What gives is that you’ve been dealt the cold shoulder of a computer that deemed you unworthy of a credit line.

If you need credit for anything, my advice is simple: Apply over the phone or in person whenever the option presents itself. The rep you speak with on the phone has more of an interest in approving you compared to a non-human computer.

Lines of credit worth having for computer stuff

Apple Financial

Macs are frickin’ expensive. With Apple Financial/Juniper they have 0% for 12 months on any first (keyword there) purchase over $1,000 - which is unfortunately quite easy to rack up when buying Apple products.. (sheesh!) If you plan on buying Apple stuff, you’re going to need this unless you have really deep pockets.

Phone: 1-800-MY-APPLE

Dell Financial Services

Good for consumers and small-biz owners that specifically want to build credit. The nice part is that with DFS, they’ll allow you to finance just about anything - even for super-low amounts, and that’s an advantage.

Phone: Depends what type of customer you are. Info is here. If you’re just a regular consumer, call the main line 1-800-WWW-DELL.

Bill Me Later

Both NewEgg and TigerDirect accept this, as well as many other retailers. Granted, the interest rate sucks, but you get 90 days no-interest no-payment on any cart purchase over $250 in most instances. "Cart purchase" means that the items in the online shopping card meet or exceed $250. So if you buy a motherboard, CPU, monitor and lump it all into a single purchase that goes over $250, that’s financeable thru BML.

Note that you don’t have to apply for it. Just use it on purchase at checkout. However it is recommended you get yourself an account at the BML site to track spending better.

Post from: PCMech. Helping Normal People Get Their Geek On And Live The Digital Lifestyle.

The PC Decrapifier will uninstall many of the common trialware and annoyances found on many of the PCs from big name OEMs. Here is the current list of software and items that the PC Decrapifier can detect and remove. You get to see the list of items it detects and then choose what will be removed automatically.

Needless to say, this can be a huge time saver. While I have never personally used it (or had the need to), if anyone has please post your experience.

Post from: PCMech. Helping Normal People Get Their Geek On And Live The Digital Lifestyle.

The moment this went into effect there were people right on top of this:

Note the second comment above. Let it not be said that all YouTube "community members" are dumb. If you still want to see the profanity, you can.

Just uncheck the box for "Hide profanity in comments" by clicking "Options" next to Text Comments and it’s a done deal.

Why you would want to see the profanity crap I have no idea. But rest assured, YouTube is not outright denying you from seeing it, because that would be true censorship.

Post from: PCMech. Helping Normal People Get Their Geek On And Live The Digital Lifestyle.

Computers that last a long time are not particular to any specific brand. Any time you say, "Well, x brand sucks!", there will always be somebody who will fire right back with, "Bullsh*t! I’ve had an x brand for 10 years with all original equipment and it still runs great!" So you can’t peg quality on brand. Heck, there are still some people with eMachines PCs that still run just fine.

Even the best-of-breed computer and component manufacturers have had a few stinkers. Apple has released some crappy Macs. Asus has released some not-so great motherboards. Not every model from Lenovo is a winner. You get the idea.

What makes a computer last a good long time can be boiled down to a few very simple considerations.

Heat

Heat kills computers. PCs that run hot by nature will have a shorter life span.

Overclocking

With an overclocked CPU you are running the processor very close to or outside of its designed tolerance limits. And even if your box is properly cooled to compensate, the CPU will have a shorter life span.

With the multi-core CPUs we have available today there really isn’t any reason to overclock anymore. Hobbyists do still overclock, but only because of the "because I can" factor and not much else.

Moving parts

The rule of thumb with computers is that anything that moves will usually break first. Things that move are optical drives, hard drives (internally) and fans.

Fans are found on the PSU, the CPU, sometimes the video card and in other parts of the case that allow additional fans to be installed.

Fast-RPM hard drive(s)

Internal HDDs start at 5400-rpm and end at 15,000-rpm. Most of us use 7200.

Slower RPM hard drives generate less heat which can enhance the life span of your computer box, especially is space is tight. For example, the Mac Mini specifically uses a 5400-rpm hard disk drive to keep heat down because of its super-small size.

I’m not instructing you to buy 5400-rpm drives. The 7200s work fine. But if longevity is what you want, stick with 7200 over the 15,000.

Video cards with fans on them

If the video card has a heat sink with a fan on it, you know it gets hot. And the fan is yet another moving part that can break later.

What computer would last the longest then?

A non-overclocked computer box with standard (meaning not "high-powered") RAM, a low-wattage CPU, a low-powered video card and a low-RPM hard drive.

A computer box of this type usually has no more than three fans in it. One for the PSU, one for the CPU and the last being a single case fan in the rear. In some instances the box runs cool enough to where the case fan isn’t even required.

If you are looking to buy a pre-built that has specs like this, specifically look for "nettop" computers.

If you’re looking to build a box like this, you want to do the following:

First, stick to the mini-tower case format. You don’t need a big case but you do need something big enough for proper cooling.

