Last week, we wrote about WeChat. Here is the post: WeChat/Weixin . Here is the link to WeChat at the Apple Store. http://itunes.apple.com/us/app/wechat!/id414478124?mt=8 It’s available in the Android app store, as well.

Sometimes it seems that the only innovations in social networking are coming out of China. Honestly, that’s not all that hard to figure out, seeing as how there are over a billion people there and almost half of them use the Internet. Of those users, about 400 million access the Internet using the various mobile devices available, many of which are Smartphones.

Add the fact that Chinese Internet users are very sociable, probably more so than North Americans, and you’ve got a perfect wave forming for a company like Tencent (http://www.tencent.com/en-us/index.shtml). Enter Weixin or WeChat. Tencent already has a huge market with QQ and its own version of Weibo but now, with WeChat, they have come up with a purely mobile chat application that is, to us anyway, stunning.

Read our previous post then come back and find out how to meet new people using WeChat. Take your time, we’ll wait.

OK! Here we go. There are three completely different ways to look for other WeChat users. Of course, you can plunk in your other social media passwords and find out which friends already use WeChat or you can invite them to start using it, but here we’re talking about meeting completely new people.

1. The first way is to simply ‘Look Around’. If your mobile device has a GPS monitor, you’ll be able to search out WeChat users who live in your area. In my case, I found users within 900 meters of my home. To me, that’s kind of like standing on your porch and shouting, “Is there anybody out there?” Of course, the local users are all Chinese, except for me that is. Most early adopters of WeChat are overwhelmingly Chinese but, theoretically, that will change.

Once you find a WeChat user nearby, you can simply say, “Hi”. You can also tune the Look Around feature to show only males, only females or both. Personally, I think this feature is pretty cool but I can also see how it might seem creepy to some of you. If it does, you can easily delete the Look Around plug-in. It is part of the default set of plug-ins and is easily removed.

2. Instead of looking around for other WeChat users, you can shake your way to new relationships using the Shake plug-in. Choose the option from the screen and simply give your mobile phone a shake. WeChat looks around for other users who are shaking their devices at the same time and gives you the option to say hi to them. This plug-in is more proactive than the Look Around feature since you already know that the person shaking their phone is looking to make contact with someone. Say hi and see how it goes. You can always shake again if things turn sour. Remember, again, that virtually every user you contact will be Chinese. If you know anything about China and the Chinese people, you will know that almost everyone wants to learn English but many Chinese already have a rudimentary knowledge of it.  Many Chinese speak and write better English than some of your friends and neighbors, too.

TIP: If you meet someone you like and the English thing isn’t getting you anywhere, you can download QQ International. We’ll do another post on it but, for now, we’ll simply say that you can chat with someone who only knows Chinese even if you only know English. There is a wonderful translation app built into the International version which has opened up the world to China and, of course, China to the world.

3. The last way to meet new friends is to simply cast a bottle out into the ocean. Of course, this is a virtual bottle but it works the same way as a real bottle with a message in it. Type in your note or use a voice message and then toss your bottle into the ocean of WeChat users. WeChat will notify you when someone replies. Just now, I tossed a bottle out and almost instantly got three replies. One was a female exchange student in Denmark, another was a man who left me a voice message and the third was also a guy who just said, ‘Hello”. In the span of five minutes, I’ve got three new people to share things with. Cool!

WeChat isn’t for everyone. At this point, you have to have a keen interest in China and the Chinese people. You also have to be patient and be able to understand that not everyone in the world speaks perfect English. Once you’re over those hurdles, WeChat is loads of fun. Additionally, if you wait a year or so, WeChat will be flooded with millions of other users. At this point, it supports Thai, Vietnamese, Indonesian, Portuguese, plus English and Chinese. (If you know social networking, you’ll see the importance of having WeChat available in Portuguese. Orkut, the Google version of Facebook, is extremely popular in Brazil.)

Questions, comments, links are all welcome. Thanks for reading!

This weekend, a friend came over with a DVD that wouldn’t work on her DVD player.  Turns out that the DVD was from England and was in the PAL format. Not that this matters too much to you but a good portion of the world has a different broadcast system for their TVs. Our native North American system is known as NTSC while their system is known as PAL. We’re not talking about regions here, as in DVDs that only play in one region even if that region is PAL or NTSC. The regions have to do with DRM (digital rights management), not transmission systems. Regardless of the reason, her PAL DVD wouldn’t work on any North American NTSC system. How would we fix that?

After hours of trying to re-author the DVD using some very arcane and complicated software, I decided to take the simple route. Since the DVD is essentially a group of video files, I decided to convert those files to AVI files using Format Factory. We’ve written about Format Factory before and it’s one of our go-to programs for converting video or audio files from one format to another. Read our posts here: Format Factory  and here: Format Factory

Almost every DVD player out there will play AVI files. You can also pop those files onto a flash drive and connect it directly to some TVs and play the files from there. Here’s how we converted the PAL DVD to a group of AVI files :

1. Download Format Factory here: http://www.formatoz.com/  and install it. Watch out for some of these downloads since they will want to change your search options or home pages. Don’t just assume things when you are clicking your way through the screens. Read them one by one before you click OK and make sure you uncheck anything that seems fishy.

TIP: A PAL DVD can be read by your computer but not played on your TV. The TV screen is different from your computer monitor screen, to put it simply.

2. Make sure the PAL DVD you want to convert is in your DVD drive on your computer.  Start Format Factory. This is the opening screen:

You're looking for the DVD to Video file button.

3. Click the DVD to Video File button and the following screen will pop up:

If the PAL DVD is in your optical drive, your screen will be much like this.

This menu looks complicated but it isn’t. On the top you’ve got your DVD drive with the title of the DVD shown. Below that are the various VOB files that make up the DVD with two files already checked. I wanted to convert all of the files so I had to check Title 2, 3 and 5. On the right side, I have changed the output to AVI and I want the files to be converted to XVID 640×360 Wide Screen HD. The default setting is MP4 but that resulted in pretty crappy, but watchable, video files. This particular setting works perfectly. There are no subtitles offered on the DVD but you can choose your own setting here. Leave the Audio Stream at default and it should be fine. Change the file titles if you want.

4. Once you’ve set all the parameters, click Convert and go and have lunch. Depending on the speed of your computer, conversion could take hours. We used a reasonably fast computer with 8 gigs of RAM and the conversion of this short DVD took about half an hour.

5. Format Factory will beep when the files are all converted. Look for the files in My Documents in the folder named ‘Format Factory Output’, unless you have created your own directory already.

6. Once you have checked that the files work on your computer, burn them to a fresh DVD or pop them onto a flash drive and try them on your DVD/TV setup. They should work perfectly.

TIP: A DVD is made up of many VOB files, some small, some large. The main movie, obviously, is simply the largest VOB file but you might want to convert all the VOBs anyway. You can then sort them out later on and delete them if they aren’t worth saving.

This method of converting PAL DVDs to watchable AVI files is much simpler than any PAL to NTSC method that I’ve discovered. It’s also completely free. We don’t buy software at Computers Made Simple and, while there are several pay solutions for this problem, we decided to look for a free solution. Thanks for Format Factory, we were able to solve the PAL DVD problem quite easily. We hope it works for you.

Thanks for reading!

As I was researching a post on hiding your likes from the new-ish Facebook Timeline, I came across a little Facebook secret. It’s a bit like an Easter Egg but it’s not totally hidden. You can see it but just for a fraction of a second. As of this moment on May 11, 2012, the link is just a flash on the screen. Lucky for our readers, my hand is about as quick as my eye. Here are the steps to see the secret link that Facebook, for some reason, wants to keep hidden from its users:

1. Go to Account Settings (top right, click the down arrow to the right of Home and choose Account Settings).

2. Click the Edit your Timeline on the left side of the screen, at the very bottom of the left column. Here is what you are looking for:

Click on 'your Timeline' to edit your preferences.

3. Close the default open Basic Info box by clicking cancel or Save, if everything there is as you want it.

4. Click on the down arrow to the right of the word About and choose Timeline, as shown here:

Click the word Timeline to edit your preferences.

