Earl's Cyber Steals and Deals

Lenovo has the Lenovo IdeaPad B450 15" Notebook Backpack (Black) for $39 - 65% off with coupon code USPC11A12094 [Exp 4/11] = $14 with free shipping. Abrasion- and water-resistant backpack features removable cable/accessory pouch, three outside pockets, padded handles and shoulder strap. \
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Next weekend from April 16th to 24th, the National Park Service is offering fee-free entrance to over 100 national parks that usually charge entrance fees. Participating parks include Grand Canyon in Arizona, Mesa Verde in Colorado, Everglades in Florida, Yosemite in California and Devils Tower and Yellowstone in Wyoming.

eBay with JustDeals has the 12-pack Kodak NiMH AAA 900mAh Rechargeable Batteries (K3ARDC-4) for $10 with free shipping. Batteries can be charged at any time, even partially drained. Includes charger.

Dell has the Dell Inspiron 560 Minitower Desktop PC with 18.5" Dell IN1920 HD LCD Monitor for $450 - $50 off with coupon code T8TQ79WHVXCQMF [Exp 4/30] + $0 shipping with coupon code HLSKSR06S9ZG0F [Exp 4/30] = $400 shipped. Intel Pentium Dual-Core E5800 3.20GHz, 4GB DDR3, 500GB 7200RPM HDD Intel GMA X4500, 16X DVD+/-RW, 7.1 Channel Audio, Win 7 HP x64

FREE TradePub has The CIO's Guide to Mobile Unified Communications for Free. Features information about how to allow workers to communicate and collaborate more effectively with co-workers, customers and suppliers using multiple communications modalities.

Meritline has the PQI 8GB Class 10 SDHC Card for $15 - $2 off with coupon code MLC116490040820NL1 = $13 with free shipping. Supports transfer rates of up to 23 MB/s on devices supporting SD v.3.0 and is backwards compatible with SD v.2.0.

Newegg has the Naxa NCS-774 6.5" 2-Way Car Speaker for $20 - $10 off with coupon code EMCKFKB79 [Exp 4/10] + $2 shipping = $12 shipped per pair. Features a 20 oz. magnet, injection molded polypropylene cone, and 89dB sensitivity

Dell Business has the Dell OptiPlex 380 Desktop for $304 + $0 shipping = $304 shipped. Select free upgrade to 4GB DDR3 memory. Features Intel Pentium Dual Core 3.2GHz CPU, 4GB DDR3, 250GB SATA HDD and 16X DVD-ROM. No keyboard, mouse or speakers.

Tiger Direct has the refurbished Archos 7 Android Internet Tablet 8GB (501521) for $125 - $30 off with coupon code RML22975 + $3 shipping (EconoShip) = $98 shipped. Features 7" 480x800 display, up to 42 hour audio and up to 7 hour video playback, and a micro SD/SHDC slot

Microsoft releases 64 fixes on April's bumper Patch Tuesday

Get ready for a big day on Tuesday. Microsoft has a boatload of updates that will fix 64 vulnerabilities. If you are not on auto-update, you don't want to miss this this one. Mark your calendar and be sure not to miss it.

The article includes a nice table outlining it all.

As schools shift to Google Apps, blind students object

The National Federation of the Blind (NFB), the largest and oldest nationwide organization for those with blindness, has filed a complaint with the Department of Justice alleging that New York University, Northwestern University, and certain Oregon public schools are violating the Americans with Disabilities Act. The complaints, sent March 15, call upon the DOJ to investigate the schools’ use of Google’s education software, and they include videos describing the accessibility problems

Motorola Xoom Not Zooming Off Shelves

"Analysts are raining bad news on Motorola lately over sluggish sales of some of its key products. The Xoom Android tablet and Atrix smartphone are being called out as poor performers, despite heavy marketing campaigns launched by Verizon Wireless and AT&T, respectively."

Frankly, I think the two main hurdles for the Xoom are dedicated app availability, which is currently very poor, and pricing. The app situation may improve, but I know that I would be leery of spending that much money on something that just may not have the software support in place. Even when I bought my iPad early on, there were a great number of apps and the count was going up every day.

