I’ve had some recent experiences that have made it painfully obvious that I need to make sure my priorities are straight and that I use my time for the things that matter most.
Tev’s tech has been fun, but is not nearly as important to me as other things in my life. I started it with the intention of having a place where I could post answers to those computer questions I get a lot. Like “my computer’s running slow, can you fix it?” The idea was posts with simple, nice tutorials that anyone could follow, so I could just point them to Tev’s tech, and have them do it themselves.
However, in my recent reevaluation of priorities, I realized not many people ask me computer questions these days. Being further from family and away from the college environment, people only seem to ask when it’s a real problem… not just something a tutorial would help them fix on their own. Also, there hasn’t been much in the way of interest in this blog, beyond a couple readers and the occasional comment.
For all these reasons, I’m going to stop updating Tev’s tech. It’ll still be here for a while, but won’t be updated. I’ll also move a few things that I think are important over to TevyaWashburn.com whenever I get that up and running. That way I’ll still have a place to post things I deem important, but without any obligation to update regularly or post specific content.
Please feel free to contact me directly if you have any computer questions or need some financial advice or insight into things like how to build your credit. Hopefully you’ll also be able to contact me through TevyaWashburn.com (whenever I get that setup) in the near future.
If you’re not already familiar, it might be time to check out Hulu.com. Its a free video watching place somewhat like YouTube, only Hulu started out with what YouTube is only begining to get: full episodes of TV shows, as well as full length movies, all to watch on your computer, for free.
Yes there are commercials, but unlike normal TV each commercial break (and there’s only a few per show) is limited to one 15-30 second commercial. So they’re very short, and less annoying. So if you want to catch up on the latest episodes of The Office or some National Geographic (I wish they’d get the History Channel) or watch a good old Hitchcock triller, or one of my personal favorites Saints & Soldiers, but don’t want to go go to the video store or even the Redbox. Watch it on Hulu.
I have a friend who recently got a job in the mortgage industry. As I understand it the company “helped” people to avoid foreclosure. In spite of the tough job market, he quit the job a short time later. In talking to him I found out it was due to blatant dishonesty including signature forgery. These guys make money by giving people a “second chance” when they near foreclosure. The reality is, they make people renters in their own home and usually end up taking the house anyway.
Today a guy came in to the bank and told me he thought he’d been the victim of fraud. I asked him what happened. He said he thought he’d been hired by a company that wanted him to open a new arm of their business in the area. To get things started they’d make a $500 deposit into his account, then he would need to take $400 and send a MoneyGram to someone. The additional $100 was his to keep as his new hire bonus, or whatever. He did as told, then suddenly noticed that the $500 had been pulled back out of his account, after he’d already sent the $400 MoneyGram. I immediately told him he was the victim of a scam. [READ MORE]
Barnes & Noble has 9 free audiobooks right now. 8 are short stories, but “The Adventure’s of Tom Sawyer” by Mark Twain should be in everyone’s collection and is the full-length novel. Just go to the Barnes & Noble Audiobook MP3 Free Download Offer page. You can add each one to your cart by clicking the button. After you do, you’ll be sent to a new page. To go back and add more, just look on the middle column under “Recent Searches” for a link back to the free books page.
Once you’ve got the ones you want, just click the big “Proceed to Checkout” button and then the “Begin Checkout” if you don’t have a B&N account. Once you do, you’ll just enter your email. Then scroll clear down to the bottom enter a credit card (better a credit card than a debit card, for your own sake) and your name and address. Next, click the “Checkout” button. Finally, give it a password, select a security question and answer, and click the “Continue Checkout” button. Note: I also recommend unckecking the little checkbox that tells them to keep your Credit Card on file, unless you think you’ll be making more purchases from Barnes & Noble online.
After all that, you’ll just need to click the large “Place My Order” button and an email will be sent to you with instructions to get your free audio books. If you don’t intend to use them in the future, I recommend uninstalling their little download program when you’re done. That way you don’t install one more piece of software that clutters up your computer and makes it run slower.
These audiobooks are in MP3 format so they’ll work on iTunes or Windows Media, or whatever personal MP3 player you have.