5. You’re almost there. Click on the words ‘Activity log’. Watch the top of the next page very carefully. As the page is loading, you will see the following link appear then disappear: 

This line appears only for a fraction of a second before it disappears.

6. Depending on your Internet connection, the time that this menu appears may vary. If you’re lucky, or quick, you can click on the words ‘Learn More’ and find information about how to edit your own Timeline to share or not share some items. In case you are slow, here is the link:

https://www.facebook.com/help/activitylog

7. As you click your way through the following menu, the hidden link will appear for a very short time then disappear. Here is the menu which shows the link:

Here is everything you can share on Facebook. Edit each one to your preferences.

While this may be a glitch in the Facebook page coding system, I have used three browsers in researching this anomaly and each one has shown the link for only a fraction of a second.

Why would Facebook hide this link from its users? As I said, it’s either a glitch or it’s done on purpose. If it is done on purpose, then it might be because editing your shares, likes, subscriptions, Etc., defeats the purpose of Facebook. Facebook is all about sharing, right? If you can hide some or all of the things you interact with, what fun would Facebook be? Well, that’s their own point of view, perhaps, but we all know that Facebook wants to know EVERYTHING about you. First, they make it tough to find this activity page, and second, they only display the link to their own help page for an extremely short time.   This virtually insures that it’s all out there, everything you do while you’re on Facebook. Well, thanks to Computers Made Simple, you can take control of your own timeline, no matter how hard Facebook tries to make it.

Thanks for reading!

This is the latest way to hide your likes from your Facebook timeline. We wrote about this a few months ago but Facebook has changed since then. One of my readers pointed out that the old way of hiding your likes doesn’t work now.

TIP: The word ‘like’ here means public pages that you click ‘Like’ on in Facebook or Subscriptions that you’ve chosen. If you click ‘Like’ on some hot guy or girl’s public page, you can hide that from your timeline. Unfortunately, if you click ‘Like’ on one of the photos or videos on that same page, everyone will know about it. You can hide the pages you like but you can’t hide the fact that you ‘liked’ a photo or something else that someone has shared. Get it? The only way to hide your individual photo likes is to ‘unlike’ them. 

Here’s how you can do it as of May 2012:

1. Go to your profile page, as opposed to your HOME page. Click on your own name up on the right side of your screen.

2. Now is a good time to see what your friends can see. Click on the small arrow just to the right of Update Info/Activity Log. Click on the words View As. Your profile will load again but this time you will see these words at the top: ”

Use this tool to see how your Timeline appears to a specific friend or the public. Remember: you can always change who can see any post that appears on your Timeline.”

Just below these words you’ll see a space where you can ‘Enter a friend’s name’. Pick any friend and you’ll be able to see what they can see. If there are things that you want to hide, follow these steps. Oh, keep that page open. When you make changes, hit reload on this page and you’ll see the new, updated settings as your friend sees them. Right click your name and choose ‘open in new tab’. That way you can work on one tab and check your changes in the other.

3. On the new page that you’ve opened up,  on the very top right, click on the down arrow and choose ‘Account Settings’. Once you’re at that page, look for these words on the bottom of the left column: ‘You can also visit your privacy settings or edit your Timeline to control who sees the info there.’

4. Click on the words ‘your Timeline’.

5. An editable version of your profile page will come up next, with your basic info already open. Make sure you are sharing only the things you want to share there, then close it down. Check the settings in the other areas such as Work and Education, Contact Info (do people really need to know your email address?), etc. This is where you can edit your ‘Favorite quotations’ or the ‘About you’ section, as well.

6. On the top left to the right of your name, you’ll see the word ‘About’ followed by a down arrow. This tells you that you are on the “About’ page, the arrow indicates that there is more to edit. Click on the arrow and choose Timeline. This is where we’ll hide our likes from the Facebook Timeline.

7. Once your page reloads, you’ll see your profile page again, this time with places where you can edit what you share and what you don’t. Around the middle of the page, you’ll see the words ‘Activity Log’. Click there.

8. Once you click on ‘Activity Log’, all of your current activity is shown. You can sort through these one by one, choosing to share it with some people, none or hide it from your timeline completely. The only thing you can’t stop from being shared is your ‘likes’ on photos or videos, individual items in other words. All you can do with these is to ‘unlike’ them.

9. Up on the top right, you’ll see the word ‘All’ with a down arrow to the right of it. Clicking on that will make a menu scroll down that contains all of the available activities. Here is what is looks like:

This is where you can edit each thing you want to share.

10. Clicking on each word brings up that set of activities in its own timeline. Here you can hide each one, depending on who you want to share things with. Maybe you want to share some of the pages you like but not others. Here is where you can scroll through them and choose who sees what. Beside each Public Page or Public Figure you’ll see a small circle. Click on that circle and choose either ‘Allowed on Timeline’ or ‘Hidden from Timeline.’ You can also choose to Unlike that page which will, of course, keep it off your Timeline.

11. Sort your way through all of the activities that are presented in the menu shown above. You can hide the fact that you have befriended someone, for instance, or you can actually highlight that fact, for some reason. You can also ‘unlike’ or ‘unfriend’  from this menu. As for Subscriptions, you can hide them also. At some point in the future I will go through all of these choices one by one but, for now, see what’s here and choose what you want to share and what you want to hide.

Thanks for reading!

TIP: I’ve just discovered a hidden menu in Facebook. My next post will be about that. If you’re asking yourself, “Why doesn’t Facebook tell me how to hide my likes on my Timeline?”, my next post will give you the answer. Facebook does tell you how to do it. They just hide the link!

Some things come out of China that are totally unique; some things come out that are copies; Weixin is a combination of both. If you’re looking for the best chat app that I’ve ever seen, head over to your local app site, either Apple or Android, and look for Weixin or WeChat. They are the same thing, one totally English and the other a combination of Chinese and English.

Tencent, the same people that brought out QQ a few years ago, have managed to cobble together an amazing app which allows text chatting as well as video messaging, photo sharing and voice messaging. You can tie Weixin in with your QQ account, which is what I did, or you can sign up for a whole new account. Once you’re into it, you can then find out which of your friends on other social media, including Facebook, are already on Weixin/WeChat. Of course, as is always the case, you can also invite your friends to use the app as well.

I don’t have an iPhone or an Android device but I do have an iPod Touch. Weixin works perfectly well with it and I’m usually chatting away when I have wifi around. The text is a bit slow with my touchscreen keyboard but the photo sharing and video or voice messaging are extremely fast and stable.

One of the best or weirdest things about WeChat, depending on how social you are, is that you can find other users who live close to you by using the GPS gizmo in your mobile device. I’m in Canada and almost all of my online friends are in China. Well, enter Weixin and all of a sudden I’m chatting with people who live only a few kilometres away. To me, that is a lot of fun, specially since only Chinese users are online at this point. As time goes by, I’m sure many Western peeps will adapt Weixin but, for now anyway, it’s not as cluttered or spammy as Yahoo or Msn or even Skype.

Basically, if you want to be on the cutting edge of social media, download Weixin on your mobile device and start having some fun. There is a whole world of innovation over there in China. Over 100 million Chinese have started using Weixin in its first year. Tencent already has a massive number of users with their QQ chat app. Consider the fact that at any given time over 100 million QQ users are online at the same time, you’ll understand how China has adapted to online social networking. When you consider that about half of those people are using mobile devices, you’ll understand why it’s important to keep up with what’s happening there. At this point in time, 123,000,000 Chinese are online using QQ. I don’t have stats on Weixin but I’d safely assume that there are millions online with it, too.

Thanks for reading!

Once you have figured out where all of your stuff is, including documents, photos and videos, it’s time to sort it all out and back it up. Sure, you could dump everything onto one or more DVDs but it makes more sense to organize things a bit beforehand. In this case, photos are more important to arrange than anything else because the files names are arbitrary unless you rename every one. Once you have the various folders in one place, you can sort them out by date, naming the separate folders by when you took the photos or by subject, if all of the photos in a folder can be identified by a few words.

