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Castellini on Computers Free Weekly
Email Newsletter
January 10, 2008
We ARE Live Tonight for FIRST SHOW of
2008!
Hear (and see) our show
LIVE
Every Thursday night at 9:30 PM MST
or
Visit HelpMeRick.com ANY time to download or hear
any of our shows.
Spelling and
punctuation guaranteed to be at least 78 percent accurate
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In this week's
issue. . .
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*** Tip of the Week
*** Geek Speek of the Week - (Simple definition of common computer
terms)
*** Computer News...and comment
*** Last week's Poll results
*** Adam's Comments - Stuff from the digital world that is rolling
around in Adam's head.
*** Email of the week
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We apologize for the late
arrival of the newsletter. We
spent the day driving back from the Consumer Electronics show in Las
Vegas, Nevada.
If you haven't been watching
our website over the past week,
you have been missing the best coverage on the Internet.
This year we ditched our
Windows laptop systems and covered
the entire show on our Eee PCs (running a customized Linux version) and
Palm Treos. By doing this we were able to post videos,
audio and photos of the latest technology as we discovered it.
Interestingly,
wireless Internet was not available at the convention center nor or
hotel because of problems, or we could have posted even more content,
but we think you will find some interesting and humorous coverage in
our 2008 CEeeS Coverage pages.
We also took a much more laid
back approach to our coverage
this year. We may have been a little too goofy at times, but if nothing
else
our coverage should be entertaining.
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Email your
questions to us and we will answer them live on the air or on
our daily website updates!
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Custom
Computer Help from Rick and Adam
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We have been posting a new how-to video
every week since November and the feedback has been tremendous. Now YOU
have the opportunity to get your own customized video tutorial about a
topic that you are having trouble with or just want to learn.
To learn more, visit: www.HelpMeRick.com/videohelp
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Tip of the Week
10 Skills EVERY Computer Users Needs to Know - Video Tip
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I originally posted this list in January 2007. However, through my keen observation skills, I discovered that all computer users
have not yet read and digested this information. For this reason, I'm
posting it again because I won't stop working to educate computer users
until every computer user knows these 10 skills.
Computers have become almost a main stream household appliance.
Whether you have been using a computer for fifteen years or one, these
skills should be second nature:
- Cut, Copy, Paste
- Print just what you want (word processing, email, web)
- Backup your address book
- Select (highlight) text or files
- Properly uninstall unwanted programs
- Burn a CD
- Download files from the Internet
- Use MSCONFIG ; Another MSCONFIG tip
- Search the Internet
- Attach Files to an email
#11: Learn how to best utilize HelpMeRick.com If
you already know how to do these skills, please pass this article along
to someone who doesn't...help me help other computer users.
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Geek
Speek |
We
have covered this topic a few times lately, but now that we have put
the Eee to the test, we are more happy with it than ever! The ASUS Eee
PC is a very small PC that offers just the basics. Using the Eee PC you
can do Internet, email, word processing, spreadsheets, presentations,
Skype video calls, games, and light digital photography management.
While
the Eee PC is extremely easy to use, it can also be tweaked as far as
someone wants to go with it. Some people have taken off the native
software and replaced it with basic versions of Windows XP or Ubuntu.
The
Eee PC is not designed to replace a larger computer,it works better as
an ultra portable Internet and productivity device. The Eee PC does
more than the average PDA or smartphone, but is more portable and
durable than a full-size laptop. It is also much less expensive.
The
Eee PC features between 2-8 gigabytes of storage, 512-1GB of RAM, an SD
slot, optional built-in webcam, built-in WiFi, network port, multiple
USB ports and a VGA port. Currently the Eee PC costs between $300-$400
with new models on the way that could either lower current costs or fit
in at a higher price point. |
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ASUS Eee PC
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Computer
News...and comment
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| We have tons of video, photos and stories from the 2008 Consumer Electronic Show (CES) at our site. You can find all the stories neatly packaged at this link. |
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Poll
Results
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Are you watching/reading our CES Coverage?
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Yes, - 85%
No - 10%
Not yet, but I plan to - 5% |
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Adam's Comments
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TOP 5 Useless Innovations of CES 2008
CES
is full of wonderful new gadgets and gizmos. We always find a handful
of new products that have the potential to change the word, but the
vast majority of products we see fit into one of two categories.
Products that copycat existing popular products and products that serve
a purpose for which there is not need.
Here is a list of our
favorite products that fit in the latter category. While each of these
gadgets is complex and sometimes innovation is simply done for
innovation sake.
