Overheating Prompts Acer Desktop Recall

Posted on May 21, 2009 by wjimenez275

Acer America reports to CPSC that burn hazard and overheating prompt about 215 units of Acer Predator Desktop computer recall.

Acer desktop safety recall was voluntarily conducted by the Acer America in cooperation with the CPSC. Consumers should stop using the recalled desktop immediately unless otherwise instructed.

The recall includes about 215 units of Acer Predator Desktop Computers. Acer America Corp., of San Jose, Califonia is the importer of the recalled desktop that were manufactured in and shipped from China.

The insulation on Acer Predator desktop’s internal wiring can become bent or stripped, causing the wires to overheat while the product is in use. This poses a burn hazard to consumers.

Acer has received two reports of computers short circuiting, resulting in melted internal components and external casing. Neither incident occurred in the U.S. No injuries have been reported.

This recall involves Acer Predator desktop computers. The high-end gaming machines have model numbers ASG7200 and ASG7700. Model numbers are printed on the bottom right corner of the panel on the right side of the system.

The recalled Acer Predator desktop is sold by computer and electronic stores nationwide from May 2008 through December 2008 for between $2,000 and $6,000.

Consumers should immediately stop using these recalled computers and contact Acer to schedule a free repair.

Consumer Contact: For additional information, contact Acer toll-free at (866) 695-2237 anytime, or visit the firm’s Web site at http://www.acer.com

Based on the information provided from CPSC.gov. The alert number is 09-731.

via Overheating Prompts Acer Desktop Recall.

Filed under: PC Maintenance, Uncategorized | 1 Comment »

Filtering Incoming EMails

Posted on May 20, 2009 by wjimenez275

Have you ever waited for an email from someone and it got lost in all of the other email in your inbox, or worse yet, while cleaning out your inbox, you accidentally deleted an email that you had wanted to save?

Of course, you can create folders in your email program and drag the emails you want to save to the folders to keep them, but what if you could setup your email program  so that when mail comes in from certain individuals, or mail comes in with a certain subject, it automatically gets filtered to an email folder and stays out of your inbox. I have a filter for some mail from marketers that I automatically send to my deleted items folder so I never have to look at it. Others, from family members, that automatically go to a “Family” folder. Some friends have their own folders where their email gets delivered to. Some folders receive newsletters that I’ve signed up for.

Every popular email program allows filtering of some sort. You can setup filters for almost anything you receive. Not only does it keep your inbox clean, it sorts and separates your email so it’s easier to find.

I’ve included a link to a pdf file that lists the email programs Hotmail, Yahoo, Google, Outlook Express and Outlook, and described how to set up the filters. You can find it here. If you are using an email program that is not listed, please let me know and I’ll find out for you how to do it.

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Amazing Technology – Hubble Space Telescope

Posted on May 19, 2009 by wjimenez275

As the Space Shuttle Atlantis astronauts release the repaired Hubble Telescope back into it’s orbit, the repairs they performed on it will make it last another five to ten years. Hubble was launched on April 25, 1990 with a projected lifetime of 15 years.Since then, it has sent back incredible pictures, opening windows in space that could never have been imagined before. You can see some of these pictures here.

As for how it was repaired, more amazing technology. To send individuals to space, to connect with a floating object, to connect it to the shuttle, spacewalk to do the repairs and relaunch it takes an incredible amount of technology. During the mission, the four spacewalkers, two per team, managed to fix two science instruments that had broken down years ago and were never meant to be tinkered with in orbit. They also replaced a faltering science data-handling device and installed a docking ring so a robotic craft can latch on and steer the telescope into the Pacific sometime in the early 2020s. To read more on the Hubble Space Telescope, visit http://hubblesite.org/

This will be the last time the Hubble Space Telescope will be repaired. Hubble’s replacement, the James Webb Space Telescope, will be launched in 2014 by an unmanned rocket and placed in an orbit inaccessible to astronauts.

A lot of this technology is lost on the younger people today, but it is incredible how all of this can be done. It’s amazing how far we’ve come. One of the best clips I’ve seen on this was when Louis CK was on Conan O’Brien. You can watch it here. You’ll enjoy it.

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Evernote – Every Time to Organize Everything

Posted on May 8, 2009 by wjimenez275

Well, almost everything.