Videos can be named or arranged by date but taking a bit of time now to rename each avi file will make it easier to find what you are looking for at some point down the road. If you have recorded any HDTV shows that you want to save, make sure you convert them to XVID files using Format Factory or  Handbrake to save storage room. Both programs do a fine job of transferring recorded video files to the DIVX or XVID format. The file choice is optional, of course. Use the type of file that you’ve had experience with and works best with your other hardware.

We should mention now that some programs save their files in places other than My Documents. CamStudio, for instance, saves its avi files in the CamStudio main folder. There is a link to those files in My Documents but that is only a shortcut. The files themselves are kept somewhere else. This also applies to Audacity. When you have been working on an audio file in Audacity and you haven’t completed your work, it’s a good idea to back up all of the Audacity files BEFORE you lose them in a hardware crash. Once you export your files in Audacity, you can choose the format and, if you are satisfied with your efforts, you can get rid of the working files. But if you are still working on the files, save them. You’ll find them in the main Audacity folder, not in My Documents.

If you’ve been diligent about telling each program where you want it to save your work, your job is much easier when it comes to backing up your computer.

What’s next? Well, we use Burnaware to make backup DVDs. Burnaware is fast, stable and free. Since DVDs are relatively cheap, we can get 100 for less than $20, you might even want to make backups of backups for important files. Keep each backup in a separate place, maybe even distributing family memories to various relatives. Mark the disks with a Sharpie and put them in a protective package which is also clearly marked with the date and some descriptive words.

Lastly, think about backing up any material that’s ‘in the cloud’. Dropbox is about as secure as you can get but who knows what their financial status is? Backup the Dropbox folder on your computer whenever you back up everything else. That backup isn’t dynamic, of course, so be sure to only use it as a backup in case of emergency. Don’t try to integrate the old files with your current Dropbox files at some date later on. Saving old files over newer files never works.

We can’t hold your hand all the way through but we’re here to help. If you have questions, ask us. Comments are welcome, yays or nays, it doesn’t matter.

Thanks for reading!

Yes, this is a computer/tech site. What’s a BBQ grill review doing here, you ask? Well, the big box chain where I purchased the grille refused my product review twice so I decided to publish my own review here.  While I did use the word ‘idiot’  in the first review to describe the person who assisted me when I made the purchase, the second was cleansed of any inflammatory material and, I must admit, was very well written. So, instead of having the review buried on the big box site, I’ll publish the review here. Had they accepted it, my work would have been done and few people would have read the review. However, since it wasn’t approved, a whole lot more people will see it. Here’s the scoop:

1. The store, unfortunately, was a Home Depot close to me here in Toronto. The advertised unit was a Brinkmann 4 burner propane gas grill sold under the banner of ‘Special Buy’ for $249.00. The model number is 810-9422-F. Here’s a photo of it:

Side burner and all, here it is.

2. Brinkmann, a U.S. manufacturer…well, not really since all the grills are made in China, is the distributor of this BBQ. So far, all of my dealings with Brinkmann have been pretty good but, as you’ll see in the review, they haven’t been perfect.

Here’s the original review:

____________________________________

My old Fiesta died a natural death but it was the best BBQ I’ve ever had. The Brinkmann replacement just isn’t worth the money, even at its ‘special’ price of $249.00. Here’s why you should avoid this at all costs:
1. Even though it has 4 burners, you have to turn them all on if you want to cook anything. The sales rep (an idiot who may have been the DSM at Eglinton East) told me that if you want to cook one burger, you only have to turn one burner on. I pointed out that the Fiesta directions said to turn all the burners on at the same time, no matter what you’re cooking. He laughed and said, no way. Well, he was completely wrong. If you turn one burner on, it takes FOREVER to cook even a lowly burger. Try to cook a chicken with two burners on and it will take hours. Turn them all on and you’re (litereally) cookin’.
2. The burners are so weak that a medium wind will blow them out. I BBQ a lot, summer and winter, and no wind EVER blew out the Fiesta. Now with this Brinkmann I have to put a wind protector in front of it to keep the wind off it.
3. The burner feeds are hidden under the pre-assembled top section. There is no way to get at them to adjust the gas/oxygen screen. Although I think this may solve the weak burner problem, there is no way to access them. Although they should be set at the factory, they don’t seem to be.
4. The fit and finish of this BBQ is not up to the standards of either the Fiesta or the Broilmate that I used previously, Many things that are made in China are above standard. This thing is completely sub-standard. Fit and finish is cheap, befitting the price. This isn’t a deal, believe me. You’re getting less than what you’re paying for.
5. If I could return this, I would. I’ve used it and don’t feel right about returning it (I know, I know, it’s Home Depot, right?) but mark my words, this is the last Brinkmann I will ever buy.
6. The igniter didn’t work from the get-go. The Fiesta igniter worked for years. When I contacted Brinkmann for replacement parts, they said there were no parts in stock at that point but they’d send them off when they came in. It’s April 17 and that was back on March 6. Right now I’m lighting
my new BBQ with a match. Cool huh?

______________________________________

Admittedly, calling the associate an idiot was probably out of line, even if he was a dolt. Mentioning a competitor, even if they do make a better unit, maybe wasn’t too cool either. Fiesta makes a damn good, simple BBQ. They don’t try to be something they’re not.

Here’s the second review, much the same but without some of the booboos mentioned above.

_____________________________________________
Model: 810-9422-F | Store SKU: 1000715184
This Brinkmann grill just isn’t worth the money, even at its ‘special’ price of $249.00. Here’s why you should avoid this at all costs:
1. Even though it has 4 burners, you have to turn them all on if you want to cook anything. The sales rep told me that if you want to cook one burger, you only have to turn one burner on. I pointed out that the Fiesta directions said to turn all the burners on at the same time, no matter what you’re cooking. He laughed and said, no way. Well, he was completely wrong. If you turn one burner on, it takes FOREVER to cook even a lowly burger. Try to cook a chicken with two burners on and it will take hours. Turn them all on and you’re fine.
2. The burners are so weak that a medium wind will blow them out. I BBQ a lot, summer and winter, and no wind EVER blew out my old BBQ. Now with this Brinkmann I have to put a wind protector in front of it to keep the wind off it.
3. The burner feeds are hidden under the pre-assembled top section. There is no way to get at them to adjust the gas/oxygen screen. Although I think this may solve the weak burner problem, there is no way to access them. Although they should be set at the factory, they don’t seem to be.
4. The fit and finish of this BBQ is not up to the standards of either the Fiesta or the Broilmate that I used previously, Many things that are made in China are above standard. This thing is completely sub-standard. Fit and finish is cheap, befitting the price. This isn’t a deal, believe me. You’re getting less than what you’re paying for.
5. If I could return this, I would. I’ve used it and don’t feel right about returning it (I know, I know, it’s Home Depot, right?) but mark my words, this is the last Brinkmann I will ever buy.
6. The igniter didn’t work from the get-go. The Fiesta igniter worked for years. When I contacted Brinkmann for replacement parts, they said there were no parts in stock at that point but they’d send them off when they came in. It’s April 23 and that was back on March 6. Right now I’m lighting
my new BBQ with a match.

_______________________________________________

There you have it. Maybe Brinkmann makes a better BBQ than this medium priced unit, I’m not sure. Judging from the quality of this grill and the fact that I’m still lighting the damn thing with a match AND since Home Depot Canada refused to publish a negative review, I sure won’t find out. As an aside, I have reviewed many products on the Dell website as well as on the Canadian Radio Shack (thesource.ca) site. The reviews have been both positive and negative, either way they get published. On the Source site, I’m listed as a Top Reviewer, as a matter of fact.

Thanks for reading! Sometimes a big outfit such as Home Depot can’t see the forest for the trees. The big picture escapes them. If you’ve been in their stores lately, you’ll know exactly what I mean.

