I don’t know about you, but in my resolve to “cut the cable” and ditch my Dish Network subscription (it’s been since last July since we last had satellite service) I’ve been missing the ability to watch live local channels. I don’t actually miss the local news and weather, I get that on my phone or online. What I do miss is things like the Super Bowl, or watching hit shows as they air.

If you’re trying to do the same thing, you probably already know about Hulu (and Hulu+), Netflix, and then some shadier sites like TVShack or Project Free TV (not linked for their safety). That’ll get you archival episodes (ones that have already aired), and sometimes you can get them as soon as the day after they’ve aired, depending on content licensing negotiation. I’ve been watching Spartacus: Gods of the Arena on Netflix – the episodes have appeared shortly after they aired on Showtime. Even if you decide to pirate your TV shows through peer-to-peer or other techniques, you’re looking at a few hours while they edit out commercials, do any encoding that might be necessary, and then upload it to the internet.

But if you’re craving live television, you will need to find a streaming source. If you just google “live streaming television” you will find a plethora of alleged solutions offering “thousands of television channels,” but to be frank you’re likely going to find thousands of foreign channels, internet-only channels, and independent channels with content you don’t necessarily care for that much. At any rate, certainly don’t pay for such services without thoroughly trying them out first. Also beware of the high chances of getting infected with viruses and spyware.

I’ve tried a few of the free options, and one pay option that worked well for a while, but the most reliable AND free one I’ve found so far is called US TV Now. This service provides free local channels CBS, PBS, NBC, FOX, and the CW if you sign up for a free account. They even have a channel on the Roku and support streaming to Android and other mobile devices that support flash. The only catch is, you have to live outside the US to use it. It’s supposed to be directed at Americans living overseas that miss American TV. Houston, we have a solution.

For accessing this website as though we were in another country, we need to fool it by temporarily routing all of our web browsing traffic through what’s called a proxy server that is physically outside the U.S. borders. In Firefox, you can do this with a plugin called FoxyProxy – that will let you switch easily to your proxy server or back to a normal connection. In Chrome, I recommend something like Proxy Switchy. For either of these, you’ll need to get an address for a proxy server outside the U.S. to use. I can almost always find one to use temporarily here. Any non-US proxy should work for our purposes.

Supply the plugin for your browser with the address to your browser’s proxy plugin. Then go to the USTVNow website, and sign up for a free account. If you can wait for about an hour and do it again using your personal referral link and a different email address, USTNow runs specials from time to time for a free 4-hour “DVR” that lets you record shows to watch later when you “refer a friend.” At this point you can uninstall your proxy plugin, you don’t have to be on the proxy server to use the service; you only need it for the sign-up process.

Your computer won’t turn on. You press the power button… nothing. You wiggle the mouse, tap a few keyboard keys… nothing. Your monitor says “No Signal” or something similar. OH. EM. GEE.

Don’t Panic

Freaking out, throwing the computer out the window, or hitting or kicking your computer when it won’t turn on will mostly all make this situation worse. Take some calm, deep breaths, and understand that in this particular situation a number of things could be wrong – from the very simple to the very serious. Until you know what it is for sure, assume that your data will be OK. All is not lost, usually.

Power Issues

If no lights on the computer come on, no fans make any noises, and there is generally no sign of life from the tower part of your desktop (or if you have a laptop, it’ll be just one whole piece) – you likely have a power issue.

For Desktops, try the following:

1. Unplug the power to the computer from both the wall or surge protector and the back of the computer.
2. Without plugging it back in, press the power button on the front of the computer for about 10 seconds, then let it go.
3. Plug the power cord back into the computer and the other end back into your outlet.
4. Press the power button. If nothing happens, try plugging your computer directly into the wall instead of a surge protector.
5. If this still doesn’t help, you may – at the simplest – have a dead power supply that needs replacing by a professional if you are not comfortable working inside your computer.