Redfly
– Today's smartphones have very small screens and are difficult to use
as practical computing devices. Redfly has attempted to solve this
problem by creating a small laptop-like device that connects to any
Windows Mobile smartphone and allows the user to create documents,
spreadsheets and use the Internet on a wide screen and full keyboard.
It
sounds like a good idea, but the Redfly costs $399. and has no memory,
WiFi capabilities or operating system. It's only a functional device if
you connect it via Bluetooth to a Windows Mobile device. The combined
cost of a Windows Mobile device and the Redfly is roughly $899. The Eee
PC and similar devices that offer far more capabilities, like full
computing power, in a single package at costs starting at $299.
Rolly
- The Rolly is covered pretty well in our CES coverage at
HelpMeRick.com. We have also declared the Rolly as the poster child for
useless innovation. It looks like a small football, but it does oh so
much more. Press a button and the Rolly becomes a football that
“dances” to your music by rolling around.
The Rolly is an
music player with a gig of storage, but it is too large to fit in a
pocket. My description sounds much better than it actually was. I have
saved the most innovative feature until last. The Rolly also allows you
to program a dance and share it with your friend so you can have
choreographed routines.
By taking a product and adding
layer upon layer of useless and distracting features, one might say
that Sony has found a way to “Vista-ize” the digital music player.
PhoneCast – Warning: The phoneCast may sound like a good idea. Logic takes over quickly and questions start to rise to the surface.
PhoneCast
is a service that assigns a phone number to your syndicated website.
Give this number out on your website and people can dial it to listen
to your podcast any time they want via telephone. Sounds pretty good eh?
Now the questions:
- Why would I want to listen to a podcast through my phone?
- Why would I want to waste my cell minutes listening to a podcast?
- Why wouldn't I just download the podcast and listen to in on a stereo, iPod or in my car?
- What if I take a call while listening to the podcast, do I have to start over?
- What if no one wants to dial a long distance number to listen to my podcast?
- Do
the people who don't understand how to use a podcast understand what a
podcast is enough to know they can hear it by dialing a number?
We
asked many of these questions but some companies believe in their
product so much that they spend too much time trying to justify their
product rather than improve it.
Samsung 7” screen
– Samsung is one of our favorite companies. They obviously spend a lot
of time with research and development. They are also leaders in quality
displays and other great electronics.
Even though we love
Samsung, we had to laugh when we saw one of Samsung’s latest products
announced at CES. One of their newer 22" LCD displays will feature an
additional 7” monitor that will stick out on the side. This small
monitor will be used for tools, widgets and other items such as
toolbars that the user does not want to take up real estate on the big
screen.
In other words for a little more than the price of a 24”
monitor, you can get a 22” monitor with an additional 7” screen that
sticks off at the side. That doesn't sound too bad unless you measure
the viewable surface area of a 24” monitor compared to that of a 22”
plus and additional 7”.
Belkin RockStar –
The problem with iPods and other music players is that they can only be
enjoyed by one person at a time. Many companies have resolved this
problem by releasing headphone splitters that allow you to plug in
multiple sets of headphones into a single jack.
The new Belkin
RockStar allows you to not only listen to a single media player with
multiple headsets, it also allows you to listen to multiple media
players with a single headset. That's right, you can listen to up to
five songs at the same time!
You may ask, “Don't the songs all bleed together into an incomprehensible mess of sound?” The answer is yes.
I
did ask why. The answer was simple, “To mix music!” The pretty Belkin
spokes model then went on to explain, “I just listened to two iPods at
the same time this morning and it was really cool!”
To bad we
didn't have this for the ride home from Vegas; we could have listened
to Ann Coulter and Michael Moore audio books at the same time.
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Email of the week
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Hello
Rick,
Can an external hard drive be used for games like Flight
Simulator to keep from eating up space on my computers hard drive. I would like to isolate these games to an
external drive - but am not sure of their performance.
How about flash
drives for these same memory hungry games????
Your thoughts and suggestions are appreciated Darlene
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Hello Darlene, The short answer is yes, you can use
external hard drives for installing games on your computer. You can't
use flash drives for them, however.
Using an external hard drive
may cause some slower performance than installing a game to an internal
drive. Depending on other factors of your computer, including RAM,
processing speed, and video card, it might not be that big of a
performance hit.
Good luck and have a great weekend.
Rick
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Castellini
on Computers & HelpMeRick.com ©2008
Rick Castellini and Adam Cochran
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