While the Atrix is an interesting concept, perhaps it is a solution in search of a problem? Is this laptop docking a functionality that anyone is really looking for?

The Music Industry Wants You to Pay Again.

(apologies in advance -- this video from Reuters requires Flash and portions of it may be deemed NSFW)

Well, well, well. You thought you legitimately bought that song? You think you own those bits you legally paid to download or ripped from a CD you bought? Then think again. If you store it in the cloud and then want to stream it to your music player or computer the music industry thinks you didn't pay enough. And here you thought you bought it to listen to as you pleased. Silly, silly consumer, you!

No they want you to pay more for the privilege of streaming music you've already paid for. Haven't we already fought this war and won? Remember when they wanted to control our ripping our CDs so that we could not listen to them on our MP3 players and iPods? They tried and they failed; but no, they are back at it. Greed knows no limits. Why even bother to buy the music bits if you don't really have the right to listen to them when, where and how you please?

Looking for malware? Search for porn

I think those of us who have been on the internet for a while, have known that certain searches will likely as not get you malware on your computer. Sure, you can be innocently surfing and still run into some bad stuff as LizaMoon proved this week. But if you want to make really, really sure you get something, just search for porn. According to the article "49 percent of malicious sites found through Web searches were pornographic."

Richard Branson launches Virgin Oceanic to explore the ocean's depths

"Sir Richard Branson may have already branded his Necker Nymph aero submarine with the 'Virgin Oceanic' moniker, but he's now finally taken things to the next logical (and ambitious) step."

This is one very cool looking ship. I love visionaries with the money to actually make something happen. While Bill Gates may have the humanitarian business wrapped up (and I'm all for the humanitarian business), Branson in his own way is the equal of Gates in a different arena.

Introducing Windows Phone

INTRODUCING WINDOWS PHONE

Although this is clearly the Microsoft salesman speaking the company line, it still presents the idea that Phone 7 is the OS designed to integrate with Windows corporate products and Windows secured environments where everything is designed by Microsoft. This has been MS’s standard way of selling corporate products for a long time now and they clearly wish to continue it even in the phone or messaging arena.

New Look for Our Blog

I know that change doesn't always come easy.  It has been a while since we have updated the look of our blog.  Time and technology have moved on.  So we have updated, added a more modern look, and finally coordinated our colors to better reflect those of our main web site at http://www.oncomputers.info.

While there is always a temptation to go all out and get crazy, I tried to stick with a non-distracting and readable color scheme and layout.  I also made the text font a little larger. None of the content has changed, only the look. I hope you like it.

LizaMoon: What Is It and How to Avoid It (VIDEO)

Here's a great video that shows Lizamoon at work on a computer. If you see this stuff, don't click on it!

OnComputers Radio show Podcast 04-03-11

This is the On Computers Radio show podcast for 04-03-11. You can listen live every Sunday from 11AM to 12PM Pacific that's 2PM to 3PM Eastern. Join us for the live show and chat.

Countless thousands exposed in attack on e-mail marketing company

A big email marketing firm (a legitimate one that manages opt-in lists) was hacked into on March 30. They service more than 2500 major corporations. So the spammers have a fresh crop of email addresses to spam and phish. Just be aware and be careful!

Links from the Gregg Zone

1) Well I suppose it was inevitable, we now have the first electric Rolls Royce Phantom, while only a prototype and currently the one and only, if the test market goes well there may soon be more on the horizon. I was very impressed with the induction matt recharging system, eliminating the need to plug in, just park it in the garage over the matt. Research and development seems to me to be the most promising development here as Rolls Royce is unlikely to reach population numbers high enough to change the tide by themselves. http://www.bbc.