For Laptops, try this method:

1. First, check the power cable and the transformer (the brick part) for power. Make sure that if it has a light on it that it is on and receiving power from your outlet.
2. Remove the power plug from the computer. Depending on the model of laptop you have, there might be a power charge meter on the battery itself or on the side of your laptop (like the Macbook and Macbook Pro newer models where the battery cannot be removed). Check the battery to see if it has a charge.
3. If your battery does not have a charge but it’s been plugged in a while, you may need to have your cord replaced or your battery serviced. At best, you have a faulty cord or battery. At worst, the connector on your computer’s system board might be broken or damaged and cannot connect to any power cord properly. If your computer is under warranty, take it in for service. If not, you may have to try replacing the cord first, then the battery to see if this resolves your issue. Usually a system board issue will be considered a “non-economical repair” for out of warranty laptops.
4. If all the above is fine and the battery has a charge, remove the battery if possible (these instructions vary for different computers, check your manual or Google if these directions do not work for you) and make sure the cord has been unplugged. Press the power button for 15 seconds, then put the battery back and plug the machine in and try to turn it on.

Memory or Video Issues

Most laptops and desktops that are able to power on but not boot will have other issues that could prevent you from seeing a normal boot up. If you are seeing nothing on the screen (or “No Video” / “No Signal”) but the computer fans make noise or the computer beeps or has lights on, then you likely do not have a power issue.

A generalized technique is to listen for beeps the system makes on start-up. Older computers usually beep once as they are loading, newer computers do not necessarily beep at all. However, three quick beeps usually means something is wrong with the memory (RAM) – do not worry yet, this should not be confused with your hard drive, where your files are actually stored. If you are comfortable, on Desktops you can open up your computer’s case and look for anywhere from one to four sticks of memory (see the picture for comparison). Ground yourself by touching metal anywhere on the computer’s case, then reach inside with your other hand and push on each stick to make sure it is firmly seated. You may also wish to try removing each one and seating them back in place. On a laptop, there’s usually an easy-access removable plastic piece on the bottom that has been labeled either with an “M” for memory or a small picture of a memory stick.

If you do not hear beeps, but your fans, lights, etc. on your computer all behave as normal – make sure your speakers are on and listen for the Windows / Mac start-up sounds. If you hear this but still have nothing on the screen – your computer has booted properly but your video has gone bad. You can usually get this serviced under warranty, or find a new one fairly cheaply. There are many types of video cards, but you can usually Google your computer model on another computer or if you don’t have access to one, write it down and take it with you to the store you’re going to try to find a new video card at.

Worst Case Scenario

The absolute worst case scenario is a bad power supply that goes bad over time instead of immediately failing, and as a result has taken out the rest of the system components. If your computer is not under warranty and your professional is working on your computer, have patience. Replacing a bad power supply may cause the system to work for a while until the other damaged components start to fail. You can’t blame your technician for this, it’s nearly an impossible situation to detect early. In any case, start backing up your files to an external hard drive or on CD or DVD, or invest in a subscription to an online back-up service like Mozy or Dropbox. If your computer is more than 3 years old, at this point you will probably also want to budget and plan on replacing your computer soon if the warranty has expired.

If you want to get just about any song ever, do a Google search like this one:

Just replace the artist and song name with your choice. If you want an album instead of a song, just replace the song name with the name of the album instead. Look for files with larger sizes if you want higher quality songs or albums.

No comment on the ethics behind this – you feel how you want about not paying anyone for the music you enjoy. If you feel bad about it, you can always get your music from a creative content license site like Jamendo where the music is free and you can pay the artist if you want to do so.

Just about anyone who uses Microsoft Windows has at some point or another reached the pinnacle of frustration and cried out “THIS COMPUTER IS TOO DAMN SLOW!”

For some people, this means “dealing with it” until they can afford a new computer, or they pay someone to come fix it. In most cases, there’s a few things that you can do to avoid having to shell out big bucks to get your computer speedy again, and sometimes computer slowness is more than just software problems. Let’s take a look at the common causes of Windows computers running slow and how you can fix them.

Why Your PC Sucks

Windows PCs use something called the Registry to keep track of all the settings for both the operating system and the different programs on your computer. It’s basically a giant database with a lot of entries called Keys. Sometimes these Keys point to file locations, and sometimes they point to other Keys, or sometimes they just contain data like how many seconds before your Start Menu opens after you click it.

If you uninstall a program and it doesn’t clean up after itself properly, your computer will spend time reading the leftover Keys. If they point to something that doesn’t exist, that’s a lot of valuable computer resources gone to waste.