April 22, 2012

Update: Home Depot contacted me after I tweeted about this post. They tell me that my review was rejected because it mentioned the price of the BBQ. As you can see, I have already had a comment from a reader within hours of publishing this blog entry. Ah, the power of Google AND the power of Twitter. Maybe I will start to integrate product reviews here as well as tech stuff. Hmm…

April 23, 2012

Yes another update. Finally, Home Depot posted my review of the Brinkmann BBQ.  A CSR from Brinkmann called this afternoon as well. He suggested that I adjust the burners and check that nothing had gotten into them at the factory. This is concerning the wind blowing out the flame. I guess this kind of thing is probably normal but I didn’t have to do this with the Fiesta or the Broilmate that I previously owned. Does that make sense to you? Am I being too picky? When I buy something at Home Depot am I expecting too much that it work fine right out of the box?

Every now and then (think Windows ME), Microsoft screws up. Although it’s too early to tell, Windows 8 might be another gigantic mistake. Right now, however, I’m talking about Xbox Live and the big mistake Microsoft made with it.

If you buy an Xbox 360, Microsoft asks that you pay a monthly fee to gain access to something called Xbox Live Gold. Remember that you’ve already shelled out big bucks for the game console, only to find out that the bulk of your online experience is going to cost you even more money. Big mistake on Microsoft’s part.

By insisting that Xbox 360 users pony up money for access to Xbox Live Gold, Microsoft is shutting out millions of users from spending money with Microsoft and its premium content providers. Want Netflix? Add the Xbox Live Gold monthly fee to the till. Want Hulu or any of the other premium content? Add the Xbox Live Gold monthly fee to the till. Microsoft could have charged the providers a fee to have access to its Xbox Live users but they decided to charge their own users, instead. In a stupendous moment of short-sightedness, Microsoft has pulled a classic ‘forest for the trees’ move here.

The big picture is that Xbox Live is a portal to the online Xbox experience. Once people get online with their Xbox consoles, the world of online shopping should be open to them. Instead, Microsoft charges you before you even get into the store. An analogy to this would be if Gillette started charging for its razors. Gillette now offers its razors pretty much for free. Hell, they’ll even send one out to you without you even asking for it! Everyone knows that the money is in the blades, not the razors.

Microsoft wants it both ways. Instead of seeing the potential in customers using the Xbox Live site as an online store to generate revenue, Microsoft has slammed that door shut. In a revolving series of discounts advertised on the skimpy free portion of Xbox Live site, Microsoft offers free weekends of the Gold experience, as if someone somewhere realizes the importance of this particular online portal but is bound by some internal law at Microsoft that nothing is ever free.

By not looking at the big picture, Microsoft has limited itself in a way that Sony never did with its PS3. The PS3 experience is much more attractive for consumers. Instead of having to shell out a monthly fee, PS3 users have access to a wealth of content as well as ample advertising for premium material. Sony has you covered. It offers you a good amount of ‘free’ while at the same time having a platform for ‘extra cost’.

In some ways, I think this is a difference between the American business template as opposed to the Japanese template. Instead of gouging you for everything, Sony at least, gives you a decent amount of content and has a built-in platform for its own advertising. Microsoft has missed the boat completely on this one.

Thanks for reading!

When it comes to backing up your computer, what exactly are you backing up? Well, pretty much everything that you have added to it. This includes, but is not limited to, documents you’re written, photos you’ve taken as well as anything that you’ve downloaded from the Internet such as videos, photos, audio files, Etc. What you aren’t able to back up are all of the Windows files, the program files nor any of the browsers or apps that you use. There isn’t a way to back these last things up anyway, unless you want to copy your whole drive. Even then, none of the programs would work. You’re backing up your stuff, not Windows or related stuff.

If you have purchased a new computer or laptop/netbook, it most likely didn’t come with any CDs or DVDs. These days, new computers don’t come with these system disks. You have to make them. Windows will prompt you to make new recovery disks and this is something you should do as soon as you can after purchase. If your computer fails, you can restore it to its original condition by using these disks. But, and this is a big but, creating the recovery disks has nothing to do with backing up your computer. When you create recovery disks, you are only backing up the original software that came with your computer, nothing that you have saved or created since you started using it. Remember that.

Where is all of your stuff? Nine times out of ten, everything you want to back up is in the My Documents folder. Windows automatically saves files to different folders in My Documents. Even the downloads from the Internet are saved there. This, however, doesn’t mean that everything is saved there. Some programs save your creations in completely different folders, ones that the program creates on its own. If you have things that are important to you on your computer, make sure you know where they are.

Windows Explorer, that folder on the bottom of your taskbar in Windows 7 or the ‘Explore’ program that comes up when you right click the start button and choose ‘explore’, is your friend. Get used to using it. All of the cool things on your computer can be found using Windows Explorer. Explorer is worth a blog entry on its own, it’s that important. Play around with it and see what you can find. I use it all the time and it’s one of the reasons I stick to Windows. The Mac OS has nothing like Explorer, that I have found anyway, and I get claustrophobia using OS X simply because I can’t find anything!

While we are discussing back ups, go back and read my post on WinDirStat . If you’re wondering where things are on your computer or if you simply want to know what’s taking up the room, read the post and you’ll be educated. WinDirStat is free and perfect for exploring your computer. Once you have the graphic up on your screen, run your cursor over it to see where everything is. As the cursor moves, the location of the file it’s resting on is shown. Some files, the Windows ones for instance, are huge but can’t be touched. Others, usually the blue ones, are your files and can be backed up.

That’s it for today. Tomorrow I’ll write more about actually performing the back up. It’s a step by step job that takes time but, ultimately, will save your bacon should your hard drive fail. Even if you only save precious family photos, it’s worth it, right? Some things that are lost are lost forever. That’s not a good feeling.

Thanks for reading!

Here we go again, folks. Last week I heard an interview with a relatively popular musician. He mentioned that he’d recently spilled a glass of rye on his laptop keyboard during a recording session. I’m not sure why he had a rye during the session but maybe that’s how he relaxes. The singer was relieved that he hadn’t lost all of his music, words and ideas but he came close. Believe it or not, the interviewer mentioned that he had recently done the same thing and almost lost the book he’d been writing. I listened and thought, “Wow! Two people who are creative but not too bright when it comes to common sense computing.”

First, if you have material on your computer that is important to you, sign up for Dropbox. It’s free, simple and ensures that nothing you create will be lost if something untoward occurs. Check out my post on Dropbox here:  Dropbox - 6 reasons why you should be using it now.  Briefly, if you save your work to your Dropbox folder, you can access it online from anywhere in the world. The free 1 gigabyte of storage is ample for most needs but if you need more, you can get up to 16 gigs through referrals or, more simply, pay a premium for more space. I’m a writer and I save everything I write to my box and I haven’t used more than a quarter of the space. Besides keeping your stuff safe, Dropbox saves old versions of your work, just in case you make a save error somewhere along the line. You can access these old versions by logging into your account online.

TIP: If you need more space, refer yourself a few times using your other email addresses. For each referral, you get another gig of space. Honestly though, I have lots of pics and articles in my folder and I still have 750 megs left open.

Next, a Dropbox account is a sensible part of backing up your computer but it’s not a complete solution. In the next few posts I will (again) run through the various steps that you need to perform in order to keep your creative efforts safe. If you’re an artist, a business type, teacher or just about any other profession, backing up your computer relieves stress and might just keep you employed.

Thanks for reading!

If you can’t wait, look for my older posts on backups here: How to back-up your computer Part 1   My next few posts will explain all of this using the latest software but the older posts are still effective.

If you buy a new laptop or desktop from Staples, you’re likely going to get ripped off…unless you listen to me carefully.

While Staples may have good prices on their computers and peripherals, they are running a scam in their stores, at least in Canada. If you’re in the U.S., let me know if they are using the same scam down there.

The sales staff at most outlets are very helpful, when you can find one, and they seem to know their stuff. The problems begin once you decide on which model you want to buy. When you get to that point, the csr (customer service rep) will do his or her damnedest to hook you up with all kinds of extras that you DON’T NEED. Here are some examples:

1. A bogus fee to transfer your files (documents, photos, videos, etc.) from your old computer to your new one. This charge was recently quoted  to be over $200.00. This is a completely unnecessary fee. Don’t pay it. Set yourself up with a flash drive, 8 or 16 gigs should be enough, and transfer the files yourself. A drive that size might be $15.00 or $20.00 but it’s both useful after you’ve backed up your stuff and a lot cheaper than the ridiculous transfer fee that Staples wants to charge.