I know Louis L’Amour and Mark Twain well (I grew up on them), and vaguely Alice Munro and Kurt Vonnegut, but other than that am not familiar with any of the other authors, so let me know if there’s any I need to download and listen to.
I often get emails from friends and family that say things like “Microsoft is going to give you $100 if you forward this to 10 people.” Or claim that congress is about to limit free speech on the radio, or any number of anythings, or the sickest are the ones that tell you this horrible story and that you’ll help a donation in their behalf if you forward it.
If any of these sound even remotely familiar, and you’ve forwarded them on, you’ve probably been a victim of “forward fraud.” …Okay, okay, I just made that up right now… there’s no real name for it that I know of, but the simple fact is, almost any email that asks you to forward it, is not worth obeying, is usually not true, and only annoys people who see it for what it is. [READ MORE]
Now Walmart music is giving away a great song for free. My friends tell me that the up-and-coming Thriving Ivory has a free song on the Walmart MP3 store!
Well, one worm specifically. Some people may have heard of the Conficker worm. If you’re Mac user, you’re safe, this is only for windows users. The Conficker worm is very widespread. It has managed to infect a lot of computers.
One of the reasons so many people are so worried, is that its highly encrypted, so experts haven’t been able to really look at its programing to figure out what it will do. Some things are now known, as it has come out of hibernation and began doing things. The concern to the average user is that it may save some of your important information and share it with website you don’t want it shared with. It may also download fake anti-virus software and encourage you to pay to have that software remove viruses from your computer. [READ MORE]
Those who know me, know I’m pretty big on legaly purchasing music. But as you can probably deduce from some of the other posts on this blog, I also like to save money. So when Amazon.com starts offering tons of MP3’s for free, I get excited.
Amazon is the first major seller of legal music to make any real headway in market share against iTunes. I’m a pretty big fan of iPods and think iTunes is pretty cool and getting better. But I also like competition in the free market, it forces the best to get better or be surpassed. I think its because Amazon has started to do so well that iTunes finally switched to all music that does not contain any copy-protection. This means if you want to use music from your iTunes library for things like home videos, etc., there won’t be a problem with any new music purchased on iTunes, or any that’s been upgraded to iTunes-Plus. Amazon’s MP3’s have been this way all along. And right now there’s over 700 free tracks (mostly songs, but some other stuff too) avalable on the Amazon store. So if you haven’t already, now’s a good time to give Amazon a try. It’s compatible with iTunes or Windows Media Player. You’ll just need to install the Amazon MP3 Downloader, but don’t worry its easy and just part of the setup process. If you already have an Amazon account, its even easier.
I made a critical error in setting up this website. I didn’t ever view the website in Internet Explorer, the most used browser out there.
The other night I was showing it to somebody, on their computer, and was using IE to show them. When Tev’s Tech came up, I thought it was the computer and hit refresh, but no such luck! This website looked terrible. The blue background of the sidebar, was shifted over so it was only partially underneath the sidebar area, while the rest of it was under the content area where these posts are.
Luckily I investigated and fixed the problem quickly. So now all you IE users who thought my website stunk, can now see it the way I intended… the way I was seeing it in Firefox.
Now for a “Down to Earth” Tev’s Tech tip:
Since this website is about telling you how to do cool and helpful stuff with your computer, let me introduce you to Firefox and some of it’s advantages (download it here). [READ MORE]
In these economic times, things are hard enough without someone else screwing up your credit. This series of articles will cover the simple things you can do to make sure you and your family are protected from potential identity theft, or even human errors that could negatively affect your credit.
Note: from what I know and have seen, the best way to really protect your identity is to use a Identity Theft Protection service such as LifeLock or Debix. I haven’t used either, but Debix is very reasonably priced and claims to be the best. They also employ some methods that others don’t.
This first article is a step-by-step guide to remove yourself from mail and phone lists that can potentially lead to someone stealing your identity. This protects you, but it also eliminates junk mail and phone solicitations. Who likes those anyway? [READ MORE]
, is usually not true, and only annoys people who see it for what it is. 
How to get it:
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