Another reason your computer might suck is if your system doesn’t have a lot of free hard drive space. The computer uses a portion of the free space on your hard drive to create what’s called a Page File. The Page File is basically a temporary file that acts like extra RAM in your computer, called Virtual Memory. You might be getting messages that say your computer is running low on Virtual Memory if there’s something wrong here. Making space on your hard drive can help.

Solution: Install CCleaner (free, the donation link is listed first, then further down “download from Piriform.com” will get you the download if you don’t want to donate yet) from CCleaner.com and run the Registry and Cleaner tools. The Cleaner tool will remove temporary files that you don’t really need. You can pick which to clean up or just let it run with the default ones checked. Run the Registry clean-up tool and tell it to fix any problems it finds. Most any computer will benefit immediately from these two tools.

Windows bugs are another reason a computer might run slow. There’s a bug with older versions of Windows like XP that an update was supposed to fix, where a process (a program that runs in the background) constantly pegged out at 100% cpu usage. It was actually tied in to the Windows Update service.

Solution: I always have to Google the solution to this, so I’m reproducing it here for easy finding. I am not the one who figured this out.

1. Go to Start, Run. Type in “cmd” (without quotes) in the box and hit your enter key.
2. Type in these commands, one line at a time, and hit enter at the end of each line. When you get to the lines that start with %windir%, you will have to also hit an OK button that will appear.

net stop bits
net stop wuauserv
rename C:\Windows\SoftwareDistribution C:\Windows\sdold

%windir%\system32\regsvr32.exe /s %windir%\system32\atl.dll
%windir%\system32\regsvr32.exe /s %windir%\system32\jscript.dll
%windir%\system32\regsvr32.exe /s %windir%\system32\msxml3.dll
%windir%\system32\regsvr32.exe /s %windir%\system32\softpub.dll
%windir%\system32\regsvr32.exe /s %windir%\system32\wuapi.dll
%windir%\system32\regsvr32.exe /s %windir%\system32\wuaueng.dll
%windir%\system32\regsvr32.exe /s %windir%\system32\wuaueng1.dll
%windir%\system32\regsvr32.exe /s %windir%\system32\wucltui.dll
%windir%\system32\regsvr32.exe /s %windir%\system32\wups.dll
%windir%\system32\regsvr32.exe /s %windir%\system32\wuweb.dll

net start bits
net start wuauserv
wuauclt /resetauthorization /detectnow

That should fix the slowness, or at the very least give you a little speed boost. Those instructions are non-destructive, you probably can’t break your computer from a typo doing any of that.

Start-up Items

A lot of computers (especially bought from stores like Wal-mart or Best Buy) come pre-loaded with a lot of bloated programs to make you think you’re getting extra value from your purchase. In reality, a lot of these programs you will never, ever use – but they still insist on starting when the computer loads up to your desktop.

If you follow the instructions above and have already installed CCleaner, you can look at the start-up items for your computer. It’s important to note that some start-up items are critical and should be left enabled. If you’re not comfortable, you probably shouldn’t mess with this yourself. However, if you look at the file location for the start-up item, you can usually tell if it’s important or if it’s something installed by your manufacturer that you don’t want or need to start when you first boot up.

If you’ve done all the above – go ahead and reboot your computer (turn it off and back on again). Your computer should run noticeably faster if your problem was software-related. CCleaner is also an excellent tool for getting rid of computer viruses and the places that they hide out when you’re infected. This is something I use at work almost every day and comes highly recommended.

Maybe It’s You

On older versions of Windows like XP, you may still have to “defrag” your hard drive. I found Disk Defragmenter under Start, All Programs, Accessories, then System Tools. You may choose to have it “Analyze” first, to see if you need to defragment – or more likely just choose to start defragmentation. It will analyze it first anyway and then defrag as much as it needs to do so. Defragging basically moves all the files on your hard drive from their physical locations to one section so that the drive heads have less distance to travel and theoretically this increases disk read time.

Or maybe it’s just you. You could be too impatient. Trust me, it happens. Your computer may actually not be as fast as you expect it simply because your expectations are too high. As Microsoft releases updates to Windows, the minimum recommended requirements can often change with these updates. If you bought a computer good enough for Windows Vista Home Basic, and you expect that 2 years later it’s still going to fly like it did the first day – or maybe you’ve wiped and re-installed Windows, and it was fine for a while, but then it got slow again? It’s because the Windows on your install disc is vanilla – it has no updates with it yet. As those updates download and install, your system will start to crawl again. You may need to legitimately look into getting a memory (RAM) upgrade.

