The Amazon Kindle changed my life! As an American who is avid reader, living in Mexico provides me with limited options for acquiring books in English. An international version just became available, but my Kindle 2 is a little older so I have to shop for books from my laptop. I simply connect my Kindle via USB to transfer my purchases. After being short on books, this hardly feels like a hardship.

When I travel to the US and use the “whispernet” free Internet service, it performs reasonably well, but is on the slow side. Kindle books are less costly than their paper versions, though you’re likely to buy in greater quantity. Saving trees is another worthy advantage to using a Kindle. Blogs, magazines, and newspapers are also available, and you can send documents to a special email address to have them converted to a format that can be read on your Kindle.

The built-in dictionary is a wonderful feature, and the interface is easy to use. I sorely miss it when I read the occasional book on paper. You can also highlight passages and make notes. The ability to easily change font sizes is useful. The no-glare screen is easy to read, but a built-in light of some sort would be a great addition.

You can use earphones to listen to MP3 music files that you load onto the Kindle from your computer. There’s a text-to-speech feature with a stilted computer voice. It isn’t much like listening to a book on tape but it still beats trying to read while driving. The Amazon Kindle has an impressive battery life for plenty of reading between recharges. Paper books simply don’t measure up after life with a Kindle

Total Security 2009 is a rogue program that claims to be a legitimate antivirus tool but it is actually a malware. It has its origins to the Antivirus 360 which was also a rogue security software. Total Security Virus impersonates the Windows Security Center showing fake alerts that your system is supposedly unprotected. The main intention of Total Security virus is to scare the user in order to purchase the rogue software.

Total Security virus is very persistent in staying alive on your system. It hijacks your Internet Explorer thus blocking your ability to visit legitimate security sites for downloading antivirus tools. It also prohibits the user from opening the windows task manager saying that “task manager has been disabled by your administrator”. I have found a solution for cleaning up Total Security 2009 after searching around. Let’s see together how to do it:

1. Go to Start>Search>For files or Folders
2. On the left side of the search window, select the option “All files and folders”
3. Under the field “All or part of the filename” type *.exe
4. Click on the “When was it modified?”, select “Specify Dates” and on the drop down menu select “created date”. Below that, enter your current date in both “from” and “to” fields.
5. Hit the Search button. It will find an executable under the following folder:

c:/documents and settings/all users/application data/10176254

6. Browse to the above path. If you don’t see the folder “application data”, then go to Tools>Folder Options>View and Select “Show Hidden Files and Folders”
7. Maybe the folder numbers at the end will be different in your case, but they should be under the application data path. Go to the folder and rename it. Then Restart your computer.
8. After restarting, the malicious program will not find its executable to run it, so hopefully you will be able to run your antispyware tool.
9. Download Free Trial of Spyware Doctor Here and perform a free scan of your system. It will find all files associated with Total Security on your system. The free version of spyware doctor is for scanning purposes. To clean up the infection you will need to register the program.

Another tip for removing Total Security, is to use the “sysinternals” process explorer at the following link. (http://live.sysinternals.com/procexp.exe). Run the program and find the process tsc.exe. Click the Red X button to kill the process. You may also find a process with a random number. Kill that one as well.

 Good luck.

We have been used with the legacy VCR devices and DVD Players. The newest generation of digital home entertainment, however, is much more than just a video player. A modern home entertainment video device must be able to record online and offline, interact with the internet, play different formats of digital video files, be network accessible etc etc.

TiVo TCD652160 High Definition Digital Video Recorder is one of those modern generation home entertainment units that is probably the most popular model in its field. Founded in 1997, TiVo, a pioneer in home entertainment, created a brand-new product and service category with the development of the world’s first digital video recorder (DVR). Today, the company continues to revolutionize the way consumers watch and access home entertainment, by making the TiVo DVR the focal point of the digital living room: a center for sharing and experiencing television, movies, video downloads, music, photos, and more.

Some of the characteristics of TiVo TCD652160 are the following:

• It can replace your cable box.
• Provides access to more than 60000 on demand video titles
• Records two shows at once
• Works with both cable and antenna
• Saves up to 20 hours of HDTV (180 hours of SD)
• Instantly watch over 12,000 movies & TV episodes from Netflix
• Connect your TiVo to the Internet and get access to over 45,000 movies and TV shows ready to download from Amazon Video On Demand.
• Watch YouTube videos
• Connect with the TiVo service to allow you to schedule recordings remotely, either online or from your mobile phone

Some Reviews from Amazon:

Having been totally disillusioned and disappointed with three Panasonic DMR-EZ48V DVD/VHS Recorders that failed well within their one year warranties, one after the other (yeah, three; just call us eternal optimists), we were desparate to find another product that would provide off-the-air recording and archiving. We had looked at Tivo many years ago, but written it off as a cable-only device. I was very surprised to learn that this product had a built-in digital tuner that could receive digital programming with our rooftop TV antenna. Not only could it receive and display a TV program for viewing, it could also record two other TV programs at the same time! It took the place of two DVD recorders right out of the box!

