An Early Christmas

For a change I'm attempting to get an early start this year on my Christmas shopping. The earlier you do it, the better the selection and you might get what you really wanted instead of settling on what is still in stock at the last minute. So here are some of my suggestions for the techie inclined on your Christmas list. More »

Always Use Protection

Rated 5.0 Stars

Backing up information on your computer is more important than ever. We get a fair share of customers who come in with tears in their eyes asking if we can recover their data from a broken hard drive or corrupted drive. We can do surface level scanning to retrieve old data but once a hard drive is physical broken or massively corrupted, there isn't much to do More »

On the First Day of Christmas, My True-Geek Gave to Me

Hard to believe, but as of the 1st of this month (November) u have 54 days to get hoppin' and get your true-geek something they will love/cherish/adore/do flips over/... whatever. So, as I have in the past I have scoured the 'net and here is my wish list for the first 6 days... tune in on the 1st of December for 7-12... that should take care of the conservative shoppers who want their gifts ready to go well ahead of THE day and the last minute shoppers who always wait to see if the price goes down on Christmas Eve!! More »

Losing Data Can Be Such a Painful Thing

Rated 4.0 Stars

Losing data can be such a painful thing! I know from personal experience how painful and more than that, how costly of a mistake it could be! I asked our techs in the office to try and take a look at my broken hard drive and even with the guru's standing right behind me, nothing. No pulse, no action no life. It was a horrible experience. But I learned from that experience and I am here to share it with you today. More »

In My Own Words - An Internet Predator's Cautionary Story

You've heard all the warnings about the dangers of the Internet. Your parents may have warned you not to chat with strangers and not to give out personal information online. But are the dangers real or just the paranoia of over-protective parents and adults? More »

The Best Things In Life Are Free

Rated 3.0 Stars

The moon belongs to everyone, The best things in life are free. The stars belong to everyone, They gleam there for you and me. The flowers in spring, the robins that sing, The moonbeams that shine, they're yours, they're mine. And love can come to everyone, The best things in life are free. So goes the song, written in 1927, way before PCs were all the rage! Well, guess what, some of the best programs and utilities for your PC are also free, yup, I said free! More »

A Super Neat Way to Help Keep Your PC Running At Top Speed and Root Out the Bad Stuff... And It's FREE!

Since the last time I wrote about the Registry Booster by Uniblue, I have attended a computer user group conference where a dozen or so vendors showed off their stuff (and treated us to some nice meals as well. :) ). The many new or upgraded programs made me think about all the things I have on my computer... of course I have to have the latest and greatest as soon as I find out about them and that really does make for some problems. For one thing, it's pretty obvious that running everything you've got on your machine is really not a viable possibility. Not that anyone tries to, but think about it... how many things are running on your computer right now? Don't know? How to find out is a simple ctrl+alt+delete click away. More »

Hurricanes, Tornados, Typhoons, Tsunamis, Blackouts, Brownouts, Powerouts, Volcanic Eruptions, Are you ready?

All of the above have a Hawaii history and since I recently received a really useful fuel cell power emergency kit, I was reminded that it's time to review or set-up an emergency kit for the family that contains the basics for a disaster that may last a few hours, a day or even a week. More »

How Do I Fix My Computer?

While I was at work one day and my phone buzzed from an incoming text message. It was my daughter Taylor texting me to ask if I could work on her laptop tonight since it's not working. I was not really concerned because I didn't really know what the extent of the problem would be... More »

You CAN FIDDLE While Nero Burns!

OK, so you're not in Rome and Nero isn't either. But, not to worry, NERO 8 Ultra will burn your CD, DVDs and edit your HD content while you fiddle with other projects! I recently attended the Southwest Computer Conference in San Diego where I was able to learn about a lot of new and interesting computer-related stuff. Keynotes by Microsoft, Adobe, Corel, Pinnacle were excellent and tech sessions, workshops and seminars covered anything you might want to know. More »

Contest Draws Attention to Hawaii Students

You've heard the expression that a picture is worth a thousand words. If that's true, there are a whole lot of words on the minds of Hawaii's students. Their original artwork is part of a national poster contest. So, what words come to mind when you see this poster? Don't answer, yet. Click to see more. More »

Security In a FLASH (drive)

Unless you've been hiding in a cave for years, you know that everything sent over Wi-Fi is vulnerable to eavesdropping. A handful of hotspots now encrypt user data-usually with WPA-but the vast majority still expect customers to protect themselves. Sadly, many users continue to ignore even this simple threat. So if you carry your laptop with you when you travel, what does this mean? More »

You Have Mail Sir!

Rated 5.0 Stars

Yes you can have fun with your e-mail and yes, I do! I have been using Incredimail for quite a few years and have taken it for granted for so long, that I hadn't thought about doing a column on it until recently when I was asked a lot of e-mail questions which as it happened could mostly be answered by telling about things that you can do with Incredimail! More »

Software Testing Tricky but Vital Part of Process

When evaluating or developing software, putting it through its paces under real-world conditions is a critical yet often overlooked step. Many times, testing plans are developed and implemented but do not take into account the size or technical savvy of the intended user community. More »