Several years ago I started using Evernote on an occasional basis to save bits of information I ran across on the web. As time went on, I found that I was using it continually. For those times when you’re surfing the web and you find websites that you’d like to go back to  but don’t want to bookmark them, or those articles that have a quote you want to copy but don’t want to open notepad or a word processor to copy it to, or, in my case, fixes for different computer ailments that I need to keep handy, Evernote is the program to use. It’s compatible with Windows and the Mac.

With Evernote, capture what you like, find it when you want.

(Taken from the Evernote site)

Things to capture:

  • Tasks and to-dos
  • Notes and research
  • Web pages
  • Whiteboards
  • Business cards
  • Scribbles
  • Snapshots
  • Wine labels
  • Even Twitter messages

And then find them all any time across all the computers and devices you use. And it’s free.

How to get stuff into Evernote

Memorable stuff is always happening, so we’ve created lots of ways for you to get that stuff into Evernote:

Create: Create new notes using desktop, web, and mobile versions of Evernote

Snap: Take a snapshot using your camera phone or webcam. We’ll even recognize the text in the image.

Clip: Clip entire webpages, screenshots, and just about anything else you can copy

Drag-and-Drop: Drag and drop content into the desktop clients for Mac and Windows

Email: Email notes directly into your account using your personalized email address

Scan: Scan receipts, recipes, tags, brochures, and anything else into Evernote

Record: Record audio wherever you are and listen to it whenever you want

Tweet: Send Twitter messages into Evernote by following @myEN

You can even install Evernote on a flash drive and take it with you. I highly recommend this program and once you start using it, you’ll find it invaluable as well.

http://www.evernote.com/

Filed under: Instructional, PC Tips and Tools | 3 Comments »

How Can I Shorten Long Website Addresses?

Posted on April 28, 2009 by wjimenez275

On occasion, you will need to copy a website address into an email, or even worse, into Twitter. I say worse because Twitter only allows 140 characters and some website addresses that you want to share can take up most of that. As for pasting a website address into an email, depending on where you put it, it could wrap onto a second line and then when the recipient clicks on the shared link, it doesn’t pick up the entire link and they don’t get to benefit from the fantastic page you wanted to share.

When those situations arise, there are a couple of sites that will take the long address (URL) and shorten them. The one I use is called TinyURL. Just paste the website address in the top box,  click on the make tinyurl button, and then copy the resulting short url into Twitter or your email.  SnipURL is another site that does the same thing. Bit.ly is another that is really popular with Twitter and Facebook users. Definitely look at it as well.

Once you start using these programs to shorten your website addresses, you’ll find other reasons to use them besides sharing email links and Twitter.

Filed under: Instructional, Internet Items, PC Tips and Tools | 2 Comments »

Google fixes severe Chrome security hole | Webware – CNET

Posted on April 23, 2009 by wjimenez275

Google released a new version of its Chrome browser Thursday to fix a high-severity security problem.

The problem affects Google’s mainstream stable version of Chrome and is fixed in the new version 1.0.154.59 (download). Google has built Chrome so it updates itself automatically with no user intervention, though the software must be restarted for the new version to run.

The security problem, reported April 8 by Roi Saltzman of the IBM Rational Application Security Research Group, allowed cross-site scripting attacks. Such methods can make a Web browser process unauthorized code such as JavaScript, enabling a variety of attacks, including impersonation or phishing.

Mark Larson, Google Chrome program manager, described the problem this way in a blog posting Thursday:

An error in handling URLs with a chromehtml: protocol could allow an attacker to run scripts of his choosing on any page or enumerate files on the local disk under certain conditions.

If a user has Google Chrome installed, visiting an attacker-controlled Web page in Internet Explorer could have caused Google Chrome to launch, open multiple tabs, and load scripts that run after navigating to a URL of the attacker’s choice. Such an attack only works if Chrome is not already running.

via Google fixes severe Chrome security hole | Webware – CNET.

Filed under: Instructional, Internet Items, PC Security | 2 Comments »

Learn a Foreign Language 10 Words at a Time

Posted on April 19, 2009 by wjimenez275

Have you ever wanted to learn a foreign language but can’t find the time to take a class or listen to CD’s? At Learn10.com you can have 10 new foreign words and their english translation sent to your email every day. Learning 10 new words a day will build your vocabulary very quickly. You can choose from: Arabic, Chinese, Czech, Danish, Dutch, English, French, German, Hindi, Italian, Japanese, Korean, Norwegian, Polish, Portuguese, Russian, Spanish, Swedish, Turkish & Welsh.

http://www.learn10.com

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Dell and HP balk at replacing bad Nvidia chip

Posted on April 16, 2009 by wjimenez275

Dell and HP balk at replacing bad Nvidia chip

By Michael Lasky

An old urban myth claims that the microprocessors used in PCs and other consumer electronics are designed to fail within days or weeks of their warranty expiration.