I was less than enthusiastic about paying an annual fee until I learned all that it could do. Somebody worked overtime to anticipate all the functionality and more that an owner might want. After a week in operation, we ordered and installed a second one – in the kitchen – so that my wife can watch her “soaps” and Oprah while there. Both are connected to our wireless network and DSL for interconnectivity.

Its recording capacity sounded endless – 180 hours of standard TV or 20 hours of HDTV. I didn’t account for just about everything being transmitted in HDTV – whether or not you intend to view it that way. It didn’t take long for the first “out of memory” alert message. Our safety net was found in the form of the Western Digital “My DVR Expander” with 1TB 600 Hours of Digital SD or 120 Hours of HDTV capacity. We purchased one for each TiVo and haven’t seen that warning again (yet).

Our only problem with picture quality is that we are using these TiVos on standard analog TVs and everyone looks tall and slim. This has not been a deal killer, as they are designed to work with flat panel or widescreen TVs. We’ll get there.

It was well worth the initial “sticker shock”. We love ‘em!!

G. Richards

I had a Series 2 Tivo, which I mostly stopped using after getting a large HD TV. I went started using the DVR supplied by my cable company. That device was a piece of junk; it truly made me appreciate the TiVo and all its greatness. Not only is the TiVo and easy to use reliable DVR, but it also can stream video from Netflix, YouTube, Amazon and more. It also allows you to listen to music and show photos from your computer. The big draw back is the cost of the TiVo service. If you can stomach that, the rest is amazing.

A.D.Miller

Cox Digital in Phoenix, AZ, said I had to upgrade to “digital” cable. (funny, I thought all transmission had to be digital this past June) That would be $38 dollars a month plus any fees, and the rental of $4 a month for the “CableCards”. I told them to forget it, and returned the TIVO. I called TIVO and they said that COX was not telling the truth, and that all I needed was the CableCard(s). I have filed a complaint with the Arizona Attorney General and intend to follow this up with a complaint to the FCC. The TIVO’s concept is superior to the cable/Sat companies DVR.

R.Ramsey

>>>>Click the following link for more information and technical characteristics about TiVo TCD652160 HD Digital Video Recorder.<<<<

This is a guest post by Chris Hatcher, who writes about life, technology, and humor for Geeky100.

Almost everyone at my workplace has sticky notes on their monitors. There is one lady whose screen is completely surrounded by a sea of stickies. They are ragged and scattered, and they make her whole desk seem cluttered. As a basis for comparison, my monitor is almost sticky note free, and my desk is clean and professional. I need almost as many daily reminders as the lady with the sticky notes, but I keep long-term notes on my desktop wallpaper.

Desktop Wallpaper Ideas

Desktop wallpaper is underutilized real estate. It’s aesthetic but useless for most users. What if there was useful information there? Here is some ideas:

• Calendars (Check out Smashing Magazine.)
• Cheat sheets
• Often misspell words
• Phone numbers
• Procedures
• Etc.

Tips, Tricks, and Tools

• If you do not have an image editor, I would recommend Paint.NET.  It is powerful, intuitive, and free.
• To easily convert documents to an image, press “Alt” and “Print Screen” to copy a screen shot of the application.  Then press “Ctrl” and “V” to paste it into your image editor.
• If you are obsessive about quality, print your document to a PDF.  If you use PDFCreator, you can save it straight to an image.  Otherwise, use PDF-XCHANGE Viewer to export the PDF as an image.
• Put the most important notes on the outside of the screen, so you can see them while working.

Feedback
Did you guys have any ideas or inspiration?  Let me know with a comment.

Do you use Download Accelerator Plus? Even if you use it, you still can’t resume download from likes of Rapidshare or Megaupload unless you have premium accounts on those file hosting services. But do you know there is an add-on service in DAP called AlwaysResume that supports download resuming even if the server doesn’t support it?
And using a small trick, you can get the Platinum version of it for free. It is worth $20 per quarter. Just follow these steps:

• Begin uninstalling DAP
• On the opened window find “also get a token of our appreciation” just under “Disable DAP & Get Help”
• Click on it & enter your email address & submit it

DAP will send your own unique code for AlwaysResume Platinum service valid for a quarter in your mailbox. And you don’t have to uninstall DAP for that
By the way, this service doesn’t require Premium version of DAP. You can easily use it with Download Accelerator Plus free edition.
And in the screenshot here you can compare the different editions of AlwaysResume service. As you can see, with Platinum AlwaysResume service you can resume download for files with maximum size of 90mb. It can be quite handy!

This Guest Post was contributed by I Am Blogging.