1-11-07 Tips for you to read and use

SpywareBlaster isn't exactly an anti-spyware program, as it does not remove spyware from your computer. It actually prevents some spyware from being installed, protects your home page from being high-jacked and prevents programs from adding themselves to your start-up menu among other things. Many spyware/adware programs tend to make changes to the registry that alter your browser start page, cause spyware and adware programs to be added to your startup programs list and many also hijack your default search engine. SpywareBlaster prevents these sort of changes and warns you that a program is attempting to make changes to your computer's default settings. You can either allow the changes or prevent them from being made.

There is nothing at all wrong with SpywareBlaster. It's safe to install and works as described on the SpywareBlaster Web site. Recently, we've tended to recommend the new version of WinPatrol because it does all the things that SpywareBlaster does and more -and WinPatrol offers a very nice, feature-rich, free version. We like WinPatrol's newest version better than SpywareBlaster, but SpywareBlaster is still a good freeware application - but there's no reason to have them both installed. We think WinPatrol is the better of the two and has a lot more features.

http://www.pricelesswarehome.org/ Freeware

http://thundercloud.net/information-avenue/my-documents/ Move Documents folder to another partition

http://www.acronis.com/promo/ADD/disk-director-011.html?source=google&ad=resize+partition+content&s_scid=ContentNetwork|616827437&gclid=COXi1PnNwIkCFRS7SgodwVnjPA This is a great program to use if you want to partition your hard drive.

What is better for my computer? To turn it fully OFF after using it each time or to leave it on in the log off mode? It is used more than once a day.

Our Answer
This is one of the most often asked questions we receive. And, you'll find "experts" on both sides of this question. The general consensus is that you save wear and tear on your hard drives by not shutting down and starting up your computer very often. Each time you shut down and start up, the hard drive(s) have to "spin up". This increases the wear and tear on the physical components of the hard drive(s). One of us never shuts down, and the other one does shut down occasionally. In theory, at least, those who leave their computers running should see benefit from longer hard drive life. And, when you think about it, we have left things running all our lives - refrigerators for example! Refrigerators last years and years and years - without turning them off.

One caveat. If your area is about to be hit with an electrical storm (severe thunderstorm) we'd suggest you shut down your computer, your cable modem, and your router. Even though you may have them all hooked up through a good surge protector, storms can cause problems -sometimes big problems. We've personally had routers ruined by a very slight power surge even though the router was plugged into a surge protector. Routers and cable modems are quite susceptible to even minute power fluctuations

I want to offer a tip I discovered about weather. If I don't need a lot of technical Information about the weather, and I rarely do. I find if I simply use Google and type in the search line my postal zip code followed by the word "Temp" without the quotation marks I will receive the current weather report for that location. I have children in three states and I simply type their respective zip code and the word temp and I know all I need to know. You can do this for anywhere in the USA.