TIP:Here is my how-to about backing up your computer  Part one, part two and part three.

2. An expensive and completely phony charge to set up your new computer. Staples will tell you that the charge is to load the software that comes with your computer onto it. The csr will lie to your face and tell you that the software isn’t already on the hard drive, that it takes hours to load it but they will do it all for you. The fee is, again, in the $200.00 range. Trust me, this money is the worst ripoff out there. Every new computer comes loaded with all kinds of software ALREADY ON THE HARD DRIVE! There is absolutely nothing for you to do on a new laptop or desktop except to create a log-in name and a password, if you want one. The password is optional, of course. There is nothing else to do, even if the csr insists that there is. Don’t listen to the csr and if things get out of hand, walk out of the store. If you are firm about buying from Staples, in spite of what I am telling you, call their head office and insist that the store stop pushing you into these totally unnecessary extras.

3. Extra warranties. All computers come with a year warranty, at least they do in Canada. Believe me, if something is going to happen to a computer, it’s going to happen in the first few months. After that, there is no sense in paying for extra coverage that will, undoubtedly, be money down the drain. HP (and Compaq), Dell and most other computer manufacturers offer these extra warranties anyway. You have time to think about things like this, you don’t have to buy them at the store level. No matter how hard the csr or the manager tries, just buy the damn computer, nothing else.

4. Pay extra for Microsoft Word. Most new computers come with a Starter Edition of Word. This version of Word is fully functional, not time limited and is included in the price of the computer. There is no reason to pay extra for Office unless you KNOW that you must have it. Regardless, you can often get deals from Microsoft on the Student Edition of Office. Alternatively, you can download Libre Office, a completely free, open source version which is compatible with Microsoft Office. Get it here: http://www.libreoffice.org/

If you are firm about buying from Staples, in spite of what I am telling you, call their head office and insist that the store stop pushing you into these totally unnecessary extras. All of these things are generally done at the store level, none of this seems to be part of Staples corporate policy. However, head office must know that this kind of thing is going on and, as far as I can see, has done nothing to stop it. I have gone so far as to interrupt a csr who was deliberately lying to a customer in the store, saying that their new laptop had to be set up by an expert because the software wasn’t already loaded on the hard drive. In spite of my protests, the csr continued to mislead the customer. I finally took the customer aside, told them who I was and what I did for a living, and walked them out of the store. At least I saved one person from being conned by a Staples csr.

If other stores are doing the same thing, let me know. Buy the computer if you want but don’t pay for ANYTHING else.

Thanks for reading!

I’ve written about Fotobounce before, here are a couple of links to my older posts: here (Fotobounce explained) and here  (Download a whole Facebook album)

Fotobounce is fairly simple to use and does the job quite well. If you’re into downloading photo albums on Facebook, Fotobounce is pretty much the only way to do it but it does have one limitation that I’ve just discovered. Here’s the problem. When, and if, I get things sorted out, I’ll post an update on this.

The Goal: One of my friends has one album, Wall Photos, that has thousands of images in it. Many of these images are spectacular and I would like to archive them for my own inspiration and enjoyment.

The Problem: Fotobounce cannot download this album. It tries, sometimes for hours, but it can’t seem to get past the spinning wheel that indicates Fotobounce is working on something. Once, just once, Fotobounce got halfway through downloading the album, then got hung up before the job was done. I tried as recently as this morning for one full hour with nothing else running on the computer and Fotobounce failed again.

My Solution: Although I am not a programmer, I have noticed that Fotobounce does not work like other downloaders. I’m not sure why but Fotobounce seems to cache the photos it is downloading in a temp folder somewhere. Yesterday, I deleted my old Fotobounce installation and installed a fresh version. During the installation process, I changed the ‘save to’ directory to one that I made on my desktop. I wanted to keep track of what Fotobounce was doing and this desktop folder is a lot easier to find than the default directory in My Documents.

After Fotobounce was installed, I tried to download the problem album yet again. To test my theory, I also downloaded a smaller, but still sizeable, album at the same time. As Fotobounce was working, nothing was showing in the desktop folder. As soon as Fotobounce declared that one of the jobs was finished, that album popped up in the desktop folder. Even though Fotobounce worked for hours on the massively larger album, nothing ever showed up in the folder. Where are the images that we partially downloaded? I can only assume that they are in a temp folder somewhere.

The computer that I use Fotobounce on is pretty much the latest and greatest you can get. I built it myself and it’s not a slug, believe me. Lots of storage, 3 terabytes, lots of RAM, 8 gigabytes, and a pretty fast quad processor (i5-2500K @3.3 Ghz) plus Windows 7 Ultimate 64 bit OS. I doubt that my rig is the problem here. Even if Fotobounce caches the images in RAM, there should be enough room. I am pretty sure the album, although it’s large, isn’t 4 or 5 gigabytes in size.

If you are downloading a torrent, your torrent client writes directly to your hard drive, it doesn’t cache your download. It may use a temp folder but the folder is right there in the directory where you have chosen to put the torrents. Sometimes, if you are downloading photos, you can actually look at some of the photos or play the avi file long before the download has completed. No such luck with Fotobounce. Nothing shows until it’s finished the job and, when the album is too large, it seems that nothing is written at all!

As a writer/experimenter/tech guy, I look at problems such as this from a different point of view than most users, I think. It’s a challenge. Once I find the solution, I write about it. If I don’t find a solution, I write about that, too. This particular setback may not have a solution. It’s frustrating but sometimes these things can be that way. We’ll see what happens. If I discover an answer, you’ll be the first to hear.

Thanks for reading!

When you’re using sites such as Rapidshare, Hotfile and others, you probably don’t want to pay for a pro account. The free accounts are limited in many ways. Usually the download speed is throttled, almost always simultaneous downloads are forbidden and you always have to wait a varying length of time between downloads. Well, there is a way to help with one of those limitations.

After you download one section of a file, let’s say a .rar. file, most of the sites make you wait hours or a full day before you can download another portion. How do they know that you have already downloaded one file? Well, they either track your IP address or they set a cookie in your browser.

By logging into your router, disconnecting and reconnecting your Internet connection, you can easily get a new IP address. Then you can go back to the site and download another section or a new file. That’s easy unless you have a static IP address. Most of us have dynamic IPs, we get a new one every time we connect to our ISP. If you have a static IP, you’re on your own here. Can’t help you there.

If you have reset your Internet connection and you still can’t download a file, the server has set a cookie in your browser’s cache. This cookie is what is stopping you from downloading another file until the time limit is up. So, easy peasy, you clear your cache and cookies, right? Well, if you have all of your preferences set in your browser, clearing your cache and cookies is a royal pain in the ass. What do you do?

Simple. Install another browser. I use Google Chrome as my main browser. It’s fast, translates pages for me and it’s secure, too. But I also have other browsers. For my next suggestion, I would recommend Firefox from Mozilla.com. Until Chrome came out, I used Firefox all the time. Chrome is much faster, in my opinion, so I switched to it. Firefox, however, has a great little tool that makes clearing your cache much simpler. Even if you use Firefox as your main browser, this trick is perfect for faster downloading from file sharing sites without upsetting all of your current settings.

Download the first tile from the site using Firefox. Next, reset your Internet connection. Then, click on the word Tools up on the top left of the Firefox window. Look for the words ‘Clear Recent History’. The following menu will pop up:

Choose the amount of history that you want to clear.

Depending on how long it took to download the file, sometimes it takes an hour or more, you can clear the cache and cookies for varying amounts of time. Two hours usually works for me. Once you clear your history like this, the serving site won’t know it’s you, that you’ve come back long before their onerous time limit. Once you clear your cache and cookies, you’re back in business.

My trick won’t help you with the slow download speeds nor that simultaneous downloads but it will help with repetitive downloading. This makes the whole download happen much quicker, right?

