mac just looks so cool. These are good starting places in your search for an operating system, however, they barely scratch the surface of the qualities that you need to evaluate.

You can contact The Digitante if you want help going through your options, trying different operating systems, and making an informed decision. To do so, you can just head over the the About page and find The Digitante’s phone number and a link to his email address.

Busy boy…

I’ve made some changes to The Digitante website recently. They main thing you will notice is that the site address for the blog is now just http://www.thedigitante.com instead of http://www.thedigitante.com/blog/. This was to simplify and shorten the address as well as getting you to the good information right away.

But? There’s always a but…

The downside of making this change was that it was my first time making this change and I wanted to do it right. Unfortunately, “right” didn’t happen on the first try. I needed to make all the links forward from the old site addresses to the new site addresses. In order to that, a lot of hacking away on the computer took place over the weekend. It all culminated when I finalized the fix about 3 minutes ago.

As such it is late and I won’t be able to post the continuation of our series on computer purchasing until tomorrow when I will get started on operating systems: the brain that makes the body function. In the meantime, The Digitante is always available to answer your questions if you head over to the About page. From there, The Digitante is only an email or phone call away.

Bonus to get you through the weekend…

The Digitante has added mobile phone compatibility to the website. If you go to http://www.thedigitante.com on your mobile phone, you will get a version of the website optimized for your phone whether you have a Blackberry, iPhone, Palm Pre, or even a plain vanilla flip phone. Beware that if you don’t have a data plan, you may be charged by your carrier for visiting. Visiting on your computer is, as always, FREE! If you think you might need a data plan for your phone, are thinking of getting  a new phone, or want to know all the fun things you can do with a phone, either call or email The Digitante from the About page to discuss the options available to you.