For tens of thousands of people who bought Dell and HP notebooks whose motherboards fried — often a few weeks after their warranty expired — there’s nothing mythical about it.

The cause of the machines’ fried motherboards is an overheating Nvidia graphics chip. The failure rate is so huge that Nvidia had to take a $196 million charge against earnings in the second quarter of its 2008 fiscal year in anticipation of the reimbursements that would result from the faulty GPU.

What’s particularly scandalous, though, is how HP and Dell first handled the deluge of complaints from customers with notebooks that failed after their warranties expired. The companies either charged the customers (victims?) for repairs or refused service because the systems were past the warranty period.

Even worse, HP and Dell continued to sell notebooks with the same Nvidia chip long after the companies were aware of the problem. (Ultimately, Nvidia released a new version of the GPU that didn’t cause overheating.)

Unwary consumers who purchased the affected notebooks — no doubt based in part on the heady reputations of the vendors — were left in the lurch when their PCs failed, which usually occurred after 18 months or so. The purchasers had no recourse except to yell and scream at clueless tech-support reps.

When the heat from consumer complaints became as hot as the faulty Nvidia chip, HP and Dell relented and published a list of defective model numbers on their Web sites. Dell extended the standard one-year warranty to two years for the systems they identified as having the problem. HP offered a 24-month warranty extension for the specific issue.

However, instead of issuing a recall — as you would expect in such a clear case of a defective part — the vendors instead merely offered a BIOS upgrade. The “patch” for the affected notebooks made their fans run continuously in an attempt to lower the GPU-induced heat, which was cooking the motherboards onto which the chips were soldered.

This “fix” merely extended the time before the motherboards finally burned out while simultaneously devouring the machines’ battery life — sort of like putting a Band-Aid on a coronary. Of course, notebook purchasers became further inflamed by the power drain on their systems due to the constantly running fan.

via Dell and HP balk at replacing bad Nvidia chip.

To see if your Dell laptop could have this issue and is eligible for the extended warranty, click here

To see if your HP laptop could have this issue and is eligible for the extended warranty, click here

Filed under: Instructional, PC Maintenance, PC Tips and Tools | 2 Comments »

Easter Eggs

Posted on April 10, 2009 by wjimenez275

A virtual Easter egg is an intentional hidden message or feature in an object such as a movie, book, CD, DVD, software, web page or video game. The term draws a parallel with the custom of the Easter egg hunt, but actually is derived by the practice of the last Russian imperial family’s tradition of giving elaborately jeweled egg-shaped creations by Faberge which usually contained hidden gifts themselves.

A few years ago, software and operating systems contained a lot of hidden Easter eggs. Because of security concerns, you won’t find many these days. However, movies are famous for having Easter eggs. You can find reference to them at several sites, such as http://www.movieweb.com/dvd/eggs/ and http://www.hiddendvdeastereggs.com/(click on the letters on top to get to the list).

Take a look at some of them and then load your movies and see if you can find them. A lot of them come up only when playing the movies on your pc but try your DVD remote and see what happens. Happy Easter.

Filed under: Uncategorized | 2 Comments »

Changes to Apple’s iTunes prices take effect

Posted on April 8, 2009 by wjimenez275

Apple Inc., on Tuesday, began selling some of its most-downloaded songs for $1.29 apiece.

Apple said in January that it would stop selling all individual songs for 99 cents each and begin offering three tiers: 69 cents, 99 cents and $1.29.

Recording companies pick the prices. The main iTunes page advertised collections of 69-cent songs that included “London Calling” by The Clash and “Monkey” by George Michael.

Other songs from the same albums and artists remained at 99 cents.

Apple also did away with copy-protection technology known as digital-rights management, or DRM, allowing customers to play more songs on devices other than Apple’s own iPods.

Without DRM, the songs can be copied to any number of CDs, computers and music players, as long as those devices support the AAC encoding format Apple uses.

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