My mother bought a Gateway laptop back in 2006 with Windows XP and it worked fine for a long while, but more recently it started to crawl. I put Windows 7 on it and had my parents order a memory upgrade to 2 gigabytes from its original 512 megabytes, and as expected it’s about 3-4 times faster. Check with your local PC shop or shop online and you will likely find a memory configuration tool that will show you the most amount of memory your computer can support.

SAP is being ordered to pay Oracle, Inc. $1.3 billion dollars in damages after infringing on Oracle’s copyrights to software and stealing customer support contracts. According to the suit, SAP acquired and resold illegally Oracle’s popular database software products and then contacting their customers to undercut support contracts – which are more valuable to Oracle than the actual software.

The actual infringement is being based on SAP subsidiary TomorrowNow’s illegal copying of the software and reproducing of the product manuals, a fact that SAP did not deny in court of law. The argument came up when SAP insisted that the infringement damages were not as great as Oracle claimed in their original suit. Former CEO Léo Apotheker was in place at the time of the illegal activity, and now resides at computer giant Hewlett-Packard.

My friend Stephanie just hit her 100th sale at Rainbow Darkness Studios, and guess what? It was me! I got a few extra items as a surprise and I wanted to show them off here so people could see them in some real-life shots.

First of all, RDS offers some really cool looking (not quite luminescent, but still really strikingly colorful) “potions” as pendants on necklaces. You can get one in most of the basic rainbow colors, but since I mentioned I like green she threw that one in with my order:

The next thing from RDS that I ordered was a green shower soap with a geeky d20 (20-sided die) embedded inside of it. I’m not sure what scent it is just yet, but I’m totally planning to lather up with it soon as I’m able. Also, it’s called Pwn That Shower Soap.

I also got two more soaps that were really neat – I realized all the sides of these d8 are red, but through the whiter soap they almost looked like Umbrella Corporation die from Resident Evil.

And that’s it! It was hand-delivered by her husband Chris (since he works at the same place I do) and I got some oo’s and aah’s from my coworkers. Stephanie makes a lot of different cool geeky stuff, so check out her shop and find some fun gaming-themed jewelry or other fine crafts.

In just a short span of years, Facebook has taken over as the most popular site on the entire internet. Just the other day, Facebook Founder Mark Zuckerburg (a year younger than me!) pledged to give 100 million dollars as his first philanthropic act as a wealthy bastard. So chances are, you or someone you know has a Facebook account. It’s so popular as to have been mentioned in several movies, tv programs, and song lyrics.

While I hope you haven’t had the misfortune of having your Facebook account hacked, it has been known to happen. First of all, let’s be clear on what “hacked” means:

Hacked – “Hacking (English verb to hack, singular noun a hack) refers to the re-configuring or re-programming of a system to function in ways not facilitated by the owner,administrator, or designer. The term(s) have several related meanings in the technology and computer science fields, wherein a “hack” may refer to a clever or quick fix to a computer program problem, or to what may be perceived to be a clumsy or inelegant (but usually relatively quick) solution to a problem, such as a “kludge“.

The terms “hack” and “hacking” are also used to refer to a modification of a program or device to give the user access to features that were otherwise unavailable, such as by circuit bending. It is from this usage that the term “hacking” is often used to refer to more nefarious criminal uses such as identity theft, credit card fraud or other actions categorized as computer crime.” – Source: Wikipedia

So when I say “hacked,” I mean defaced or otherwise taken out of your control by someone you didn’t want to do that. Usually, there are two ways Facebook accounts get hacked. The first is through an angered person who knows you well or otherwise you trusted with your password. Think of your password like the keys to your house. You wouldn’t just give these to casual friends, so be sure you don’t share your password or say silly things out loud like “Oh! 1234, that’s the same password I use EVERYWHERE.”

A Word on Passwords

A large number of people (I don’t have a statistic on hand) use the same password, a handful of passwords or a variant on every single website to which they login. As you read that just now, did you feel a little guilty? “Oh, I’m no one important, why would they want my password to my Facebook?” Not a big deal, unless you also use that password on your online banking account. Also not a big deal, unless you keep personal details in your Facebook account settings that may be used to pretend to be you when they call the bank.