Thanks for reading!

I’ve written about Fotobounce before. If you share photos from one social media site to another, Fotobounce is a great tool. It allows you to download complete Facebook photo albums to your computer. What you do with them after that is your business, I guess, but you really should ask for permission if you are going to share anything that isn’t your own. Here is an explanation about what Fotobounce is: Fotobounce Made Simple   (The original post wasn’t named that but it sounds good, right?)

While Fotobounce is a cool app, the actual downloading of albums can get tricky because of the way the instructions are worded. In this post I’ll try to help you figure out the odd English that they use in the selection process. Before I forget, Fotobounce is available here: http://fotobounce.com/

1. Download and install Fotobounce…duh!

2. Open the program and head over to Facebook. Sign in to Facebook with Fotobounce. You’ll have to allow it access but, according to the makers, they don’t save your password. You can always remove the access after you’ve downloaded the albums that are of interest.

3. Find the album you want to download. You have to sort through your friends, your likes and your acquaintances to find the right album(s) but that’s pretty basic.

4. Once you find the album, right click it. You’ll see the ‘Download’ button. Click it and the following menu pops up:

I've selected Events by clicking on it but I haven't started the download.

5. In this menu, you are choosing the main folder for the download. If you click ‘Select album’, Fotobounce will start the download to, in this case, Events. That’s not what I want. I want to create a sub-folder and then maybe a sub-sub-folder. Let’s do that. We’ll make a sub-folder inside of Events.

6. Click New Album. Fotobounce will show you a new album dialogue, as pictured below, and it will have the same name as the album has on Facebook. We don’t want that. We need to sort out the downloaded albums according to whose they were on Facebook, right?

Type the new name of the album in the box and hit Enter.

7. Instead of Profile Pictures, I want to name my new album ‘Joe Nemechek’. (Joe and I are lookalikes to the point that I get stopped in stores. If I ever headed South and wore a NASCAR jacket then I’m sure I’d eat free wherever I went.) Type in whatever name you want and hit the Enter key. A new album will be created and Fotobounce will give you a notice at the top of the page.

8. Once you’ve found your new folder, click on it and you’ll see the same menu window come up same as before, giving you the option to Select that album or make a New album inside of it. This time you can leave the name the same, if you want. The default name is the same name as it was on Facebook.

9. If that name is fine, click on the Select Album button and Fotobounce will download the album inside of the album that you just created.

This sounds pretty simple, right? It’s not. Here’s the problem, as I see it. When I see the words ‘Select album’, I expect to get a choice. Instead of the normal ‘OK” that everyone else uses, Fotobounce uses ‘Select album’ as the button that starts the download. Unless you make a folder or a folder within a folder, Fotobounce will happily download your albums into the same directory. Good luck trying to figure that out when you’ve got more than a few albums in your collection. You have to create new albums if you are ever going to figure out which album is which. Sure, you could to all of this within Windows Explorer but it should be a one-step process or the wording should be a bit clearer. That’s what I think, anyway.

Fotobounce does a lot more than simply saving albums in Facebook. Check it out. I’ve just scratched the surface here.

Thanks for reading!

As you probably already know, Irfanview is one of my favorite free programs. I’ve used it for years and every computer in the house has it. Read past posts about Irfanview  here and here and here. Irfanview is fast, fun and works perfectly every time. You can download it and its plugins from Tucows. Get it here: http://www.irfanview.ca/main_download_engl.htm

If you have used Irfanview for a screen capture session, you’ve probably got dozens or hundreds of jpgs that include more of your screen than you need. Irfanview is perfect for captures but sometimes the box you draw around your target is too big. Here’s how you can set Irfanview up to crop those captures in one operation, no matter how many photos you have. How do I know? I’ve used this method before to crop about 2400 photos that I made into a little animated gif. It didn’t go viral but it was fun make.

1. Get all of your jpgs in one folder. Sort them out so that all the photos have the main capture in the same position on the screen. If you moved the window at some point while you were capturing the whole screen, sort those photos out and put them in different folders. You can reorganize them later.

2. Open Notepad or keep a paper and pencil by your hand. You will be writing down a few numbers for each cropping job.

3. Before you actually begin to crop, practice sizing the crop area first. Open one jpg. As with most programs, holding down the left mouse button and dragging the cursor will create a box. Test this out and try to get the correct size, the one that looks best to you. When you have the right box, click anywhere outside the box to unselect the crop.

4. Next, click on the top left corner of the area that you want to crop. Don’t move your mouse, just click once and hold it there. On the top left of the Irfanview window you’ll see XY:(number,number). This is your X -Y reference point. Make a note of those two numbers. This is what you will see:

Look for the XY:(480,561) - your numbers will vary.

5. Next, you’ll want to write down the full size of the crop box that you want. Click in the same spot, or as close as you can to it, then drag the box out and hold the mouse button down until you are able to read the numbers that you need. What you’re looking for is the number of pixels that define your crop box’s height and width. In the photo below, you’ll see what I mean.

See the (646x472 Pixels, 1.369)? You need the first two numbers: 646 and 472

6. Now you have the numbers that describe where the box starts and the numbers that describe the size of the crop box. You’re all set to start your batch cropping. Look for File on the top left, then Batch Conversion/Rename. The following window will open:

Here is where you will do two things. Add the photos to crop and choose your output directory.

7. Set up the menu by checking that ‘Batch conversion’ is ticked. Then, on the top right, select the photos you want to crop. Remember when I said to keep your photos separate? This is why I said that. It’s much simpler to choose ‘Add all’ as opposed to picking through the jpgs one by one. Click ‘Add all’ if you have all the right photos in one folder. Then, in the middle left, choose where you will put the cropped pics. Don’t use the same directory as the originals, just in case you make a mistake with your crop window. You still want the originals until you make sure your numbers are correct. Once you’ve done these steps, click on the ‘Advanced’ button. The following window will come up:

Don't get nervous. This window looks complicated but it's not that bad.

8. Top left, see the Crop section? This is where you’ll fill in the numbers that you wrote down earlier. Make sure ‘Crop’ is checked then type in the X-pos number and the Y-pos number. Below that, write in the width and the height. Below that, make sure that ‘Left top’ is chosen. You can crop in any corner, just make sure you know which corner you have chosen. I always use top left but you can do whatever you want.

9. Make sure that nothing else is checked. On the bottom right, I have ‘Overwrite existing files’ chosen, simply because it’s easier if I make a mistake. I put the cropped photos in a new folder then I check it after the batch if finished. If I have made a mistake, I redo the numbers and run the batch again. I don’t have to open a new folder.

TIP: If you are doing a few batches, uncheck the ‘Overwrite existing files’ just in case you forget to use a new folder. Make sure this is unchecked if you are using the same folder as the originals, too. I’d advise against that, however.

10. Double check everything then choose OK once to close that menu. The batch menu is still open, of course, and you need to press the ‘Start batch’ button. Once you do that, Irfanview whisks its way through the task at hand. Depending on the speed of your computer, this might take a while. Wait until Irfanview is done then check your results. Chances are you’ll make a mistake the first few times but read through this again and you’ll get it right, sooner or later.

Thanks for reading!

Remember Yahoo Geocities? The online community of websites that turned the Internet into a nice, homey place to visit? Geocities hosted my first few websites back in the ’90s. In 2009,  Yahoo decided to put an end to Geocities. Hundreds of thousands of websites were suddenly offline, mine included. Of course we were warned far in advance that Geocities was closing down. Most of the members simply saved their pages, leaving the originals online until they were gone with the rest of Geocities. That’s what we thought happened. It turns out the Geocities isn’t really dead, it’s just different and in the hands of someone else. How did this happen? Let me tell you.

At least three sites backed up some or all of the Geocities site before it went offline. This is relatively easy to do and I’m surprised that Yahoo didn’t prevent this from happening. In retrospect, it makes perfect sense to steal all the sites and then market them as your own. It makes perfect sense to a thief, that is. Here are the sites that I know have backed up some or all of the old Geocities website:

1. http://www.archive.org/ has backed up almost the whole Internet, at some point or other. If you had a website at some point in the past, IA has probably archived one or more iterations of it.