Second is to shop for your CPU by watt rather than by speed.

Low-watt CPUs are made by both Intel and AMD and are both seriously cheap. Intel’s Celeron 430 Conroe-L is 35 watts and runs for just $40 at present. AMD’s Sempron LE-1300 Sparta is a 45-watt and is the same price.

For a few bucks more you can step up to the 65-watt Intel which is a dual-core and quite speedy considering its power consumption.

As a comparison, an Intel Core i7 920 uses 130 watts. Yes, it’s much faster, but a whole lot hotter.

Third is to stick to 7200-rpm hard drives. Go no higher. Being this is the most popular rpm speed for HDDs, you won’t have a problem finding one.

Fourth, use RAM that does not require heat spreaders or add-on cooling of any kind. If you’re confused as to what to get, just use Crucial.

Fifth, use a video card that doesn’t require a fan just to operate. Your best bet is to use on-board motherboard video. If you want something better, my personal suggestion is to use a dual-head (just in case you want dual-monitor) card with a bare minimum of 512MB video memory on-board. These cards are cheap and readily available.

Sixth, for any fans present in your build, make sure they are easily replaceable. I specifically recommend buying an extra fan for each in your system. If your box has 3 fans, buy 3 extra. How do you know when to change them out? Either when one or more stops working or one or more starts making noise that wasn’t there before.

Alternative build using mobile components in a desktop box?

Technically this is what a nettop is. You specifically use mobile components in a desktop to cut down on heat. For example, instead of using the standard 3.5-inch HDD, you could use a mobile-sized 2.5-inch. However the parts do typically cost more, so it’s best to stick with standard-sized desktop components.

Are low-powered PCs slow?

Not really. Granted, they can’t game, but since the advent of multi-core low-watt CPUs you’d be hard pressed to call it slow. Heck, the low-watters even have 64-bit support. You could build one of these outfitted with 4GB RAM and believe me, she’ll be more than speedy enough - and last a long time to boot since it will be nice and cool.

Are low-powered PCs hard to build?

Quite the contrary. A low-powered box is one of the easiest builds. There are less fans to connect, less wires and smaller (but still easy) parts that give you lots of room to work even in a mini-tower.

Would you entertain the idea of using a low-watt PC for longevity’s sake?

Let us know in the comments. And if you already use one, let us know your experience with it (good or bad).

Post from: PCMech. Helping Normal People Get Their Geek On And Live The Digital Lifestyle.

This major release introduces many new features, new formats and new codecs to the VLC multimedia framework and fixes a very high number of bugs that were present in the 0.9.x or 0.8.6 versions.

While I typically do not upgrade immediately after a major release (I prefer to let early adopters find the bugs), going from seemingly perma-beta to a stable release is significant. This appears to be a must get version for VLC users.

Enjoy and please post your thoughts on this new version if you take the plunge.

Post from: PCMech. Helping Normal People Get Their Geek On And Live The Digital Lifestyle.

A few examples from when I was living in Connecticut:

The locals were NECAnet and Cyberzone. The corporates were SNET and TIAC. All of them cost about the same price per month.

(As a small side note before continuing, CompuServe is officially no more. For those interested in ISP history, that’s a good read.)

The links to the ISPs above are all from The Internet Archive because not a single one of them exists any longer. Each was bought out/acquired, shuffled around a few times and either dissolved or merged into a larger ISPs customer base.

I’m sure more than a few of you out there can name off at least three ISPs from the late 1990s/early 2000s that are no more.

As to the question of whether a true Mom n’ Pop ISP still exists, the answer is yes, they do. And wow, did I find a doozy for my example.

BEHOLD… Spitfire Communications

• We’re greeted with a home page that has 3 different fonts and looks like it was designed in 1997. The title of the page is "Home". That’s it.
• The Downloads page lists software that is literally 10 or more years old. You can download AIM 5.1! Or ICQ 2000b!
• On the How Do I? page, every link for modem help is dead.
• Want to pay a bill online? You can’t. The Pay Online page links to a site that’s dead.

If you thought your ISP was behind the times.. well.. I dare you to find one more antiquated than Spitfire.

I’m sure Spitfire is a fine dial-up ISP, but you can’t deny the dinosaur-era site design and plethora of dead links.

This, unfortunately, is how most Mom n’ Pop ISPs are today. Woefully behind the times. Web sites antiquated beyond belief. And they probably accept payments in doubloons for all I know.

Do you use a Mom n’ Pop ISP or know someone that does?

Tell us your tale.

Post from: PCMech. Helping Normal People Get Their Geek On And Live The Digital Lifestyle.

Webmail on the other hand is a different story. Your browser is not an email client by design.

As most people know, spam routinely has embedded images in them and as a webmail user you have no option to force-read webmail in plain text. So on the instances where spam accidentally gets in your inbox with embedded images, spammers are crafty enough where the images will display anyway, send the web bug, and as a result you get more spam.

Fortunately for you, the subject line of spam emails usually make it very obvious what they are. For the times spam lands in your inbox, you can bypass opening it altogether and delete without opening it.