What can you do to secure your password but still be lazy? Build a pattern to use for a password instead. You could use the same base password everywhere, but in front or on the end attach something that signifies what site you’re using it on. For example, if you use “donthackme” as your password everywhere you could change it when you’re at BankOfAmerica.com to “BOAdonthackme!” It’s a good idea to throw in a non-alphabet symbol like the exclamation mark (!). Once you figure out a pattern that works for you, you’ve got a “different” password to use at each site.

Adding “Friends” (And By Friends, I Mean Everyone)

There are lots of reasons people add people as friends on Facebook:

• “Bookmarking” someone who seems interesting (celebrities and their ilk) who may not have a Fan page.
• You’re old High School friends.
• Workplace / Church / Evil Research Lab colleagues.
• Neighbors.
• Friends of Friends who seem interesting.
• Friends of Friends who are attractive and you want to see their photos but they don’t just share them with everyone.
• Family.
• People who you’ve bumped into once in Wal-mart and saw their name tag.
• You just don’t feel complete inside unless you connect with everyone ever.

Think about your Facebook account like a party in your house. Do you really want to invite EVERYONE you’ve ever known or contacted, ever? It’s truly up to you, but it’s not the safest idea to just let anyone see all of your personal life that you post to Facebook (that’s a post for another time) – but if you do post a lot of your life on Facebook, consider your audience and whether or not Bob from Wal-mart is really someone whose status updates you want to read, much less have him read yours.

That said, also consider your privacy settings on photos, videos, status updates, and anything else you do. If you want to shut out some people but not others, consider using Facebook’s friends list feature to categorize your friends.

Games and Applications

When you go to play a Facebook game (such as Farmville or Mafia Wars, etc.) or add an application, be sure to carefully read what access permissions you’ve just signed over in order to play the game. Can it update your status for you? Can it post things to your news feed or your wall? Will it spam your friends? Does it get access to your contact information? Does it have permission to e-mail you? Does it ask you to pay for things with your credit card (such as reward points, loyalty coins, etc)? Does it ask you to install any additional software like toolbars or plugins? These are great ways to get infected with a virus or have your identity stolen.

If you’ve already given an application access permissions that you don’t want it to have, you can always go to Application Settings in your account settings and change its permissions, or remove the application completely.

Facebook is a great website and I have a lot of fun using it as I’m sure many of you do. Just be safe, make smart decisions, and remember to never give away the keys to your house to strangers.

Hi! First off – Mom, if you’re reading this – it’s not directed at you. Go tend your Farm on Facebook.

If you’re reading this, chances are either you’re a dumbass, or someone you know… is a dumbass. This guide isn’t to make you feel dumber, but to make you conscious of the fact that you make bad life decisions, and sometimes those happen on the internet.

I’m going to touch on several different scenarios whose concepts are as timeless as crime itself. Believe it, boys and girls – as many predators as there are out there in the analog world, there are a great many more sitting at home on the world-wide web waiting to take any advantage of you that’s available.

Lesson One: Nothing is Free… Unless You Steal It.

Everything has a cost, even if you’re not the one paying it in cash. Here’s the scenario: you’re browsing the web and you see a banner at the top of a web page that says “CONGRATULATIONS!!1 YOU’RE OUR 10,000,000th VISITOR TO OUR WEB SITEZ! CLICK HERE TO CLAIM YOUR PRIZE!”

About ten minutes later, your bank information is now in the hands of a 24-year-old kid in Germany, and you’re waiting on your international wire transfer (sounds fancy, eh?) of 10 million dollars. Guess what? It’s not coming.

I’m gonna go out on a limb here and assume you have cognitive reasoning abilities. In any situation where you find yourself about to pull out your wallet and give away the keys to the kingdom (be it your password, credit card, bank, social security number, phone number, or hell, even your e-mail address) regardless of how reasonable the excuse sounds – think about who stands to benefit from your receiving this free gift. If it sounds too good to be true… you’re probably a dumbass. Check out Snopes.com and the Ripoff Report where you can fact check telemarketers, email offers, web sites, and other potential scams.