2. http://reocities.com/ has also sucked up some or all of the Geocities pages and offers them up from their site. As far as I can tell, reocities doesn’t have advertising on the site. If you find an ad, let me know and I will change this. I don’t have a problem with these guys or with IA. They aren’t making money from the copyrighted material that had been on the old Geocities site.

3. http://www.oocities.org/ is a different story completely. The first clue would be the .org domain name. You’d think this site would be full of generous people helping other folks out, wouldn’t you? You’d be wrong. What you really have is a site that has stolen all of the old Geocities sites and monetized them. Flashy ads show up on every page except the main page of the site. Why is this? I suspect that it’s to give you the impression that these people are doing us all a favor by keeping the Geocities sites alive.

You know what’s worse than putting the ads on other people’s copyrighted material? The fact that it would be very, very easy for the owner(s) to scan the site and collect all of the email addresses. In the blink of an eye these guys could notify the actual owners of the original sites that oocities.org is using their material. Did they do this? Nope. They hide behind the general goodwill of the Internet, allowing the site to be crawled by search engines but not trying to contact any of the original owners.

On the Geocities site, each site owner was able to do two things. First, they could access their own pages and edit them as they see fit. Second, they could pay a fee each month which would remove the ads from their pages. That way they would either put up their own ads or simply maintain an ad-free site. Geocities had terms of service for everything and, overall, it was a very well-run company. Unfortunately, I can’t say the same thing about oocities.org. They pretend to be doing the world a favor but, in fact, they are making money off of someone’s copyrighted work.

If you had a Geocities page in the past, check to see if it’s being used by oocities.org. Contrary to their FAQ, your page isn’t ‘removed within hours’ after you contact them to take your stuff down. It takes at least two days. Reocities will also remove your pages. They have set up an online form for that. I would hope that, like me, you’d be a bit ticked off that your very own material is being used by someone else. Theft of this kind is disturbing, to say the least.

Thanks for reading!

In my last post, I described several instances of how Twitter has helped me resolve problems or conflicts with different companies that I’ve dealt with. You can read that post here:

http://brianmahoney.ca/2012/03/power-of-twitter/

Today, I’ll give you some tips on how to best deal with these companies to resolve a conflict. My suggestions have worked well for me. Your mileage may vary. Remember that not every company is concerned about public relations. Some companies treat customers badly on a continuing basis. You could shout their names from the rooftops of every hamlet in the country and the company still wouldn’t change.

Not all companies use Twitter. Some of the more old-fashioned ones don’t even know that Twitter exists and if they do, they have no idea how to use it. Before you begin, search out the company on Twitter. Make sure it’s the correct name, the correct spelling, etc. Some companies use acronyms so search for mentions first then search for the @company name. If you’re stuck, search for the company’s main website or Facebook page to see if they have a Twitter account listed there.

Plan your attack. Simply raving about poor service or bad merchandising won’t help you at all. Write out your thoughts and create a concise, well worded tweet that includes the @company name. You can either mention the company, as in putting the @company within the tweet, or tweet to the company by putting the @company at the start of the tweet.

TIP: If you tweet to the company by putting the name at the start, add a . (period) before the @company. This ensures that anyone following either you or the company will get the tweet. The whole point here is to get the tweets read by as many followers as possible in order for the company to be more willing to listen. It’s a form of social networking blackmail, right? Once the company starts to listen to you, refrain from spreading the tweets around. Keep the conversation between you and the company until the situation is resolved, hopefully in your favor.

Don’t go nuts with your words. Keep things civil and, above all, make sure your spelling and grammar are perfect. If you are willing to take the time to sound professional, the company will treat you much better. If you come across like a raving lunatic, you’ll be ignored. ‘Do unto others as you would have them do unto you’ is the best motto for successful tweeting in these cases.

Create your tweet then think about it for a while. You may think of another, stronger point that you want to make. Run the words over in your mind until you have the best arrangement. You’re trying to be noticed here. The outcome will very likely enrich you somehow so take your time.

Time your tweet. Most companies are pretty much 9-5, five days a week. If you tweet on a Saturday, your message might get lost in the ‘gosh I love the ABC company’ tweets. If you can’t wait to tweet during the week, sit back and wait. You won’t get an answer until Monday at the earliest.

Once you have made the tweet, follow the company. That’s the least you could do, right? Make them part of your twitter family and listen to what they have to say to you and other people on Twitter. Once they respond, they will likely follow you. Why? Because if they follow you, then they can send you a Direct Message. A DM is only readable by you, not by your followers or by the company’s followers. It gets the problem out of the limelight. Companies hate bad publicity. Negative tweets are bad press for whoever is mentioned in the tweet. That’s why this kind of action is so powerful. Companies listen to a well worded tweet, believe me.

Once you get the DM, the company will likely ask for your email in order to contact you personally. When that happens, make your case as eloquently as possible. I am a writer by trade. Yes, it’s easier for me than it might be for you but you should be able to get your point across. Don’t swear, don’t berate anyone or anything, simply stick to the point and enlighten the reader (the company) so that they will see your side of things. Work on the email and ask someone else to read it. If they can understand what you are trying to say, chances are the company will, too.

Don’t settle for a telephone contact. Insist on email. Why? Unless you record your calls, an email is a record where a telephone call isn’t. Bell Canada is famous for saying one thing on the telephone but something different at a later date. Don’t let them control you, take control of the situation yourself. Make your point on your own terms, not theirs.

When, and if, the company responds, consider their answer carefully. If the reply isn’t what you wanted, see if they explain things in a way that makes sense. If they are offering a partial settlement, take a moment to think about whether it will satisfy you. Most companies are made up of people who are, more or less, just like you and I. They are reasonable, smart and like to be liked. They will honestly try to keep you as a customer so be reasonable. You can’t get blood from a stone, as the saying goes, and a company will not reimburse you for your time, only for the defective product or poor customer service. If you make unreasonable requests, you will be shut out, it’s as simple as that.

If the company doesn’t respond to any tweet you make, keep up the pressure. Find their Facebook page and comment on their wall. Remember that you have to ‘like’ the page before you can comment on it. Again, keep your language civil and refrain from haranguing them in public. If there is no response from the company at all, mention them in a negative tweet about once a month, maybe once every two weeks. Talk to your friends on Facebook and advise them to stay away from the company in question. If your case is reasonable, your words will serve to educate your friends. They’ll be thankful.

The process that I have described here has worked for me. Sure, I am quite adept with words but, on top of that, I’ve got a couple of other traits that help me out in these situations. I’m stubborn and I’m patient. I also never forget a slight by any company. Sometimes, as with Dell, I get over those slights and sometimes, as with Nikon, I never do. As far as companies go, it’s good to have me on their side. Do the best you can and be patient and stubborn. Speak with your wallet, too. If you don’t get satisfaction, don’t do business with that company again.

Thanks for reading! Comments are welcome.

If you’re using Twitter simply for fun, you might be missing out on its secret power. Just as there are hidden powers in Google, Twitter’s real strength is tucked just below the surface, one that you would miss unless you did some scratching around.

Have you ever noticed that almost every major company has a Twitter account? This includes manufacturers, retail outlets, banks as well as any brand name you can think of. Why are they on Twitter? Primarily they are there to promote themselves, of course. If you follow some of these corporate accounts, you’ll notice that each one interacts with their followers in different ways. Some ask for input, some simply push their own products and services while others are there for fun, just to entertain you during your day. The last group engage you and aren’t afraid to stand out from the crowd by tweeting jokes, photos or links to cool pages.

Just as companies are usually on Twitter to engage their customers, they are also on Twitter to listen to those customers. Here’s where you come in and here is where the real power of Twitter comes to the forefront. Here are my experiences in this area. Prepare to be surprised.

1. After staying at a hotel in London, Ontario, I was very disappointed with the room. A pull-out sofa-bed was advertised but the sofa that was there wasn’t a bed. The pocket doors to the master bedroom were stuck open. Closing them for privacy was impossible. I wasn’t satisfied in the least, obviously. When I got home, I tweeted about my experience, including the name of the hotel chain.  After being contacted by the chain through Twitter, I was able to get my total room charge reversed on my credit card.

