From: newsletter-bounces@thepcgurus.com on behalf of Kevin-PC Gurus
[microdome@seidata.com]
Sent: Thursday, December 13, 2007 9:00 PM
To: jpdurbin@jpdurbin.net
Cc: PC Gurus Newsletter
Subject: GuruNews, Volume 7 Number 47, 12-13-07
Attachments: ATT00111.txt
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Vol. 7, No. 47
12-13-07
1 Christmas Shopping List Part II: Follow-ups and musical goodies
2 But Mom, it does EVERYTHING!
3 Cell mistake, Mac close call, Wikipedia goof, Ask.com and you shan’t receive
4 Be an Excel master
5 OE reinstall
Last week I suggested USB hard drives as Christmas gifts, specifically the My Book from Western Digital. Information came to light Monday that made me regret my recommendation.
At a time when major online music vendors like iTunes are cutting DRM laden songs from their offerings it seems WD has taken up the dead horse beating by including some extremely restrictive limitations in its Anywhere Access application.
Even though the uses for the software touted at http://www.wdc.com/en/products/Products.asp?DriveID=347 includes things like “Listen to your music while on vacation”, “Get files from home while at the office” and “”Easily access and edit your files on any computer”.
Elsewhere on the page WD
states “Due to unverifiable media license
authentication, the most common audio and video file types cannot be shared
with different users using WD Anywhere Access.”
The most common file types include .avi, .wmv, .wma, .mp3 and a plethora
of others.
How exactly I’m supposed to listen to my music remotely if .mp3
files can’t be shared is beyond my humble ability.
These restrictions, like most DRM crippleware, is insanely easy to
circumvent. You won’t even have to use
the biggest gun in the hacker arsenal, the monstrously evil Shift key. Simply share the drive using something other
than Anywhere Access.
The fact that it’s easy to get around isn’t the point here,
though. It’s the fact that yet another
company has decided to label its customers thieves and pirates while trying to
entice them to buy a product. I have
news for Western Digital. I’m no thief
and I’m no pirate and they’ll no longer enjoy my business as a loyal
customer. Seagate and Samsung will
henceforth be my drives of choice.
On a happier note, those of you looking for techie gifts just
might get better bargains than you thought.
I got a lot of emails this week, including those from reader Paul
Glowiak and team member Carmine Alioco, that CompUSA has decided to shutter all
their stores. They closed about half the
existing stores in March and inventory was sold at unbelievably cut-rate
prices. Even though the remaining stores
will stay open and fully staffed through the holiday season I would assume that
some extreme deals could be had. If you
have one near you, go pillage it :)
As far as gifting this year, digital music players are more
popular than ever and make excellent surprises for those still living without
or using an old small-storage model.
An 8 GB iPod Nano is trendy and probably the best seller. It plays videos as well as music and retails
for $199. The 8 GB Creative Zen V Plus
also plays video and audio and retails for $169. Availability of the new Microsoft Zune II is
basically non-existent so I won’t bother going into detail.
For a new user I would suggest the Zen. It’s less expensive while doing the same
thing, it will play most anything that isn’t proprietary and it comes from a
well known manufacturer (Creative Labs, maker of Sound Blaster and Audigy audio
components). It has the added bonus of
voice recording and, since it’s not made by Apple you’re much more likely to find
one on special somewhere and save even more money.
If the giftee already has an iPod I’d have to go with that, since
likely they have some of the older DRM laden .m4p files from itunes.com.
To go along with the flashy new player you might also want to
include a few songs. Ordinarily I don’t
suggest gift cards but for this I’ll make an exception, since the online cards
are more likely to be used quickly and not forgotten in a wallet until after
the expiration date.
For general music go with www.amazon.com for DRM free
.mp3 files that will play on virtually anything. For hardcore iPod/iTunes fans www.itunes.com is another
good DRM free choice. You can get gift
cards from both sites either emailed or physically mailed to the giftee
directly, and believe me they will be used immediately.
Finally, some business. Since the holidays fall on Tuesday this year the last issue of the newsletter will be next week, 12-20-07. We’ll fire up again on January 10th next year with Volume 8 Number 1. Hard to believe we’ve been at this so long, but you folks make it well worth it :)
Until next week, happy shopping…
Kevin Mefford, Editor
Terry Wise
Tech News of the Week
Use your cell phone as a modem? That’ll be $85,000 please:
http://news.bbc.co.uk/1/hi/world/americas/7141935.stm
Mac addicts of the world, rejoice. You came THIS CLOSE to being stuck with a Commodore:
http://news.yahoo.com/s/macworld/20071212/tc_macworld/innovators20071212
COO of Wikipedia was felon with multiple DUIs (including a hit-and-run resulting in a fatality) and convictions for kiting checks, petty larceny, theft and shooting her boyfriend in the chest. What’s the definition of “Ooops”?:
http://www.theregister.co.uk/2007/12/13/wikimedia_coo_convicted_felon/
Ask.com introduces a new option to remove search histories from a user record but Google keeps the info anyway:
http://itnews.com.au/News/66867,google-keeps-what-askcom-erases.aspx
Download of the Week
From the nimblesoftware site:
“Excel jockeys know that at
times, it can be a long, tough slog making your way through building and using
spreadsheets. If you're looking to cut down on the time it takes to do
repetitive tasks…, give Worksheet Booster a try. It gives you nearly two dozen
new commands which speed up accomplishing a variety of tasks, such as creating
a new worksheet from existing data. Normally, each of the tasks takes several
steps to complete, but with this program, just choose a command from a
drop-down list, and Worksheet Booster does the rest. It works with Excel 2000,
Excel XP, Excel 2003, and Excel 2007.”
Get it here: http://www.nimblesoftware.com .
Art Maley
Email Question of the Week
Q: I have XP operating system & all of a sudden my outlook express locks up & I can't open my mail or delete or send email after I have opened a few emails normally. I have to leave the program & then come back in in order to read my mail again. One time it told me I needed to reinstall it. Is it in the Windows XP installation CD? How do I go about fixing this?
A: The following link has some basic information
on troubleshooting Outlook Express problems. You might want to try these
before doing a reinstall.
http://www.microsoft.com/windows/ie/community/columns/oerepair.mspx
If those don't work, here's the link to
reinstall/repair Internet Explorer (depending on your version) which will also
reinstall Outlook
Express.
http://support.microsoft.com/default.aspx?kbid=318378
Hash
hash@ucanweb.com
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