Geek Thread

I got one too that my kids got me one birthday... I like it, but I never use it... it's cumbersome. Rather just wing it wrecklessly with no concern for lap area casualties.

Beware of the "Better Business Bureau" scam. You get a very official and realistic looking email regarding a "claim" that's been filed against you. They ask you to click on the Claim Number to resolve this issue... however, it's phony. It's a Phishing scam.

Good to now.

I got a scam e-mail a few months ago that claimed to be from NYC traffic department claiming that I needed to pay for a parking violation or else face stiff fines (yada yada yada). Never mind that my car has never been further East than Texas. It would be pretty difficult to get a parking ticket in New York.

I've gotten one from the FBI.

danielbandfan wrote:

I hear that using one's laptop in one's lap is not very good for certain parts it's close to… so a cooling pad would be somewhat important.

That's just not true at all.

My laptop does get hot. I did sit it in my lap once...never again. They all get hot if you are burning cds/dvr. I burn tons of them to give away and for myself. We found a nice cooling pad with 2 fans in it. That seems to help.

brokentulsa wrote:

Are there any christian or family friendly browsers or search engines?

Check out qustodio.com
I just loaded it on a laptop I'll be giving to my son. Seems pretty slick so far in my testing. I find their lack of documentation annoying though.

I'll be getting my first smartphone (android-based) in a few days (some geek, eh?). One app that seems like it will be pretty handy is Tasker, which allows you to perform Tasks (sets of Actions) based on Contexts (application, time, date, location, event, gesture) in user-defined Profiles, or in clickable or timer home screen widgets.

I just got an Android last week and am taking quite some time getting used to it. Was having some problems with it right after I got it, and found out from tech support that it was one of the Apps my daughter insisted I needed to download (it was messing up her phone too).

Which one was a "must have"?

You definitely need to be careful with apps, even those from the official Play store. I'd recommend running Avast on it if you're not already, though it does take more battery than some from what I've read.

I won't be using the stock ROM. I bought a used phone anyway, just waiting for the SIM to arrive today and batteries/charger fairly soon. It's running cyanogenmod 9 so you can do and customize just about anything you want (like get rid of all the bloatware your carrier installs!).

I want to ask if you can use more than one spyware removers.
What's a good program to remove spyware.

Does anyone know a good program for making drum/industrial type samples that is also free?

I have lots of musical ideas in my head and can't afford to get them out!

topshot rhit wrote:

Which one was a "must have"?

The problem was she had us load AVG and a "Task Killer App" that was supposed to help reduce the internet usage but ended up messing things up instead. We were also told that AVG was conflicting with the propriatry Android/Verizon malware/virus detection software.

rockerVu2 wrote:

I want to ask if you can use more than one spyware removers.
What's a good program to remove spyware.

Yes, you can run more than one spyware at a time (but not anti-virus). Not sure if they're still as highly recommended, but Malwarebytes, Spybot Search & Destroy and AdAware were highly regarded a few years back. Personally, I don't use any, but I use the AdBlock Plus and Noscript plug-ins for Firefox and Avast anti-virus.

Staybrite wrote:

The problem was she had us load AVG and a
"Task Killer App" that was supposed to help reduce the internet usage
but ended up messing things up instead. We were also told that AVG was
conflicting with the propriatry Android/Verizon malware/virus detection
software.

AVG used to be decent but seems to have dropped in recent years, becoming more resource hungry for one. Nevertheless, you shouldn't run 2 AVs at the same time as I said above so pick one. I'll be using Avast but won't have to worry about a vendor-loaded app conflicting with it. Task killers are a good idea if implemented right. It will save battery and data usage.

Another program to have is KeePass. A friend of mine that does international computer security recommended it to me. Can also be used on Android so I'll be adding that, too.

topshot rhit wrote:

Another program to have is KeePass. A friend of mine that does international computer security recommended it to me. Can also be used on Android so I'll be adding that, too.

Thanks I will check that one out.

The iPhone 5 has been announced…

topshot rhit wrote:

AVG used to be decent but seems to have dropped in recent years, becoming more resource hungry for one. Nevertheless, you shouldn't run 2 AVs at the same time as I said above so pick one. I'll be using Avast but won't have to worry about a vendor-loaded app conflicting with it. Task killers are a good idea if implemented right. It will save battery and data usage.

I've got AVG on my computer and it has been doing ok until last week. My comp has slowed down a good bit much like some stories I used to hear about McAfee and Norton. Could this because of AVG ( my comp slowing down)? If so what would you recommend?

It could be AVG or the most recent version of Adobe if you have updated it. It is an absolute resource hog.

I did recently end up updating Adobe,That might be it.

Hardkore wrote:

I've got AVG on my computer and it has been doing ok until last week. My comp has slowed down a good bit much like some stories I used to hear about McAfee and Norton. Could this because of AVG ( my comp slowing down)? If so what would you recommend?

Personally I use Avast. I keep reading good things about MS Security Essentials and loaded that (as much as I don't like MS) on my wife's laptop when I redid it.

Adobe Reader has always been a hog. Very slow loading. I've been using Foxit PDF Reader for several years now - much faster.

Does the Foxit work for watching Youtube videos? Is there a smaller replacement for Adobe's Flash?

There's Firefox extensions (I think that's what you use) that replace Flash for YouTube. I used one for Safari until recently when the extension fell behind the times.

http://www.google.ca/search?rls=en&q=firefox+extensions+youtube+replacer&ie=UTF-8&oe=UTF-8&redir_esc=&ei=4_1YUNebL4Pp0QGD9ICQBQ

Got a fun FB scam of sorts. I keep getting emails supposedly sent by FB friends with a subject of "For <my name>" and a random link in the body of the email. Out of curiosity, I plugged the link from one of those into an online proxy site (for safety/security reasons), and got a fake news site bragging that some mom in California was making $7,487 a month working part time from home.

And all these years we've been doing things the hard way...

Oldiesmann wrote:

I plugged the link from one of those into an online proxy site (for safety/security reasons), and got a fake news site bragging that some mom in California was making $7,487 a month working part time from home.

And all these years we've been doing things the hard way...

I've seen a couple of those myself. Just amazing that some people will fall for the whole "get rich working from home" scam.