2. I bought my wife a netbook online from a highly reputable business supply chain. The computer was a gift for her birthday and the company promised next-day delivery. On the day the computer was supposed to arrive, I received an email from the shipping section of the company stating that the laptop wasn’t available and that I would get a refund. Well, I saw red and took to Twitter. I tweeted my displeasure, including the company name in my tweet. That’s all it took. Through emails and one phone call, we received another brand of netbook for the same price as the one I originally ordered MINUS a $50.00 discount. Since I had used a $15.00 coupon on the original purchase, the total bill to me was $135.00 for a netbook that was selling for $279.00.

3. I purchased a new toner cartridge for my laser printer, direct from the printer maker. It didn’t fit, they refunded my money but the dealings I had with the company were abysmal. The phone calls were endless, the service was terrible and the time I wasted on a very simple operation was frustrating. I tweeted about my experience and wrote an article about it on one of my other sites. The end result was that I received a $50.00 gift certificate from the company.

4. After a major purchase this summer, I was stunned to discover that the manufacturer had come out with $1,000.00 rebate one month after the purchase. To say I was steamed is an understatement. After several months, several emails, and several politely disparaging tweets and comments on the company’s Facebook page, I received a call from the company’s PR person telling me that they had considered my case carefully. They offered me a $500.00 credit towards service in lieu of the $1,000.00 product rebate that I had missed. Since half a loaf is better than none, I accepted their offer. Now, whenever I bring the product in for service, no money changes hands, at least not out of my pocket.

5. My netbook’s battery died after a year and a half. The battery had never been great but it suddenly seemed to lose more than half of its power and wouldn’t take a full charge. The laptop would also quit suddenly when on its battery. Now, I was out of warranty. I knew that but I tweeted about this situation anyway. To my mind, a battery should last a lot longer than a year and a half. I heard back from the company, explained the situation in an email and almost immediately received a phone call offering me a new battery for $30.00. The regular price of the battery was $80.00 and I felt that a $30.00 charge was a pretty good deal. The person on the phone said that the shipping was included but it that wasn’t the case. Still, even with a $5.00 shipping fee, I came out ahead.

I won’t bore you with additional examples. Suffice it to say that I’ve been using Twitter well. At this point, just from these examples, I am $770.00 ahead, simply because I used the power of Twitter. Sure, this article reads like I’m selling something. I’m not. What I am saying is that Twitter is very likely more powerful than you think. In my next post, I will give you some tips on my techniques. Making contact with a company is easy. Getting them to see things your way is a bit tougher. I’ll post some tips on how I get heard tomorrow. Stay tuned!

Thanks for reading. Comments are welcome.

Dell Voice is a new service offered by Dell and Fongo. It’s an app for Android or Apple iOS devices and uses either 3G or 4G or WiFi to make telephone calls. Yes, you can do that with other apps such as Skype or GmailVoice  but there is a difference. With Dell Voice you get your own phone number. How cool is that? Oh, it’s free. Did I mention that? Right now, it’s offered in Canada only but it may be offered at some point, south of the border.

Here’s how I got it to work on a iPod Touch.

1. Download the app here: http://www.dellvoice.ca/systemRequirements  Install it.

2. Go to dellvoice.ca and register. You don’t need a credit card because it’s free, right? Just sign up for a new account. Dell Voice will send you a registration email, naturally, with a link to confirm your email address.

3. Once you click on the link, you’ll be prompted for some address details. This is for 911 service. Yes, DellVoice supports 911 service, it’s just a bit slower than a regular landline.

4. Once you get all of the details sorted out, there will be a prompt for choosing a province and a city in Canada. This gets you your own phone number. There were none in my city so I had to choose one that was close but still within the free calling zone from Toronto.

TIP: If you are lucky enough to get a number in your city, you can call that area code from anywhere in the world that has WiFi. Dell Voice uses VOIP (data) to function. Obviously if you are charged for data on a WiFi network overseas there will be charges but if you’re at Starbucks, let’s say, the calls are free to your own area code. Dell Voice calls to Dell Voice phones are also free.

5. Once I completed the registration I fired up my iPod Touch, downloaded the app and called my home number. Sure enough, it worked. The voice was crystal clear without the delay that Skype usually has. On an iPod the sound comes through the speaker, of course, so you’d need your earphones to listen in private.

Dell Voice is available here: http://www.dellvoice.ca/

The beauty of this whole thing is that you get a real phone number and calls within the Canadian calling area are free if you have an unlimited data plan on your mobile phone.  If you have free WiFi then the calls are free, too. If you have unlimited data but you pay for your cell phone minutes, this is a superb option.

As far as international rates, they are frickin’ low. China, Hong Kong, the U.S. and most other well-known countries are $.02 a minute. Rates will change, I assume, but you can check what they are currently here: http://www.dellvoice.ca/ldServices

Canadians have been screwed royally by mobile phone companies. There aren’t many of us up here, only 33 million or so, and we’re strung all over hell’s half acre. Until now, Bell and Rogers et al. have felt the need to overcharge us for something as simple as phone calls and test messaging. Dell Voice should shake things up a bit. Let’s hope it stays around for a while.

TIP: If you don’t use your phone number in any 90 day period, you lose your number. If you use Dell Voice for emergencies, remember to call yourself a few times a month in order for you to maintain your original free number.

Thanks for reading!

I’ve outlined my problems with Chrome before. I’m sick of the crashing and, for now, I’ve moved back to Internet Explorer which works fine with Twitter. Seesmic Desktop works well, too. If you’re having problems with Google Chrome crashing, try one of these alternatives.

There are quite a few desktop apps for Twitter. Personally, I need one that allows multiple columns. I’ve got all of the people that I follow divided up into lists. I’ve written about how to create lists here: How to create lists on Twitter . Creating a list is much the same as using a blocker for certain people who you might want to follow but don’t want to read each and every tweet. Not that they are spammers but maybe they are friends who tweet incessantly but really have nothing to say. You know the type. Create a separate list for them, maybe name it ‘Time Wasters’, then check it every now and then.

Keep your most important lists on your timeline so you can check them frequently. On Seesmic you can keep five lists open, at least you can on my 23″ monitor, and that’s sufficient for me. Seesmic is available here: https://seesmic.com/seesmic-social/desktop/ I am not using an iPhone or any of the ‘pads’ but Seesmic offers software apps for everything and they’re worth checking out. I’m happy with my Seesmic Desktop, however, and I’ll stick with it for now. It’s not the normal Twitter interface but it’s fine. As I say, if you have your ‘followings’ divided into lists, you’ll be happy with how things look.

Alternatively, if you want to hide tweets in your main timeline, download Slipstream and start to hide some tweets. If you get a string of tweets about some random subject that doesn’t interest you, Slipstream will hide them. Alternatively, Slipstream will hide every tweet from any user you select. Download Slipstream here: http://slipstre.am/ . Right now, Slipstream is only available for Chrome (Booo!) and Safari. I’d suggest Safari, even though it’s an Apple product.

Happy Tweeting! Twitter is lots of fun plus it’s a great tool for keeping up with the world outside your own borders. Take Twitter with a grain of salt, however, since they DO CENSOR tweets when asked to by certain people. During an election, which is when Twitter is a very important tool (or used to be), Twitter will suspend accounts when asked by certain political heavies.

Lastly, the Twitter/Chrome crashing situation could be the result of a tiff between the two giant companies. Google may see Twitter as a threat to its own popularity on the web. What’s next? Facebook? Google has the ability to sabotage any website that it sees as competition. Google has already been accused of this devious practice by both Apple and Microsoft. Obviously, this is a case of the pot calling the kettle black, in both cases, since Apple and Microsoft have long been companies who have used dirty tricks to eliminate competition. It’s the American way, right? To hell with co-operation and mutual respect, let’s destroy anyone who dares to compete with us.

Thanks for reading. Comments are welcome.