Also, avoid these websites that offer a free iPod, TV, Playstation 3, gift cards, or whatever else might tickle your fancy in exchange for filling out a brief survey and then completing 2 of each “tier” of offers. Usually the upper-most tier ends up being something ridiculously expensive, difficult, or time-consuming to complete. Meanwhile the website’s made a killing in referral bonuses to all these companies that if, by chance, you make it through all the offers & surveys to get your precious iPad, they can easily afford to send you one. While technically not illegal, it’s definitely not something for nothing.

Lesson Two: Piracy… Not the Safest Activity

When scurvy-ridden scallywags of the high seas raped, pillaged, and plundered wherever they felt like doing so… they got herpes. And scurvy. And rickets. Also, not a lot of women on pirate ships, so… yeah. The digital equivalent is very much the same scenario – if you travel in unsafe territories looking for your digital “booty,” you’re likely to wind up in some trouble. There’s legal trouble, viruses, spyware, identity theft – sites that offer you free downloads in an extensive movie library for a small monthly fee (see: Lesson One) are the biggest traps usually.

There are ways to scour for digital wares that steer clear of both the law and unsavory characters and their problems, but this guide is for you, dumbass, and you’re clearly not capable of such cleverness yet. We’ll get there eventually, but not in this guide.

Lesson Three: Check the Source

A common way to get into trouble on the internet is visiting an untrusted website and letting it do something, like install a video plugin (sometimes called a codec) or other software that is “required” to use their website.

Scenario: You may get a link from a trusted friend with a description like “See Lindsay Lohan KILL Paris Hilton in a Bikini in this HAWT Vid!” and of course, you want to see that, right? So you go to the video site, it explains that you need to install this plugin to watch the video. You agree to this because… come on, it’s going to be awesome! Wait… what? Oh no, porn pop-ups everywhere! You better shut the door and turn the lights down so no one sees all of this, uh… terrible badness.

The bottom line: reputable video sites that actually want you to view their videos (usually because they sell ads on the page) will use popular and industry standard video formats. Adobe Flash and HTML5 are essentially the two mainstream formats available for most video websites. Hulu, Youtube, Megavideo, Dailymotion, Vimeo, VeeHD are a few video sites that are safe to visit for your free (and porn-free) video watching needs.

Scenario Two: You get an e-mail that says your bank account information needs to be updated. It has a link to a page for you to login to your bank account and update your information.

NEVER DO THIS. If your bank needs you to update your information, go to the website by opening up your web browser and manually typing in their address and then logging in. Most banks now use a personally selected image to verify you’re really at the bank’s web site.

Lesson Four: Use Protection

No scenarios here for this one. You need to start making better life decisions. Here’s a few ways you can do that with your computer:

• Back up your files. You don’t need to do anything fancy here. Burn a CD or DVD, put them on a USB hard drive, print them out and put them in a filing cabinet, or on a friend’s computer.
• Use antivirus. I recommend either Microsoft Security Essentials or AVG Free for free options.
• Where possible, use the latest version of the web browser of your choice. Keep it up to date with updates. (I know there’s a thousand of you other geeks out there who will scream at me for not saying “Don’t use Internet Explorer, it’ll get you infected!” but truthfully, it’s a lot harder to get infected with Internet Explorer 7 or higher.)
• Don’t install toolbars. Be careful, even respectable free programs often include them by default unless you pay attention and uncheck the option to install them.
• Don’t open email attachments unless YOU’RE EXPECTING ONE. If you’re not expecting an attachment on an email from even a trusted contact, call them and ask just to be sure. Then be sure to scan it for viruses before opening it. A good program like the two listed above will scan all your e-mail attachments for you anyway.

• Stop being a dumbass.

If you’re here, it’s possible that lately you’ve felt a little funny. Maybe a little angry. Perhaps you’re just flat-out tired of letting technology and other geekery get the best of you. The Geek Herd at your local electronics big-box shop makes you want to scream, both at their techno-babble and their high prices for service. You’re ready to roll-up your sleeves and get a little nerdy.

To get you started, here’s some of my favorite daily stops for technology and geek reading:

For making your life easier check out Lifehacker.com:

Lifehacker is a daily news site about software and personal productivity recommendations, downloads, web sites and shortcuts that help you work smarter and save time. The contributing editors of this site work with all sorts of geekery that not only help you with your technology, but also can show you how to use technology to make your life simpler and happier.