Here’s how it’s done using Hotmail, Yahoo Mail or Gmail:

Hotmail

Change the reading pane setting to Off. This is on the right side of the screen when logged in and looks like this:

When you see a spam land in the inbox, put a check in the box, then click the Delete or Junk link.

Yahoo Mail

In the "new" mode, click View then Reading Pane OR just press v on your keyboard.

When you see a spam, right-click the mail and delete or check the box for the spam and click the Delete or Spam button.

In Yahoo Mail "classic" mode there isn’t any reading/preview pane of any kind. On mails you see as spam in the inbox, check the box and delete or mark as spam.

Gmail

This mail system by default shows all mail as threaded conversations. To see a mail you must click thru. If you see a spam, check the box for that conversation, then click the Report spam button.

Post from: PCMech. Helping Normal People Get Their Geek On And Live The Digital Lifestyle.

To help protect yourself from these types of attacks, check out Script Defender. The concept is simple:

AnalogX Script Defender will intercept any request to execute the most common scripting types used in virus attacks, such as Visual Basic Scripting (.VBS), Java Script (.JS), etc., and can even be configured to intercept new script extensions as needed! It’s very simple to use and helps to ensure that you do not inadvertently run a script no matter what email program you use, or even if you get it via another method.

Simple and effective. For the most part, very seldom would an average user ever run a script file, so having this on end user systems makes sense.

Post from: PCMech. Helping Normal People Get Their Geek On And Live The Digital Lifestyle.

NewEgg now offers free Windows 7 coupons with certain Vista license purchases.

The cost now? $109.99. With free shipping. This is something that wasn’t available last week, but now it is.

This is $90 less than buying Windows 7 Home Premium which starts at $200.

You wanted a better price? You got it.

Post from: PCMech. Helping Normal People Get Their Geek On And Live The Digital Lifestyle.

The perks of Opera have pretty much always been the same.

• Best native tab management
• Lightning fast operation in just about every way
• Low memory usage
• A user interface that just makes sense
• More options that are actually usable

I’d dare to say that other browsers "borrow" features from Opera routinely. The Opera browser always seems to come up with something really cool but people really don’t take notice of it. Then after a while, a competing browser will introduce a very similar feature and be lauded as if they invented it.

An example of this is the zoom feature. Opera was the first browser I can remember that got zoom right the first time. Firefox didn’t get that right until version 3 and IE not until 7, both several years after Opera more or less perfected it.

The only thing about Opera that was obvious is that it looked old. The current Opera 9.64 does look a bit antiquated while IE, Firefox, Safari and Chrome look snazzy and modern.

Opera 10 on the other hand finally gets a freshened interface. It’s nothing particularly groundbreaking, but considering how often we all use our web browsers, this is a welcome sight to see. There is no part of this browser that says "old" anymore.

Concerning the address bar…

The AwesomeBar in Firefox sucks. Even in FF 3.5 it’s still a drag to use. You will realize why once you use Opera’s address bar. Why? Because Opera never "thinks" when trying to pull up information. The moment you start typing, wham, instant search of your bookmarks with no "thinking". It is nothing short of amazing how fast it is (even on slow PCs!)

Concerning better web integration…

From the Opera 10 page:

If you use a Web mail service as your default mail client, you can tell Opera 10 to do the same. Clicking on e-mail addresses or "Send by Mail" in Opera will open the compose page from your Web mail service provider. The same is true with the Feed reader — you can now also add any RSS/atom feed into your favorite online feed reader from within Opera 10.

This is actually really cool. But unfortunately the selections available do not include what most people use.

For example, when you click on an email address on a web page, this is what happens:

Okay, cool, I can choose a webmail service of my choice, let’s see what choices I have.

That’s it? No Hotmail? No Yahoo Mail? No Gmail? I’m hoping those services will be added in when this browser is out of beta.

Concerning the other stuff…

Opera Turbo

The Opera Turbo feature is an accelerator of sorts that is supposed to increase the speed of browsing when on a slow or choked (i.e. a slow public wi-fi) network. It is enabled by clicking the clock icon at the lower left of the browser. I can’t use it because my network is too fast (oh, darn it all). You can read more about Turbo here.

Resizable search field

At top right next to the address bar you can search Google (just like in Firefox or IE) and now you can adjust the size of it, but I bet you didn’t know that IE and FF can do the exact same thing. Opera makes it easy to spot. The other guys do that hiding-in-plain-sight thing.

Auto-update

Summed up: It’s about time Opera got this.

Would I recommend Opera now?

Opera 10 is the first version of this browser that I would actually recommend. As good as 9 and all the previous versions were, I just couldn’t recommend those. And the main reason for that is sub-par web standards support.

Version 10 on the other hand does have proper web standard support (believe me, that’s important). And as soon as the loose ends are tied up from the beta to the final release, I think this will finally be the one that will get Opera more new users.

Post from: PCMech. Helping Normal People Get Their Geek On And Live The Digital Lifestyle.