2) Okay I have to admit at the moment I have zero idea how this works, and a limited view as to the usefulness of this particular device, but the underlying concept that enables this action seems to me to be very useful as a process in a product line. I do have to admit it is a very cool demonstration. http://www.youtube.com

3) I am not too sure how the future of education will develop due to the digital-evolution we find ourselves in the middle of (actually logically thinking, I guess the beginning of). One thing seems certain, that being some drastic changes in the way we approach the methodology of teaching a subject. If you would like to participate in this new changing format and get paid for it, check this out. http://mashable.com

4) Sometimes things come along that are so potentially world changing it just stuns me trying to keep up. This just may signal the end of fire’s devastating effect on civilization; this promises to be the biggest advancement in fire fighting and prevention that I have seen period. Hard to tell if it can live up to that potential, but I will be keeping an eye open for more on this. http://portal.acs.org

5) With all of the advancements in computer technology and accompanying hype, the talk that we are playing God and all, every now and then we need a little wake up to keep everything in perspective. Here is an interesting article on that. It seems if we combine all of the CPU computing power, and total world storage capacity down to the last smart card, it does not equal one human being. http://arstechnica.com

Take control of Firefox 4

If you like Firefox but would like some more options than the almost too lean version 4 gives you, here's an article with some great extensions that take up the slack.

Earl's Cyber Steals and Deals

Newegg has the HTC myTouch 3G Unlocked Cell Phone, black for $175 with free shipping. Quad band support, 802.11b/g Wi-Fi, MP3 & WAV ringtones, MicroSD
480 x 320 3.2" display, 3.15MP camera, Android OS v1.5, Bluetooth

HP has the HP Pavilion g7t Core i3 4GB 17.3" Notebook (charcoal gray) for $580 - $30 off with coupon code SAVE30HP = $550 with free shipping. Intel Core i3-380M 2.53GHz, 4GB RAM, 500GB 7200RPM HDD 17.3" 1600x900 LED LCD, HDMI, DVD+/-RW DL, 6-cell, Win 7 HP x64

Mwave has the IOGear GCS661U USB Laptop KVM Switch for $8 with free shipping. Features all-in-one 3' and 6' USB cable with one USB 2.0 port for USB devices sharing. The USB Laptop KVM Switch is the innovation from IOGEAR, combining easy switching and convenient file transferring between two computers. It allows the user to seamlessly control a second computer with a laptop as the console. The KVM features a toolbar with multiple functions such as file transfer, desktop image scaling and others

Newegg has the Corsair CMFUSB2.0-16GB Flash Voyager 16GB USB 2.0 Flash Drive for $28 - $10 rebate [Exp 4/7] = $18 with free shipping. Features a 22MB/s read and 7MB/s write speed, durable rubber housing for water and shock resistance, and a 10 year warranty.

Amazon with Tiger Direct has the Viewsonic G Tablet 10" Android Tablet for $300 with free shipping. 1.0Ghz NVIDIA Tegra 2 CPU, 16GB Storage, 802.11b/g/n, Bluetooth 10" multi-touch LCD, Google Android OS 2.2 OS, 10 hour battery

Newegg has the Naxa NCS-774 6.5" 2-Way Car Speaker for $15 with free shipping. Features a 20 oz. magnet, injection molded polypropylene cone, and 89dB sensitivity.

HP has the HP Pavilion p6780t Series Core i5 Sandy Bridge Quad 6GB Desktop PC for $630 - $30 off with coupon code SAVE30HP = $600 with free shipping. Features an 2.8GHz Intel Core i5-2300 Sandy Bridge Quad Core processor, 6GB DDR3 memory, 1TB 7200RPM HDD and Windows 7 HP x64. HP Pavilion Slimline s5780t Core i5 Sandy Bridge Quad Desktop for $630 - $30 off with coupon code SAVE30HP = $600 with free shipping

Walmart has the Archos 101 10.1" 8GB Internet Tablet for $278 with free site-to-store / FedEx Office shipping or $1 shipping to home. Features an Android 2.2 OS, HD video playback, HDMI out, 10.1" 1024 x 600 display, Wireless-N, microSD slot, and USB port. Amazon also has it for the same price

Ends today. Dell Financial Services is taking 20% off sitewide with coupon code $pring$avings20P [Exp 4/3]. Cannot be combined with any other coupons

EverydaySource.com offers the 6-Foot HDMI 1.3b Male to Male Cable for $5.99. Coupon code "S0403IBAR" cuts it to 99 cents. With free shipping,